Of Dragons and Mortals

Chapter 1: A new day, a new life.

The sun rose over Ponyville on that lazy summer day, casting its beautiful glow over the streets and gently waking the ponies from their warm beds. Twilight Sparkle, longtime student of magic and Equestria's newest princess, woke from her slumber by the rays of the sun that fell through the curtains on her window. Slowly extracting herself from her bed, Twilight walked over to the mirror, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

The sight that greeted her was the same as she had seen countless times. The soft pink nightgown, the coat that was slightly messed up from sleeping, and, most eye-catching of all, the massive bed-head that today was actually managing to cover her horn (and most of her head.)

“Oh my,” Twilight muttered. She grabbed a brush and quickly tamed her hair back to its usual style. She tended to her purple wings next, her slender fingers moving through the feathers and resetting them. They were a mess. She must really have slept hard. Next, Twilight brushed her teeth, then changed into her clothes and stood in front of the mirror again. She was dressed in a simple pink sundress that Rarity had said “beautifully hugged her curves”. It was a breezy outfit, as it was shaping up to be a warm summer day today. With her morning routine done, she went downstairs to get some breakfast.

Now, on an ordinary day, there was exactly a 76% chance that Spike would already be up by the time Twilight descended the stairs to the kitchen, and if he was, he would be making breakfast. But Twilight noticed that today was apparently not one of those days, as her number one assistant was nowhere to be seen, and the kitchen was untouched from last night.

Said number one assistant had moved into his own room almost a year ago, which had caused mixed feelings in Twilight. On the one hand, it was more than a little sad that her oldest friend, and in some ways perhaps her closest friend, was moving away from her, however short the distance may have been. But on the other, she could not help but notice that Spike was growing up, and an unattached young mare sleeping in the same room as a teenaged stallion was not exactly appropriate, dragon or not.

Spike might still look like a child, but he often seemed so grown up.

“Spike?” she called into the library's main room, just in case he was up and she had failed to notice him.

No answer.

“He's probably still in bed.” Twilight nodded to herself and walked over to the basement door. She knocked. “Spike?”

No answer, but a familiar sleepy groan emanating from the space beyond the door confirmed that her number one assistant was indeed in there. Sometimes (20% of the time on ordinary days) he needed help waking up, help she was happy to provide. (On the remaining 4% they would wake up at the same time and they would meet in the main room.)

Twilight opened the door and softly walked down the stairs, calling out again and getting another groan in response.

Once she reached the bottom, a simple flick of magic lit the lamp and illuminated the room. It doubled as her lab, so one side of the room was crammed full of workbenches and machines that Twilight used for her research. The other half was sparsely decorated with pictures, books and other knick-knacks that Spike had brought down when he started sleeping there. He had also purchased a single pony-sized bed for himself, a bed that had always been too large for him.

It was at the bed that Twilight's eyes froze and warning bells began going off in her head. The shape lying wrapped in the cover on the bed was perfectly pony-sized. For a few moments, Twilight worried that a stranger had broken into her home, but then she spotted Spike's green spikes poking out of the top of the blanket, and another worry took precedence.

Okay, don't panic.Twilight began to panic. Last time he grew, he almost wrecked Ponyville. But... there's something different this time, isn't there? He’s not growing right now and he’s not rampaging… Not yet, anyway.

The dragon on the bed groaned and stirred a bit, almost like he was in pain. Protective urges at her dragon’s suffering threatened to overpower her trepidation at his larger size, but she still remained rooted and scanned the bed from a distance. That was when it struck her: last time, all those years ago on his birthday, his bed (or, well, sleeping basket) was covered in stuff, a proto-hoard for a growing dragon. This time, there was only a large, cover-wrapped shape on an otherwise bare bed. No signs of hoarding at all.

When Spike released another low groan of pain, Twilight could no longer hold herself back and walked up to the side of the bed.

“Spike?” she asked tentatively. “Are you okay?”

“Twilight?” came the familiar voice, the deep tenor Spike's voice had grown into over the years. It hadn't changed from the one she had heard the day before. “Yeah, I'm okay, only... my muscles hurt.”

“You sure?”

“I actually feel great aside from the muscle ache. Never...” A groan cut him off. “Never better.”

A minute or so of relative silence passed, broken only by the noises Spike made. He kept squirming on the bed, but the groans became less and less pained before they quieted down completely.

“Oh. It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Spike said, relief entering his voice.

Another minute passed in silence. Spike squirmed, but still didn’t surface from the all-consuming cover. Twilight hesitated for a bit. Something about the way he was wrapped...

“You're stuck in the covers, aren't you?”

Another pause.

“...Yes. I don't wanna rip them, but I can’t seem to find a way out.”

“Okay, I'll help you.” Spike's sheepish tone and the warmth in his voice had helped soothe Twilight's nerves. She walked closer to the bed, climbed on and reached out with her hands, slowly unwrapping her oldest friend from the entangling trap.

It was... fascinating. Spike had grown significantly overnight. For a moment, Twilight flashed back to the Spike she had seen the last and only other time she had awoken to find him grown up, but this time he looked different. His fangs were more subtle, his features softer, and his body shape was remarkably stallion-esque. He was still unmistakably a dragon, with a fringe for a mane, and a body covered in scales, but his features had softened a bit, and his fangs were less pronounced than on the other dragons she had seen in the past.

Twilight actually lost her breath when Spike managed to sit up and the sheets pooled around his lower waist. She had always known that he was strong, but the current Spike was built like an athlete, with powerful muscles rippling beneath his smooth purple scales. Again Twilight was surprised, not only at the change itself, but at how said change seemed much more pony-like than the transformation she had witnessed all those years ago.

Twilight took the whole thing in. She didn't realize she was openly staring until Spike cleared his throat. Her eyes snapped back up to his with an unbidden blush rising on her cheeks.

“My, uh...” Spike started, himself struggling to not ogle the pretty mare sitting on his bed in a simple sundress. “My clothes seem to have been torn up from my... growth.”

“Yes?” Twilight answered, her usually brilliant mind struck dumb for the moment.

“Which means I'm naked under here...”

There was a pause as Twilight processed the statement, and her eyes wandered--of their own accord, mind you--down Spike's chest as if to confirm that, yes, he was naked. Her eyes continued down until they landed on the part of his body that was still hidden from her view, in other words, below his waist. The smooth, scaly abs held her attention for longer than she was proud of, and her eyes tracked them until they reached the bottom of his abs, partly hidden under the blanket. And dangerously close to where her hands were resting.

With a squeak not unlike a mutual friend of theirs, Twilight shot up from Spike's bed and beat a hasty retreat out of his room, up the stairs and into the kitchen.

“What just happened down there?” Twilight asked out loud as she stood in the kitchen and tried to collect her thoughts. “Okay, Twilight, you can do this.” What exactly “this” was, she was unsure. “Let's just go over what you know.”

Using the breathing technique passed down to her by her foalsitter and senior princess, Twilight managed to calm down significantly (though she couldn't shake that damn blush.) With new-found strength, she summoned a quill and parchment.

“Yesterday, Spike was small. For all intents and purposes he looked like a child, in spite of his age. We, as in me, the girls and the princesses, had collectively come to the conclusion that this was simply the natural way of things for dragons. They grow up slowly, seems... seemed only logical.” The quill sped across the parchment, held in Twilight's magic. “He grew up suddenly another time on his birthday a few years ago; this was heralded by a surge of greed and hoarding. It ended in a rampage through Ponyville that resulted in property damage and many mildly traumatized ponies.”

Her eyes strayed to the door down to the basement, which she had slammed shut in her hurry.

“This time, there was no warning. No sudden greed, no hoarding. In fact, when Spike was observed this morning, there was no sign of new items, pilfered or otherwise, to indicate that he had fallen to his greed.” Twilight's blush, which had almost faded, returned full force, and she turned to face the kitchen counter. “His... physical form is also different from what was previously observed. Last time, Spike was predatory and lizard-like, like the more savage types of dragons in the world. This time... this time he's filled out more, becoming quite muscular. His body-shape last time was towards the predatory, lean hunting machine. This time he's more...” The blush intensified. “Like an athletic stallion… dragon... something.”

Twilight trailed off and stared into space for a bit. Now that her long-dormant libido had calmed down, her more anxious side kicked in. What if something bad had happened to Spike? What if he was, in fact, moments from a greed rampage? What if his sudden change alienated him from their friends? What if...

Twilight's frantic thought processes screeched to a halt when she heard the basement door opening and the footfalls of an adolescent dragon climbing the last few steps of the stairs. Spike emerged wrapped in a blanket and grinning sheepishly at her. Those thoughts flared up again.

What if this was a sign that he was growing up and about to leave the nest? Go to live with his kind? Disappear from her life forever?

“None of my clothes fi..” Spike began, but he was interrupted by an alicorn to the chest as Twilight tackle-hugged him. It was only due to his newfound strength that Spike managed to remain standing.

“Please don't go away!” Twilight cried, verging on complete hysteria. “I almost lost you to the greed growth and the migration and I don’t want you to leave again and please stay we can find a way...” She was cut off when Spike pressed a finger to her lips and smiled as reassuringly as he could. Long experience dealing with Twilight's eccentricities and breakdowns had made him quite adept at heading them off.

This time, the answer was simple.

“Twilight. I'm not going to leave you. Ever.”

Twilight was very reluctant to let go of her oldest friend, but after a few more minutes of reassurances, she pried herself from Spike’s unfairly comfortable arms and backed off a few steps.

She could tuck her head under his chin now.

Neither of the two friends knew what to say. After another uncomfortable minute had passed, Twilight began to move, walking past Spike and heading down the stairs. Spike followed to find Twilight doing magic on the pile of too-small clothes Spike had left behind in his quest to get dressed. A few outfits flew out of the mess and magically resized themselves, growing significantly.

“There… Should fit now,” Twilight said, glancing back at Spike, who was still clutching the blanket. She blushed deeply when she saw that said blanket had slipped from one of his shoulders down to his waist, exposing half of his well-defined chest to her eyes. Barely suppressing another squeak, she brushed past Spike, making sure to not accidentally touch him and make the weird tension worse, and headed back upstairs to let him get dressed in peace. And to let her cool down.

She only had one minute to get her bearings before she heard Spike climbing the stairs again. The clothes were baggy and quite ill-fitting, what with Twilight being really more of a scholar than a seamstress, obviously, but they at least covered him. They would do until he could buy new clothes.

Twilight idly wondered how their friends would react to the “new and improved” Spike, and her mind wandered a bit while she studied the newly clothed--and thus safe--dragon, who still did not seem to know what exactly to say.

He wrung his hands together awkwardly, and Twilight took the opportunity to study them. There were still claws attached to those fingers, but they seemed to be more rounded and almost soft-looking. Catching Twilight’s gaze, Spike held one of his hands out to her. She took it and retreated into an academic, inquisitive state of mind that she was much more comfortable in.

The hand was smooth, and the claws were almost as malleable as the rest of the hand, just a bit harder and with a hint of sharpness that made the girl shiver in spite of her academic mindset.

Spike slowly drew his hand away from her grasp after a moment, pulled it closer to him, and seemed to concentrate for a moment. His hand transformed. There was no flash of light or puff of smoke, the hand just seemed to morph before Twilight’s eyes. She could see the muscles and maybe even the bones shift under the scales. The claws grew in size, and Twilight could almost hear them sharpen.

The hand was offered to her again. This time, it was far more rigid, the scales more coarse and the claws more deadly. In her hands, however, Spike’s claws morphed, shrank, and softened back to the much more subdued and dull claws she had been holding earlier.

The silence had stretched on for too long, some part of Twilight’s mind insisted. It was time to get some answers.

“Wha…” Her voice caught. Just perfect. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What happened to you?”

“Ah, well…” Spike hesitated, unsure where to start, or how much to say. “Do you remember Quick Wits?”

Twilight searched her prodigious memory banks. The name did sound familiar but most of her brainspace was currently trying to sort out some very confusing, and not-so-confusing, feelings her assistant had awoken in her. Thus, it took her several seconds before she matched the name to a face.

“That traveling music player? What about him?”

“Well, last night, I was out for a walk in the moonlight when I ran into him in the park.” Spike paused to see if Twilight had any questions, but she remained silent. “We spoke a bit. I mean, there aren’t a lot of stallions around for me to have guy talks with, right? Anyway… We ended up talking about some heavy stuff when…”

“What heavy stuff?” Twilight interrupted, an uneasy feeling settling in her gut for some reason.

“Just stuff,” Spike said, trying to wave the question off. “Nothing that matters anymore anyway.”

“What sort of heavy stuff gets resolved overnight like this?”

“It…” Spike hesitated and looked into Twilight’s eyes. She deserved to know the truth, or at least as much of it as he could tell her. “It was about my growth. I haven’t told you because I didn’t want to upset you, but for several years now, I’ve felt like there was something wrong with me, something that was keeping me from growing up.”

Twilight made to say something, but swallowed her words before they left her throat.

“Quick had a gem. He called it a ‘Dragonstone.’ He told me that he bought it from a thrift store in Canterlot, and that the clerk said it had a ‘special connection with dragons.’ It smelled delicious.”

“I… didn’t know gemstones had a scent?”

“They don’t. That’s what made me think maybe the gem had power after all. Quick gave it to me, I ate it, and… here I am now.”

Spike spread his arms and rotated slowly, drawing Twilight’s gaze and stupefying her yet again. It also drew her attention to something that she really should have noticed much sooner: Spike did not have any wings.

“I’m not stunted anymore. This is proper growth for my kind.” Spike completed his turn and smiled as reassuringly as he could towards Twilight. “And that is the kind of heavy stuff that can get resolved overnight.” A weight was lifted off Twilight’s chest at the smile and the words.

Twilight had, in fact, noticed something wrong about Spike over the last few months, but she was never sure how she should approach it, or if she should approach it at all. But now the dark cloud over her favorite assistant’s head was gone.

“So what does this mean? Is this permanent? Are you stronger or something?”

“It is permanent.” Spike confirmed, his tone calmly confident. “And whatever else I might be, stronger or whatever, I’m in control.” His eyes closed, and he was silent for a few moments. “Other than that… I’m still trying to figure everything out.”

Silence descended on the building again, but Twilight had had enough of it: Spike was her oldest, in some ways closest friend, and this uncomfortable feeling between them needed to go. It wasn’t proper.

“You were going to leave, weren’t you?” What? No, that wasn’t what she meant to say. “To try to fix a problem I didn’t even know you had.” Stop it!

“Yes. I was.” Spike smiled softly, and his eyes drifted to the ground. Then his eyes found hers again, and the smile became genuine. “But not anymore.”

“I wish you’d told me.”

“I wanted to, but this… this was something I had to figure out on my own.”

“Okay… Okay, I guess I understand…” Twilight took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, I don’t understand. You were going to leave without telling us why?” She wanted to be angry, she really did, but her voice failed her and cracked when she spoke, her whole body sagging as though suddenly very tired. “Just… disappear without even letting the ones who love you try to help?”

Spike would have preferred it if she had yelled at him. In what he would later feel was one of the best things he had ever done, he walked up to Twilight, wrapped her in his powerful arms, picked the girl up off her hooves and carried her to the couch, where he placed her on his lap and simply held her close, whispering apologies to her as she shook with suppressed sobs. She buried her face in his neck and tried not to cry. This morning had just been too much for her.

“What were you thinking!” she half-shouted, a bit of strength returning to her voice.

“I wasn’t.”

“We’re supposed to share everything! Do we mean so little to you?” Again her traitorous voice cracked.

“You mean everything to me.”

With her face buried in Spike’s neck, and her arms wrapped around him, Twilight tried not to cry.

Tried.

Author's Note

And here we go with another installation of this little story.

Let me outline my plan here: Post this story, pat self on back for daring to post something, languish in obscurity (it's not like the story's gonna get noticed or anything.)

Instead I got over twenty followers, sixty comments and over four hundred favorites.

WHAT!?

I'm sorry I haven't responded to any comments. I've wanted to, but this is a little overwhelming for me and I keep losing my nerve.

On the other hand, it's been an excellent motivator to keep writing, so this was completed a lot sooner than I imagined. I have a clear idea about what I want to do for the next chapter and I've began writing, but I have an exam coming up, so I don't know when I'll be able to work on it. But anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you've enjoyed this story so far.

And big thanks to my editor: Feo Takahari
Edit: Also thanks to Pearly (who is not on this site)