Spike Eats a Peach
By Dusty the Royal Janitor
The purple baby dragon strolled leisurely through the marketplace with a spring in his step and a cheery smile on his face. Spike couldn’t help but be cheerful that day, as he’d gotten to spend most of the morning with Rarity helping her crank out a number of new designs. The fashionista had rewarded him for all his hard work with a basketful of gems, which swayed back and forth in his claw as he practically skipped through the market on his way back to the Golden Oaks library.
He had almost left the marketplace, though, when he heard a little sniffle from behind him. Turning quickly, Spike spied a little filly sitting at a ramshackle stand and crying her little eyes out. Spike recognized the little filly as Peachy Pie, Carrot Top’s younger cousin and winner of one of the Ponyville Elementary School Talent Show awards a few years ago. The sight confused Spike. He didn’t know Peachy Pie particularly well, but when he’d seen her around town, she’d always seemed so cheerful and full of life. Now her mane was drooping like a fried egg nailed to a fencepost and her eyes were more watery than a leaky melon.
Spike looked up at the sun. It was starting to get late. Twilight would worry after him soon. But he looked back at the crying little filly and decided that, according to the vague and contradictory rules that made him a noble dragon, he could not let a little girl like her stay so miserable. Straightening an imaginary hat, he padded over to the little filly’s stand to see what he could do to help.
“Hey, Peachy Pie,” Spike called, “What’s the matter?”
Peachy Pie looked up from her stand to see the baby dragon coming towards her. “Oh, hi Spike.” Peachy Pie mumbled. “Nothing really, I’m just having a bad day.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Spike asked. “Maybe I can help!”
Peachy sighed. “It’s just...” she trailed off, then pointed at the stand she sat behind. “I’ve been trying to sell my product all day, but nopony wants to buy any of it.”
Spike looked at the stand she sat behind. A great big sign made of construction paper and crayon read “Peaches for sale!” with one of the e’s written backwards, and a smaller sign below it read “2 bits a peach.”
Spike blinked. “Nobody wants to buy your peaches?” he asked, “Why not?”
“I don’t knoooo-ho-hoooow” Peachy Pie bawled. “All I wanted to do was to be a successful farmer and salespony like my big cousin Carrot Top!” she squealed. “I spent a year helping my peach tree grow big and strong and then picking the very best peaches to come out and sell, but now nopony wants them! I’m such a faiiiluuuuure!” Peachy started crying again and fell backwards onto her back.
“Whoa, hey Peachy, there’s no reason to cry!” Spike said, waving his little arms at her. “How about I buy a few peaches?”
Peachy Pie suddenly brightened, her face a manic grin. She leaped up off the ground and brought her face right in front of Spike’s. “Oh, would you?!”
Spike nodded. “Sure! Just let me grab some bits!” he said, reaching into his little basket. From underneath his pile of sapphires, he pulled out a little pouch of bits. Spike pulled a couple bits out of the pouch and placed them down on the stand. “One peach, please!”
Peachy Pie squealed and quickly pulled a nice, clean, ripe peach out of a bowl from under the stand and handed it to him. “Thank you sooo much, Spike! You’re the best!”
“Thank you, Peachy!” Spike nodded at the little filly, turning on his heel and walking off. “Hope you have a better day, now!” he called over his shoulder, making his way back towards the library.
Peachy Pie grinned. From behind her in a back alley, a taller, orange mare with a curly manecut stalked out from behind an old crate. She had piercing, calculating green eyes and a cutie mark of a bunch of carrots. She reached around Peachy Pie and pulled her into a friendly, familial hug.
“Gooooood, Peachy.” Carrot Top said, slowly. “I have taught you well...”
Peachy Pie pointed down the street where a butter yellow pegasus with a pink mane was carefully leading some baby turtles through the street. “Oooh! Here comes another one! Full saddlebags at nine-o-clock!”
“You know what to do, my apprentice.” Carrot Top smirked, hiding back behind the old crate in the alley.
Peachy Pie started crying.
* * *
Spike shut the door of the Golden Oaks Library. “I’m home!” he shouted up the stairs.
“Hello Spike,” a familiar, bookish voice called from down the stairs. “How was your day with Rarity?”
“It was great!” Spike called up as Twilight Sparkle, Spike’s older-sister-figure-slash-mother-slash-pony-that-birthed-him-slash-who-knows-what-their-relationship-really-is started trotting down the steps. “I helped her come up with three new designs, and I didn’t even lick any of the embroidered gems this time!”
“That’s great!” Twilight said, trotting up next to him. “I’m glad you’re home, though. I have a ton of books that need reshelving while I study for my next project.”
“Of course, Twilight, but before I get to work, how’d you like to split a snack with me?” Spike offered.
“The last time I tried to split a gem with you, Spike, I ended up having to dish out thousands of bits to Colgate for dental reconstructive surgery.”
Spike chuckled and shook his head. “No no no,” he said, “I ran into a little filly selling some fruit when I passed through the marketplace and I thought we could split it.”
“Oh sure, Spike.” Twilight nodded. “What did you get?”
“I got a peach!” Spike said, pulling the fruit in question out of his basket and revealing it to the unicorn.
Twilight’s pupils suddenly shrank to pinpricks as she took in what was before her. That fuzzy pink and yellow skin. That sickly sweet smell. That terrible yellow, juicy flesh. Her mouth fell open and her breath became shallow. Her ears twitched and fell back on her head, and her tail and posture went rigid. “No... not peaches.” She breathed. “Never again... never again... never again...” she started to repeat.
Spike blinked. “Twilight?” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “Twilight, you in there?”
* * *
Twilight was four years old. She was with her Granny Sparkle in her old house back in Canterlot. Granny had offered the little filly to make her special peach cobbler while the rest of her family was on her mother’s latest book tour. The filly loved her Granny’s peach cobbler.
Twilight loved to watch Granny make her cobbler. It was like watching a pony mix a magical potion. It was chemistry and love all mixed together.
But as the filly watched Granny mix the batter and chop up the peaches, Twilight noticed something horrible happen. As Granny lifted one of the peaches out of the bowl, another peach fell out and started rolling along the counter. Her poor, deaf Granny never noticed what had happened.
The peach rolled along the countertop and onto the stove, where the horrible fruit hit the gas stove knob, turning one of the burners up to maximum. The flame exploded to life as the peach continued to roll along the counter and knocked over a knife stand, sending a knife tumbling onto the burner. The sharp metal started to turn red with heat as the peach kept rolling, knocking into the knobs on the kitchen sink and turning on a heavy stream of lukewarm water.
The peach kept rolling, rolling off of the counter and onto the floor where it knocked over a broom that was standing, bristles-up against the wall. The broom fell over onto the burner where the knife lay. The broom flipped the knife up into the air, sending it hurtling to the other side of the room where it embedded itself in a potted plant. The hot metal quickly set the ficas ablaze.
Meanwhile, the broom too was set on fire as it sat in the burner. The peach, however, kept rolling, knocking into a fire extinguisher, which was also sent rolling along the ground. The fire extinguisher rolled up next to the burning plant. The heavy gases under pressure in the fire extinguisher heated up quickly and the extinguisher exploded, putting out the plant but sending metal shrapnel everywhere.
The shrapnel flew into the refrigerator and the oven next to the stove, knocking the door open and turning the heat in the oven up to maximum. The door bumped into the spice rack, sending jars of spices tumbling onto the floor. The jars would likely have shattered under normal circumstances, but by this point, the water from the sink had flooded the kitchen and the jars started gently floating across the ground. All Granny had to comment on the wetness was that she “thought she fixed that leak in the ceiling,” but she simply continued cutting up fruit. Twilight stared, entranced by the carnage.
The spice jars rolled into the oven, knocking the hatch open and sending the spices in to a fiery doom. Just as the spices were securely inside the oven, the traitorous peach floated by and knocked the oven door shut. The jars quickly overheated in the oven, popping open and setting the various herbs ablaze.
The fire in the oven soon caused the machine to explode, jostling the stove and severing the gas pipe. The gas that fueled the stove quickly began to permeate throughout the room, reaching the blazing broom in a manner of seconds.
Twilight didn’t remember much after that. She woke up on the asphalt, thrown clear of the blazing house. Fireponies surrounded what was left of her grandmother’s place. There was no sign of Granny.
Lying next to her in the road was a singed but intact peach.
* * *
“granny...” Twilight whispered, her eyes still wide
Spike rolled his eyes. “Ugh, I hate it when she disappears like this.” He said, exasperated. Spike lifted the peach up to his mouth and took a big bite. He had barely begun to chew when he retched.
“Blech!” he said, spitting the fruit out. “Gross! It’s not even ripe yet!” he stalked off upstairs throwing the peach over his shoulder. “Nevermind, Twi. It’s not worth eating.”
The peach bounced off of Twilight Sparkle’s head as she stood ramrod still. The peach rolled across the floor into the kitchen.
Author's Note
So apparently eating peaches is a thing now on this site.
So I did a thing.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
(This was written in like 45 minutes and has not been edited or proofread. I apologize if there are any glaring errors)
)