Spike was walking down the main street of Ponyville, once again being sent out on an errand as per his master’s directive.
“I need more quills, Spike,” he muttered. “You weren’t doing anything today; it was your day off, after all.”
He sidestepped Big Mac, who was pulling the Apple Family stand back home for the day.
“Oh, sure, Twilight. I’d love to just go out and get you some more quills. I wasn’t here, just enjoying the one day off I have a fortnight, reading the comic I bought with the three bits I earn in a month.”
Spike kicked a stone, which flicked up and hit Bon Bon in the back of the head.
“Hey!” the cream mare shouted, looking around. “Who threw that?”
Spike ducked behind Carrot Top’s stall, hoping the notoriously grumpy mare wouldn’t see him. He held his breath as he waited.
“E-excuse me, Miss Top?”
Spike did a double-take. He knew that voice, but it certainly didn’t sound like it normally did.
“Oh, Scootaloo!” Carrot Top replied. “How are you, dear?”
“I-I’m good, Miss Top.”
Spike peeked his head around the corner, and confirmed that yes, it was Scootaloo, though she looked very different to how he normally saw her. Her mane was far more disheveled than it normally was, and Spike was certain that dirt was rubbed into her mane and coat deliberately, rather than her usual scruffiness.
“I was wondering if you had any day-old carrots left… I don’t have much—”
“Oh, nonsense!” Carrot Top replied. “Don’t fret, Scootaloo! You save that money for something important.” Spike watched, wide-eyed, as Carrot Top packed a paper bag full with the best carrots on her stall. “There you go, dear. Make sure you eat well!”
“Thanks, Miss Top!” Scootaloo replied. Spike was surprised when her eyes started watering. “It’s because of the generosity of ponies like you that I don’t have to scavenge from trash cans anymore.”
“Oh, you poor dear!” Carrot Top held her hoof to her mouth. “Well, how about one more for the road, then?”
Spike watched in amazement as Carrot Top hoofed over another carrot, which Scootaloo caught in her mouth with surprising dexterity. She gave a big grin around the carrot, then galloped off.
“What on Equus just happened?”
Spike knew he had to get those quills and return to the library as soon as possible, but he had seen Scootaloo dash in and out of the same alleyway four times now.
Each time, she had poured the same sob story onto one of the grocery vendors throughout the market. Each time she would receive a hefty amount of vegetables or fruits, and she never spent a single bit.
The little dragon followed Scootaloo to the alleyway, intending to get to the bottom of this.
Spike had to know what was going on.
“What just happened?” Spike asked as he looked around Scootaloo’s modest home. He had set a large pile of grocery bags on the counter.
“Orphan tears,” Scootaloo replied.
“Orphan what?” the dragon asked.
“Orphan tears!” Scootaloo repeated. “I couldn’t be bothered to carry the groceries back myself, so I had you carry them for me.”
*Thinking back on it later, Spike realised that could have gotten him into a fair amount of trouble, had anypony seen him…
Spike thought back, wracking his brain for a memory of what had happened. He remembered following the filly into the dark alleyway* before demanding to know what was going on.
Then there was something about how he wouldn’t understand what it was like to have no parents, then something about the hardships of living alone.
Next thing he knew, he was placing groceries on Scootaloo’s counter.
Spike shook his head. Looking at the clock on Scootaloo’s wall, he realised there was a good forty minutes he could not account for.
Twilight was going to kill him!
“How did—”
“It’s pretty simple, Spike me-boy,” Scootaloo said, wrapping her forearm around the dragon’s shoulders, “When you’re an orphan, you just turn on the waterworks, and you can get whatever you want.”
“That’s terrible!” Spike shouted. “How can you do that?”
“It’s not my fault.” Scootaloo sniffled, tears welling in her eyes. “I just do what I have to do to survive. You don’t know what it’s like, not having a mom and dad to come home to…”
“I do too know what it’s like!” Spike yelled. He looked down at the hoof in his claw. When did he start cleaning her hooves? He put the hoof down in disgust. “My mom and dad gave me up before I was even hatched.”
“Really?” Scootaloo asked.
“Yeah.” Spike sniffled, wiping his snotty nose with a claw. “They left me to be an experiment at a university. I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”
Scootaloo pulled Spike in for a hug as the drake began to cry. She gently stroked his spines, soothing him.
“There, there,” Scootaloo cooed. “I didn’t know, Spike… but you should totally use this!”
“W-what?”
“Yeah, I mean, if you’re an orphan, too,” Scootaloo said, letting Spike out of the hug. “You should totally channel this; you could get anything you want.”
“A-anything?”
“Yeah, how do you think I got this house?” Scootaloo replied. “Silver Spoon’s dad was very understanding, and said Silver Spoon didn’t need her allowance this old rental was giving her!”
Spike sat up straight. This is so wrong, but… A wicked smile crossed his face.
“No, no!” Scootaloo chastised. “Not like that. Big, soulful eyes and a quivering lip.”
She dragged him towards her room, setting him down in front of a mirror.
“Now say, ‘I have no parents’,” she commanded.
“I have no parents.”
“Now… quiver that lip for me!”
Spike tried again, quivering his lip. “I have no parents.”
“Good… now, stutter a little and try to tear up.”
“I-I have no parents,” Spike said, quivering his lip.
“Hmm, that’s good, but you need to be able to tear up on demand. Try to think of the saddest thing you can.”
What if I don’t have a chance with Rarity?
“I-I d-don’t have any parents,” Spike said, teary-eyed and lip aquiver.
“Perfect!” Scootaloo squealed. “We can work on your backstory later, but for now, let’s go and try you out on somepony.”
“Oh, howdy, Spike! Here for more quills?” Davenport asked with a chuckle.
“Y-Yes, sir,” Spike said, looking at his feet.
Davenport looked down at the strangely acting dragon. “Is something the matter, Spike?”
“N-no, nothing, sir!”
Davenport would not be fooled; something was most definitely wrong. Spike was a terrible actor, after all.
“Now, come on, Spike. Come sit down, and tell me what’s—Oh, hello, Scootaloo. I didn’t see you there!”
“H-Hi, Mr. Davenport,” Scootaloo whispered, not looking the stallion in the eyes. “I’m just helping Spike with his work, so he doesn’t get in trouble again.”
“Get in trouble?” Davenport asked.
“It… it’s nothing—” Spike muttered.
“It’s not nothing, Spike!” Scootaloo growled. She turned to Davenport. “His master gets angry at him when he takes too long with his jobs.”
“Your master?” Davenport asked.
“T-Twilight Sparkle,” Spike all-but-whispered.
“I thought she was, like, your mother, or something,” Davenport said.
“Would a mother make her child sleep in a dog bed at the foot of her own?” Scootaloo hissed. Spike winced, knowing it was all too true.
“Son,” Davenport said, kneeling down to meet the drake’s eyes, “is that true?”
“Y-Yes, sir. Please don’t say anything to her.”
“Where are your parents?”
“I-I don’t have any parents,” Spike said, looking at Davenport with tears in his eyes. “They abandoned me… to my master… before I was even hatched.”
“I can not believe that worked!” Spike said, laughing as he lounged about on his brand new chaise longue. They had decided to leave it at Scootaloo’s house, so as not to arouse Twilight’s suspicion.
“Told ya!” Scootaloo laid across the drake’s lap, lightly dozing.
“And it works on anypony?”
“Pretty much,” Scootaloo replied. “There’s a few scrooges who are too tight-hoofed to give any hoof-outs, but for the most part, yeah.”
“But don’t they remember you coming back, like, each week?”
“Nah,” Scootaloo answered, waving a hoof above her. “Orphans exist in this little zone where everypony feels bad for them, but nopony wants to actually do anything about it. So they give a little bit and turn a blind eye. Makes ‘em feel good, you know?”
“So really,” Spike said, running his claw across the silk brocade cushion, “we’re doing a kind of, public service.”
“Yep,” Scootaloo replied. “Now shut up, this couch is calling me to sleep.”
“Here you go, Spike my boy,” Mr. Cake said, hoofing over a large cupcake.
“So how much is the pie going to cost?” Twilight asked the baker.
“Twenty bits, Princess,” Mr. Cake replied, coldly.
“O-Oh,” Twilight said, counting out her bits. It seemed to her that prices in Ponyville had shot up quite drastically in the recent weeks… most likely because of the palace on its outskirts. Ponyville was considered a Royal City now, after all.
She couldn’t help but worry how the price increase was affecting her citizens. From the dark scowl Bon Bon and Lyra were directing her way as Twilight left the bakery, she assumed it affected them poorly.
“So, Spike, what are you going to do with your day off?” Twilight asked. “Take a nap, or maybe some baking? Read another comic book?”
“Nah,” Spike said, waving a claw. “I’m gonna hang out with Scoots today.”
“Oh?” Twilight replied. It was surprising— Spike and Scootaloo had never seemed close before, but they’d been spending a lot of time together in the recent weeks. The alicorn chuckled. She remembered her older brother and a certain other princess going through a phase like that. “Well, have fun, but remember— once you give that certain treasure away, you can never get it back.”
“Umm… okay?”
Spike left Twilight, unaware of the grin across her face as he walked away.
“Hey, tubby!” Scootaloo said as she poked Spike’s stomach.
“Mmmmrf, geddoff!” Spike swatted at the pegasus filly currently lounging atop his belly.
“Nah, you’re nice and warm,” she said, draping herself over the drake. “You wouldn’t push a poor orphan out into the cold, would you?” she asked, crocodile tears welling in her eyes.
“That doesn’t work on me anymore, Scoots!”
“Eh, you can’t blame a filly for trying!” Scootaloo laughed. “But seriously, you are getting a little big, you know.”
“I’m just big-boned!” Spike said, rolling over and toppling Scootaloo from her perch. The filly tumbled down the pile of charity goods Spike was lounging on top of.
“Oof!” she yelped as she landed, an antique clock poking her between the shoulderblades. “That hurt!”
“So did calling me ‘tubby’.”
“You know…” Scootaloo said as she climbed the pile of goods again, crawling back on top of her comfortable furnace, “Diamond Tiara was bragging about her holiday home in Baltimare yesterday at school… I was thinking of talking to Mr. Rich about it. What do you think, a nice little summer house for us, overlooking Horseshoe Bay?”
“I think that sounds great!” Spike pulled the filly close to his chest. “We’re running out of room in here.”
“How could we not see this coming?” Roseluck screamed as she ran down the main street of Ponyville.
Ponies scattered everywhere as the gargantuan dragon tromped down the street.
“It’s okay!” Scootaloo shouted from the dragon’s shoulder, as Spike ripped the jeweler’s shop from its foundation. “We’re orphans!”
“O-Oh,” the jeweler pony replied, calming down. “Well, if that’s the case, please take what you need!”
Spike reached his massive claw down and swiped up the display counter.
“Thanks!” Scootaloo called, as the pair walked away.
“Now, what lesson have we learned today?” Celestia asked the small pegasus and the large tied-up dragon.
“Not to abuse ponies’ sympathy?” Spike answered.
“Not to weaponize pity?” Scootaloo said.
“Verily! That thou wouldst abuse the trust of thy fellow ponies…” Luna shook her head. “‘Tis immoral and unethical!”
“B-but,” Scootaloo said, tears welling up in her eyes, “we’re just poor little orphans, with no mother or father to—”
“O, putst it back in thy deck,” Luna said, leveling a stern glare at Scootaloo.
“Putst?” Celestia rolled her eyes at her sister. “Just get used to modern vernacular already, Lulu. You’re losing your touch.”
“Silence, Sister. We are making a point!” Luna glowered at her sister, but pressed on. “We lost our parents when we were but babes, so thou cannot play the orphan-card against us.”
“Really?” Spike and Scootaloo asked.
“Yes, it is true,” Celestia said, nodding her head. “We were still foals in diapers when our parents passed on.”
“Oh…” Spike and Scootaloo replied, neither looking at the princesses.
“We will pardon you for your actions, so long as you learn from this,” Celestia said.
“Yes, Princess,” they replied.
King Bloodtalon sat atop his throne. The Equestrian Princesses were due to arrive any moment.
The griffons had known the two princesses as shrewd negotiators throughout the Empire’s history… but Bloodtalon was no pushover.
“Presenting their highnesses,” the seneschal squawked, “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna of Equestria.”
King Bloodtalon raised an eyebrow as two shabby-looking alicorns entered his court. They were both covered in dirt, and wore heshen rags instead of any royal garment.
“Oh, King Bloodtalon,” Celestia wailed, grovelling at the griffon’s feet. “Your Empire is so prosperous, and ours is so lowly.”
Bloodtalon liked this: Equestrians grovelling at his feet! He saw in these two no evidence of the shrewd negotiators that he’d heard about.
“We lost our parents when we were but babes,” Luna said, scooting closer to the throne on her knees. “We’ve done our best— but as orphans, there is only so much we can do on our own!”
“Could you…” Tears welled up in Celestia’s eyes, as did her sister’s. “…could you see to ceding to us just a little bit of your western lands?”
