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“Thank you, dear Spike, for helping me clean. There is no longer a speck of dust to be seen.” Zecora smiled at the young dragon from her spot on her sofa. She would've cleaned by herself, of course, but she couldn't walk without pain. She'd injured her hoof the previous day when she tripped over a tree root that some nasty Everfree creature had thrown in her path.

Spike finished dusting off a shelf and leaned against the wall of Zecora's hut, using his claw to wipe sweat off of his brow. “Yeah, no problem. Cleaning is my specialty, after all. Would you believe me when I said the great Princess of Friendship is a royal slob?”

“Well, I’ve never thought that Twilight could be such a thing, but I know that in your voice truth does ring. I think you’re a very trustworthy dragon, you see, so if I said I didn’t believe you then the liar would be me,” Zecora said.

“Ha, if only Twilight agreed with you on that. Every time something goes missing, she immediately blames me.” Spike rolled his eyes. “It’s only actually been me, like, five percent of the time.”

One last thing, organize closet blah

“Sure.” Spike looked around. “Wait… what closet? Only ones I see are ones I’ve already cleaned.”

it’s a seeeeeeeecret closet, idk

“Oh, yeah, Twilight has a secret closet too. It’s where she hides her ma—actually, no, I’m not supposed to be telling anypony that.” Spike chuckled nervously. “Er, don’t mention to her that I said anything.

Zecora raised an eyebrow but nodded in agreement anyway. “[something about being curious or something and your secret is safe with me]”

“Yeah, cool. Thanks. So where’s this secret closet of yours?”

“Ah, yes, that closet you seek. The door’s under my cauldron—go ahead, take a peek.” Zecora waved with a hoof towards the bubbling green cauldron in the center of her hut.

Spike walked over to the cauldron and stared at it for a few seconds, scratching his head. A giant cauldron of thick steel that was well more than twice as large as him, complete with some boiling green liquid inside? Yep. No chance of lifting that.

“Uh, Zecora, how am I supposed to get under here?” Spike asked. “It's all hot coals underneath.”

“Ah, my young drake, I must admit that it's fake. You must climb into the pot—I promise it's not hot.”

“Yeah, right. I'm not falling for that.”

Zecora looked annoyed at first, but then that expression was replaced by a mischievous smile. [You really think I'd gobble you up?]

“Scared? Ha! I'm not scared! In fact, I don't even know what the word ‘scared’ means because I've never been scared in my entire life.

[Then surely you're not scared to go into the pot?]

“Of course I'm not scared!” Spike laughed and walked to a corner of the room. “Watch and learn.” With a deep breath, he sprinted the distance to the cauldron and leaped in. Two things were immediately apparent: the water wasn't, in fact, hot, and instead of there being a bottom to the pot, there was simply a magical barrier holding the bubbling liquid up. Spike fell right through it.

Spike yelped—and it was a yelp of surprise, mind you, not of fear—as he dropped a short distance into a dark room. He landed on his butt and gulped. Was this his prison cell where he’d be stuck until Zecora got hungry? An oven? No… that would be silly. It was just a weird secret closet under a cauldron. A really dark closet.

“Where’s the light switch?” he demanded.

[words]

Spike blinked in surprise when the room flooded with light and he could see everything. It certainly was no oven or prison cell. It was definitely some sort of storage room, it was larger than the upper floors of Zecora’s house, and it was an absolute mess. There were wooden crates with various labels in some foreign language, some stacked on top of each other but mostly placed randomly around the room. Some were still nailed shut, and others were open and some even were lying on their sides, contents spilling out onto the floor. There were odd spices and herbs, roots of magical plants, ancient masks and cauldrons and potions and everything that Spike had never seen before.

“Woah, Zecora, what is all this stuff?” Spike called up, walking around to examine bits and pieces strewn across the floor that caught his eye.

“[something about rare zebrican things and potion whatnots]”

“I bet Twi would love this,” Spike chuckled. While Twilight had experimented with just about everything, he doubted she’d been able to get her hooves on rare Zebrican whatnots before. He started walking around the room, gathering clawfuls of materials that looked alike and putting them in their corresponding containers, after setting them right side up, of course. Well, he hoped they were the correct corresponding containers, anyway.

    Eventually, the room started to look less disastrous, although it was still nowhere near tidy yet.

-finds gems, resists temptation to eat

-finishes cleaning, not detailed, but thinking about gem

-eats gem

-can’t resist and takes more