He, he, he!
Some birds in the treetop of Golden Oak’s library sang a harmonious melody as the gentle morning sunlight fell in through the window and put a dark orange beam directly on Twilight Sparkle’s face.
Twilight stirred beneath her blanket, the light’s warmth rousing her from sleep. She slowly opened her eyes and spent a moment laying still, enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on her muzzle. “Mmmmmm, what a beautiful morning…”
And indeed it was. With such an excellent start to a new day, she already felt as though nothing could go wrong. Twilight slid from her bed, staggered to the window and pushed it open.
As she listened to the harmonious melody given to her by the sparrows, robins, and blue tits, Twilight could barely hold back a song in her heart. She would have sang if it hadn’t been for the mayor who coincidentally passed by and waved on the way to her office. The mere thought of other ponies listening to and watching her was embarrassing enough, but the actual possibility?! No, she would have to practice several times beforehand, at least.
After Twilight waved back to the mayor with an equally elated smile adorning her muzzle, she turned away from the window. On the way to her kitchen she saw Spike was already awake, sitting in his basket and looking at her with ardent green eyes.
“Good morning Spike!” Twilight exulted the moment she passed the little baby dragon. When only silence followed, Twilight waited for a few seconds before approaching the basket. “Spike. I said good morning,” she reiterated.
She didn’t get a response.
“Spike?” She waved a leg in front of his eyes. No reaction – he didn’t even blink. “Is everything alright?” Twilight bit her lower lip, wondering why he would behave this way. She slowly reached out to him and carefully poked his side.
“He, he, he!”
Twilight winced at Spike’s loud, strident laugh echoing throughout the library. “Spike! Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that?!” A blank, innocent gaze was his only response. Twilight sighed after a moment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get loud on you, but you really scared the hay out of me.”
Again, Spike didn’t give any kind of reaction to her.
“Okay, don’t worry about it,” Twilight said, carefully levitating Spike onto her back. “Maybe you’ll feel better with some breakfast? How does that sound?”
Spike simply stared.
With the baby dragon riding on her back, Twilight headed for the the stairway. As soon as her hoof hit the first step...
“He, he, he!”
She slipped on the edge with a yelp, coming to a dead stop on the stair just below. For a moment, Twilight looked out at the main library hall below. She almost saw herself and Spike falling down the stairs, each painful and gruesome way that they could have, over and over again.
“That’s not funny, Spike!” she snapped before taking an uncertain step to the next stair.
“He, he, he!”
There was no mirth or joy in the laugh. None of Spike’s usual sarcasm. Not even a discernable tone of voice. Each ‘he’ sounded exactly the same and came out with precise intervals between them. “Spike, cut it out. That laugh’s really weird.”
“He, he, he!”
“I mean, what’s with that creepy laughter anyway, I’m already having nightmares from it for the whole week.”
“He, he, he!”
Twilight groaned and continued walking down the stairs, Spike continuing his strange laugh with each step until they reached the bottom.
A few minutes later, Spike simply stared at her from in his high chair at the kitchen table, a bowl of mash on the tray before him. It had been made for foals, but its ingredients were just as nutritious for baby dragons – at least according to her research. Twilight carefully scooped up some mash with a spoon and levitated it in front of Spike.
“Okay Spike, say ‘aaaaaa’.”
Of course, Spike didn’t. His mouth stayed closed.
“Spike!” Twilight wailed. “I don’t have the patience or time for this!” After all, the library’s registry was outdated by hundreds of books and needed to be updated before her lunch with Princess Celestia. Every precious second Spike wouldn’t eat only made her task seem more daunting. “Okay, let’s try it this way,” she muttered to herself before putting on a big smile for her number one assistant. She hadn’t had to play this game since her Canterlot days. “Spiiiiiiiiiiiike, here comes the choo-choo train!”
Almost perfectly imitating the sound of the famous Friendship Express, she slowly guided the spoon to Spike’s mouth, moving it up and down over imaginary hills and valleys… and then catastrophe happened.
The train suffered a horrible crash with the still-closed tunnel, the biggest and most fatal in the history of Golden Oaks Library – or at least its kitchen. It fell off it’s tracks and clattered upon the floor. Its cargo ended up scattered all over the baby dragon’s chest, belly and legs. The crew and passengers were nowhere to be found.
“Oh come on Spike, I don’t have all day for this!”
Twilight hurried to the other side of the room and got some towels to clean up the mess. She gently dabbed the little dragon’s face, chest, and legs. Afterwards, she also cleaned his belly.
“He, he, he!”
It caught her by surprise, causing Twilight to wince once again.
“Spike, please!” she shouted, her voice clearly overtaxed, and then groaned. “If it continues like this I’ll be late for my meeting with Princess Celestia,” Twilight uttered, her mood twisting from vexed to aggrieved, and continued dabbing Spike’s belly.
“He, he, he!”
“Oh, okay!” Enveloped by a mild purple shine, the towel landed in a corner. “Clean up yourself!”
Twilight turned around and left the kitchen to the main hall. However, as Spike didn’t put any kind of protest against it and remained silent, a feeling of guilt quickly overcame her. She didn’t even reach the bottom of the staircase before she couldn’t fight back the urge to look after her beloved baby dragon. Within a blink, she had translocated herself back besides the high chair Spike was sitting on with a clean towel floating in front of her.
After she - under many laughters of the baby dragon - had wiped the rest of the mash from Spike’s belly, Twilight put on a beseeching look.
“Come on Spike, just a small bite at least, that’s all I’m asking for.”
With the most pleading eyes, Twilight threw a hopeful glance at Spike.
Spike stared back at her.
Twilight bit her lower lip. His piercing green eyes unnerved the unicorn quite a bit.
“You’ll also get some delicious gems right after.” Her attempt to entice him with a soothing tone failed, meeting minimal success. Just when she gently poked him in his side, his loud and creepy laughter resounded once again.
“He, he, he!”
Twilight sighed. Heavily. She had enough of this and was really close to her breaking point.
Pulling her nerves together, she forced herself to a last desperate attempt on feeding Spike.
“Spike please, you really need to eat a little once in a while,” Twilight filled another spoon with the sticky mash and slowly led it to his face. “I don’t want my number one assistant to turn sick from starving.” Trying to find an opening, she let the shovel draw small circles in front of Spike.
“If you eat just this tiny bit, I…” Twilight uneasily gulped as she was now promising to do something perhaps even more creepy than the little dragon’s uncanny laughter. “I’ll use that spell that makes you a mustache!” she proposed with a fake cheer and smirk.
No response.
Since she wasn’t sure if he might have fallen asleep with wide opened eyes, Twilight removed the spoon from Spike’s snout and gently poked his side again.
“He, he, he!”
Caught in fright of the dragon’s sudden outburst, Twilight lost control over her levitation spell. The shovel with the mash shot across the room, half of the sticky pulp landed in her mane, the other half in her tail. With a really saddened and upset look on her face, Twilight sat down on her haunches and covered her face with her hooves.
After all, Spike had done it. Twilight started whimpering. Miserably.
She felt ignored, like she was all alone in this world. Not even her number one assistant cared about what she was saying or feeling anymore. Was this all she could expect from life? Was this what she was supposed to feel? Terribly failing on feeding her baby dragon and getting half of her mane and tail covered with sticky pulp? With hot tears running down her cheeks and dripping on the wooden floor below she buried her snout even deeper in her hooves, hoping that she would wake up again at any second, sing the song she had in mind before, and everything would certainly be fine.
At once, the backdoor of the library, which was leading to the kitchen and coincidentally directly revealed the crying unicorn, swung open.
“Oh, my.”
Fluttershy was the first pony to enter through the opened door and take notice of the desperately whimpering unicorn. She immediately hurried to Twilight and gave her some comfort by gently wrapping a warm wing around her back.
Rarity was still standing in the doorway with a rather uneasy expression on her face and bit her lower lip as she was equally concerned when she got her mentally wrecked friend in sight.
“Twilight darling, what horrendous thing had happened to make you cry like this?” she gasped after a second and hurried to Twilight’s other side, trying to soothe her friend with gently stroking her mane.
Applejack, who had followed Rarity by hoof, sat down in front of Twilight and took one of the unicorn’s hooves in between hers.
“Are you worried about something? Hurt?”
For some moments, Applejack really seemed to be concerned like never before.
“Ran out of apples?” she added with a promising smile and a glint in her green eyes.
Twilight shook her head to all of it. Squinting her eyes she tried to hold back the salty water that had gathered in them. After some seconds of consternation filled silence, she slowly raised a hoof and pointed at Spike.
“He doesn’t want to eat his mash!”
Twilight barely managed to finish her sentence before another wave of hot tears shot out of her eyes.
“See girls, that’s exactly what I was talking about,” a clearly incensed, but nevertheless familiar voice resounded from the doorway.
Rainbow Dash flapped down beside Twilight and the others, letting her view wander from one pony to another.
“She’s with that doll all day, treating it like it’s real,” Rainbow expressed her concern before a distressed sigh tore its way through her throat. “I mean, it was okay when she carried it around once in a while, but this has really gotten out of hoof by now.”
A pained and sorrowful scream escaped Twilight’s lips as she couldn’t hold back her grief any longer.
While Rainbow Dash leaned to Applejack, Fluttershy pulled Twilight close and gently stroke her messed-up and sticky mane. “Really creepy if you ask me,” Rainbow whispered to the earth pony beside her. However, she was still noticed by the crying unicorn.
“What are you talking about Rainbow Dash?!” Twilight furiously shouted at the pale blue pegasus, also causing Fluttershy to wince in reaction, before she made use of her magical abilities to levitate Spike to her and gently pressed him against her chest.
“He, he, he!”
“I’m just so worried because he doesn’t want to eat much recently,” she mumbled in the dragon’s uncommonly soft scales and carefully stroked over his almost fleecy appearing back.
“He, he, he!”
Aggrieved by Rainbow Dash’s most inappropriate disrespect towards her beloved assistant, Twilight jumped on her hooves, put Spike on her back and detached herself from the other four mares.
Rarity, wanting to stop the other unicorn and convince her to listen, tried to block Twilight’s way. Just when the violet mare and Spike somehow managed to pass her, Rarity gasped in great bewilderment and could just barely keep herself from dramatically fainting. Her reaction was due to something occurring which she herself wasn’t entirely sure if she actually saw or not. On top of this, it went entirely unnoticed by her friends in the midst of the ruckus.
“Come on Spike, we still can have some breakfast later,” Twilight said, trotting out of the kitchen and disappearing behind the corner.
“He, he, he!”
“For now, we have to reorganize the whole registry of the fantasy and history sections,” Twilight spoke extra loud that the others could still hear her most upset voice in the kitchen.
“He, he, he!”
Fluttershy, expressing her concerns with biting her lower lip, turned towards the others.
“Oh my, she even gave it a name.”
“And obviously, a task,” Applejack added.
“Do you think this might have something to do with her not having a pet to take care of?”
Fluttershy hadn’t had the joy of singing a song about all the different pets she was housing for far too long, but Rainbow Dash scotched the idea before the yellow mare could even start.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Fluttershy.”
The pegasus hovered to the doorway and looked around the corner. Twilight – Spike still sitting on her back – was just busy taking some books out of a shelf. Rainbow Dash directed her solicitous view at Fluttershy again.
“I mean, if it was caused from lacking a pet, I’d be acting like this too,” she reasoned and hovered back to the others. “Besides, she’s got Owlowiscious.”
Fluttershy shuffled a hoof on the ground. “Uhm– of course I know that, but Owlowiscious can mostly take care of himself. I mean a pet who really needs her.”
“I think that Rainbow Dash is right, it must be something else,” Applejack intervened and lead a hoof to her chin, trying her best to give a thoughtful posture.
“Perhaps the poor thing’s missing her family so much that she’s trying to create a second family like this!” Rarity at once barged in as the idea shot to her mind.
“Yeah, that could be a reason,” Rainbow Dash agreed. She would never admit it but after having moved to Ponyville, she also slipped into a-playing-with-dolls-phase. Just with the little, but nevertheless significant, difference that her toys were awesome Wonderbolt replicas and no boring baby dragons. Thinking about their awesomeness and all the fun they had together, Rainbow Dash also realized how much she in fact missed playing with her miniature heroes.
“But what can we do to help her - uhm, I mean, I have no idea how we could possibly replace her family,” Fluttershy said, making a valid point.
All four of them knew that a family was something that couldn’t be replaced easily. Some moments of thoughtful silence followed. Fluttershy’s docile view wandered from one of her friends to the other. Rainbow Dash shrugged. Applejack shook her head as she had no idea either. Rarity at once beamed and made an expression like she had the most fabulous plan ever.
“Perhaps we should make her a princess which has something to take care of!”
The others threw some bewildered looks at her.
“And... princess of what? Golden Oaks Library?” Applejack asked with a clearly sarcastic tone.
Rarity lifted a hoof to her chin.
“I admit that the idea is still under development, but it’s also just a suggestion,” she uttered in mild embarrassment as she hadn’t thought it out too well.
“If she’s feeling that alone and obviously in need of something to take care of, we perhaps should reconsider the plan of getting her another pet,” Fluttershy said, trying to bring her initial idea into play once again.
This time however it wasn’t Rainbow Dash, but Rarity who declined her proposal. “Usually I’d totally agree with you Fluttershy, but the poor thing’s currently in no condition to take care of a critter,” Rarity stated, forwarding her concern in as decent a way as possible.
“Yeah, just imagine how that would turn out,” Rainbow Dash added and underlined Rarity’s argument with a plain gesture.
On the imagination of Twilight suffering a manic attack and accidentally twisting a little bunny’s or kitty’s neck like Rainbow Dash indicated, Fluttershy fainted.
“Oh dear,” Rarity gasped and waved with her hooves, trying to fan her friend a cool breeze.
Applejack already saw that one coming long ago and therefore wasn’t too surprised by her reaction. The only thing she could do was blame herself for not being prepared to catch the yellow pegasus before she hit the ground. She sat down beside Fluttershy and carefully lifted the senseless pegasus onto her lap.
“Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked with mild concern as she bowed over the timid mare, who in response opened her eyes a tiny bit. After all, it was not the first time she observed Fluttershy lose consciousness due to her horrible imaginations.
“Is everything alright?”
Fluttershy weakly nodded and, supported by Rainbow Dash and Applejack, lifted herself on a chair.
Twilight’s voice, which was saying funny stuff while also voice acting for Spike, could be heard in the main hall of the library and caused the four mares to throw worried glances at each other.
“I’ll get Fluttershy some tea, you two better look after Twilight in the meanwhile,” Rarity propounded and started looking in the cupboards in hope to be able to find out where Twilight - or perhaps Spike - stored the teapots.
“And we better hurry up doing so,” Applejack approved Rarity’s proposal when she couldn’t help but overhear Twilight - with a distorted voice - protest that the fire in one of the bookshelves this past week wasn’t her fault at all.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash cautiously entered the main hall. Dozens of books were lying scattered all over the ground. Twilight, with the baby dragon on her lap, was sitting in the middle of them. Applejack and Rainbow Dash watched Twilight make use of her levitation spell to lift a book to her hooves before she handed it to Spike. She then used her magic to install a new label on it, took the book out of Spike’s claws, thanked him for labelling it, and copied the number of the label in her registry.
Rainbow threw an uneasy glance to Applejack who returned it immediately. The earth pony, with an awkward fake smile on her face, made a small step towards her friend.
“Twilight, Sugarcube, is everything alright?”
Twilight genuinely smiled at her.
“In fact, more than just alright, Applejack,” she replied with enthusiasm, before taking Spike in her hooves and lifting him in front of Applejack’s snout. “Guess who’s just putting up his first registry!” Twilight rejoiced, like a mother whose foal just made its first steps, with a wide and mad grin on her muzzle.
“He, he, he!”
Applejack would have dodged the baby dragon, but she knew that it wouldn’t have been any use as Twilight would have just hunted her down with it – when it came to things Spike did for the very first time, the unicorn was even worse than Granny Smith with the photo album of Applejack’s and Apple Bloom’s foalhoods at family reunions – and that already was way beyond the limits of being bearable.
Twilight’s strange behavior had just never been that bad before, and thinking about the fact that the next family reunion was already going to be held in less than two weeks, Applejack’s expression changed to an uncomfortable and apprehensive one. Not just because she wanted to take the chance and introduce her closest friends - including Twilight - to her far away relatives from Vanhoover who would join this year’s reunion too, but also because she knew that Granny would force the old photos of her sister and her sharing a potty in every pony’s face once again.
Rainbow Dash gently placed a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder.
“The photo album?” she asked the weakly quivering earth pony, who hesitantly nodded in response.
Rainbow Dash sympathetically sighed.
“Okay, you have a break; I’ll take over from here,” she suggested and somehow managed to place herself in the small gap Twilight left between Applejack and Spike.
“Hey Rainbow Dash, do you know who just put up his first registry?!” Twilight exulted, wildly wiggling with the baby dragon in front of the other mare’s snout.
“He, he, he!”
For a second Rainbow didn’t come around to look into the small dragon’s wide green eyes. They were almost staring her down and caused her mouth to wrinkle under their glare. The pegasus blinked and gently shoved Twilight’s hooves aside.
“He, he, he!”
“Yeah, Twilight, talking about that…”
Where Rainbow Dash hesitated – as she didn’t know how to put it without unnecessarily hurting the mentally unstable unicorn’s feelings – Applejack mercilessly decided to just plunge right in, much like how she would just kick in the door of the barn when the Cutie Mark Crusaders had themselves locked inside. Trying to quickly replace the even more uncomfortable topic of what Apple Bloom and the other two fillies were doing there in the dark, she shouted out in anger and desperation.
“It’s a doll!”
Twilight’s jaw dropped in shock.
So did Rainbow Dash’s jaw in reaction to the earth pony’s sudden outburst as she didn’t expect Applejack to forcefully cut into Twilight’s little made-up fantasy world like that. With ears lying flat, she leaned close to Applejack.
“The thing Apple Bloom and the others were doing in the barn?” Rainbow carefully asked.
Applejack replied with a clear nod and a furious snort. “But that’s not the topic right now.” Applejack turned to the unicorn again. “Twilight, this baby dragon or whatever it is supposed to be is not real, it’s just a piece of fabric and plastic!”
Twilight was shocked. She clung to Spike and pressed him tightly against her chest, like a mother trying to protect her foal from a raging ursa.
“He, he, he!”
“What are you talking about Applejack?!” Twilight whimpered and pressed her snout firmly against Spike’s forehead. Then she quickly raised her head again and let her clearly hurt and angry glare hit Applejack. “Of course he’s real - he’s as lively as he could be!” Twilight shouted with scared and irated voice, like Apple Bloom did when her sister kicked the - no, that’s not the right time to broach that topic again.
“You can’t simply say something like that, Spike got feelings too!”
Pained tears were running down Twilight’s muzzle and dropped on the baby dragon’s forehead. She directed her weary and bloodshot eyes on Spike again.
“Can’t you see the lovely glint in his ardent green eyes whenever he meets Rarity?!”
Twilight once again let Spike dance in front of Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s snouts.
“Oh by Celestia,” Rainbow Dash groaned in endless annoyance. “Great Applejack, now we got this lament going on again.”
Applejack pulled her cowpony-hat deep over her snout and averted her ashamed view from Rainbow Dash.
“Sorry, got caught in the heat of the moment.”
“He’s such a cute little baby dragon and the best assistant I ever had!”
Twilight tightly pressed Spike against her chest and started cuddling him again. Cuddling; it was sort of a matching description for what the Cutie Mark Crusaders - Applejack gritted her teeth and vigorously stomped on the ground.
“He, he, he!”
With a sigh escaping her lips, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
“Come on Applejack, leave it behind. What happened happened,” she reassuringly said, also for the reason that she didn’t want to think about it herself because her little chicken was involved in all of it too.
Applejack again just angrily snorted in response.
Rainbow Dash turned to the unicorn.
“And to come back to you, Twilight, it’s not like you ever had an assistant,” she explained with a docile yet very serious tone.
“Can’t you see that I obviously have?!” Twilight loudly replied with a clear pitch in her voice and a gentle stroke on Spike’s head. Looking down at her most precious little dragon, she continued. “He’s making breakfast for both of us every morning and then helps me clean up the library and dust off the shelves.” She took a small break to gasp for air. “After lunch he takes care of the errands, in the evenings he prepares dinner and then I always read a bedtime story for him.” She emotionally complemented her tale with hot tears leaving her eyes, burning narrow lanes in her cheeks before dripping onto Spike’s forehead.
“He, he, he!”
“Twilight, it’s you doing all these things!” Applejack shouted in anger which she was ready to unload on the wrong pony. Rainbow Dash tried to stop her but without success. Forcefully sealing Rainbow’s lips with a hoof, Applejack continued.
“You come every day at the same time to the market and buy exactly three apples at my stand - then you go to Golden Harvest for some carrots and cabbage and every thursday to the guy running the sofa and quills store for some ink and a new quill!”
As Applejack’s speech was rousing and it was too late to make things unsaid anyway, Rainbow Dash, after releasing an annoyed and yielding sigh, decided to support the earth pony in her argument.
“And whenever I come to the library, you’re either cooking, cleaning up or doing registration business, and that stupid doll is doing nothing other than sitting on your back.” Her tone was much more compassionate than Applejack’s as she knew how delicate it could be for a young mare in Twilight’s mental state to get suddenly snapped back into reality from her own experience. However, the words she chose were an even sharper blade to Twilight’s already tattered psyche than Applejack’s had been.
“Rainbow Dash, how can you say that?!” Twilight spat and put on a very insulted expression on her face. “He’s not stupid, he’s about the most important thing in my life!”
“He, he, he!”
However, before Rainbow Dash had a chance to reply, Applejack intervened.
“Right Twilight, he’s a thing. A THING!”
“Applejack!”
Twilight really was outraged because of what she heard.
“Did you forget that he saved you from the Timberwolves?!”
Applejack groaned, covered her face with a hoof and shook her head. When she looked at Twilight again, a fierce fire of fury and annoyance was burning in her eyes.
“YOU saved me from the Timberwolves!” Applejack said, finally venting her anger. “YOU just were carrying that stupid doll on your back while doing so! That BUCKING, STUPID DOLL!”
Twilight gasped and covered the little dragon’s ears. The earth pony didn’t just say the b-word in the context with Spike, did she? On second thought, the unicorn was pretty sure that Applejack did. Twilight, feeling incredibly upset, turned away from the other two mares.
Some moments of a rather uncomfortable silence followed before the offended unicorn replied to Applejack’s fit of rage.
“I’m done with you guys, you can come back when you’ve learned to respect Spike’s feelings.” Twilight’s tone said more than a thousand words could have. She was dead serious about it. “Just because he’s a dragon doesn’t mean that you can treat him like trash.”
Searching for reassurance and relaxation, Twilight turned to the warmth of the fireplace and watched the small blazing flames dance with each other as she gently swayed Spike in her forelegs.
“He, he, he!”
“Buck it!” Applejack cursed, deciding that she wanted to leave the room rather than deal with Twilight any longer. Before she could do so however, one of the windows in the room suddenly burst. A small object shot across the hall like a grenade and kicked Spike out of Twilight’s grasp directly into the currently raging flames of the fireplace.
“He, he, he!”
Twilight was aghast, her eyes wide open and disbelieving. She was frozen in shock and heartbroken. unable to do anything other than watch Spike burn as his little, cute cheeks of plastic slowly melted within the devouring fire.
“He, he, he!”
Rainbow Dash bit her lower lip. So did Applejack. As much as both of them wished Twilight to get rid of the little dragon – in the same fashion as nearly everypony else in Ponyville – they felt sorry for the merciless and cruel way that it had suddenly happened.
“He, he, he!”
Pinkie’s mane and apprehensive blue eyes appeared in the hole of the shattered window.
“Uh, sorry guys, I tried to refill my party cannon with rubber balls and things got a tiny-winy-little-bitty out of hoof,” she awkwardly grinned while dozens of rubber balls shot through the whole town like small missiles and relentlessly destroyed everything that crossed their path.
A clashing sound echoed, followed by the helpless scream of a young mare. “Oh no, my flowers!”
Shortly thereafter the noise of breaking wood and the despaired shout of a stallion resounded. “My cart!”
“By Celestia, what is this?!” Another voice chimed from someplace far, far away.
Then somepony else angrily shouted out for Pinkie.
“I think I better go,” Pinkie bit her lower lip and reflexively ducked a bypassing rubber ball. “I’ll replace the window later Twilight,” she shouted over her shoulder from around the next corner.
Rainbow Dash threw a questioning glance at Applejack.
Applejack threw an even more questioning glance at Rainbow Dash,
“Yeah, we perhaps really should reconsider Rarity’s ‘make-Twilight-a-princess-of-something-idea’ now,” Rainbow Dash uttered with a shrug while watching Twilight’s baby dragon slowly get devoured by the flames, when she at once recognized something awesome standing on the shelf above the fireplace.
“Uuuhhh, a Spitfire plush…”
Applejack nodded, however had averted her view to the ceiling as she was looking out for the rubber ball that, at least according to the recurring dump sound of it hitting a shelf or something else, still was flying somewhere across the library. “I’m sure Princess Celestia could help us out on that one,” she agreed with Rainbow’s suggestion right as Fluttershy, who seemed to have regained at least some of her strength, walked in from the kitchen.
“Hey girls... Uhm–”
Her eyes spotted Spike burning in the fire. Under the imagination that it could also have been a little squirrel or puppy in his place, the yellow pegasus lost consciousness again.
This time however, Applejack was prepared to catch her.
“Oh, and Applejack!” Pinkie was bouncing in front of the window once again. “If you’re looking for Apple Bloom - the Cutie Mark Crusaders asked me if they could borrow the keys for the backroom of Sugarcube Corner so that they could get some practice on baking muffins while the Cakes are visiting Canterlot - I guess you’ll find them there,” Pinkie quickly said before she continued on, making a getaway from a whole crowd of angry ponies who were chasing after her.
Applejack, her jaw almost touching the ground, let Fluttershy drop.
“Muffins, huh?” Rainbow Dash asked with a strange pitch.
When Applejack turned to her side, a small version of Spitfire was wiggling right in front of her snout.
Applejack frowned.
“That’s what mah’ sister’s calling foals,” Applejack murmured in the Wonderbolt’s yellow and orange mane and pulled her cowpony-hat deep in her face.
“Is everything alright in here, I heard something break?”
Rarity, with a most concerned look on her face, entered the room.
Then she noticed Spike burning in the fireplace.
“Oh, thank Celestia you finally decided to get rid of that horrendous thing,” she said, greatly relieved. “I’m definitely not going batty, but I could have sworn it hit my flank before.”
Rarity looked down at her rump where a small red imprint of something that really looked like a tiny dragon’s claw was right in between the three diamonds that formed her cutie mark.
Just as she had finished her statement and wanted to try to make the imprint clean off, the rubber ball that still was flying all across the library hit Rarity and left another bright red imprint on her other flank.
Unexpectedly, a loud and creepy laughter resounded from the fireplace.
“He, he, he!”
