Score

by waterpear

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Rarity, Fluttershy, Adventure
Length: 5589

Rarity awakes from twenty years of cursed sleep to a tattered Equestria.

It's been twenty years since Rarity was last conscious. Ponyville has been leveled, and Rarity is only now waking up. Of all her friends, only Fluttershy remains in her home. The stoic faces of the Royal Guard have been replaced by uniformed soldiers, and a pillar of smoke rises over the horizon.

With nothing but each other, Rarity and Fluttershy are left to search Equestria for their friends, and to discover what force has managed to so deftly rebuild Equestria in its image.

Published 2014-07-21 05:30:06 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-18 03:04:31 UTC

Dawn

Rarity slumped out of her warm bed, feeling like her bones had been pounded into dust. What time was it? She couldn’t tell. The sun wasn’t directly visible, so she couldn’t even guess. It could be late in the morning, or—heaven forbid—the afternoon! A lady sleeping through an entire morning! Such indolence!

Bleary-eyed and yawning, she stretched as much as she could take. Oh, she needed that. She must have done something extraordinarily strenuous for her body to punish her so. That’s it, she resolved. She’d start exercising regularly—anything to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

Her bedroom was filthy, too. Dust was everywhere, absolutely everywhere. A pervasive coat of dingy gray dulled the grandeur of her room like mud on a diamond.

“Am I losing my eye for detail?” she muttered to herself. As she blew careful breaths over a lampshade, dust fell off, first in clouds, then in lumpy chunks of lint. “I should have noticed all this before it became so dreadful.”

But cleaning had to wait. Rarity was stiff and needed to stretch even more. A particularly stubborn knot was stuck in one of her legs, which she found herself massaging. It loosened, and Rarity closed her eyes as ecstatic relief flowed through her. Yes, yes, she was in relatively good condition now, and she was ready for a day of cleaning. Inchoate designs oozed from her subconscious, but it would not do to try and create in such conditions. She was also ravenous, for whatever reason, but it would not even do to eat in such conditions.

Downstairs, Rarity went to gather cleaning supplies. But something caught her eye through the window—or, rather, a conspicuous absence.

The houses across the street were gone, reduced to rubble and splinters.

Rarity looked around, seeing nothing in better shape than a few lone half-buildings wobbling over the debris. Some of the ruin was choked by weeds, tendrils of the meadow reclaiming ground long denied. The sky was lathered with clouds, deep as the detritus on the ground and just as haphazard. The trees were still, and the wind did not blow.

A splinter poked at Rarity’s hooves, which she unceremoniously plucked out with a wince. She stepped onto the street, preparing to look for signs of life. Cavernous potholes, dug by the feral elements, pocked the road, some half-full with debris. This part of town was the wrong place for to look for survivors, Rarity realized. No, if there were any, they would be at at Sugarcube Corner, and Pinkie would be getting ready to throw them a party.

Knowing that such an impressive disaster wouldn’t stop Pinkie Pie, that Pinkie Pie would move heaven and earth to make sure her friends were fine—Rarity smiled, heading to Sugarcube Corner

The bakery was still standing, in a sense. The windows were blown out, leaving but a few jagged edges that pretended to gleam in the diffuse sunlight. The door, too, was little more than overgrown splinters on a hinge. Sugarcube Corner’s iconic cupcake sign was long gone.

Rarity stepped inside. The interior of the ruined building was, at least, recognizable as a former bakery: there was a counter over there, and a couple booths on that side, and a chair lying on its side somewhere in the corner. But it was dark, quiet, and bereft of sweets. The counter display was smashed to pieces, leaving broken glass all over the floor.

Up to the second floor, Rarity trudged, stepping deliberately to not hurt her hooves on the glass. The doors upstairs, too, had been ripped off. Rarity had forgotten which room was Pinkie Pie’s, and assumed it was the one with the faded pinkish paint. All the rooms were completely empty, and none of them showed any signs of belonging to Pinkie Pie. No balloons, no streamers, no random joyful objects.

Rarity looked out a window-hole, trying to use the elevation to get a better view of things. Ordinarily, one could see Rainbow Dash’s cloud home somewhere up in the sky, a striking fountain of liquid rainbow in the middle of the otherwise monochrome sky. But Rarity couldn’t see any trace of it through the overcast. Whether it was missing or just obscured, she couldn’t tell. If only she were a pegasus.

To the left would be Sweet Apple Acres. The farmhouse and barn sagged like Granny Smith, but stood intact, just as proud as that old matriarch ever was. Yet the fields were choked by weeds, and the orchards were stripped of apples. It was not likely to be inhabited.

Upon further inspection, even Twilight’s castle, the newest and most obdurate landmark in Ponyville, was no more! Whatever had caused this disaster, apparently, had a...particular purpose in mind. But it had clearly failed. Rarity was still around, worrying for her closest friends—that was probably not intended.

If Rarity managed to survive a disaster just by sleeping in, surely her friends, crafty and efficient as they were, had found a way to get through it intact. But their homes were gone. Where were they? Rarity could think of no better places to look than the remaining houses.

The last obvious place to look was Fluttershy’s cottage. There was a good chance she’d find all her friends there. It was sufficiently far from the rest of town, and Fluttershy would be eager to take in anypony. Rarity knew that the slight, timid pegasus was tougher than she looked, but with Fluttershy, one couldn’t help but worry.

Rarity didn’t know what horror she was expecting to see at Fluttershy’s home, but she certainly was not expecting to see Fluttershy’s cottage in one solid piece. It was a bit weathered, yes. The paint had faded into various pale shades of yellow—all equally dreadful—and the ornamental thatching was a dry, brown pile of hay. It wasn’t at all presentable. But the cottage was standing, with no gaping holes or obvious structural problems.

Yet something was off. It felt unearthly, a sepulchral silence choking the air. Rarity took a while to place it: the pitter-patter of Fluttershy’s animal friends, normally the heartbeat of the house, was absent.

The door was locked. It was no time for pleasantries, so Rarity bucked the door, which came down almost too easily. The sleep-stiffness chose that moment to reassert itself, a spasm that came and went in a flash. Rarity cringed, and nearly stumbled. But she stuck her head through the doorway.

“Hello? Fluttershy, are you in there?” she called.

The cottage, nearly as dusty as Rarity’s home, reeked of ammonia and rot. Her stomach turned. Between the smell and her pain, Rarity wanted to walk away and never come back. But she’d come all the way out here, and she wanted to at least look for her friends. If nothing else, Fluttershy’s remains…

That is the wrong thing to be thinking about, Rarity.

Upstairs was Fluttershy’s bedroom. The covers were thrown across the room, and, on the bed, laid Fluttershy. The delicate pony coughed, rolling over in her sleep. She sighed, a sweet little noise that, to Rarity, was the most beautiful sound in all of Equestria.

She was fine.

As much as Rarity wanted to embrace Fluttershy in celebration, it was a bit too boisterous of a thing to do to a sleeping Fluttershy. But Rarity just had to wake her friend up.

“Fluttershy, wake up,” Rarity whispered into Fluttershy’s ear. Fluttershy still slept.

“Wake up,” Rarity ordered to no effect.

“Please, for the love of Celestia, wake up!” Rarity nudged Fluttershy. The pegasus breathed lightly, effectively undisturbed. Even shaking Fluttershy didn’t interrupt the steady, gentle rhythm.

Rarity swept out a spot to sit in without getting dusty. Anything to distract her—not that it helped. “Oh, Fluttershy, why won’t you wake up?” she mumbled.

Fluttershy shifted and coughed again. But this time, she groaned. Her eyes opened, and Fluttershy sat up in her bed and began to stretch.

“Agh. I haven’t been this stiff in goodness knows how long.” She began to turn, twisting her neck and limbs. She turned to face Rarity, then stopped.

“Rarity? What are you doing here?”

Rarity grinned, gazing at Fluttershy’s intact form. She held herself motionless on the floor, afraid that a sudden movement would make her fall apart into a blubbering mess like some sort of sugar-glass sculpture.

Fluttershy looked at Rarity as if her friend had lost her mind. “Is...is something wrong, Rarity?”

Rarity’s composure shattered. She dove onto Fluttershy in a hug, soaking the sheets with several tears. “Fluttershy...you have no idea how worried I’ve been,” she said through sobs. “I—I’m so glad you’re alright!”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because…” Rarity looked out the window. “Ponyville...isn’t...”

“Oh no! What happened? Are our friends alright? What about the animals?” Fluttershy bolted down the stairs, then started darting through the living room, checking every corner for any sign of animal life.

There were no such signs. “Angel?” Fluttershy called. “Harry? Hummingway? Mr. Mousey? Where are you? Did I oversleep and forget to feed them? Did they abandon me? Did I abandon them?” Fluttershy shuddered, breathing heavily. “Oh, please don’t leave me! Please!”

Rarity wrapped a hoof around her friend’s shoulders. “Fluttershy, you’ve done nothing wrong. You are as good a friend as any woodland creature could hope to have.”

“...y-yes?”

“It wasn’t anything you’ve done that drove away the animals. It was...something else. Almost certainly the same thing that wrecked Ponyville.”

“Did—did you say ‘wrecked’?” Fluttershy was calmer now, but not by much.

“Unfortunately, yes. As I said, the town’s in dreadful shape. I suppose you should see for yourself, if you think you can handle it.”

“Is everypony alright?”

“You and I are the only ponies I’ve seen.”

Eyes watering, Fluttershy glanced at the doorway. “I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. But I can’t put it off forever. Let’s go.”

The two ponies walked out the cottage’s gaping doorway. Rarity took a deep breath, letting it soak through her. The outdoors was a welcome change after the nasty, neglected atmosphere of the cottage. Fluttershy, too, sighed as she emptied her lungs of stale air.

On the way there, Rarity so desperately wanted to talk about little things, things that weren’t Ponyville’s demise. But what? The weather? No, the weather was clearly not good in the slightest. Any topic that came to mind seemed hollow and cagey, like an obstinate filly trying too hard not to talk about it.

It was a great relief when Fluttershy broke the silence.

“So, um, what happened?”

Rarity shook her head. “I don’t know. The damage was already done when I woke up.”

“No, what happened to Ponyville? I mean, um, what am I going to be looking at?”

“Oh! Well, most of the buildings are destroyed. Completely, I might add. A few of them are intact, which just means that a couple rafters have yet to fall over. And, as I said, there aren’t any ponies save the two of us.”

“That’s awful…” Fluttershy trailed off, looking at the ground one step ahead of her. And the pair silently trudged to the outskirts of town.

Fluttershy gasped. Rarity looked over, ready to lend a supporting shoulder, cursing fate for making her the bearer of such bad news.

“No. No, this isn’t real. This can’t be real.”

“I do hope you’re right, Fluttershy. I hope this is some cruel prank that Discord’s playing.”

“He wouldn’t dare.” Fluttershy swept her gaze over the still, shattered devastation, piles of brown splinters and gray limestone dust lying beneath the silver-white wall of clouds above, “This isn’t his style. It wasn’t his fault, so that means—oh, Celestia!” Fluttershy, her legs collapsing below her, cried.

Instinctively, Rarity knelt down to comfort her friend. But, looking at Ponyville, she found that she had no comfort to give.

Fluttershy still wasn’t happy. There was no way she could be right after such events. But even here, in the ruins of her hometown, she was beginning to feel a little better. Time really does heal all wounds, she thought. Oh, and not being so hungry helps, too.

The wild, unkempt grass at the edges of town was, as far as the ponies could tell, edible. Granted, it was a shade too bitter to be pleasant, but it had notes of citrus and was certainly better than starving. Fluttershy had eaten worse.

Rarity, apparently, had not.

“This grass,” she mumbled, swallowing. “Bleh. Fluttershy, are you sure this is fit for pony consumption?”

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. Don’t worry, a little bitterness won’t kill you.”

Rarity glared at the grass as if had spilled wine on a pallet of brand new dresses. “A little?”

“It’s better than being a lot hungry, wouldn’t you think?”

“Just barely. ” Rarity reached down to graze on another tuft, cringing in advance. “I can see why ponies of olden times never had weight problems.”

Fluttershy watched Rarity bite, make a token effort to chew, and swallow the grass whole. “Rarity, please don’t forget to chew thoroughly before eating.”

“Fluttershy, dear, you aren’t my mother.”

The pegasus giggled. “I know, but you’re going to regret it when it comes out the other end…”

“Fluttershy!” Rarity looked at Fluttershy as if she’d deliberately spilled wine on a new dress. “A lady mustn’t discuss such...business! It’s uncivilized—and so is grazing like a vagabond, for that matter!”

Fluttershy looked back at Ponyville. “Well, aren’t we…?”

Rarity, too, sighed. “I suppose we are.” She frowned. “That doesn’t mean we have to like it.” She returned to her grazing, less displeased but still not eager.

Fluttershy, on the other hand, looked to the clouds. “Rarity?”

“Yes?”

“You said you never found Rainbow Dash’s cloud home, right?”

“I couldn’t, no. Granted, it might be on the other side of the clouds, but I can’t exactly just fly up and check on her.”

“Would you like me to?”

Rarity nodded. “By all means.”

Fluttershy lifted off. Ordinarily, she didn’t like flying at cloud level, but she’d been stretching her wings ever since she’d woken up, strangely eager to lift herself off the ground. Of course, the idea that she might find Rainbow Dash encouraged her.

She breached the cloud formation, as if coming up for air. The sunlight, bright and direct, would take some time to adjust to. Fluttershy winced, squinting to block out the glare. A few cirrus clouds drifted above her, mere wisps compared to the field of nimbus below.

Fluttershy looked around, flying in a circle. The slightest hint of rainbow would stick out. Yet there was only white and blue as far as she could see. Nor was Rainbow Dash’s house anywhere above the overcast. No, Rainbow Dash, like all the others, was gone from Ponyville.

Canterlot Mountain pierced the horizon. The dark purple stone stood tall, caring nothing about Ponyville’s misfortune. Yet the mountain was not unaltered. The spires of the castle were wiped away, along with, as far as Fluttershy could tell, the city of Canterlot itself. In its place were a few watchtowers, gray as dead mud, overlooking a few squat, blocky buildings.

Fluttershy dropped like a stone; it was now her turn to bear bad news. Rarity was looking to the sky, waiting for Fluttershy to return.

“Did you see her?”

“No.” Fluttershy shook her head. “I didn’t see her house, either.”

“Ah.” Rarity turned her head to the ground. “That’s what I feared.”

“But there’s...something else missing.”

“Oh?”

Fluttershy took a breath. “When I was up there—Canterlot’s gone too. The castle, the city—everything.”

Rarity said nothing for a bit, then looked up, in the direction of the road to Canterlot. “Shall we investigate?”

“Um...I don’t see why not.”

“Yes, it isn’t as if there’s anything for us to do in Ponyville. Besides, it won’t do to wallow in misfortune forever, don’t you think?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“Then let’s go.” Rarity walked ahead.

“Now?”

Rarity replied without looking back. “Yes, now.”

They set off down the road, not bringing anything and not looking back.

Smoke Signal

The road to Canterlot had not been used for some time. It was solid, despite being made of dirt, and, in its glory days, had been pleasant to travel on. That it was still recognizable, let alone useful, was a testament to the engineer’s wisdom and the workers’ tenacity. Even then, the road was beginning to crumble, and weeds poked through the cracks that spidered across its surface.

As Rarity and Fluttershy went through a section of the Unicorn Woods, the cloud cover began to disperse. They had gone out from under a disk of cloud, leaving a slate-blue sky filled with fuzzy clumps of down. Sunlight stroked Rarity’s back, its warm rays reminding her of happier times.

Soon, they reached the foot of Canterlot Mountain. Rarity was not exactly thrilled by the idea of hiking up the mountainside path. True, she’d gone through mountainous terrain many times to feed her boutique’s hunger for gems, but those scraggly ridges, compared to Canterlot Mountain, were infants playing at the feet of a tall, solid father.

That hike, however, would not happen. The start of the path was barred by a gate, made of straight steel tubes. It was unpainted, yet free of rust. The gate gleamed in the afternoon sun, its glare as obstinate as angry wasps.

“I don’t like this gate,” Fluttershy said.

“Nor do I.” Rarity turned to face away from the gate. “Stand back, Fluttershy. I’m going to terminate this crime against fashion.”

Rarity stepped back, preparing to strike, She looked over her shoulder, trying not to let any of the reflected light shine in her eye. Aligned with the gate, she was ready to strike. Though she wasn’t particularly experienced with heavy kicks like these, Rarity knew she could do a lot of damage to something if she really wanted to. And this gate was, of course, both hideous and obstructive. It had to go.

Rarity let loose and kicked, bracing for the impact. It turned out to be more than she was expecting. The gate didn’t buckle or sway, and a good chunk of the kick bounced back into Rarity’s hooves. It stung, and Rarity nearly stumbled forward into the dirt. Regaining balance was easy, but her hind hooves still throbbed.

“Rarity!” Fluttershy shouted. “Um, why’d you kick the gate? Isn’t it there for a reason?”

“What reason could possibly be good enough to have a gate blocking the way to Canterlot?”

Fluttershy looked at the gate, squinting. “Whoever put this gate up doesn’t want anypony to go up there, and they might get angry and even hurt us.”

“Hm. Good point.” Rarity looked back at the path the two had just taken. “But now what are we going to do? We can’t just give up.”

Fluttershy nodded in silent assent.

“I say we keep going until we find something.” Rarity absently took a step. “We could just wait here for somepony to open the gate, but that could take ages, and I’d rather not stare at this—thing—for hours on end.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea.”

They left the gate behind. The path they chose turned away from the forest, heading through the craggy terrain of the gem fields. Rarity had gone through this road many times, and, while she was used to dodging sharp rocks and climbing over lumps in the ground, Fluttershy was not. The pegasus had started flying a couple feet above the ground, massaging her hooves as she floated.

The pair had their eyes trained on the sky, rather than the drab, blocky earth around them. The sun was setting, a fire-color painting of ashen orange and delicate pink. A thin pillar of smoke cut through the image, but its source was somewhere over the horizon.

“It’s rather early to be lighting a fire, don’t you think?” Rarity asked.

“Well, it is a bit chilly. And maybe they’re going to cook dinner.”

“Dinner, right. Ugh, don’t remind me,” Rarity grumbled. “But once we get through, we’ll be able to graze again. Not that I’m thrilled about having more wild grass, but it is. at the least, something.”

“Me neither.” Fluttershy giggled, and her stomach growled as well.

“Perhaps those ponies would share a bit of their food with us, and we can have a proper meal for—”

Fluttershy gasped. “Wait a second. How do we know that they’re ponies?”

“It’s a campfire. What else would that smoke be?”

“It could be a d-dragon—”

“Fluttershy, don’t worry!” Rarity laid a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “Dragons are forbidden from these gem fields, with the exception of Spike. It’s part of the agreement, as it were: we ponies leave them alone, and they leave us alone.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Fluttershy sighed.

Rarity ached, and Fluttershy sank closer to the ground. But they trudged on towards the source of the smoke, propelled by the desire to be at a place where they could adequately stop.

No fire came into view, nor was there any pit of smoldering embers. As the ponies approached, they soon realized that the smoke was coming not from a campsite, but from a pit in the ground.

Fluttershy stopped, landing. “Rarity.” She nearly whimpered. “That looks like dragon smoke.”

“How can you tell?”

Fluttershy pointed up. Rather than dispersing, like smoke from a fire, it coagulated into jet-black wads of soot that drifted through the sky.

“That is unusual. Wait right here, Fluttershy. I’ll go check.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“I’ll be fine.” Rarity walked into the pit.

Fluttershy waited. Images flashed through her mind: Rarity choking on smoke. Rarity being gored by a dragon. Rarity falling into a trap and being enslaved by diamond dogs. Rarity’s egress being blocked by a cave-in…

‘I’ll be fine,’

Fluttershy fixated on that sentence, trying to ward off the waking nightmares of her imagination with echoes of her friend’s voice.

The sun had slipped to the horizon, lighting the sky orange, as if it had been lit ablaze. Rarity came out of the pit at last, and called to Fluttershy.

“Oh, Fluttershy! Come here!”

“Is it a dragon?” Fluttershy shouted.

“It’s perfectly safe! I’ve found our little Spikey-Wikey!”

Fluttershy tiptoed to the pit, eyeing the column of smoke all the while. Rarity practically jumped back in, and beckoned Fluttershy to come in as well.

“Is this smoke Spike’s…”

Rarity nodded once. “Come in. I’ll explain everything.”

Fluttershy jumped down, gliding with her wings. Immediately, she felt warm; she hadn’t realized it was that cold above ground. The smoke poured out of a small hole in the ground, but only a weak odor, a mere innuendo of burnt something-or-other, tickled her nose.

“Hurry!” Rarity jittered her hooves on the ground, a grin on her face. “Go down that tunnel!”

Fluttershy did so, and Rarity followed. The tunnel swallowed up the last of the setting sunlight, and it soon became too dark to see. Rarity lit her horn up, casting everything in a dim blue glow.

Rarity took the lead, allowing Fluttershy to follow the light. Keeping her eyes and ears open for danger, Fluttershy trudged forward. The ground sloped, and Fluttershy slowed her pace, trying not to slip. Rarity, however, did not, and her light slowly moved away from Fluttershy, until she abruptly halted.

“Stop!” Rarity whispered. The ponies had entered a chamber, held up by pillars of rock, crudely carved, but strong enough to support the ceiling.

Rarity pointed at one of the pillars. A note was attached to it.

“Read this.” Rarity pointed her horn at the piece of paper, and Fluttershy read it.

To whom it may concern:

Please don’t disturb me. I am a dragon. While I’m normally easy to get along with, I am currently taking my hundred-year sleep. This is very important to me. If you awaken me for no good reason, I will be very grumpy. If you try to loot my hoard, you will be injured, and possibly burned to a crisp. After all, I am a dragon.

I’ve tried to filter my breath smoke to make it thinner. But if you came here because there was a large smoke cloud that was blocking out the sun and making it hard to grow crops, then please ring the bell, and I’ll relocate. I’m very sorry for almost destroying civilization.

Sincerely,

~ Spike

P.S.

Have I mentioned that I am a dragon, and that I have very sharp claws and am very large?

I do not suggest trying to loot my hoard.

“We found somepony! Er, someone. But the point is, we aren’t alone!” Rarity grinned, her smile gleaming almost brighter than her horn.

“That’s wonderful,” Fluttershy said. “Can we turn in for the night? I’m getting tired.”

“Oh, but you simply must see what Spike’s done with the place!”

“Yes, but—” Fluttershy cut herself off with a yawn.

“I suppose you have a point, Fluttershy.” Rarity yawned as well. “Get yourself comfortable—as comfortable as you can here, anyway—and I’ll turn off the light.”

Fluttershy tried various positions, eventually deciding to curl her legs under her body. “Good night, Rarity.”

“Good night, dear.” The light from Rarity’s horn extinguished, and Fluttershy heard Rarity shifting around. Despite Rarity’s excitement just a few minutes ago, and despite the sheer inelegance of the accommodations, Fluttershy soon heard gentle snores, as delicate as the chirp of crickets.

Fluttershy’s mind then drifted to the subject of Spike. She was not looking forward to seeing him, though Rarity probably would. True, this was Spike. He was definitely not a bad dragon. He was easily the most good-hearted dragon she had ever met. But he was still a dragon. And Fluttershy’s fear of dragons, while not as bad as it used to be, was still an irrational fear. Just thinking about what Spike might be made blood rush to her feet.

She concluded that, as long as she didn’t actually see Spike, it wouldn’t be scary. And she soon fell asleep.

Rarity didn’t know what time it was, and wasn’t even sure if she’d woken up. It was completely dark. She’d encountered darkness like this once, when she was a filly, searching for gems. She’d gotten stuck, and night fell before her parents came to rescue her. But it was warm here. The air did not nip at her flank, and she did not shiver.

She lit her horn up. Ah, this was the chamber in Spike’s den! Fluttershy was on the floor, curled up and breathing peacefully. It reminded Rarity of the day before, when Fluttershy had failed to wake up.

Fluttershy stirred, and Rarity let go of a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“Good morning, Rarity.” Fluttershy stretched, sighing in relief. “Well, I guess it’s morning? My goodness, I’m hungry!”

Rarity winced, suddenly aware of her own hunger pangs. “As am I.”

There was a pause, then Fluttershy sighed. “We had it so good, didn’t we?”

“Pardon?”

“Remember how nice everything was? And then it all just...I don’t know if I can make it.”

“You’re tougher than you think, Fluttershy.” Rarity turned to face a passage on the other side of the chamber. “I wonder if Spike has any food tucked away in his little hidey-hole…”

“A-are we going to steal food from a...dragon?”

“Fluttershy, dear, our little Spikey-wikey wouldn’t mind a bit!”

“That smoke didn’t look like it came from a little dragon.” Fluttershy grimaced.

“Either way, he’s our friend, and he wouldn’t mind sharing with us. Especially if we only take just enough to get us to the other side of the gem fields.” Rarity’s stomach growled. “Which, ah, might be a rather large portion.” She giggled. “Spike will understand.”

“All right. But I’m going to stay here, if that’s alright with you.”

“Do you really want to sit here by yourself in the dark?”

Fluttershy paused. “On second thought, I think I’ll follow you.”

The passage looked like two different areas mashed together. The floor below was rough and tumble; a few loose gems were scattered on top of slabs and juts of rock, glittering only due to Rarity’s light. But the walls and ceiling were as clean as blocks of soil could possibly be, supported by beams of hewn stone.

Rarity trod slowly. The passage was steep; slipping would earn her a tumble to the bottom, complete with gashes and cuts. Fluttershy, at least, was floating, leaving Rarity free to worry about herself.

“Are you sure this isn’t a trap, Rarity?” Fluttershy looked around, avoiding looking at the supports as if they were the bones of the Ur-Dragon himself. “I hear dragons sometimes dig labyrinths to keep thieves from getting to the hoard…”

Rarity groaned, rolling her eyes. “It’s Spike,” she hissed. “He doesn’t do traps.”

Fluttershy flinched. “S-sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Rarity had regretted her tone the moment she slipped. “It’s just...” She saw no need to finish that sentence. If I’m going to act so brutishly just because I missed a few meals, then I have no right to call myself a lady.

“No, it’s still my fault. I’m, um, having trouble adjusting to all this. This is Spike’s lair, but it’s a dragon’s lair, and Spike is a baby dragon...but he’s not anymore.”

Rarity chose not to reply.

Near the end of the passage, the floor turned on a sharp edge and became less steep. The final stretch formed what amounted to an antechamber, and Rarity knew what she’d see in the next room.

She whispered to Fluttershy. “If you don’t want to see a full-grown dragon—”

“I don’t.” Fluttershy paused. “But I do want to see Spike.”

“Very well. Do you promise to remain composed?”

Fluttershy nodded.

They went forward. The room they entered was immense, for it was a dragon’s bedroom. The ceiling was high; the room was as tall as any building in Ponyville. After going through so many tunnels, just looking up made Rarity almost dizzy with awe.

The most obvious thing in the room, of course, was the great purple dragon sleeping upright. Smoke poured from his nostrils, but the warm, black clouds of soot drifted through a hole in the ceiling, leaving the bedroom’s air clear, if a little stale. Next to him was an immense, mangled bell, a contortion of brass that looked mostly like a dome.

Piles of things were stacked here and there. Rarity’s horn light wasn’t bright enough to make out what they were precisely, but—oddly enough for a dragon’s lair—they didn’t seem to be gems.

Fluttershy shuffled to one of the piles near the edge of the light cone, trying very hard not to look at the dragon. Rarity, however, looked up, straight at the dragon’s face—at least, as best as she could in such conditions. Even from this distance, and even in this light, his was a fearsome face, a mass of angular scales pointing into one solid wedge. It was hard to imagine that this was once Spike.

The cute little baby dragon with a cute little crush on her—he built this passage. He was king of the gem fields. He could doom Equestria to a century of starvation by accident. He was the biggest, meanest thing around, and would bring a swift end to anything that woke him too soon.

He’s all grown up, Rarity thought. Oh, I wish I could have seen if. If only—

A clatter rang from the corner of the room, echoing dimly off the soil walls. Rarity’s breath caught. Would the dragon—would Spike wake up? She turned to the source of the noise just in time to see Fluttershy skitter into the corner.

Spike didn’t even stir. Rarity’s breath returned, still ragged and clammy. She went to examine what Fluttershy had apparently done.

“S-sorry!” Fluttershy said. “I just wanted to see what this stuff was.”

Now that she was close, Rarity could see that these were sealed aluminum cans, gleaming like the gate that barred the climb to Canterlot. Unlike store-bought canned food, the cans were unpainted, a tacit proclamation that their contents were useful yet unpleasant. The only clue to their contents was scrawled on the lids: Spinach.

“Thank you so much, darling!” Rarity couldn’t help but hug Fluttershy. “It’s not great, but it’s food.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. Spike brought them down here, and I just, um, kinda stumbled into them. He won’t mind if we take them, right?”

“Of course not, Fluttershy! Why would a dragon keep canned spinach, anyway? Surely you don’t think Spike’s going to eat that stuff!”

Fluttershy giggled. “I don’t think any of my animals would eat it if they had a choice. But I hope it helps us get to the other side of the fields. Wait, how are we going to open them anyway?”

The cans began to glow one by one, floating to follow Rarity. “I figured out a trick back when I was first trying to start the boutique. Now, come along, Fluttershy. We have a civilization to discover.”

Rarity began climbing out the lair, hardly noticing the strain of carrying the cans. How could she? While far from palatable, canned spinach was much better than wild grass. She planned to treat herself to a more civilized meal at the first opportunity, but for the time being, this would suffice for Fluttershy and her.

Fluttershy, swallowing her fears, finally took a look at Spike before leaving. He wasn’t so bad for a dragon. After all, he left a cache of food.