My Baby Sister

Spike stretched out his hand, letting the snowflakes fall upon it and then he watched them melt away. It was a strange sensation on his scales, a cold he hadn’t really experienced in a long time. His eye turned to the cloudy sky, darkened by the clouds and the coming night. He remembered fearing the winter, long before the sky was shattered. Twilight used to help him get through it, her and Princess Celestia, but those days were long gone now.

“Are they still after us?” Applejack asked, out of breath.

He tried to focus, get his mind back in the game, but all he thought about was Twilight and how she was gone. The fields of Equestria lay before them, unending beneath the dead heavens, white covering them more and more as the seconds spanned. There was no sign of any movement, however. When the beasts had given up shape or why eluded him. Twilight would’ve probably thought of something.

Don’t cry, he told himself. He’d cried when Rarity had died, even though Twilight had been there, too. Tears were a sign of weakness he couldn’t afford, especially now that she was gone and he had no shoulder to lean on anymore.

“No. We should be fine,” the young dragon answered and turned around.

They’d found a small cavern on the edge of the grasslands to the Ponyville’s west. The town was hidden behind a line of trees. To the south lay mountains and farther west more barren land awaited them. This was the most unfortuitous position they could’ve found themselves in.

He walked back to the three ponies, the ones who lived. They’d huddled around the fire. Finding good wood on the fly had been easier than he expected and the ability to breathe fire actually came in very handy in the wild. Nopony looked like they enjoyed the warmth.

Well, not that Rainbow Dash seemed to express herself that much. She still slept and showed no sign of waking up. The dragon did not know how to feel about that, but he remembered Twilight’s words, the things she told him about Rainbow Dash. If just a single one of those thoughts were true, then it would make much more sense that Rainbow Dash was here, breathing and living once more.

Applejack sat by the flame, with Apple Bloom resting between her legs. There was something strange about the two now, a sort of aura Spike couldn’t quite explain. It almost made him smile. After all, wasn’t this just one big riddle Twilight had left for him to solve. She was the sort who’d do something like that, even unwittingly. Or maybe there was no plan and they had just survived through a happy accident.

Dammit, Twilight, he thought, sitting down and staring at the green fire’s dance. Where’ve you gone?

“So,” Applejack said into the silence, “What do we do next?”

“I don’t know, wandering the wasteland sounds like a fine option, though.”

He looked at her, she looked at him. “Seriously?” Applejack asked with a frown. “That’s the most productive thing you can come up with?”

He shrugged and turned back at the fire, wondering what Twilight would do in his stead. Something smarter, something better, that’s how it always went. The moment he tried to do things on his own it all ended up bad. Even now, this entire situation had only happened because he hadn’t argued enough with that damned alicorn. If only he’d spoken up instead of running into town every single day. Who the hell thought that risking one’s life was easier than talking to kin anyway? An idiot, that’s who.

“Spike? You alright?” Applejack asked.

He looked her in the eyes. Every inch of her bloody face was painted with concern. It was almost condescending, the way she looked at him. She looked at him like he was some kid, someone not strong enough to hold his own. He was, though.

“We need to rest up,” he stated as matter-of-factly as he could. “You especially, get some sleep. Getting here with Rainbow Dash on your back couldn’t have been easy.”

Applejack smiled at him and shrugged. “It was no bother. She weighs about as much as a feather.” She looked down to Apple Bloom, who quietly snored in her sister’s arms and then to Rainbow Dash, who lay close to them. “Do you think it’ll be fine?” she asked.

He sighed, louder than he intended and Applejack caught on, bristled at that. “We were all dead,” she said, raising her voice.

It was louder than she intended, and she was quick to make sure that she hadn’t woken Apple Bloom. Spike watched her, how she fussed over Apple Bloom, how she worried for her. Then his eyes turned back to the fire. It was glowing, dancing, living. A long time ago, he’d just thought of it as a minor convenience, but watching it now calmed him down. It made him sure he was alive and glowing.

Spike knew he needed to give Applejack something hopeful, needed to make sure she knew that he wasn’t weak. “We were, and now we’re not. Twilight and Apple Bloom made sure of it. So yeah, it’ll be fine,” he told her, supporting his head with his hand. “You should get some sleep. Night’s coming and we’ll probably have a long day tomorrow.”

She shook her head. “What if they’ll come?”

“I take the watch,” he answered her with a slight smile. “Plus, I can’t really sleep anyway, so that’ll be fun.”

Her shoulders dropped slightly. “Is there any way I can help you?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just been a bad day, after all. We just need to figure out what to do next, right?”

Applejack nodded and then watched as he stood up. As he did, however, she seemed to have a sudden realisation. “We could look for the one who caused the Tear to appear, couldn’t we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Spike answered unenthusiastically as he moved back to the end of the cavern.

There, he sat down on a rock that was close to where the snows touched the ground. If Applejack said something else, didn’t matter to him. He didn’t listen either way and enjoyed the following moments. They were quiet, with nothing but the silent cackle of the flames behind him and the sight of a darkening world drowning in snow before him.

Winter had truly arrived now, hadn’t it? Spike almost wanted to smile, almost wanted to enjoy it, but he couldn’t. The dragon felt a strange cold upon him, one he’d never felt before. A shiver ran through his body and he wrapped his arms around himself. The claws felt cold, too.

What should we do? He asked himself and exhaled. His breath became crystalline dust that rose up into the air before him. The time he’d spent outside had taught him that it was growing colder, but now they would probably be outside for the rest of winter. A cavern like this only gave a minimal amount of protection, after all. They needed to find some place else, somewhere with shelter and hopefully with other ponies. If there were any others.

Spike closed his eyes. He felt tired, to. Every night until this one he’d forced himself to sleep, tried to make sure everypony else kept at it, too. Normal schedules, normal daily lives, that’s how they’d kept it until now. It’d only been a charade, Twilight had told him, and an unnecessary one at that, but he’d needed it.

If only I’d done more, he thought. I can’t lead them. We need you, you idiot.

He kept his quiet and opened his eyes again. The remainder of the night would be his watch and so he remained on that stone, thinking to himself and remembering.

A noise, a thousand fires, somepony screaming.

The noise came first, indescribable, as if someone somehow broke a voice like they broke glass, as if someone shattered the sun into a million pieces while also keeping it underwater. When Spike heard it, he wasn’t quite sure if it was right. His first mistake was going back to reading that comic book.

Then, as he turned the page he thought something strange in the corner of his eye. His second mistake was to look outside and be mesmerised by it. From Ponyville to the edge of the horizon, the world was on fire beneath a broken sky. A thousand flames spread out before the library and they looked more gorgeous than anything he could’ve ever imagined.

The last thing was Twilight’s scream.

“Don’t look out the window!” she screamed from down below.

He got up, ran to the edge of their room and looked down at the pony who’d closed the door behind her and was now running up.

“What’s going on, Twilight?” He asked as she ran past him, grabbed her bedsheet and clumsily put it over the window, so that the sight to the town was hindered.

She took a step back, nodding at her work. “Spike, get all books we’ve got about fire elementals, greater magic and, if we have any, specialized pyromancy down to my lab. I’ll need to step out.”

“Twilight?” He asked, voice shaking as much as his body. “What happened?”

The gravity of the situation had been well beyond him and Twilight’s look, the pity, the sadness, it all seemed to him now like that had been what she expected. That he would be useless and so her decision was the one she thought to be the wisest, even if it wasn’t, even if it would cost her the power of flight and an eye.

“Nothing I can’t fix. I need to go and make sure nopony gets hurt. Don’t look at the sky, Spike, you’re only going to get hurt.”

She turned his back to him and ran down the stairs and through the door, leaving him there in the library, the fires of Ponyville in the distance. Back then, he had only thought that some monster had come to Ponyville and set everything on fire. They could’ve dealt with that, Twilight would’ve made sure everything was fine then. Instead the world burned for a day and then nothing but cinder remained beneath a broken sky.

She came back much later, alone and hobbling. One leg was badly burned, her eye got clawed out, by what he never asked. He found her unconscious on the library floor, wings charred and her breathing heavy. There he was, the helpless little dragon and he fixed her as good as he could. The bandages, the brace, even her eye, he took care of everything.

But the mare didn’t wake for days. He didn’t leave the library, even though food was getting sparse. Twilight had warned him about the world outside, so he didn’t make any attempt to explore it. She needed him, after all.

When Applejack knocked on the library door he’d first felt relieved. As he opened it and found her, she looked like a mess and Apple Bloom looked even worse. He remembered himself being unable to say anything then, so he just let them in and treated their wounds, though Apple Bloom seemed like she was beyond any treatment.

She was crying from the pain and the fire was burning her from inside out. Applejack just begged him to do something. He hadn’t been able to, so he just ran and locked himself in the basement, where Twilight slept.

“You need to wake up,” he told her and then again.

She listened to him, muttering Applejack’s name and then rising from the bed and up the stairs, all despite her pain. The quiet strength, that unyielding determination of hers was awe-inspiring. Meanwhile, all he’d done was sit by her bed and cry.

But she hadn’t expected all that much from him, either.

He’d made the padded jacket for himself soon after Applejack left again and told Twilight that he wanted to go out, explore the town, see what was going on. At first she didn’t want him to go, but he convinced by simply stepping outside and staring at the sky.

When a pony gazed at it, a fire welled up inside them, Twilight had told him, but as looked at the countless shards and red pulse of the Tear, all he saw was their broken nature. There was no song to the baby dragon and no fire other than the flame of his own was within him.

That marked the point where he found himself more useful to Twilight, though she refused to let him go outside alone, because he was just a baby dragon. He remembered himself to be happy with that, because he was just weak. She’d taken him with her to the cider house, where she prepared the spells.

“We need to let them be alone for now. If they stay here they’ll be safe and I can look for a way to fix all this,” Twilight had told him.

It was the end of the first month where they decided all that scouting was for nothing. All they ever did was the remaining, burning carcasses of the ones they once knew and loved walk about in a horrific display. Sometimes, Rainbow Dash would come, or whatever was left of her. At first Twilight attempted to talk to her, but soon found that conversation was impossible. All the pegasus did was scream for help and so, in the end, they ignored her.

Otherwise, Twilight only found herself able to theorize about the beasts and the broken sky without ever reaching a conclusion. So the two of them figured that they needed to look for the other Elements of Harmony. The event had happened during a week where Pinkie was out of town, so they couldn’t check on her, where Applejack was was clear, Rainbow Dash was a lost cause at that point. That only left Fluttershy and Rarity.

They went to Fluttershy’s place first, sneaking through the town on a cloudy day, because Twilight couldn’t do it otherwise. However, that plan went nowhere as the pegasus’ house was completely deserted, with not even a single critter there to point them to where Fluttershy could’ve gone or if she was even still alive.

It was the thirty-eighth day when they went to Carousel Boutique. Spike remembered the date, the summer wind touching on his scales and the face Twilight made when the place finally came into sight.

“We need to be prepared for anything,” she told him, confident as ever, though not as prepared as both of them thought her to be.

They went straight for the front door, which wasn’t locked. That should’ve been a give-away, but neither of them had noticed at the time, simply thinking that the worst would be that Rarity was gone, too.

They’d seen Rainbow Dash though, they’d seen the scars on Applejack and the rot Apple Bloom carried, they even witnessed Twilight’s own decay.

Yet they just went into that place and closed the door behind them as if they were guests at a friend’s house. They weren’t, though and Spike remembered it well. The air still smelled of an old perfume, there, on the stage of his mind. A mannequin had fallen over, another stood in the middle of the room wearing an unfinished dress of green silk and red brocade. All was quiet as they stepped on the ground, the dust on it shaking under the vibrations. Spike went to the counter, to look there, only to spot a broken lamp post on it with a letter from Sweetie Belle and a few bits.

Sorry for breaking your lamb. Pls forgive me, it said with the most average hoofwriting Spike had ever seen. He also noticed that the coins were actually painted cardboard.

“Don’t tell me she’s gone,” Twilight said, too loud.

Spike remembered, he did, he truly did. He saw a mare of pearlescent white jump from the shadows and throw Twilight down, the once well-cared for mane was a mess and the eyes were green fire. She roared and howled and sounded nothing like the pony they called their friend. Her hoof went down on Twilight’s head, once, twice. Spike still heard the noise, still saw the blood splattering on the ground.

Out of instinct, he went for the lamp post, jumped over the counter and smashed it against the beast’s head. There was a horrible crack-noise and she fell over. He remembered how he didn’t stop then and just kept on hitting and hitting. It was really just a blur, but he knew that he couldn’t have stopped on his own.

Twilight did that, she held him close and told him that it was alright, blood dripping from her broken nose and wounded forehead. She told him that they should just go and then the mare grabbed him and they walked home, but by then it was really nothing he understood anymore. It had just happened.

Twilight then remained in her laboratory, ignoring Spike completely, while he would just stand for hours in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror or washing his hands. Until the day came where he walked in on her lying on the floor, collapsed from over-exhaustion and hunger.

She hadn’t eaten in days, was surrounded by papers filled with theories about what could’ve happened and options to fix it that would clearly never work. He found her lying in the middle of such a mess and he decided to stop looking at the mirror for now. That was the moment where he decided to grow up.

During the time she spent sleeping, he began his first drawings of the broken sky and spotted that it did end where Canterlot was. He made his first run to the hospital for new bandages and medication, got some vegetables out of the forest. Suddenly he was able to work and as Twilight woke up, she found that everything ran smoother than it did.

Only a week after he’d given her the best drawing he had of the sky she told him that the Tear probably originated in Canterlot.

“I don’t know who did it, or why, but they probably messed up a pretty big ritual and tore a hole in our world,” she told him as they sat down in the basement, staring at the drawing of a circle she made. It was made out of small runes and to every side was a different specimen of ponykind. An earth pony, a pegasus pony, a unicorn pony and an alicorn.

“How big would a spell need to be for it to break the entire sky?” He asked, not quite believing one pony capable of such a feat.

“Too big for a mortal to fix,” Twilight answered sadly.

Spike’s eyes fell, he stared at the tea he had prepared for the both of them. “So, we can’t fix it?”

Twilight shook her head. “If we had the Elements of Harmony, it would actually be quite easy. We can assume that reality was thrown off balance, so the magic of the Elements could fix it quite easily, but such a magic cannot be worn without the accompanying artifacts. So that isn’t something that’ll happen anytime soon. The only other way would be. …”

Spike lifted his eyes, looked at her. She bit her lip, doubted herself. “There’s another way?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But … I don’t think it’s something we should. …”

“What is it?”

After a moment she pointed at the circle. “Well, the best way to describe that way is, well … What do you think lies at the heart of all of life?”

Spike shrugged, not understanding why it mattered. The tea was still hot and so he decided not to take a sip from it. “I don’t know, air?”

“It’s magic. The very fabric of our existence is a carefully laid net of magical ley-lines keeping our world stable.”

“Like a ball of yarn?”

She gave him an approving look. “That’s a pretty good analogy, yeah. Magic is at the center of all life and life creates things like love, friendship and harmony. They’re all forces that keep us alive no matter how dark things may turn. Discord, Sombra, Chrysalis, none of their villainy could hold out against the hopes and dreams of all living beings. Considering that, it is entirely possible for life to also challenge reality itself. We’re able to find strength within ourselves, everypony is capable of making their talents true, of taking a hold of their life. That’s what could save us, that strength within everypony.”

He looked at the circle. “How? Do you want to create new Elements of Harmony?”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, I can’t. I would if I could, but the Elements were created with the help of the Tree of Harmony. What I could do is much rawer than the Elements. If the essence of all of ponykind would gather, I could create a power that might close the Tear in the sky and let everything go back to normal.”

He found a smile coming to his face, but not to hers. “That’s awesome. We should do that!”

“The essence of all of ponykind, Spike. It means four beings need to unite so one of them can gather the power necessary. Three of them would need to die. I mean, I don’t think They have any essence left in them, not the sort we need. The sort that’s capable of dreaming.”

That made him halt, he thought of Rarity. “So we need to … kill. …”

“Yeah,” she said and put her hoof on his head. “But maybe there’s another way. No, I’m sure of it.”

Snow touched his claw, he opened his eyes again. The world appeared brighter than before. Had he fallen asleep? He certainly felt like it, his left foot had slept in, he felt cold. Behind him, what remained of the fire was but a dim ember. He grumbled, looking over the fields before him.

Twilight was gone, but he remembered now, that explanation she’d given him. Maybe another way really did exist, even though she hadn’t managed to see it before. No matter what, he needed to keep a bit of optimism.

As he rose up he didn’t feel much optimism, though. Rather, he felt cold and dead inside. Whatever force kept him alive, he didn’t know, but he kind of wish it stopped. The three ponies lay there sleeping by the fireside and he decided to let them stay like that for a moment longer. He walked over and with a breath of flames, re-ignited the campfire.

He went over to Rainbow Dash to check on her, finding that she’d actually ruined the diaper. Whether that made him glad of Applejack putting her into one, he wasn’t sure, but the dragon also wasn’t going to complain. It was probably easier to clean than letting her lie in a puddle of her own making.

But she needed to be cleaned and then a new diaper. Apple Bloom and Applejack looked good now, though, so he figured that he didn’t need to worry on their end. Still, the question was what they needed to do.

As he sat down by Rainbow Dash’s side, Applejack’s last words came to mind. Someone powerful enough to be responsible for this who also was from Canterlot. The only two ponies that came to mind were Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, neither of them were likely suspects.

“Spike?” He heard Apple Bloom ask.

He looked at her, how she rubbed her eyes after a good night’s sleep. “Mornin, Apple Bloom.”

“You had a good night?”

He shrugged. “Could’ve been better,” he answered and looked at the fire, wondering who else could’ve done it.

Apple Bloom rose up quietly, obviously trying her best to not disturb her sister’s rest. “Rainbow Dash looks like she’s sleeping well,” she said in a hushed voice.

“I’ll figure she’ll do a lot more sleeping before she’s going to wake up,” the dragon answered with a shrug, noticing that there wasn’t any breakfast.

“So, I guess we’ll be heading off soon again?” Apple Bloom asked.

He squinted his eyes at her. “What makes you think that?”

“Lack of food, perhaps? Also; I don’t want to stay in a cavern now that I’ve got working legs back, I mean, look at these babies,” the moment she was away from Applejack, she started jumping around much like a bunny rabbit. “I can even dance with them.”

Though the dance she did was rather awkward, at least the noise did make Applejack wake up. “Hrrmrghrg,” she said with a wisdom that truly did belong written down.

“Well said,” Spike answered her as he watched Apple Bloom’s embarrassingly bad flailing around. He found himself smile, despite it all.

Applejack shook her sleepiness off immediately, yawning once before she stood up. “Did you spot any of them walking corpses last night?”

He shook his head. “Nope, either they’re not active at night or they’re not hunting us.”

“Let’s hope for the latter and expect the first,” Apple Bloom threw in. It was a sentiment Spike was quick to agree with.

Applejack looked at her, thought about something that made her blush and then turned to Spike. Honestly, with the way the sisters’ relationship had been going till this point, the dragon didn’t find it hard to believe that Applejack found it a bit awkward that Apple Bloom was suddenly just taking the initiative. Then again, that’s just how she was, that youngest member of the Apple family.

“So you’re saying we should go, to where then? We don’t have any leads on whomever could’ve done this or why finding them would help us.”

Applejack nodded. “Alright, so hope about we look for somepony else?”

Spike tilted his head. “Like whom?” Somepony came to mind.

“Pinkie,” all three of them answered instantaneously.

Now that he thought about it, with them having left Ponyville, it was the most obvious choice. They knew where she was, they knew how to get there and Pinkie Pie tended to be the sort of pony who found solutions where nopony else could find them. Fact was, during an apocalypse one wanted to have a pony like Pinkie by their side.

“But we need some way to carry Rainbow Dash, too. I can’t carry her on my back the whole way,” Applejack said. “Not if we want to carry other stuff, too.”

Spike found himself agreeing to that, too. If they wanted to go on a journey, they also needed more than their coats and his scales. “I believe there’s another town just half a day away to the west,” he answered.

Applejack nodded. “Right then. I guess it’s settled.”

The atmosphere of departure was kind of overwhelming but Spike found the two of them smiling honestly at him, like they truly thought this to be the beginning of some sort of adventure.

“Why’re you two so happy about all of this?”

“I’m not happy,” answered Applejack. “I just feel like thanks to Twilight we got the strength to continue on, it’s like she’s still with us, like a guardian angel of sorts.”

Apple Bloom nodded. “It’s as if a voice is in the back of my head, cheering me on. It feels weird and awesome!”

He looked at them queerly, wondering why they would feel that way. All three of them had experienced the same thing after all? Or was it, once more, just that because he was a dragon, he couldn’t see the same world they did? No, he told himself, that doesn’t matter.

Spike, too, rose up again. “Alright, if you two think it’s alright this way, then we’ll head to the next town.”

The torn sky was out of sight, but through the dark of the clouds pierced some rays of light. He could even see them from here, like brilliant lances sent down by Celestia to give hope to the few that remained. The hopelessness they had experienced in Ponyville needed to serve as nothing but encouragement. Yes, what remained of this world needed to be kept alive with their hopes and dreams.

As the three packed up, Spike told himself that it was going to be alright, that they would somehow make it through this. Rarity and Twilight were definitely gone, but that didn’t mean they should give up. Twilight wouldn’t have wanted that, after all.

So he would walk on in her memory, because for Spike there was no pain at all.

~The End~