Spike Gets A Narrator
On the pleasant sunny mornings of early summer Spike the dragon likes to sleep in. The buzzing of bees outside the window is music to his ears, and sweetly-scented flowers decorate his dreams just as they decorate the many trees of Ponyville.
Out in the streets the townsfolk are having a wonderful day. On this particular morning an unusual number have gathered before the library. Not quite enough to call a crowd, but certainly more than a gossip circle. Carrot Top has been there for about a minute, her cart empty after a good day at the market.
Suddenly realizing that she has somewhere to be, she turns slowly and trots off.
And here is Spike, the little dragon. Though he is covered head to toe in purples scales comparable to the finest mail of Celestia’s guard he is nevertheless the least imposing dragon in existence.
“Hey, what’s going on out there?” He shouts, with his eyes narrowed in a mixture of suspicion and annoyance.
His gaze is met with confused, almost apologetic stares from the ponies below.
Spike groans and rubs the bridge of his nose with a tiny purple hand.
“Hey, stop that!” He says, leaning far past the window ledge like a chubby, wingless bird trying to fly.
“Oh for Pete’s sake! Twilight!”
Unfortunately for poor little Spike, Twilight Sparkle is meeting Princess Celestia in Canterlot. Whatever problems he may face today, he will have to face them on his own. And it is shaping up to be a day full of problems.
“Hey! How do you know that?
“Stop It!
“Who are you?”
By now more ponies have gathered in front of the library. Lyra Heartstrings stifles a giggle, while Lily Valley and Roseluck are laughing at the back of the crowd. A cute little dragon has that effect on ponies.
Spike groans one last time and storms down the stairs, making an effort to stomp down on every step. You can hear it from outside, like the drumming of a monstrous woodpecker.
The door flies open with a bang, silencing the crowd. By now it is a proper crowd, and still it grows.
“Everyone leave!” Spike yells into the street. “You! Who are you, and why are you repeating everything I say?”
His arm trembles with anger, and there is fire in his eyes if not his belly. Wispy smoke rose from his nostrils. His brow was pulled together tight enough to crack a walnut.
The ponies have all backed away several steps, and a few have left or are leaving. Those remaining whisper amongst themselves with bemused looks on their faces.
“Hey! You!” Spike yells, pointing to a yellow stallion in a dapper blue vest. “Go get Nurse Redheart! Tell her to come here with a straitjacket.”
The stallion points at himself, with his mouth hanging open dumbly. His expression quickly turns to one of annoyance, and then determination. He leaves without another word, with the stride of a pony on a mission.
The crowd disperses after that, with a disappointed murmur and not a few awkward glances.
Spike looks up to the last remaining pony and lets out a sigh of defeat.
“Buddy, if you keep this up I swear… UGH!”
The library is in a state of complete, absolute, total, utter disarray. Twilight will be away for two more days, and that means Spike has all the time in the world. Books are lying sideways on shelves, most certainly not alphabetized. Some are even shelved backwards with spine facing the wall! There are pizza boxes on the floor and crumbs on the rug, and Owlowiscious is wearing a lamp shade over his head, so that only his feet are visible on his perch.
“Who?”
“Who?”
“Who!”
“Yeah Owlowiscious, I… Hey! Who let you in here?”
The pancakes smell amazing. Blueberry and sapphire; Spike’s favorite, though not suitable for a pony.
“Don’t eat my food!” Spike yells, pulling the veritable mountain of pancakes closer to himself as a dragon does with his hoard.
He eats all of the pancakes with his eyes narrowed in annoyance. The crunching of gemstones has a musical quality. Owlowicious is perched overhead, pecking infrequently but viciously.
“Then why don’t you leave?!” Spike said, spraying bits of food onto the table. He rubs his forehead again. Perhaps he did not sleep well. “Where’s Nurse Redheart?”
After breakfast the syrup-covered plate is balanced on top of a tower of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The curtains are closed, so nopony can see the mess inside. Everything is going just as planned.
“No it’s not!” Spike yells.
Spike polishes his scales, puts on a gem-encrusted bow tie and checks his teeth. The dour expression never leaves his face. When he exits the library, he slams the top half of the door so hard that the whole world is left ringing and wobbling for several seconds. Truly dragons are powerful, and his strength will only increase with age.
“How are you still standing?” Spike asks, throwing up his hands incredulously.
He takes off eastward almost at a running pace, with an urgency that seems at first to belong to one fleeing from something. But his sour mood does not last long. The sun shines ever brighter as noon approaches, and the chill of morning is gone. Summer is a wonderful season, and a stroll through town can lighten anypony, or rather any dragon’s mood.
And summer does other things too. As he passes through the market square the young dragon begins to whistle. His steps soon give way to skipping. All his burdens lift off his shoulders like spooked sparrows, until he is as light as a feather. When Twilight is away he must take charge of his own life, but why should that be a bad thing? No more being bossed around! He is all grown up, at least for the day!
He will buy a tub of ice cream and eat it all by himself.
“Yeah. Yeah, I could!”
He will buy the prettiest bouquet!
“Huh?”
And he will ask Rarity out for lunch!
“Whoa! Hold it!” Spike stops skipping and turns around with his fists on his hips. That ugly frown is back on his face.
Ah, sweet summer! How the sunlight plays with the mind. Yes, Spike had gone through the motions all morning without realizing it. Why else would he polish his scales? Why the bowtie? Why are his teeth not filthy, his breath not reeking of the pits of Tartarus?
He crosses his arms and his scowl darkens, but there is no denying the truth. His love for Rarity has never waned, and with the new season comes new possibilities and new hope.
“How do you know any of this?” Spike grumbles. “I’ve never seen you in my life!”
When his questions go unanswered once again, Spike growls and stiffens his back. A pony could cook an egg on his forehead.
“Okay,” he says with a huge sigh. “Just ignore him. He’s not here. Oooh, where is Nurse Redheart?”
But he will not dwell on this long. After three deep, calming breaths, Spike is off again. It’s difficult to stay mad in a day as wonderful as this. The lightness of his steps return, and a quickening in the loins…
“Huh?”
Unfortunately for Spike, Roseluck chose this moment to enter the street from an adjoining alley. By the look on her face she is not pleased with what she hears.
“Roseluck?” Spike stammers, holding up his hands palms forward and taking a few steps back. “Hey, I got a problem. If you could…”
Certainly that was not the way to start a conversation such as this. But he is young and quite inexperienced, and had the mare with the pink mane seen it that way this encounter would have turned out very differently.
“You pervert!” Roseluck screams.
Spike flies backwards. For a mare who spends her days tending flowers Roseluck has some strong legs.
“Ugh,” Spike groans as Roseluck runs off at full tilt, turning a few heads when she passes through the market.
She must have lungs like a seal, to keep up a scream for that long.
Fortunately baby dragons are made of tougher stuff than baby ponies. Spike left a dent in the wall, but the wall only left a scud on his forehead. He shakes his head vigorously and hops back to his feet, more annoyed than hurt.
There is a new urgency in his steps. He runs like one running for his life, his small form allowing him to navigate the crowded market with little trouble. Oftentimes he disappears altogether in the crowd, each time reappearing much further ahead than anypony would have guessed.
He stops in front of Quills and Sofas, bent over and gasping for breath. His pupils become tiny pinpricks when he looks back to the market square, and without another though he throws his weight on the door and starts pounding on it with both fists.
The yellow stallion with the blue vest answers.
“Oh, hello Spike,” he says. Looking into the street past the tiny dragon, he pulls back his lips in discomfort. “Oh… Yeah, sorry. Nurse Redheart has the day off, and Dr. Stable was visiting somepony. The other nurses aren’t really ready for something like this.”
“There is a crazy pony chasing me around!” Spike yells, grabbing the stallion around the neck and forcing his head down. “Look!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, struggling to breathe. “You know, I bet Miss Rarity…”
“Nonononono!” Spike says, backing away into the shop without letting go of the pony. “I can’t go to Rarity like this! What will she think? You know the stuff this guy says?”
Cold sweat drips down his face. He backs further into the darkness of the building, yet he know that he can put this off no longer.
Whatever he needs, it will have to come from Rarity.
“I am never buying you quills again.”
Spike and the shopkeeper pounce together. The dragon takes a huge leap, clearing the pony in the doorway and landing outside.
By the time the ruckus in the shop clears Spike is at the end of the street and only a few steps from Carousel Boutique.
“Hey!” The shopkeeper yells as he dusts off his vest. “Stop that pony!”
Unfortunately the crowd was very much unprepared for this turn of events. Meanwhile Spike is lying prostrate before a beautiful white unicorn, grasping her perfectly hooficulred hooves in his dusty hands. At first his voice cannot be heard at all.
“…Here he comes! Rarity, please do something!”
The lovely Miss Rarity looks up with her mouth open in shock. But never let it be said that she is not clever. There is an amused twinkle in her eyes; something mischievous. She turns her head and calls into her studio.
“Nurse Redheart, darling! I think there’s someone here for you! You better take a straitjacket! No, not that one! Get the tie-dye rainbow there! Yes, that one!”
Spike turns up his face. One can only imagine the relief in his eyes.
“Come in Spike,” Rarity says, offering a helping hoof which Spike took with trembling hands. “Oh, you poor thing! You’ve been running yourself ragged! We were just about to have tea. Do you want something to drink? Some lemonade perhaps?”
Spike’s answer is lost as he disappears into the shop. A white earth pony mare with a light pink mane replaces Rarity at the door. A flamboyant garment made of tough canvas is draped across her back, ready to be deployed.
“You!” She calls, pointing a hoof into the street. “Stay where you are!”
For a moment the world goes dark. Only for a moment.
Carousel Boutique slowly recedes into the distance. Rarity and Spike can be seen through the window, engaged in a spirited conversation the subject of which matters little.
“Now you stay here,” Nurse Redheart says sweetly, patting her patient on the head. “Somepony will come to pick you up.”
With that she returns to Carousel Boutique. Spike looks a little disappointed when he sees Nurse Redheart in the doorway, and even Rarity seems a little surprised by the other mare’s return. Or perhaps it is just a trick of the light, as most ponies see it (if they see anything at all).
For some time nothing more happens. Then an enclosed carriage stops in front of Carousel Boutique. Pulling it is a rather muscular and mean looking stallion, with two nurses walking alongside.
“Here’s the troublemaker,” One of them says in a slightly throaty voice. “Say, I don’t recognize you. Where are you from? Can you tell me your name?”
She frowns, and then laughs.
“Of course you can’t,” she says.
Inside the shop Spike is stuffing his face with tea biscuits. And so the story ends on a happy note, as Ponyville disappears with a muffled bang, replaced with calm semidarkness and padded yellow walls and the rhythmic squeaking of wagon wheels.
