The Scaly Little Toaster

by Brass Polish

Rating: everyone
Tags: Fluttershy, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, Random, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Comedy
Length: 4961

Spike discovers that the fire he produces is a flavour enhancer for whatever it may cook, and so does everyone in Equestria.

Spike discovers that the fire he produces is a flavour enhancer for whatever it may cook, and so does everyone in Equestria.

Published 2014-11-29 17:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-29 17:50:02 UTC

1 Spiders

One morning, Twilight and Spike were sorting through some old drafts of royal memos when Twilight lifted a sheet up and yelped.

“Spider?” asked Spike.

“Uh, huh,” Twilight answered uncomfortably.

“You know, if anyone who wants to overthrow you finds out that you’re scared of spiders,” Spike said, “you’re in big trouble.”

“Would you please just get it out of here?” Twilight demanded.

Spike sighed, put down the papers he’d been pretending to read, and held out a claw to the spider, who crawled onto it. Spike couldn’t resist. He stretched out his claw to Twilight.

“Spike, don’t!” Twilight flinched. “Just get it out!”

Spike chuckled and left the room.

“It feels good to hold all the cards,” he said to himself as he escorted the spider out of the castle.

Normally Spike would simply deposit an evicted spider outside, but it was wintertime and spiders don’t do well in freezing snow.

“How about I take you to Fluttershy’s?” he suggested as if he could understand the spider’s response.

The spider had not bitten him or tried to crawl away, so Spike set off for Fluttershy’s cottage. When he arrived, Angel Bunny, who was wearing a toque as a coat, popped out of a pile of snow looking inconvenienced by the presence of Spike.

“Oh, look. A snow angel,” Spike joked as he approached Fluttershy’s door.

Spike knocked, and found he’d broken a thin layer of ice on the door.

“W-who is-s it-t?” came Fluttershy’s voice from inside.

“It’s Spike,” replied the baby dragon. “I’ve got a spider for you.”

“Oh! P-please c-come in-n,” Fluttershy’s voice shivered.

“Sounds like the weather’s getting to her,” Spike remarked as he opened the door causing more thin ice sheets to fall away.

He was quite right. It was colder inside the cottage than outside. Fluttershy was sitting in the middle of the floor covered in blankets.

“I’m-m s-so happy you c-came S-Spike,” she shuddered. “I’ve r-run out-t of m-matches.”

She tilted her head towards the fireplace.

“Say no more,” smiled Spike.

He set the spider down on a side table, which felt to the spider like a tub of ice cream, and walked over to the fireplace. One green breath later, the three logs in the fireplace were blazing.

“Thank-k you S-Spike,” sighed Fluttershy. “I feel better already.”

“Glad to be of service,” Spike replied. “Speaking of which, I should get back to helping Twilight with her work.”

“OK. I’ll be sure to take good care of the spider,” said Fluttershy.

Before Spike had left, Angel bounded into the room through the open front door squeaking furiously.

“Who pulled his ears?” Spike frowned.

Fluttershy listened to Angel’s enraged squealing and watched him pointing wildly at the fireplace.

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “Angel says he had a secret stash of carrots up the chimney and it’s fallen into the fire.”

Spike looked at the fire he’d just made. There was a small metal box he hadn’t seen before sitting amongst the flames.

“Oh, alright,” Spike said as he reluctantly returned to the fireplace.

Being fireproof certainly had its advantages.

“It feels good to hold all the cards,” he said to himself for the second time that day.

When he’d taken the box out of the fire, he opened it and found nine steaming, slightly wet carrots.

“Huh. Well, I hope you like cooked carrots,” he said cheekily to Angel.

Angel hopped up and grabbed a carrot out of the box. He gave Spike a look that plainly said “I better.” He took a bite of his carrot. The anger was wiped from his face. He looked happier than Scootaloo after she’d beaten her personal airborne record of fourteen seconds. He quickly ate the rest of the carrot, taking immense pleasure in every bite.

“Oh, my,” Fluttershy remarked. “Looks like he does like cooked carrots.”

Having finished all nine from the box, Angel leapt across the room and pulled another small metal box from inside a mouse hole. He then returned to the fireplace, grabbed a poker and stuck a carrot from this new box on it.

“Does he have secret carrot stashes all over your house or something?” asked Spike.

“Maybe,” Fluttershy shrugged as she watched Angel cooking his carrot. “But lots of animals eat more during winter.”

With that, Spike once again bade Fluttershy goodbye and left the cottage.

The following week, Spike heard Twilight’s distinctive yelp again. This time, he’d been reshelving books in the castle library and Twilight had been cleaning the floor of melted snow that had been tracked in by visiting ponies. Spike didn’t wait to be asked. He wasn’t about to say no to a work break. He also wasn’t going to say no to another jab at Twilight’s arachnophobia. He picked up the spider and held it to Twilight’s face as he walked past her towards the exit.

“That’s not funny, Spike!” Twilight snapped as Spike laughed like a ticklish rat. “Quit doing that!”

Spike didn’t take this spider to Fluttershy’s. He decided that this time, he would go to Crosspatch and see if she’d take it. He also wanted to see how their house, which they’d managed to buy in time for winter, was looking.

“Spike!” exclaimed Crosspatch when she answered the door. “Perfect timing. Come on in.”

Spike entered and found a curious sight waiting for him. A fire was going in the fireplace, and Lazybug seemed to be trying to waft the smoke towards a wall on the other side of the room with a sheet of cardboard.

“What’s going on?” Spike asked.

“We’re trying to smoke out some bees that made a nest in that crawlspace,” Crosspatch explained. “We’ve made a new hive for them…”

She pointed to an artificial bee hive next to the wall.

“But they won’t go into it,” Crosspatch finished. “Could you smoke them out?”

“Sure thing,” said Spike. “Here.”

He passed his spider to Crosspatch.

“Another tenant?” she asked. “Oh, alright. He won’t do any harm living in there.”

Lazybug put his cardboard sheet down and watched Spike approach the gap in the wall. He took a breath and exhaled a small flame. Dark green smoke billowed into the crawlspace. An angry bee flew out of the gap and stung Spike’s arm. The thick scaled little dragon felt nothing.

“All the cards,” he said to himself. “It feels good to hold them.” (He felt like mixing it up a little this week).

Two other bees resisted as Spike continued to pump smoke into the crawlspace, but before long, they had all been incapacitated. Lazybug shoved the artificial hive next to the gap and watched as the bees tumbled out of the crawlspace into the box.

“Thank you, Spike,” said Crosspatch once all the bees were accounted for. “I’ll be sure to add to my notes ‘Dragons = not pests’. I never knew any domesticated ones until I met you.”

A gooey gold liquid trickled out of the gap in the wall.

“Oh, great,” groaned Crosspatch. “Lazybug, would you mind cleaning up that honey?”

Lazybug didn’t answer. He simply stuck his tongue out and lapped up the dribbling honey.

“Hey!” he exclaimed. “This stuff’s really, really good! Try a bit, guys!”

Crosspatch and Spike had to agree that the honey from the walls was delicious. There was a knock from the window. Crosspatch saw Fluttershy outside, and ran to the window with a hoofful of honey.

“Hey Fluttershy, try this honey!” she said once she’d opened the window.

Fluttershy obliged, and also enjoyed the honey from the walls tremendously. She looked around and spotted Spike.

“Twilight told me you might have come here,” she said. “I wanted to ask you if, if it’s not too much trouble, you wouldn’t mind lighting another fire in my fireplace.”

“Run out of matches again or something?” asked Spike.

“No, but every time I’ve lit a fire since you last visited, Angel didn’t like the carrots he cooked over it,” Fluttershy told him. “I think he only likes cooking over your fire.”

Crosspatch looked back to the crawlspace that had just been smoked out.

“Spike,” she said, “I think your fire might be a flavour enhancer.”

Spike had another go at lighting a fire in Fluttershy’s cottage, and Angel cooked carrots over it again. They were all gone within minutes. Fluttershy tried cooking a few things and sampling them.

“Crosspatch was right,” she said with a mouth full of grilled tomato. “Everything does taste better cooked over your fire.”

The afternoon, Spike and Fluttershy went to Sweet Apple Acres and asked Applejack to host a bonfire in the yard.

“In this weather?” she asked.

“It’ll be worth it, Applejack,” Fluttershy promised.

So Applejack agreed, and that evening, she, Fluttershy, Spike and the rest of the gang met at the orchard fire pit. After the snow had been cleared away and the pit had been cleared out and loaded with timber, Spike lit the fire and Applejack brought out some food. Within minutes, comments and compliments were fired at Spike like confetti.

“You’ve got to work with me tomorrow at Sugarcube Corner!” insisted Pinkie, spitting bits of corn into Rainbow Dash’s face.

“You got it,” Spike nodded.

If it had been any other time of year, Spike might not have called the events that followed a “snowball effect”. There was a line-up outside Sugarcube Corner the following day. Baked goods and hot chocolate were flying out of the bakery like styrofoam pellets in a hurricane. After having stood in line three times, the Mayor asked Spike to cook at a makeshift refreshment stand that would be set up during a figure skating competition in three days. Spike agreed, but he’d been given other offers in the meantime and found himself late to the skating contest. No one complained however as his output was exquisite. A spectator from out of town offered Spike work at a pageant in Salt Lick City preparing tea and cakes for the interval. Before Spike knew it, he was involved in the catering aspects of every winter event in Equestria for a month. He never turned down an offer, and he could easily afford train tickets as he was always paid handsomely. Until this time, he’d rarely used gemstones to pay for things. In fact, the more times he cooked for ponies, the more frequently he asked to be paid in bits. Sometimes his request was granted, and others he had to be content with jewels; something he found himself becoming less and less by the day.

“There’s my number one assistant!” Twilight exclaimed one evening when Spike returned to Ponyville Castle after four days. “This place hasn’t been the same without you.”

Spike was tired, but he couldn’t pass up a chance for a tease.

“I expected this place to be full of spiders.”

Twilight chuckled. “So, tomorrow I’d like to…”

“Tomorrow, I gotta go to the Crystal Empire,” Spike interrupted.

“Spike, you don’t have to accept every offer,” Twilight groaned. “You’re gonna wear yourself out.”

“I noticed,” replied Spike, dragging his knuckles along the floor as he walked across the room. “But I can’t say no to going to the Crystal Empire. I’m a big-shot there. And Impulsoria’s fire doesn’t have the same effect on food that mine does. Apparently, crystal dragon fire isn’t a flavour enhancer.”

“But there’ll be hundreds of ponies to cook for there,” Twilight told him. “The Crystal Empire’s become the number one holiday destination during the winter. Ponies like vacationing where there’s no snow.”

Spike scoffed. “No snow? There’s tons of snow around it. It’s in the arctic.”

“Most ponies think it’s a small price to pay,” Twilight shrugged.

“Well, thanks for warning me,” Spike yawned. “I think I’ll go to bed now. I gotta catch the Crystal Express in the morning.”

Author's Note

Partly inspired by Phil Jupitus' bit about spiders and arachnophobia.

2 To the Crystal Empire

Twilight and Spike had gone to their bedroom at the same time, but Spike didn’t quite make it to his basket. He’d dropped off to sleep a few yards beyond. As a result, when Twilight awoke the next dark winter morning and didn’t see Spike in his basket, she thought he’d left already and went on to the Mayor’s office to tend to her governmental duties for the day. Spike finally awoke to the sound of Owlowiscious hooting madly into his ear.

“Yikes!” Spike shrieked when he realized what time it was. “There’s no way the Crystal Express hasn’t left already!”

He hadn’t even made it to Ponyville Station when he knew he was right about the express. He was over half an hour too late. Fortunately, the upcoming local train would be stopping at the Crystal Empire. Spike would be hours late, but it was better than not being able to make it at all. While he was waiting, the stationmaster asked him to melt the frost on the rails. Apparently, the Crystal Express had a slip start when it left.

The locomotive’s cow catcher made an adequate snowplough, but the rails were slippery everywhere else along the line. The coaches jerked several times a minute, causing passengers to grumble. Spike was not happy, and even less so whenever the train stopped at a station. Halfway to the Crystal Empire, he really got angry when the train ground to a halt nowhere near a station. The conductor walked briskly down the coaches explaining the problem.

“There’s been a really nasty wheel-slip and the locomotive’s coupling rods have come apart,” he said once for each coach he visited. “Please remain in the carriage. We are currently on a bridge.”

Spike opened his window. The train had indeed stopped on a stone bridge, and it would be difficult for the engine’s crew to repair the damage. There was only one building in sight, and it was an abandoned watermill. Spike seethed with impatience. He had to get to the Crystal Empire as soon as possible. He looked up. A pegasus who’d been riding the train had been sent by the conductor to get help. Spike decided to find a pegasus to fly him to the Crystal Empire.

“You gotta be kidding me!” he bellowed after visiting every single coach and not finding one pegasus.

Then he found somepony who might be able to help him. There was a stout earth pony who he recognised from two of the winter events he had helped cater.

“Hey, it’s Spike the cook,” he said when he saw Spike.

“Can you help me get to the Crystal Empire?” Spike asked.

“Anything for Equestria’s favourite chef,” replied the Stout pony.

Spike didn’t bother to retort. He hurriedly ordered the Stout pony to go out to the watermill, and ran back to his seat. Before anyone on board realized what he was doing, he’d reached under his seat, pulled out a backpack and exited the train himself.

In his frustration and haste, Spike had thought that train seats had parachutes underneath the seats. By the time he’d realized he’d mistaken trains for aircrafts, he’d already put on the empty backpack (which a previous passenger had left behind), stood onto the waterwheel, and called to the Stout pony to jump onto the wheel. He tried to hold onto the wheel as it spun and spun, but quite soon, he got too dizzy to hold on and was flung high into the air. Head still spinning, he yelled as he saw the ground spin in front of his eyes.

Suddenly, Spike landed on something. He was nowhere near the ground. Something woolly was brushing his face. He gave his head a shake, trying to see properly.

“You OK, Spike?”

Spike recognised the voice. One more head shake later, what he saw confirmed that he had landed on Spitfire’s back and she was wearing a scarf.

“Hey, Spitfire,” he said. “Boy am I lucky you found me.”

“What happened?” Spitfire asked. “How’d you get launched into the air?”

Spike, face burning with humiliation, told her about his lapse in judgement.

Spitfire chuckled. “Well, you are a baby dragon. Um, do you need a ride?”

“Sure! Could you take me to the Crystal Empire?”

“You bet,” said Spitfire. “I’m in no hurry.”

This was very true. Spike had never seen the captain of the Wonderbolts fly this slowly.

“Am I heavy or something?” he asked. “I didn’t even have breakfast.”

“Nah, nah,” replied Spitfire. “I always take it slow in winter. Wonderbolts do less air shows during this season. Breathing in so much cold air is pretty bad for pegasi.”

“And yet no pegasi wanted to ride the train today,” Spike muttered to himself.

“Plus, I’m already carrying something,” Spitfire went on.

She held out her hoof and showed Spike her saddlebags.

“I’m gonna make a deposit at the Las Pegasus bank,” she explained.

“Why that bank?” Spike asked. “Why don’t you keep your money at the Cloudsdale bank?”

“The one in Las Pegasus has a better interest rate,” smirked Spitfire. “That’s appealing when you don’t work every month of the year. I cancelled my account with the Cloudsdale bank and got one with Las Pegasus’ yesterday, so now I’m transferring my money.”

“Why aren’t you wearing those saddlebags?” asked Spike.

“Well, I couldn’t fly if I had saddlebags on,” Spitfire sniffed. “And then you’d have fallen out of the sky. It’s not better carrying them, though. My hooves are getting numb.”

“You should probably buy yourself some boots before you make your deposit,” Spike suggested.

“Maybe I will,” said Spitfire. “But I don’t think I’d be able to hold onto the bag if I had boots on.”

Despite Spitfire flying slower than her average, which was breakneck speed, Spike was sure they were making good time and would arrive in the Crystal Empire before too long.

“Say,” Spitfire piped up as they were passing over Clopley Hill, Steeds, “have you learned the Cloudsdale Anthem yet?”

Spike felt embarrassed again. “Uh, no I haven’t.”

“Huh,” chuckled Spitfire. “If ya like, I could teach you it.”

“Sure. Why not?” Spike shrugged.

As he shrugged, he realized that he was still wearing the empty backpack he’d found on the train.

Why do I still have this? he thought.

He took it off just as Spitfire leaned back a bit and cleared her throat. Spike leaned forward to avoid sliding off Spitfire’s back, and ended up dropping the empty backpack.

“♪Oh…” Spitfire began.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the falling backpack and mistook it for her saddlebags, which she couldn’t feel in her numb hooves.

“Whoops!” she exclaimed before diving down.

Spike couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. Spitfire had let go of her saddlebags and grabbed the empty backpack instead.

“That was close,” Spitfire sighed.

“That’s mine!” Spike cried just as Spitfire realized that the bag she was carrying was a lot lighter. “You’ve just left all your money behind!”

Spitfire yelled in horror, and turned sharply around. Spike wasn’t ready. He slipped off Spitfire’s back and began plummeting to the ground. But before he could yell for help, he found himself going slower and slower. He could see a clear green aura around himself. He looked straight down.

“Oh, no,” he groaned, smacking his face.

“Well, look who dropped in!” boomed Flim as his brother gently lowered Spike into some sort of open vehicle. “Our very first passenger!”

“Passenger?!” spluttered some angry voices.

“Yes! Passenger!” Flam said loudly. “You see, we are not only a snow removal service. We are also an omnibus service!”

“Name your destination, young dragon!” Flim turned to Spike with an expectant smile.

“Um, the Crystal Empire,” Spike responded.

“Haha! Where else but the place where everypony loves ya!” Flim gestured wildly. “Hit it, Flamo!”

Spike quickly looked around. There were angry-looking ponies standing around this vehicle. They looked like they were about to smash it to pieces. Beyond the crowd, there were several buildings. About half of them were covered in snow, and the other half were not. Flam fired a green light from his horn, which was poking through a wildfoul cap identical to his brothers’, and the vehicle hummed and shuddered.

“Make way, good folk of Clopley Hill!” he bellowed. “VID coming through!”

The next thing Spike knew, there was a roof of snow above him and the Flim Flam Brothers, which buried the ponies they had left behind.

“What is this thing?!” Spike called over the noise of the vehicle and the snow soaring above them.

“What you are riding in is the Flim Flam Brothers’ Ploughmobile!” announced the two brothers.

“What, a snowplough?” asked Spike.

“This little baby can slice through snow like a peeler through apple skins!” said Flim.

“Making her the most reliable, the most dependable, the most useful winter machine in the whole of Equestria!” Flam declared.

“Is that why we’re going so fast?” Spike looked back at Clopley Hill. “To get away from all those satisfied customers?”

The brothers shuffled a little bit.

“Only Equine nature after all!” said Flim. “No pleasing some ponies.”

“It’s not easy to provide an efficient service with ponies coming up and badgering you to help them just before you’ve finished the job you’re on!” Flam sneered.

“Let me guess,” Spike grimaced. “Your Ploughmobile just moves the snow and it gets on all the walkways and doorsteps around it. And more and more ponies come to you demanding that you move the snow that you’d just dumped on them.”

“One would think to complain to their local weather team about an abundance of snow,” Flim said, “but in Clopley Hill, they seem to prefer to complain to the ponies providing the solution!”

“Such abuse of our technology warrants early retirement!” grunted Flam. “What a shame for a freshly-built machine to have to be sheeted away in her prime! Wouldn’t you agree?!”

Spike found this extremely amusing, but he couldn’t complain. We was getting a ride to the Crystal Empire, which was sure to be uninterrupted as Flim and Flam obviously wanted to get as far away from Clopley Hill as possible.

The journey was not smooth. With any snowplough, there was no telling what was buried in the snow that was about to be shoved aside. Flim and Flam weren’t driving their Ploughmobile along any road because there was no road to the Crystal Empire (and even if there was, there’d be no way to see it in the snow). Their sense of direction was not bad as they’d more or less been all over the country, but they still weren’t a hundred percent sure of where the rail line was until they’d bounced over it.

“Attention passengers, we’re experiencing a bit of turbulence!” Flam announced.

“I already mistook something for an aircraft today!” Spike bellowed. “Don’t make it worse!”

“The Flim Flam Brothers’ Ploughmobile does not make things worse!” Flim insisted. “Its sole purpose is convenience!”

“And efficient transportation!” put in Flam.

The jolt when they’d hit the railway tracks had knocked the plough loose. No sooner had Flim and Flam staked their claim when the long, large sheet of metal clearing their path flipped upwards. The snow it was moving was now shooting up in a steep arch, making a massive pile behind the vehicle as it hurtled along.

“Improved visibility!” Flim said as though they’d intended this.

“And there’s our destination!” Flam pointed ahead at the Crystal Empire.

Spike wasn’t looking ahead. He was looking at the enormous mound of snow forming behind the vehicle. Suddenly, the other end of the plough snapped off. It flew backwards and pelted into the mound it had created. Snow began tumbling down after the Ploughmobile, and without its plough, it couldn’t cut through the snow and outrun the avalanche.

“Thank you for travelling with the Flim Flam brothers!” Flim hastily shook Spike claws.

“No charge! This was the Ploughmobile’s terminal voyage!” Flam said quickly.

“Now if you’d like to join us in our withdrawal plan…!”

Spike and the twin unicorns weren’t quick enough to jump off. All three of them were hit in the face by a wall of snow. Spike tried exhaling fire to melt the snow around him, but more just took its place. He went on tumbling, getting dizzier by the second. Then, his face was scraped against something soft. He got a mouthful of glossy green grass. Quite suddenly, he stopped tumbling and landed on a shiny purple stone pathway.

He looked up. Flash Sentry was standing there looking down on him in surprise. He turned away and cued the fanfare standing close by.

“Great and Honourable Spike the Brave and Glorious!” he announced once the trumpets has ceased.

Everyone in the Crystal Empire was looking at Spike, half-buried in snow and clearly out of breath. There were cheers all around. Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armour hurried up to Spike.

“Are you alright?” asked Shining Armour.

“Yeah,” Spike grunted as Cadance helped him up. “I had a little trouble getting here. How late am I?”

“About three hours,” answered Cadance. “Do you need a rest? We could send you to the Crystal Spa.”

Spike shook his head. “I’m fine. Let’s get cooking.”

None of the crystal ponies or holidaymakers complained about Spike’s tardiness, and when the failed stopping train finally arrived, the passengers who’d come to the street fair were relieved to see that Spike had survived being shot into the air via waterwheel. Spike spotted the stallion who had launched him. He was unharmed as well, but he’d landed in the frozen river beneath the bridge and now he had a cold. A crystal pony offered him boiled lemon water, but he said he couldn’t stand the taste and was unable to gulp it down. Spike reminded him that he’d be providing the fire to boil the water, so it should make it taste good.

“Thanks for helping me get here,” Spike said as his fan sipped his hot drink.

The Stout pony liked Spike’s boiled lemon water so much that he kept coming back for more. When the street fair was drawing to a close and the Stout pony returned for one last mug, Spike announced that it really would be the last.

“Has anyone got a torch handle I could use?” he asked to crowd.

“Here,” a crystal guard walked up and gave him a bright blue stick.

“And here’s your payment as well, Great and Honourable Spike,” he said, handing him a big bag of emeralds.

“Thank you,” said Spike. “And thank you all for being here for my retirement.”

Gasps echoed around the Crystal Empire.

Flim and Flam had long since dug themselves out of the avalanche they’d created and had decided to follow the trail their Ploughmobile had made instead of waiting on the station platform and letting ponies see them in a mess. It took them a while to find the path they’d made due to having to walk a long way around the huge snow pile caused by the broken plough. By the time they’d found it and had reached the spot where the Ploughmobile had hit the train tracks, a passenger train was coming and they had to wait before crossing. As the train passed, Spike poked his head out of a carriage window.

“Catch!” he called.

He threw the torch handle he’d been given out of the window. Flim magiced it still and held it up for him and Flam to look at. Spike had lit the torch with his flavourful fire.

“Thanks for helping me get to the Crystal Empire!” Spike called to the surprised brothers before the train sped away.

Miles back, Spitfire was freaking out. She hadn’t managed to find her bag of money. No one in Clopley Hill had seen where it landed. Most of the townsponies had been getting ready to demolish the Ploughmobile and lynch its drivers at the time. Some ponies had helped Spitfire search, but her bag and her money were nowhere to be seen. Spitfire had just begun looking around Steeds Central Station when the train Spike was on arrived.

“Catch!” Spike called through an open carriage window.

He tossed his bag of gemstones to Spitfire.

“What- what’s this for?!” cried the dumbfounded gold-medalist.

“My way of saying thanks for the ride,” smiled Spike.

Spitfire was very grateful, and the ponies on the platform cheered for Spike as the train took him away.

“I have officially announced my retirement,” Spike told Applejack and Rainbow Dash when he’d returned to Ponyville. “It was nice to be able to make so many ponies happy and all, but I just couldn’t keep it up. It was too much pressure.”

“So you gave those two schemers your fire?!” burst out Applejack. “The money they’ll make…!”

“Oh, they’ll mess it up somehow,” Spike shrugged.

Applejack had to admit that he was probably right. Rainbow Dash was happy to hear that her idol would not be declaring bankruptcy.

“After this, no one will care if you don’t know the Cloudsdale Anthem,” she snickered.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash hadn’t even walked Spike all the way home when he heard that familiar yelp.

“Oh, there’s a spider,” he smiled, picking up his pace.

Once he was at the front doors, he ran inside, quickly found Twilight, spotted the spider, scooped it up, and ran it out of the castle.

“Hey, thanks for not waving it in my face this time!” Twilight called after him.

“It’s fine!” Spike called back. “I mean, it doesn’t feel good to hold all the cards sometimes!”

Author's Note

The watermill set in Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends is perhaps my favourite set in the show.