A short story contemplating Twilight and Spike's relationship.

Twilight stared deeply into her newest book. She wasn't the only pony in Ponyville's rustic appeal who was any touch of a bookworm, but she was a bookworm to the core. There were few things that could pull her out of a book she was reading. A grey, wall-eyed pegasus crashing through the ceiling was somewhere on that list. Derpy picked herself up rather quickly, she was used to such crashes, why earlier to day in fact she had disturbed Rainbow Dash's fifth nap with a broken cloud wall. Rainbow had been nice about it, everypony always was.

"Hi!" Derpy giggled a bit. "I was just seeing if your tree grew any fruit."

Twilight laughed as she said her part of the greeting, "Apparently it grows nut, one just fell through my roof."

The two shared a laugh. They always greeted each other as such. "So what brings you around here this time, Derpy?" Twilight said, expecting the usual bills to send to Celestia to be paid.

"No bills this time, Twi. Just a letter," Derpy responded, giving the librarian the scroll, "It's from Spike."

"Spike?" Twilight said, sounding a bit distant. She hadn't heard from him in a while. He had gone off to buy more comic books in Canterlot, but he had been gone for a couple days. She quickly read through it aloud, knowing Derpy was just as curious about Spike's whereabouts. And what-abouts.

"Dear Twilight, I'm doing fine, just in case you're wondering." Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. At least he was okay. She began reading once more, "The reason I've been gone so long is Discord. Me and him have been pulling pranks on the Princesses all Hearth's Warming Eve. I'll be home soon, though. I can't have Hearths Warming without my sister, can I? Anyway, see you real soon. I should be getting off the train by the time you get down to the station after reading this. Sincerely, Spike."

Twilight rolled up the scroll and put on her coat as fast as she could, she had to get to the train station! She wasn't concerned about the drake being cold, she knew he'd be wearing his coat, right? She wanted to see if her assistant was as good at scheduling as he seemed to think. He was.

"Twilight!" Spike said, happy to see his sister, "How's it going?"

"Looks like you've picked up a bit about scheduling," was Twilight's only response.

"Hey, Derpy!" the young drake said after pulling away from the hug Twilight wrapped him in. "How about you?"

"Oh, same old, same old. Deliveries to make, muffins to bake," Derpy answered.

"What about greeting a young drake?" Spike added to the impromptu rhyme.

"Good to see you're alright, Spike. Twilight's been worried." Derpy told the dragon.

Twilight blushed just a bit. Had she been that obvious?

"Well, that's the Twilight I know, and I wouldn't want anything else," Spike replied, "Because then I wouldn't have the best sister in every other way."

The group returned to Twilight's house, and Derpy left to make the rest of her deliveries before she could go home for Hearths Warming. Twilight started a fire in the fireplace, and sent her friends invitations through Spike-mail. Within twenty minutes time, six ponies and one dragon were all nestled by the fire on a cold night in Twilight's tree-house/library...