Twilight's journey

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Home
Chapter 3 - Friends
Chapter 4 - Blank Scroll
Chapter 5 - Tears
Chapter 6 - Day two
Chapter 7 - Travel
Chapter 8 - Past
Chapter 9 - Magic
Chapter 10 - Emerald
Chapter 11 - Teddy Bear
Chapter 12 - Hidding
Chapter 13 - Dragon & Magic
Chapter 14 - Canterlot
Chapter 16 - Shopping
Prologue
Chapter 2 - Secrets
Chapter 15 - Train station

Chapter 1 - Home

Spike was walking to his hotel, even if really, it was more a house than a hotel, but he always called where he was living, a hotel. It was a way for him to not get too attached to the place he was traveling. No, calling a house by its proper definition was too close to calling a place home. And he had nothing he could really call home anymore.

He had had many homes, his room at Canterlot Castle, the plain but warm library of Ponyville, the beautiful palace of the crystal empire, but really it could have been anywhere. He was missing something at every place he was going, each place was missing something, not really something, but someone, someone who cared for him, who raised him.

I really miss Twilight, why do I miss her so much? I am a dragon, dragons spend most of their life alone, does that mean I am supposed to enjoy being alone? No! I hate being alone, but that doesn’t explain why I miss her. And it’s been long since she is... gone.

Spike shook his head and tried to focus on his surroundings. It was a nice town with plain houses, each one of them reflecting their inhabitant’s life or her purpose. Here a colorful one for a couple of artists. Another full of flower pots hooked at every window and wooden beam, for it was the florist of the town.

Spike was heading to one of the houses close to the city hall, the house was small and plain with only the town sigil near the door and an Equestria flag on top of it. It was past sunset so the streets were empty, but during the day the town was very lively, especially the morning. The local farmers selling their product at the market, chatting with their customers or their friends. Parents bringing their foals to school. All of that with the sweet smell of fresh bakery being made for the day.

It was peaceful, and what some ponies could call a perfect country town. Spike hated it. He preferred the busy gaudy Canterlot, the Crystal Empire, even high crowded city like Manehattan or even the worst remote small town near Stalliongrad. No, these country towns looked too much like... Ponyville.

Most ponies can forget their past, forget what they have done a week ago. No, actually that is not true, they don’t really forget when something important happens, they remember, although they probably don’t remember everything, merely the sensations or the major parts. Like if you asked the ponies of Ponyville about the return of Nightmare Moon, they would probably describe the dark evil alicorn that appeared out of nowhere as a dark princess with a crazy laugh, and they would tell how afraid they were, but if you asked what she was wearing exactly or what was said this day, they probably wouldn’t remember or they would have to search their memory.

Spike was no pony, no, he was a dragon, and he knew why some ponies consider dragons wise: they have a very good memory. It’s not that they remember everything whenever they want, but when they remember something it can come in full, every detail, every sensation. Spike would not lie, it was useful for his studies, but it was also a curse. If anything would make him remember an event, and he got lost in his memory, he could remember everything. So he knew that when he went to a country town, it would eventually remind him of all his days at Ponyville even if he tried to avoid them.

It wasn’t so bad. It was happy memories, even the hard times when Twilight and her friends had to defeat some major threats and he was worried staying at the library, that always ended with some hugs. But if he let himself get lost in these memories, it would lead to the day he lost everything that really mattered to him: the day he lost Twilight. Over the years he had lived new happy and sad moments, losing a friend was not easy but he knew he could make new ones, that was his way to move on. But losing Twilight was losing something he couldn’t get again, he was losing the only person that was close to a mother to him.

Trying to stop thinking too much about the past, Spike hasted his pace while focusing his thoughts on tomorrow. Hm, tomorrow, let’s see, I have to remember to bring that book. I hope this time Emerald will want to try to do more than just being my assistant, there is also another stupid meeting, I don’t even understand why the mayor wants us to be there...

What was that? A tingly sensation on Spike’s back made him stop. A small crack of mauve light started to appear in front of him. A teleportation matrix? The crack started growing slowly brighter, This is very slow, it is either big or comes from very far. Finally, the light made place for a blinking sound that marked the end of the spell.

Spike couldn’t believe his eyes, standing in front of him was a small purple mare standing on her four shaking legs, her horn still imbued with residual magic. Her mane was a dark blue mess, but Spike could still distinguish the two-colored streak of purple and red pink that belonged to-

“Twi...Twilight?” with a bit of shock and surprise in his voice, Spike finally managed to say.

“Spike, I...” was all the purple mare managed to reply before her shaking legs gave up, her eyes closed and felt unconscious on the cold grass.

Spike began to panic but seeing the mare’s chest rise and fall slowly, he managed to calm himself a bit. Still in disbelief, he paid more attention to the mare, she was not small, no, she was in a bad shape. He could see all her ribs through her coat and she was shaking too, but after he saw the star-shaped cutie mark on her flank, all his worry disappeared for the moment.

Spike took a deep breath and grabbed the mare with his arms, he was so happy now, he didn’t bother wondering why there were now wings on her back. No, it was Twilight, his Twilight.

“Don’t worry Twilight, I am bringing you... home.”

Chapter 3 - Friends

It was past noon, and the sun was high in the sky. Around Spike, most ponies were heading to their home to prepare their lunch. Some of them were already outside enjoying their meal with their friends or their family. The morning market was now finished, with the only few remaining vendors packing their stand.

Spike was tired, he hadn’t slept at all the previous night. He had stayed up watching Twilight.

For the first couple of hours after putting her on his bed, Spike had been lost. He was happy seeing her back, but at the same time, he was very worried about seeing her clearly famished and unconscious. He was not sure if she was just sleeping or worse. He had nearly believed it was some kind of cruel joke from Discord, bringing him back Twilight only for Spike to be able to watch her but not interact with her, but he quickly dismissed this thought because Discord’s “good fun” was at worst very annoying but never really harmful.

Then came the letter; at first he had been surprised to receive a letter from Cadence that late but after seeing the official royal sigil used to seal the letter -their usuals letters were only sealed with Cadence’s more plain personal sigil- Spike had suspected that he would get some explanation about Twilight.

The first part of the letter made some of his worries disappear: he was not dreaming, it was really Twilight in front of him, that she was not a unicorn anymore, he didn’t care about, she was the pony that raised and cared for him, that was enough.

But sadly, the rest of the letter brought him more questions than he really wanted. Where was Twilight this whole time? What happened to her? And even more troublesome: why did he have to NOT tell Princess Celestia about that?

Spike had read the letter multiple times in an attempt to find answers, but the only conclusion he had come with was to trust both Princesses’ words. They said they trusted him, so he would trust them as well. Cadence was a friend and family, and even if he didn’t really know Princess Luna that well, if Cadence trusted her and Twilight had trusted her in the past, why wouldn’t he?

He was glad that Twilight awakened in the middle of the night. That gave him some reason to trust them. She hadn’t talked much, but she had recognized him. Her voice was low when she had asked for water, she wasn’t in pain. Spike was no doctor, but the Princesses’ statement “very tired” was very fitting.

He wasn’t sure to understand the part about her loss of memory: would she be the same Twilight he had known? What did she remember? Did the Princesses imply he had to not tell about her past?

But this morning had offered him a more urgent concern. Emerald had seen her. Spike had felt stupid at first when he saw him entering the room, how could he have forgotten about his assistant? His first thought had been to pretend it was some family or playing the “it’s just a mare” thing, but Spike didn’t expect her to show her wings. And on second thought, there was no way he could have hidden her to somepony that lived with him, especially on this dumb single story house.

Spike had chosen to trust him, but it was not like he had any choice. He had no idea how Emerald could have reacted, and the last thing Spike wanted was to have Emerald trying to find information on his own. The question, “Have you seen a lavender alicorn?” would have probably given him weird looks from most ponies, but on the wrong ears who knew what could have happened considering the rarity of alicorns.

Now he had to make sure Emerald understood and would tell nopony.

With that in mind, Spike reached the small house. When he opened the door, he noticed Emerald had cleaned the main room. The fridge’s door was now closed, so Spike assumed he had cleaned that up too.

Emerald was on a chair near the table and was reading a book. Spike threw his bag in a corner near the entrance and went to check on Twilight.

“I am back Twilight.”

Emerald was glad to hear that Spike didn’t look upset. “She is still sleeping. She didn’t even wake up when I started cleaning,” Emerald said while closing his book.

Spike took a chair and sat at the table to face Emerald.

“You probably have many questions,” Spike’s tone was neutral.

“Yes -no- I mean, first, I want to apologize.”

“Huh. Apologize for what?” Spike didn’t even hide his surprise. He had expected Emerald to be curious and ask questions about the letter or just about Twilight, but definitely not an apology.

“At first, I was mad at you for... no, it doesn’t matter now. I should have gone to teach the fillies so you could have stayed to take care of her.” Emerald gave a look at Twilight then tried to look Spike in the eyes, but all he managed was to stare at the cover of his book and continue.

“But no, I only cared for myself and I used your concern for your job against you because I… not sure anymore,” Emerald paused to look at Spike “The point is I didn’t think of what you wanted. I only realized that when I saw you leave the room, I thought you were crying. I am sorry for that.”

“I…” Spike didn’t really know what to say after that, he paused and tried to collect his thoughts.

That was true, Spike was not happy to have to leave Twilight, though he didn’t remember crying, but his job was really important to him. Many ponies didn’t understand how a dragon could properly teach magic to young unicorns. Some of them wanted to simply deny him the right to do it, and he didn’t want to give them the smallest pretext, like leaving a class unattended. On the other side, he wasn’t happy to have been manipulated like that, but at least Emerald was trying to apologize, and there were more important matters to discuss.

“I can forgive you I guess, just don’t do it again-”

“I am real-”

“Let me finish,” Spike cut Emerald off, “Now, I want to know why you were mad at me? I don’t understand.”

“It... it doesn’t matter, and I am really sorry”

Spike sighed, “No, I want to make sure I can really trust you, but I don’t want to force you, if you are afraid or just want to leave it’s fine, so tell me.”

“No, it’s not like that, I am not sure what I want to do now actually, but ok if you want to know…,” With these words Emerald took a deep breath to calm himself.

“It has been more than a year that I have been your assistant and I thought we were friends,” there was a bit of sadness in Emerald’s eyes, “You probably know a lot about my life, but yesterday, you made me realize I know nearly nothing about you.”

“But maybe now that sounds stupid, because of everything you told me and I saw is true,” Emerald pointed at the letter that was now lying on the table, “you probably have good reasons to tell nopony.”

Spike was speechless for a while. Did I choose to hide so many things so I share nothing with a... friend?

“You are right, and now I feel like I should be the one to apologize. Ok, you know what? I will tell you more about me, but before that, I want to make sure you can understand this whole thing.” Spike had turned his head to the sleeping alicorn.

“Actually, I have been trying to make sense of that the whole morning, and yes, I have many questions, but first can I just tell you what I came up with?”

“Fine, want me to fill the holes or missing parts?” Spike was getting more comfortable with the way this conversation was going, it was getting close to a student/teacher interaction.

“I’d rather not. It is already confusing for me,” Emerald took a breath to calm himself, “so I tried to understand from what we have been told about Twilight Sparkle, what you told me, and the letter.”

“When she was a filly, she became Celestia’s personal student, probably because she managed to hatch you. Some years later, she defeated Nightmare Moon with her friends and the Elements of Harmony. That brought back Princess Luna. Later, she did the same with Discord,” Emerald found himself waiting for Spike’s approval before moving on.

Spike simply nodded. It was mostly common knowledge minus the part about Spike’s birth.

“Meanwhile, you probably saved the Crystal Empire if your title on the letter is true. She died in a magical accident. Now, nearly twenty years later, she teleported back to you, and she is now an alicorn. And you... we have to tell nopony about that. I’d rather not think about the memory part, it’s already hard for me to believe all of this.”

“So now, here’s my first question: did you really save the Crystal Empire and why did you never tell me?”

“Well, it was not really me. I was here, and I helped it’s true, but you can probably guess who did most of the job. And I don’t really hide it, there is a stained glass in Canterlot Castle with me on it, and you can ask a crystal pony and he will give you my name. It’s just most ponies think I am still a baby dragon.”

“Ho, ok, I feel dumb now, but that probably explains why you got a royal letter from Princess Cadence.”

“Oh, well, it’s not really for that, but I don’t know if you want to hear that too already.”

“Yeah no, it’s already overwhelming. So do you really think it’s the real Twilight Sparkle? And why must we not tell Princess Celestia? Because if it’s really her, she’s probably the first pony that should be informed that she isn’t dead.”

“For your first question, I am sure it’s really Twilight, don’t ask me why, I just know it’s her. On the second part, I am probably as lost as you are. All I can do is I trust Princess Cadence and Princess Luna’s words.”

Spike was looking at Emerald who was silently thinking.

“No more questions?”

“Probably too many.”

“Yeah, fair enough, but before going on, I want to know what you think of all of this and what you will do.”

“Oh, I think it’s just crazy, true or not. For what I will do, It’s like choosing if I want to disappoint one princess or getting the two other princesses and a dragon mad at me, so I guess I will stay with you. I don’t think I can leave and just forget about all of this.”

“Thank you, but don’t feel like you don’t have a choice.”

“No, it’s fine. I am also glad to hear there are things you don’t understand too.” There was a small smile on Emerald’s face.

Spike had a small smile on his face too, “So do you want to hear my story now?”

“What about eating lunch first? I guess you didn’t eat this morning?”

“Huh, that’s actually a good idea.”

Before Spike tried to get up from his chair, Emerald already headed to the fridge and pulled out two already prepared plates. It was some kind of salad with lots of small pieces of different vegetables.
Spike looked at his plate with a puzzled look, it was a very small portion.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I figured out what she was doing in the fridge. She was hungry, and she had started to eat everything she could. That’s all I managed to save after cleaning up, sorry.”

Spike looked again at his plate, they had still around four days of stay here, so the fridge was not that full, plus they generally didn’t have to worry about their last meal, except the last breakfast. Small country towns liked to offer them a dinner with the local teacher and some parents. Still, it should have more than that to save.

Spike got up and reached a closed cupboard to get his gem box, then sat back at the table. He picked up a big gem and started breaking it in small shards with his claws. He proceeded to mix the shards with the salad.

Emerald was already eating his plate and was looking at Spike. The stallion was clearly more relaxed.

“So should I call you Lord Spike or Sir Spike now?”

“Haha, no, only some crystal ponies call me like that, I don’t even think Cadence gave me an official title.”

They both paused again to eat, and they heard the sound of a loud breath and a moving blanket.

“...Hello? Spike!” said the quiet voice of Twilight, she was staring at Spike with a smile.

“Twilight!” Spike rushed to the couch where the alicorn was still lying. He restrained himself to hug her, he wasn’t sure if she could bear it. “Are you alright?”

“I am... sleepy”, Twilight’s voice was a bit unsure but it was less quiet than Spike already heard. Emerald had left the table too to get closer to the couch.

Twilight noticed the green stallion “Who… Who are you?”

Emerald was a bit surprised, he looked at Spike and the dragon gave him a nod. Emerald was not really sure how to present himself to a national hero of Equestria.

“Hello. My name is Emerald Scroll, heir to House Scroll.”

Spike sighed, he knew Emerald, as a noble, took it seriously to make formal greeting. Twilight was a bit surprised.

“...Hello, I am... Twilight Sparkle, huh...”, it seemed as if the alicorn was searching carefully for her words, “Princess Celestia’s personal student?”

Spike looked at Emerald’s reaction: it was priceless. Spike had guessed Emerald wasn’t really convinced that the alicorn was Twilight, but now that she had presented herself, that made it more real to the poor unicorn. His face was a mix of confusion and surprise. He fell on his two hind legs, sitting on the floor.

“Are... you alright?” Twilight was staring at Emerald.

“Don’t worry Twilight, he is fine. Do you need something?”

“I… I am hungry.” Her focus was now on one of the plates on the table, all her confusion and surprise had left her eyes, like she was hypnotized by the food. She rose from the couch, put her front legs first on the floor followed by the rest of her body without taking her gaze off the plate.

Spike was surprised by the way she managed to leave the couch. He hadn’t seen her leave the bed the first time and was expecting her to have trouble getting out of the couch and walking. She wasn’t shaking, she was just moving with a slow but steady pace. When she got near the table, Spike noticed the plate she was looking at: it was his own plate. Quickly, he managed to move the plate away and present Emerald’s. Ponies can’t eat gems.

Twilight was surprised to see the first plate disappear, but when she saw the other one she just rushed her muzzle in the plate to eat. Spike knew Twilight wasn’t the type to eat with proper manners, but it was like watching a young filly eating a long awaited treat.

Meanwhile Emerald had awoken from his stupor. He had seen the alicorn slowly walk near him, the blanket had fallen in the process and he was watching her cutie mark, a big purple star with five small stars around. Ok, Emerald you can’t fool yourself anymore, even the cutie mark is right. It’s really Twilight Sparkle but something feels odd about her cutie mark, what? How can I feel something from a cutie mark?

Emerald was awakened from his thought by Spike’s voice asking him something.

“Um, Emerald, do we have something else to eat?”

“Oh yeah, there are still some fruits,” Emerald was expecting the question and pointed to one of the cupboards.

Spike had already discarded his own plate far away from Twilight before she asked for more after finishing the content of the first plate. Spike opened the cupboard and found a bowl with some apples, pears, and peaches. Twilight was looking at him with a lot of expectation, following the bowl content with her muzzle as Spike put it on the table. Spike paused, but after seeing the sad look that was growing in Twilight’s eyes. He grabbed an apple and put it on her plate. She put a hoof around the apple so it wouldn’t go away while she bit small pieces of it.

While Twilight was eating her fruits, Emerald had gone to the sink to fill a glass of water and put it on the table, then he grabbed a straw. After finishing the last fruit Spike had given to her, Twilight gave him again a pleading gaze.

“I am sorry, Twilight. There is nothing left, maybe you should drink now?”

She looked at the glass that was at her side and started drinking with the straw, then she stopped.

“...Thank... you”

Everypony was silent until she had finished sipping her water. Then she repeated:

“Thank you...I am...sleepy,” Twilight nearly collapsed after saying these words, but both Spike and Emerald were ready to catch her before she fell on the floor, and they helped her reach the couch.

After Twilight fell asleep, Emerald went to grab the bag of bits they used for their expenses and levitated his saddlebags onto his back.

“I am going to do the groceries, I… need to take some fresh air.” When Emerald reached the door, he turned his head to Spike and added, “Do you need something?”

“No, it’s fine.”

Spike was left alone with his thoughts. He had finished eating his own plate and was cleaning up the two plates, the glass, and the now empty bowl.

So at least she knows who she is. Thanks to Emerald’s formal greeting it seems like she just doesn’t remember only her name. I hope next time she is awake, she will not fall asleep so fast. It seems I can trust Emerald. I can understand he is probably very confused about all of this, but he is helping. Should I inform the Princesses about him? Yeah, I will write to Cadence. Does Shining know about Twilight? Good question, but if it was the case he would probably already be here.

“Rah, now that you are back Twilight, you’ll give me headaches again,” There was no answer from the sleeping Alicorn, but Spike was smiling.

Chapter 4 - Blank Scroll

Spike didn’t send a letter to Princess Cadence immediately. Instead, he waited for Emerald’s return. The stallion’s saddlebags were quite full when he entered the room. There was some bread to make sandwiches, some cereals for breakfast, and a lot of fruits and vegetables.

After catching his breath, Emerald said, “Sorry it took me so long. I had to go directly to some farmer barn, and I didn’t know what to pick up.”

“Let me help you,” Spike answered, while Emerald levitated his saddlebags to the back of a chair.

Both of them sorted the goods. The bread and cereals went into a cupboard, while most of the fruits and vegetables were put in the fridge. There was nothing to make real cooking but that would be enough, mainly because Spike didn’t really need to eat pony food -still, he enjoyed a good meal once in a while for the taste- and Emerald wasn’t really demanding on everyday meals.

Sadly, this time the sound they made managed to wake the sleeping alicorn. She was up on her own again but was shaking nervously. Emerald noticed her while Spike was sorting out the fridge content.

“Something wrong, Lady Sparkle?”

Spike rolled his eyes hearing Emerald calling her ‘Lady’ but said nothing. It was better to let Emerald get comfortable talking with her, one way or another.

A small blush formed on the alicorn’s face, “Little...filly...room...”

“Ho, this way.” Emerald used his magic to open the door that leads to the bathroom.

The alicorn rushed in the bathroom, and Emerald closed the door partially to give her some privacy. Spike and Emerald finished their sorting and waited for Twilight’s return.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” asked Spike after hearing no sound from the bathroom for some time.

The door of the bathroom burst open and revealed a confused mare with her wings open. She was uttering a single word, “Wings…wings...wings, wings, wings...”

Spike swore he would have expected to see Twilight run everywhere, but visibly, she lacked the strength for it and was just talking while shaking her head horizontally. He put a claw on her shoulder before saying firmly:

“Calm down, Twilight.” Surprisingly, that managed to stop the muttering.

“Why do I have...wings...Oh...” she looked Spike in the eye before her own eyes shut and her legs gave up. Once again, Spike and Emerald put her on the couch. This time they had to fold her wings.

“Should we put her in your bed instead? The couch isn’t really comfy,” Emerald asked while putting the blanket in place around the sleeping mare.

“You are right, but it’s easier to watch her this way.” Spike opened a cupboard and grabbed a quill and some blank scrolls. “Anyway, will you help me write a letter to Princess Cadence?”

A frown made its way on Emerald’s face. “Wait a minute, this time it doesn’t look like she was just falling asleep, and you aren’t worried?”

“Listen, it’s not unusual for Twilight to faint like that when she’s shocked, and I’m actually very worried about the memory loss now, seeing her reaction, -” Spike sat on his chair at the table “- but until she wakes up again and can stay conscious more than five minutes, we won’t have any more answers, so I am writing to Cadence.”

Emerald relaxed, figuring Spike knew her better than him. He looked over Spike’s shoulder. “Ok, but why do you want my help?”

Spike soaked the tip of the quill while answering, “I don’t know if her husband, Shining Armor, knows about Twilight.”

Emerald brought a chair to sit closer to Spike, “He’s her brother if I remember correctly?”

“Yes, as I was saying, if he doesn’t know about Twilight, I can’t have the risk of him finding out via a letter I sent to Cadence. He may be around when she gets the letter. So I need to find a story to tell her, you know... about Twilight... without raising suspicion.”

“Wow, you really thought a lot about it. So tell me what you usually write her.”

Spike didn’t really send many letters to Cadence. They were usually just casual letters where he described a new town he found interesting enough or when something unusual happened. Spike saved the whole story of his travels for family meetings like Hearth's Warming Eve.

Dear Cadence and Shining Armor,

I am in the typical country town of Littlemare. It’s a town with a lot of farms, especially pear orchards. The ponies are nice, and I am very surprised that most earth pony farmers do not mind having unicorns helping them at their farm. It is not very common, especially in towns distant from larger ones.

Yesterday, my friend and assistant, Emerald Scroll, met a mare that wants to travel with us. I don’t really mind my assistant having a relationship, but I would appreciate if you could give me some advice to determine if she is truly interested in him or just in his noble heredity. The Scroll are nice people, and I don’t want to to be responsible for something I can prevent that could be bad for their son.

She is an odd unicorn claiming she was a pegasus in another life. Emerald wanted to cast the wings spell to impress her, and she was really surprised that a spell like that existed. It’s easy to forget that the common unicorns don’t really know that much about magic, but I digress. Sadly, Emerald didn’t have the strength to complete the spell and has been sleeping all this morning to recover. It was kind of cute but I had to do my class alone.

I hope next time we meet this issue will be sorted out.

Sincerely Spike

P.S. I prefer that Cadence gives me advice, I don’t want to perform a royal guard interrogation on a poor, young mare.

“Really, you think the mare going after your title isn’t too big of a lie?” Spike asked Emerald after finishing the first draft. It had taken them ten minutes to come up with it.

“No, it’s really a big issue for most noble families. That’s why you don’t see many weddings between commoners and nobles. I often met mares that were only interested in me as a noble. I don’t care when it’s just to spend a dinner or a night with me, but it’s annoying trying to not think about it when you want a proper relationship.” The stallion sighed at a bad memory that was coming back to him.

“Yeah, I think I understand.” Spike put a claw on the shoulder of the stallion.

There was an awkward silence after Spike removed his claw, but Emerald looked at the letter on the table and spoke. “When do you think we will have an answer?”

“Probably not now. I don’t know Cadence’s exact schedule. Some days can be very busy for her, but knowing her, she will try to answer soon.”

Spike copied the letter on a new scroll, rolled it, put his own seal on it, and burned the scroll with his dragon fire. Spike had already told Emerald how his dragon fire worked while writing the letter.

Emerald brought a hoof behind his neck before looking at Spike “So, Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadence sound like your family the way you talk about them, but what about Lady Sparkle’s parents?”

“You should call her Twilight. She will probably freak out or be very annoyed if you call her Lady Sparkle since her parents are not a noble family in the first place.” Spike watched the expected shocked expression on Emerald’s face. “And to answer your question, it’s kinda weird, but I was with Cadence and Shining Armor at Canterlot Castle more than Twilight’s parents when I was younger. After Twilight’s death…” Spike paused.

“Sorry if it’s too personal,” interrupted Emerald, filling the small pause.

Spike let out a yawn. “No it’s fine, I am just tired; so to give a quick answer, I still see them as very close friends. It already took me a while to see Twilight as my mother.”

After another yawn, Spike continued, “I promised to tell you more about my past, but now I will take a nap so I can keep an eye on Twilight tonight. Don’t mind waking me up if she wakes up before me.”

Emerald watched Spike get up his chair. “And the letter?”

“That’s a sad part about dragon fire: that will wake me up,” said Spike with a small chuckle. He went to his room, taking with him the letter he received the previous night, put it back in his drawer, and hopped in his bed to sleep.

Emerald was alone again with the sleeping alicorn. I need to find something to do. At this rate, I will have nothing left to read. He levitated a pot of ink, some paper, and a quill in front of him then put a title on one page.

Twilight Sparkle, Savior of Equestria, Element of Magic, personal pupil of Princess Celestia...

“Hm, I think I missed some, let’s see,” he muttered to himself.

...Savior of the Crystal Empire

“Does she have some kind of title from that? Being the sister of a Prince Consort ruler of the Crystal Empire?”

Emerald proceeded to write down all he had learned from Spike and what he already knew, then started to do the same thing with Spike, but before finishing, he stopped.

What am I doing? Ok, Spike is a national hero and his mother is too. It can be interesting to have the whole story of their life written somewhere, but Spike is my friend, right? What kind of pony writes the whole life of his friend like that?

Emerald took the page he had written on Twilight, pondering at all the blanks he had left and the fact that one page had been enough to write all he knew. Wearing a sad look, he cast a fire spell to burn the page.

I hope her memory isn’t like this page.

He proceeded to burn Spike’s page in the same way, and stayed five minutes, staring at Twilight sleeping. Still quite the mare, she did so many things and ended up an alicorn. Hm, alicorn. He took another piece of paper and started writing again.

The Story of a Lavender Alicorn
Journal of Emerald Scroll

First day:
I met her in the morning. I first saw her as a unicorn. She was eating breakfast and was surprised at seeing me. That was the first time I saw her wings. She fell asleep afterward. She was very famished. I think I will describe her when she is in a better condition. For now, her colors seem faded, and her mane and tail are all dry.
She woke up in the afternoon. She presented herself to me as Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia. After sleeping again, for something like an hour and a half, she took a bathroom break and barged out of the room realizing she had wings, and then she fainted.

Emerald went to his room to hide the page in his belongings and grabbed one of the books Spike had given to him before leaving Canterlot. Emerald was just happy being Spike’s assistant. He didn’t have to deal that much with the fillies and colts, and he was mainly there to show the spell Spike was teaching and to give Spike more credit to the fillies and colts’ skeptical parents. The sad thing was that most parents believed it was the other way around: Emerald was doing the teaching and Spike was only taking notes or something.

Can’t delay this anymore now I guess.

Getting back in the main room, he sat in his chair and started reading Methods for Teaching Magic to Young Unicorns. Emerald liked reading books: books about new spells, small novels, or even books about some great noble house, but purely theoretical books like this were utterly boring to him.

He read for the rest of the afternoon, taking some pauses to drink. He only got interrupted by a small voice.

“Interesting... book? Mister... Scroll?”

“Not really.” Emerald turned his head toward the voice, facing two purple eyes. Thanks for a way to escape this book. “Oh good afternoon, Lady Sparkle.”

The alicorn had backed a bit away from the table, a small frown on her face. “Don’t… call me that...”

Spike said she could be mad, hm “Sorry. Do you prefer Princess Twilight Sparkle?” Emerald said with a small smile.

Twilight blinked once before answering, “Huh?... what?”

Emerald pointed at Twilight’s horn and wings, “Horn and wings, like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” Emerald sighed, his smile had vanished ”Sorry, it was a bad joke.”

The alicorn sat on her rump and closed her eyes “Huh...it wasn’t a dream...”

Emerald looked at Twilight, who seemed lost in her thoughts. I hope she doesn’t faint again.

She slowly opened her eyes, her gaze wandering everywhere in the room. “Where is...Spike? and… who is Princess Luna?”

Spike, I have to wake him, and what was his question? “Oh, I’ll get Spike, do you want something to drink or eat?”

The thought of food was acting like a switch on the alicorn. Her confusion disappeared and a big smile replaced it. “Yes”

Emerald put two apples and a glass of water with a straw on the table before heading to Spike’s room. She doesn’t remember Princess Luna? That doesn’t sound very good.

Chapter 5 - Tears

“This is not good, this is not good.” Spike was pacing in his room after Emerald had woken him up and told him what Twilight had said.

“That’s bad?” replied a nervous Emerald.

“Haha, it’s worse than that.” Spike took a deep breath to calm himself. After another nervous laugh, he looked at Emerald, “Can you soundproof the room?”

“Yes, but-”

“Just do it!”

“Give me a minute.” It was not a common spell, mainly because it was just easier and convenient to enchant a room permanently. Using the spell directly was not easy and had another major fault, “Done, we have like five minutes.” It didn’t last long.

“I will try to be quick. So you know, Twilight and her friends defeated Nightmare Moon freeing Princess Luna. What you probably don’t know is she had no real friends before that day. You could even say she had no life outside her studies.”

Emerald was shocked. He had expected Twilight Sparkle to be studious, being Princess Celestia’s student, but not to lack a social life, especially since she saved Equestria with the help of her friends.

Spike saw the look of surprise in the unicorn’s eyes, but he continued, “I am not kidding, the only ponies you could see as her friends before that day were her brother, Princess Celestia and me. And maybe Cadence, being her foal-sitter.”

Emerald had given up being surprised and shocked at how every important pony seemed involved in Twilight’s life, one way or another.

“Princess Celestia would say that it was after this day, that Twilight’s real life started. I would not phrase it like that, but it’s close to the truth. She met five amazing friends, learned a lot about friendship, and she became more social. I was glad to see her happy about something other than books or magic lessons.” Spike paused before adding, “So, do you see how bad it is that she doesn’t remember Princess Luna now?”

“I…am not sure.”

“The other bad news is she is smart, very smart, and I am not sure what I will do when she starts noticing something other than the fact she has wings now.”

“Er, like what?”

“Do I look like a baby dragon to you?” Spike still had some child-like features in his face, but he was taller than most ponies. Still, he did not have an intimidating bulky form as Emerald had expected the first time he was told he would work with a dragon.

“Oh…Oh...” Until now, Emerald had not realized losing memories could be a real issue, but now, he was worried. He shook his head. “What should we do?”.

“Hope for -” Spike gulped fire and looked at the letter that had appeared in the flame that followed “- something like that.” Spike quickly broke the seal on the scroll. “Emerald, take care of Twilight while I read this. Try to distract her!”

Dear Spike,

Thank you for the puzzling letter. Shiny was really confused at first, although he sometimes manages to think like the Prince he is now. But again, thank you. He knows that I know something important that I don’t want to tell him, and it would have been the worst way for him to find out that his sister is alive.
But you didn’t write to hear me complain about Shiny. The letter you received was more from Luna than me. It was just a way to help you immediately, and it was meant to be found by Twilight. You can even give it to her. I think you deserve to know more, but don’t keep this letter. So here is what I know.
Five years ago, Luna came in my dreams to show me something, and she didn’t want to tell me what until I reached it. There was a blank area with a small lavender alicorn filly crying. She looked exactly like Twilight, and it felt like Twilight. Obviously, I asked Luna what was going on. She told me it was a projection of Twilight’s dream, that Twilight was neither dead nor injured but in a state like a deep coma. I was both happy and worried. I asked if I could help. Luna told me it was exactly why I was here, but she made me promise to tell nopony about it, even her sister. I didn’t care, I was so happy to have Twilight back.
I thought Luna needed my power as an alicorn to perform some spell, but no, what she needed was worse: she needed my memories of Twilight. Her mind was shattered and the blank in the projection was her memories. Luna didn’t know Twilight enough, so she had turned to me to create some seeds on which the rest of her memory could grow back. I said I wasn’t the right pony, surely her parents or you were a better choice, and I started arguing why I had to tell nopony. And Luna did something completely unexpected: she threatened me. She said she could force me, and it would not be pleasant for me, and I will never know.
I thought only Celestia had seen her sister angry like that, and it was only on dreadful circumstances. I have to admit, I had never been so afraid before. What Chrysalis and Sombra did to me sounded like nothing compared to Luna’s wrath. She gave me time to think. That’s when I saw something in Luna’s anger: there was no evil intent, it was like a mother protecting her child. So I accepted. That made me think about Celestia’s behavior and I realized, she really had changed after Twilight’s death. I had always thought it was her sorrow for losing somepony so precious to her, but there is something else, but I don’t know what.
I don’t know much more, I’m afraid. I expected Luna to tell me what happened the day of Twilight’s death and where Twilight was all these years, but she never did. There is something you have to know about Luna, she has an erratic behavior towards most things, but on serious matters, you don’t want to argue with her. She is rarely wrong. Celestia told me it took her forever to get her sister accept letting Twilight and her friends take care of Sombra, and I have to admit as grateful as I am to Twilight, I would have preferred she didn’t risk her life for one of Celestia’s lessons. So I trusted Luna’s choice of not telling me more.
But I have no regret now, I am happy. Your letter seems to confirm that Luna did not lie to me, and Twilight is alive. If she really is an alicorn, you don’t have to worry about her health. To clarify, I spent one month in the crystal caverns under Canterlot without food or water and barely sleeping. But don’t expect her to recover quickly, we are not Goddesses.
The bad news is I have no idea what Twilight remembers exactly. Luna told me her foalhood will probably be intact, but the rest will have a lot of holes that she has to fill herself. Otherwise, she could fall back into a coma if her memory is forced. After sending the first letter, Luna was very worried, because she could not reach Twilight’s dream now that she is “awake”, but she will try to prevent any nightmares from entering it.
On the matter of your assistant knowing all of this, it was probably unavoidable, and all I can do is again: trust you. If you want us to take drastic measures against him, let us know, and we will do it. Otherwise, I will do nothing. Try to tell him as little as you can about Twilight. You will see that sometimes, knowledge is a curse, and the lack of it is a blessing.
Don’t send me letters too often, Shiny will be more suspicious, and don’t send letters to Luna. Celestia never told you, but she knows every time you use your dragon fire to send letters.

Sincerely,
Cadence

Post Scriptum : Don’t forget to destroy this letter, and when you think Twilight remembers enough, bring her to the Crystal Empire, I really want to see her.

Spike read the letter twice before burning it. “Thank you Cadance, but that doesn’t help me at all.”

Meanwhile in the living room Emerald was panicked, ‘Distract her, distract her with what? Food seems to work, but she’s not an animal. I can’t just give her raw vegetables like that.’ Twilight’s glass was empty, and she was finishing the second apple.

“Miss Sparkle, how about I make you a sandwich?”

Twilight’s ears twitched, and her eyes went wide open staring at Emerald at the mention of a real meal. She dropped her almost eaten apple. “Yes!”

‘Wait a minute, how do I distract her while I prepare this damned sandwich?’ Emerald took a glance at his book on the table.

“Want to take a look at that while I make it?”

If Twilight’s eyes could have opened wider than they were already after the mention of a sandwich, they probably would have covered her whole face.

‘Wow, she really must love books. That was a good idea’. Emerald started making the sandwich, taking the bread he had bought this morning, along with some salad and random vegetables, fetching some oil, vinegar and spices to make the sauce.

In the middle of slicing the salad, Emerald heard a stomping sound from behind him. He turned his head to the sound.

“Gah!” Twilight was stomping her right hoof on the book.

‘What is she doing?’ though Emerald. Twilight had given up on stomping the book, and had switched to slide her hoof across the page. ‘Is she… trying to turn the page?’

“Gahh, I feel like a filly.” Twilight had gotten back to stomping the book. Emerald sighed and used his magic to turn the page for her between two stomps.

“Thank you...”

Emerald sped up the preparation of the sandwich. He didn’t want to be “Twilight Sparkle’s personal page turner”. He grabbed a plate after putting the last piece of bread on the sandwich and went to put the plate on the table. He stopped when he looked at Twilight and almost let the plate free from his telekinesis when he heard her muttering.

“I...understand…nothing...” Twilight’s voice was more unsteady than usual, and Emerald could see moisture forming in her eyes.

“Hm, maybe you’re too tired to read yet.” ‘Ok, the book was a bad idea,’ Emerald thought. “Do you still want the sandwich?” Emerald levitated the book away and put the sandwich in front of her. This time, she didn’t smile seeing the food in front of her, but the tears were still not there.

“What... is happening to... me?”

Emerald tried to avoid her slightly inquisitive glare, “I am sorry, Miss Sparkle. I don’t know.”

“Why… do I have wings? Why... am I so hungry? Why... am I so tired?” Each question from Twilight was punctuated by small sobs, but the last one made the dam of tears broke. “Why do I feel so… empty?”

Emerald was frozen, watching the alicorn cry for what was felt like hour ‘What can I do?’

“You’re alive, Twilight.” Spike had watched the entire scene from his door, but could not hold it anymore. He rushed to hug Twilight, and she buried her face in his chest. “You’re alive.”

Emerald went into his room, leaving the dragon and the alicorn to have their moment. He didn’t feel good. ‘It’s my fault, I couldn’t find the words.’

***

After twenty minutes, Spike knocked at Emerald’s door. “Emerald? Can I come in?”

“Err, yes,” replied the stallion. After letting Spike enter the room, Emerald asked him, “Is she alright?”

“Yes, she is sleeping again. I put her in my bed this time, but what are you doing?” Emerald had put his traveling case open on his bed.

“I am packing, I’m leaving tomorrow. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anypony,” the unicorn simply replied after levitating a book into it.

“Huh? I thought you wanted to stay?”

“I changed my mind. I made her cry. How am I supposed to help if all I can do is watch her cry?”

“You think it is easy for me? That I have the answers for everything?” Spike’s voice was carrying a bit of anger.

“I don’t understand. You know her more than I do, and you know what to do with her.” Emerald kept avoiding Spike’s gaze.

“I already told you, I am like you. I have no idea what to do. I am not even sure if she’s the same Twilight that I remember now.” Spike’s face held a sad frown. ”I need your help.”

Emerald turn his head toward Spike hearing that, and he was surprised. He had never heard Spike sounding so lost. Being his assistant, he had always seen Spike as strong and confident, but now, his confidence was gone. Emerald could see the doubt through his sadness.

“You need my help?” Emerald’s voice was hesitant.

“I watched you put the blanket back on her after the fridge accident. I watched you bring her water. It may not seem like much to you, but it helps me a lot.”

“Anypony would do this. Do you think I’m a cold-hearted pony?!”

“That’s not what I mean. I don’t need help from you as anypony or my assistant. I need help from you as my friend.” Spike was now shaking.

“Huh.” Hearing Spike call him a friend was both reassuring and baffling for Emerald, especially after their talk at lunch.

“But what do you want me to do?”

“I... don’t know, I just can’t do this alone,” and Spike’s downcast expression turned into tears. This time Emerald had an idea when he saw the childish face of Spike crying.

He hugged Spike, “You’re still a baby dragon crying for his mommy, aren’t you?”

Spike broke the hug choked by the stallion words, he looked at Emerald “Huh?!” then started laughing.

“Thank you, I needed that. And yes it’s kinda true.” Spike gave a small chuckle after clearing his tears with one claw, “So will you help me?”

Emerald sighed, “I don’t know, but I can’t stand making you cry too.” Emerald paused offering a small smile at Spike. “So the letter?”

“Oh, hmm.” Spike cleared his throat before speaking, “Cadance’s letter was very interesting for not helping.”

“Sorry?”

“I will give you a short version: she doesn’t mind that you know about all this, Princess Luna is probably the only pony that knows what happened to Twilight, and I can’t contact her.” Spike clenched his claw. “We are basically on our own. Why am I not even surprised?”

“So no good news?”

“According to Cadance, Twilight is in no physical danger. Sorry, I know nothing more.”

“Good.” Emerald relaxed, “Good.” Before thinking of something else to say, Emerald’s stomach grumbled. “I’d rather have dinner now. I hope we can have a normal meal today.”

Spike and Emerald went in the main room. Emerald placed the uneaten sandwich in the fridge, and Spike made something for both of them to eat, and they discussed while eating. After that, Emerald went back to his room, while Spike headed into his own to watch over Twilight.

Emerald grabbed the piece of paper he wrote previously and copied its contents into a blank journal. He then completed it with:

She woke up again in the evening. I tried to humor her calling her Princess Twilight Sparkle. She wasn’t really aware of being an alicorn. She said she doesn’t know who Princess Luna is. I gave her something to drink and eat, and then fetched Spike. When I got back, I tried to make her proper food and offered her to read a book while waiting. She wasn’t able to turn the pages. Is she too tired to do magic? She said she couldn’t understand. I don’t know what she means by that. After that, she started crying. She doesn’t know what happened to her, she feels empty? Is she aware of her lost memories?

Author's Note

Next chapter will have more Twilight, I promise.

I started editing the first chapters, but I will seriously need an editor. If someone is interested, feel free to send me a pm.

Chapter 6 - Day two

Day two:
She woke up early in the morning. She didn’t want to eat until she had some answers. I figured that it was something hard for her to do. She was obviously trying as hard as she could to not look at the food on the table. I brought her a mirror from the bathroom so she could see why she should eat and rest. It was not a great idea, but she admitted she needed to eat.
After she had finished eating, she laid on the couch, saying nothing and just watched Spike and me. She seemed lost in her thoughts and sometimes stopped to look at her own reflection. Then she said she was tired and fell asleep again.

“How... much time?” were the first words of the lavender alicorn when she woke up in the middle of the afternoon. Spike was not here, and Emerald was reading his tutoring book and taking notes this time.

“You slept for eight hours,” he said after checking the clock.

“How much time?” she repeated.

“Sorry. I don’t understand, Miss Sparkle.”

“Spike is... bigger than I remember, and I am… an alicorn, but I know I was a unicorn. So how much time?”

‘Can I lie to her?’ “You had a magical accident... ” Emerald bit his lips “twenty years ago.”

“Twenty years?! A magical accident?!” Twilight had gotten up from the couch and was on her four legs shaking. She looked at the stallion. “Where is the Princess? Where’s Spike? Who are you exactly? Are you a doctor?”

“No, I’m not a doctor, I am just a -”

“Not a doctor? Why is there no doctor? Is Spike a doctor now? Where is the Princess?”

‘I can’t even choose if is she just curious or panicked. How can I stop her? I don’t like doing this but...’ Emerald lighted his horn. It was a lighter version of the stunning spell that most royal guards learned. It was supposed to calm a pony by making him sleepy. Emerald felt an odd sensation and stopped his spellcasting. ‘I just can’t.’

Meanwhile, Twilight was still expressing her confusion. “Where is the Princess? Where is Spike?”

Twilight’s unstopping flow of questions had finally caught on Emerald’s nerves, and he shouted, “Everypony thinks you’re dead!”

“Where is...” The alicorn stopped dead mid-sentence.

‘Wait what did I just say?’ “I’m... sorry,” ‘please don’t cry.’

“Is that the truth?” asked the alicorn as she approached Emerald. There was a bit of anger in her voice.

“Um... ”

“Is that the truth?” Twilight repeated, now staring Emerald in the eyes.

Emerald couldn’t look into her purple eyes. He looked at the floor. “Yes...”

Twilight’s legs gave up, and she fell on the floor, her wings slightly open. Burying her head in her front hooves, she cried. “I am… dead?”

Emerald, still in his chair, just looked at the alicorn on the floor. “I am sorry, Miss Sparkle. I can’t imagine how you are feeling... I am sorry,” ‘Why is all I can do is watch her cry?’

Emerald stared at the crying alicorn for something that felt like an eternity for him. He was surprised to see that her color seemed more… colorful. Her mane which was still unattended felt more alive. But her fur had marks of tears, sweat, and... dust?

An idea came to the mind of the stallion. “Do you want to take a bath, Miss Sparkle?”

“Huh?” Twilight lifted her head to stare at Emerald.

“I can’t stop you from crying, neither do I have answers for you, but a bath can’t hurt.”

Twilight just nodded before standing up again, and she walked slowly to the bathroom.

Emerald opened the door for her and turned the two facets of the bathtub to make a lukewarm bath. He helped her enter the bathtub, but before leaving the bathroom he said, “If you need help just call me.”

Again, she answered with a simple nod. For the first five minutes, the bathroom remained silent, but after a while, Emerald could hear sounds of splashing water. Ten minutes later, the sound became louder.

“Stupid things!” the alicorn shouted, “Stupid!” then she stopped.

“Can you help me with... the wings?” Twilight’s voice reached the main room through the bathroom’s half-opened door. It was a small voice, and Emerald could hear the embarrassment in it.

When he entered the room, there was water on the floor and floating in the bath was a sponge and the soap. The alicorn had visibly managed to clean her legs and part of her fur. She was sitting in the bathtub, her wings unfolded and floating on the surface of the water. He noticed the annoying gaze she was giving at one of her wings.

‘Wow, they are really big,’ he thought.

“Ok, you will have to learn how to take care of them properly. I can only help you clean them so that they will feel less stiff.” Emerald took a small brush, completely unfolded her right wing with one hoof and started brushing the feathers with the other. “Please don’t move.”

“So everypony thinks I’m dead?” asked Twilight while watching Emerald take care of her wing.

Emerald stopped to watch Twilight’s face. Her expression was still downcast, but he could see a hint of curiosity in her eyes. “Yes.”

“Everypony?”

“I think only Princess Cadance, Princess Luna, Spike, and I know that you are alive.”

Twilight stood up in the bathtub and asked, “Why does Princess Celestia not know? And who is Princess Luna?”

Emerald sighed. The cleaning of her wing was a nice distraction to all this craziness. “I will answer your questions if you remain calm so I can finish cleaning your wings. Does that sound good to you?”

The alicorn’s head hung low, and her ears folded back to the back of her head. She muttered, “Sorry.” before getting back in a seated position in the bathtub. Emerald grabbed her wing again.

“You really don’t remember who Princess Luna is?”

“No.”

‘This is gonna be long.’ “I will give you the short version. Princess Luna is Princess Celestia’s sister. A thousand years ago, more or less, Princess Luna turned evil from jealousy over her sister, and Celestia banished her to the moon.” Emerald paused to grab the soap and the sponge and started cleaning her feathers. “Twenty-two years ago, she was freed from the moon -”

“Nightmare Moon, her name was Nightmare Moon…,” the alicorn muttered. “Wait, you said I had an accident twenty years ago, but why can’t I remember something so important that happened before that?”

‘Spike was right, she is smart.’ “You know how magical accidents can sometimes leave you confused?”

“Huh… yes.” The alicorn finished her sentence with a yawn.

“Tired already? Do you think I can finish before you fall asleep, or should I stop and help you get dry?”

“It’s...ok.”

“Ok, I will hurry, but I need to focus, so no more questions.” Emerald didn’t really need that much focus, but he didn’t want to have to get a sleeping mare out of the water and dry her. It was already kind of awkward for him to help a mare clean up. She looks younger than me, but she must be nearly twice my age.

Emerald finished cleaning both her wings and cleaned some spots on her back she hadn’t been able to reach. The alicorn seemed more relaxed but was fighting to stay awake. He helped her get out of the bathtub.

“I’m... sleepy.”

‘I don’t think I have time to dry her with towels, please don’t reject the spell this time.’ Emerald’s horn glowed bright, and he closed his eyes to concentrate. He was trying to put lot of strength into the spell while maintaining total control of the effect. He didn’t want to burn the alicorn, just dry her. This time he felt nothing to stop the casting. The alicorn giggled a little at the warm sensation on her body.

When she was dry, Emerald helped her get back on the couch to sleep, and he got back to his book.

She woke up after only one hour, which surprised Emerald. She opened her eyes and said, “I... didn’t thank you.”

“What for, Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight pointed a hoof at the bathroom. “For the bath.”

“It’s nothing. I know how most mares don’t like to stay filthy.”

“And I am sorry for almost falling asleep.”

Emerald got up from his chair before answering, “It’s alright. We already told you we would help you get better. And about that, are you hungry? You haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“Very, but you didn’t answer my second question”

Emerald was already filling a glass of water. ‘And I thought I was escaping that.’ “About Princess Celestia?”

“Yes.”

Emerald sighed. “I will tell you, but I want to be sure about some things first.”

“Why?”

“First, because I am not even sure of that myself, and I think Spike would be better at explaining that.”

Twilight took a seat at the table. “I don’t get it. Is the Princess all right?”

“Oh yes. Don’t worry about that. Can you think clearly if you are hungry?” ‘Last chance?’

“Yes, I am hungry, but don’t use that to avoid my question!” she stomped a hoof on the table.

‘Buck.’ “I am sorry. I shouldn’t. It’s just, it’s not easy to answer that one.”

The alicorn fell back into a less tense position on her seat. “Rah. Fine. I will eat. You are right. I am just getting mad.”

‘I don’t understand her, sometimes she acts like a filly, sometimes she sounds very mature.’ thought Emerald.

He grabbed an already prepared salad from the fridge. Spike and him had agreed it was more practical to have already prepared meals, since she woke up at random times. He served the salad on a plate, and like always, she ate directly from the plate.

“I think I didn’t ask, who are you? I mean I know your name. Lord Emerald Scroll?” Twilight asked between two bites.

Emerald sat back in front of the mare. “Just Emerald, only my father is a Lord. I am Spike’s assistant”

“What?!” Twilight said almost choking on her food, then she calmed herself. “Oh right. Twenty years,” she swallowed the food still in her mouth. “You know, he is - or was now - my assistant.”

The stallion took a sip of his own glass of water. “I thought he was your son.”

“My son?!” She paused with her ears pinned to the back of her head. “I don’t know. I always thought of him as my assistant.”

“Spike told me you hatched him, is that true?”

The alicorn paused to think and shook her head. “I am not sure. I know it’s true, but I can’t remember.”

Emerald didn’t want to press her and just said, looking at her empty glass, “I am sorry, do you want something else to drink? I bought some apple juice.”

“Yes, thank you. So, what is Spike doing now?”

“You will probably not believe this, but he’s a teacher. He teaches young unicorns magic.”

“What? But how? He’s a baby dragon. How can he teach magic?”

“I will let him explain that.” Emerald looked at her now empty plate. “Do you want more or some fruits?”

“Fruits.”

Emerald watched the alicorn eat the apple and pear he had given to her, waiting for her to finish.

After finishing the apple, she spoke again. “Thank you. So about Princess Celestia?”

“Do you remember Princess Cadance, and if so do you trust her?”

“Of course, I trust her. She was my foal-sitter and she’s a princess. Is she alright?”

“Don’t worry. She’s fine. More importantly, you don’t seem to remember anything about Princess Luna.”

“I am not sure. I think I met her.” Twilight panicked and nearly shouted, “But I don’t see what that has to do with Princess Celestia not knowing I am alive! We should warn her! Where is Spike? I need to send her a letter!”

‘Spike had told me it would be hard. Should I show her the letter?’ “Wait, it’s probably better if I show you something.” Emerald rushed in Spike’s room, opened the drawer with the letter, and brought it back. ‘I should have done this sooner.’

He levitated the scroll in front of the Twilight. “Spike received this letter after you came back two days ago.”

The alicorn’s gaze kept switching between the scroll and the stallion. “How did I come back? Where are we? Where was I?!”

Emerald tried to keep a friendly face despite his anxiety of talking to the alicorn. “Well, I understand you may have many questions, but can I finish answering one?”

“Where..?” The ears of Twilight folded back on her head. “Sorry.”

Emerald smiled and pointed at the scroll. “Can you read, or do you want me to read it to you?”

A frown formed on the alicorn face. “Of course, I can read.”

Emerald opened the scroll for her and she started to read. “Crystal Empire?” was her first question.

Emerald sighed, he felt like… Spike, trying to teach a lesson to excited foals asking tons of questions. Spike seemed to like it, but Emerald was a bit annoyed by that. And now he was annoyed seeing the same behavior in Twilight.

He tried to not shout, “Please, at least finish the letter before asking more questions!”

Seeing the anger on Emerald’s face, Twilight just nodded. She seemed scared at Emerald’s outburst. As she read the letter, her face grew more anxious. When it seemed like she reached the end, she slid off her chair to the floor and curled in a ball screaming, “Cadance! The Crystal Empire! Sombra! No!”

Emerald watched in horror as the alicorn screamed. Staring at her face, he could see true fear there. He couldn’t do anything, just stare. Then she closed her eyes and passed out. It was not a peaceful sleep like Emerald had seen over the past two days. Her breathing was too fast and her body wouldn’t stop shaking. She was grimacing, and beads of sweat rolled down her face.

“Miss Sparkle, please wake up!” Emerald shouted, but it resulted in nothing. “Please, wake up,” he tried again, shaking her a bit. He tried for two minutes, but she still didn’t wake up.

Emerald stayed for one hour with a blank expression on his face, just sitting on the couch watching the poor alicorn sleep on the floor. He barely noticed Spike enter the room.

“Twilight! Why is she sleeping on the floor?!”

“I am sorry, Spike,” he replied while avoiding Spike gaze.

“Sorry for what? Help me put her on my bed.” They both carried the alicorn to the drake’s room. Once she was on his bed, Spike started realizing her state.

“What… What happened?”

“It’s my fault. I gave her the letter. She just screamed, and then she felt unconscious. I am sorry.”

Spike put one of his claw on Emerald’s shoulder “Did… she says something?”

“She -” Emerald bit his lips, “- was screaming about the Crystal Empire and Sombra.”

Spike released the stallion and remained silent for a minute. Then he nudged the sleeping alicorn. “Please, Twilight wake up! Twilight, wake up, please...” Spike pleaded, as he started to cry.

He stopped after five minutes and went to the main room of the house. “Stupid Cadance! No, stupid me! I thought I had grown smarter than that, but Twilight has always been right. I’m still a baby dragon! Now that she’s back, I just messed up. I am an idiot! An idiot!”

Emerald joined Spike in the living room and looked at Spike with teary eyes. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let her see the letter.”

Spike was blaming himself while shouting, “No, I told you it was ok to do it, and Cadance told me it was ok. It’s all my fault.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Understand what? Oh yeah, you don’t understand, you probably imagine she was always brave when she saved Equestria with her friends.”

He pointed a claw at the stallion. “I told you we saved the Crystal Empire, but you have no idea what happened that day. Oh sure, it was an happy ending, nopony was hurt, and Sombra was defeated. I was so naive, going with Twilight, just the both of us facing the unknown, quite an adventure!”

Spike moved closer to Emerald and looked him in the eyes, “But you know what I saw? I saw Twilight afraid, first by a stupid trap of Sombra, but she overcame it, and that was nothing compared to when she gave me the crystal heart.”

He took a breath before saying “I feel stupid, thinking that she would only remember the happy moments she had… in her life.

“I made her remember the only time I saw her afraid to lose her life… or me.” With these words, Spike started crying. He headed back to his room and renewed his attempts at waking up the alicorn. “Please Twilight wake up, I don’t want to lose you again.”

Chapter 7 - Travel

Day three:
Spike told me she woke up in the middle of the night. He gave her some water, and she wanted to spend some time alone outside. I think Spike didn’t tell me everything, but I won’t blame him.
The rest of the day was uneventful. She just slept and ate but said nothing aside from some small conversation. She fell asleep again afterward.
I am impressed by the speed of her recovery. She’s already starting to look like a healthy pony, but she seems to lack stamina. Even if she manages to stay awake longer now, she still sleeps a lot. Maybe her mind can’t follow her body?

“Hurry, we need to leave before the sun rises,” Spike shouted at Emerald.

“Sorry, I was checking to make sure we don’t forget anything.” Emerald was carrying his luggage and some goods he bought for the alicorn. He placed them on a cart he had acquired the previous day and put the harness around his neck.

“You are sure you don’t want me to pull the cart?” Spike asked while putting his own luggage on the cart, carefully trying to not disturb the sleeping alicorn nested in an improvised bed of blankets and pillows.

“I did barely any exercise in the past few days and it’s not a long trek.” Emerald had spent most of his time staying in the house watching over Twilight and studying some books. He wasn’t an athlete, but he didn’t like staying indoors that much.

Once everything was ready, they departed before anypony was out, saying nothing more. Spike walked behind the cart to watch over Twilight.

When they were out town, Spike finally broke the silence. “I thought Lord Scroll would not want to do such a mundane task as pulling a ruffian cart.”

“I guess Sir Spike, Savior of the Crystal Empire, wanted to accomplish the heroic task of pulling the carriage of Lady Sparkle on a perilous one-hour trip across the peaceful land of Equestria.”

They both laughed at each other. Emerald was relieved. Since the day of Twilight’s return, they didn’t have many wordplays like that, too concerned about the alicorn. He was also happy, because Spike loved to use his noble lineage to tease him, and now he could make comebacks.

“Huh? Why the bed is moving?” said Twilight now awake, looking at Spike.

“Ho. Sorry, Twilight. We didn’t want to wake you up, and we didn’t know if you could make the trip by yourself, so Emerald bought an old cart from a farmer.”

“But, where are we going?”

“Oh, we forget to tell you. I am a traveling teacher. We are moving to the next town.”

Twilight looked at the sky barely seeing the sun “So early?”

Emerald stopped when hearing these words. Spike and Emerald were leaving the town earlier than expected from what they had planned. They couldn’t stand anymore the nearly silence of Twilight, and the stupid small house they were living, so they choose to leave the town hoping that will ease the situation.

They both had prepared letters for the families of the young unicorns they taught to help them in the growth of their foals and some recommendations for the local teacher. Usually, they would go meet them, but that took too much time. They were so caught in their preparation, they had forgotten to acknowledge if Twilight understood the need for secrecy. That’s why they left so early, to avoid other ponies seeing her.

Spike paused too, ‘If I lie to her, she will never trust me, but I don’t want to see her having nightmares like that. What can I do?’

Sadly for Spike, Emerald was faster to decide. He removed the harness around his neck with his magic, but kept a hold on it to keep the cart steady. He moved to the back of the cart near Spike and said, “Miss Sparkle, do you remember the content of the letter?”

“Yes.” Her ears dropped slightly.

“I am sorry for the bad memory it brought back. I am really sorry, Miss Sparkle, -” Emerald paused, “- and I don’t want to be rude to you. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you, but you have to understand it’s not easy for both of us either. We are like you, and we can only trust the contents of the letter.” He paused again. “I am a stranger to you, and I can understand that you don’t want to trust me, but can you trust Spike?”

Twilight turned her head to Emerald “I am sorry, I don’t know. Can I even trust myself? I’m not even sure of who I am.” Twilight’s gaze felt on her her wings and then to Spike. “So what choice do I have?”

Spike looked to Twilight. “It’s your choice Twilight. If you want, I will write to Princess Celestia and bring you back to Canterlot.”

“Thank you, Spike. You have been only kind to me.” she pointed a hoof at Emerald. “Both of you. I think I will trust you.”

“Thank you, Twilight, but I promise you, anytime you want, I will write to Princess Celestia.”

Emerald went back to the front of the cart and put the harness on himself again. Before he could start walking, he felt the alicorn’s gaze on him.

“I don’t want to be a burden.” Twilight slowly got out the cart with the help of Spike. “I will walk.”

The alicorn walked alongside the cart, following Emerald’s slow but steady pace. She didn’t speak, enjoying the sensation of just walking and taking in the landscape. There was a dirt road, following some farm land. The sun rose higher in the sky giving them more light, and farms were replaced by grass and trees the further they walked.

After half an hour, Spike broke the silence. “Twilight are you feeling tired?”

“Not really, actually. Why do you ask, Spike?”

“We are heading to a bigger town to take a train, and I just realized we can’t really carry a sleepy mare across the town. Oh, wait. You also haven’t eaten. Ok, let's take a break so you can eat, while I explain to you the whole trip.”

Emerald stopped. He opened one of his bag containing some fruits, and gave some of them to Twilight. “Sorry we left in a rush, but we can have a real meal in the town later if you like.”

Spike waited for Twilight to finish an apple before speaking. “Twilight, I suggest you try to rest for the rest of the trip, it will be better if you can stay awake while we wait for the train.”

“Also, I bought this for you.” Emerald levitated a linen cloak with a hood.

The alicorn eyed the outfit with a puzzled expression. “Huh, I don’t understand?”

“Sorry, if it’s not a proper outfit, but it should be enough for you to hide.”

“Everypony thinks I am dead. Why do I need to hide?”

“Hm. Do you know any alicorns outside the princesses?” This time, that was Spike who answered Twilight’s question.

“Ohh.” Twilight’s eyes widened. “And now I feel stupid. Thank you, Spike.”

“You’re welcome.”

They resumed their trip when Twilight agreed to rest on the cart until they reached the town.

Emerald, Spike, and Twilight were now on the train in a private cabin. Twilight was sleeping on one of the benches, while Emerald and Spike shared the other one. The alicorn had fought sleep as long as she could while waiting for the train, but she fell asleep the moment they put her on the bench. Their luggages were on the nets on top of their heads, and there was an additional suitcase for the alicorn. Spike had bought convenient necessities for Twilight such as a toothbrush, some brushes, and shampoo while Emerald and Twilight were waiting for the train.

Emerald was already staring at Twilight’s cutie mark for a few minutes when Spike finally spoke to him.

“Wondering what her special talent is? I already saw you staring at her cutie mark like that before.”

Emerald turned his head to Spike, a bit surprised, “Huh? Um - not really - I mean yes, in a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s probably nothing, but yes, can you tell me her special talent? I’m guessing it’s magic related.”

Spike chuckled, “Haha. Yeah, it’s magic related, but you probably won’t believe it. Do you know my study on cutie marks and unicorn magic?”

“Hm…” Emerald paused to think, then he said, “Wait, it was you who wrote Cutie Marks and Magic Use?”

“Yes, do you remember it?”

“At first, I laughed at the book. I thought it was a foal book with common knowledge, but I was surprised that it was the only serious book on the subject. I think I understand why now. I don’t think a pony would do a complete study about that.”

“Yeah, I got a lot of laughs about that when I submitted the idea, but that’s not the point. Do you remember the part about gifted unicorns?”

Emerald put a hoof under his chin, “Basically, all unicorns gifted in magic have a special talent related to magic. The closer to a field you are, the easier it is to learn and create your own spell in the field- Hey you’re giving me one your lectures again!”

“Sorry. I will get to the point. As you know, many young gifted unicorns think their special talent is just magic, but in the end, it’s only a specific field of magic like fire magic, illusions, or in your case magic signature. Even Star Swirl’s special talent was magic theory, not magic. But Twilight’s special talent is really just magic.”

Emerald looked at Twilight cutie mark again and almost laughed. “Are you kidding me? How can you be so sure?”

“I always believed in her, and if you want some proof. For the study, I compared students’ results at magic tests, and I learned two things. First, you don’t want to be Princess Celestia’s personal student. Her tests are really crazy. I always thought Twilight was freaking out for nothing when Celestia had a test for her. The second thing is that Twilight’s results were totally off the charts comparing to others.”

‘And I thought she was the Element of Magic just because she was the only magically trained unicorn among her friends.’ “I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, something bothers me, but don’t laugh at me.”

“No, go on.”

“I have a bad habit related to my special talent since I can easily identify who uses a spell. I tend to watch unicorns I don’t know until they use their magic so I can memorize their signature. Miss Sparkle hasn’t used any magic since she came back.”

Spike shrugged. “Maybe she is too tired.”

“Yes, I thought that for the first day, but there is something you might not realize since you aren’t a unicorn. Magic is one of the first things we check when we wake up, like after a hangover. But then again, she is probably too tired or too confused.” Emerald brought a hoof to his horn and took another look at Twilight’s cutie mark. “The thing that is really bothering me is that when I look at her cutie mark, it feels faded.”

“Faded?” Spike gave a confused look at the mare’s cutie mark. “Yeah, her fur is not quite the same as I remember it was.”

Emerald shook his head, “No, I mean it feels, not looks faded. I told you it’s crazy.”

“I don’t understand. Am I missing something because I’m not a pony?” Spike frowned.

“No, Spike. When I look at a cutie mark, it’s like looking at a drawing. You might wonder what the special talent of the pony is or you might think of something else if it’s an attractive mare. It’s just your imagination. I will not deny a fine piece of art can trigger some emotions.” He pointed a hoof at the sleeping alicorn.

“But when I look at her cutie mark, it’s a true feeling, and it feels faded. Sorry, I don’t have a better explanation.”

“Ok, I admit that sounds crazy,” Spike simply replied.

“Yes, I would rather not think about what that means for her.” Emerald stopped and gave a look at the suitcase that contained Spike’s books, “Did you find any books on alicorns at the bookstore?”

“Hm, no. I don’t think we can find anything on that subject outside the Canterlot Royal Archives. But from all I know from living with Cadance, they are like normal ponies, outside their magic.”

Emerald’s curiosity get peeked “What about their magic?”

“I never asked about that in detail. All I guess from what I saw is they are more powerful than normal unicorns, but being Princesses, they don’t really use their magic outside common tasks, if you count raising and lowering the sun and moon as common tasks.”

Emerald let out a small laugh, and looked at the sleeping alicorn “She seems to recover very quickly at least. Did you get the book I told you about? It was rather embarrassing for me to help her take a bath.”

“Yeah, about that. How did you know how to clean her wings?” asked Spike with obvious curiosity.

“What I did is probably the only thing a nonpegasus or nonprofessional can do for wings. I had a pegasus marefriend, remember. I tried preening her wings once. It was quite uncomfortable for her, even with her guidance, and it’s rather intimate.”

“Hm, preening wings. I don’t think I ever asked what that is it exactly,” pondered Spike.

“It’s the way birds, pegasi, and griffons take care of their wings. You have to use your teeth to remove or readjust loose feathers, and then you use your tongue to clean them up.”

“That doesn’t seem easy.”

“Trust me, it’s not, and feathers taste bland.” Both went laughing after Emerald’s last sentence.

They said nothing more for the rest of the trip, not wanting to wake up Twilight. Emerald spent most of his time looking out the window, and Spike prepared some papers for their arrival in the next town.

Chapter 8 - Past

“And here, is your house. We added a bed as you asked for your assistant’s sister. I hope she will get better. Here the keys, you have two hours before the meeting with the parents” The voice was from an earth pony stallion wearing white collar. it was clean and looked new, probably because it was not used very often Spike though.

“Thank you, Major” Spike grabbed the offered keys.

“I will see you at the town hall. Professor Spike, Lord & Lady Scroll” the stallion saluted each of them, then left.

Spike opened the door of a two story chalet. There were in a town where most of the inhabitant were lumberjacks, so lot of house were made of wood. The three of them entered and put down their luggages. Twilight removed her hooded cloak and put it on a hook on the wall.

Emerald gave a look of false indignation at Spike. “Why I am not surprised you tell him to call me Lord, I am just the heir, my father is Lord Scroll.”

Spike rolled his eyes “As he will have call you otherwise after your formal greeting, I already told you to stop doing that.” He pointed at the stallion’s expensive suit. It had two strokes of green and yellow near the collar “and I thought you let’s that in Canterlot.”

The stallion raised his snoot in the air, “It’s important to always make a first good impression.”

Twilight giggled at what looked like a repeated routine “You seen to get along very well.”

“When you travel and have to share the same house every town, you have to,” Emerald replied with a smile.

“Do you want to choose your room Twilight so you can rest?” Spike asked after removing the last bag from his back.

Twilight looked at Spike with an annoyed expression “I am tired of sleeping all day.”

“Ok, but at least we can put your belonging in”

The alicorn sighed, “Fine.”

“So the mayor told me the house has two bedrooms upstair, but they put a bed in a room that was an office in the main floor.”

Twilight eyed Spike’s frame and said, “It’s hard to imagine you are not sleeping in a basket anymore.”

“I prefer sleeping in a bed. It will be hard to find a basket in my size now” Spike chuckled.

Twilight paused and point a hoof at the stairs “I think I prefer upstair.”

“I will take the room here” said Emerald. He grabbed his luggage and went into the converted desk room.

Spike went upstair followed by Twilight, he was caring her suitcase. Twilight choose the first bedroom, and the drake put her suitcase on her bed. When they entered the room, there were already clean blankets and sheets provided by the town.

Spike opened a drawer “I will let you install yourself, if you have any trouble-”

Twilight cut off Spike, stomping the floor with one hoof, anger in her voice “I know I can call for help.”

Spike took a step back, “Wow easy Twilight.”

“I am sorry Spike, I am angry at myself, I feel so helpless. I understand that I have to recover from whatever happened to me, but still it’s not right!” she punctuated this by another stomp on the floor.

“You cared for me for years Twilight, even when I was complaining, let me return the favor.”

“About that, you know the worst? What Emerald told me?” Twilight looked at Spike with teary eyes “He said you were my son, but I don’t remember. Did I was a good mother to you? I feel like I never treat you like my son.”

Spike put his arms around Twilight to hug her, “Don’t worry Twilight, maybe you only saw me as your assistant”, tears of happiness started flowing from his eyes, “but for me you are the best mother.”

The alicorn started to cry, “I am... sorry Spike, I left you for all this years… I am sorry”, tears were falling free on Spike’ scales as the alicorn hugged him tightly in return.

“It’s alright, you are here now” Spike patted the alicorn head. Both cried on each other arms saying nothing more, the dragon crying of happiness and the alicorn crying of unknow regrets. Spike waited for the alicorn to stop crying before breaking the embrace “Do you want to hear a story?”

Twilight looked Spike in his eyes, “A story?”

“I own Emerald a story about me, do you want to hear that?”

Twilight paused for a while before answering “I will be glad to listen, but are you sure?”

Spike understanding the implication of Twilight question, he just replied “Don’t worry about that, I will cut some... part, and there is still twenty years you couldn’t know at all!”

Twilight wiped her eyes with one hoof “Thank you Spike.”

Spike paused to think, a claw resting on his chin, his lips pressed in a tight line, “Come to think of this, I will not have time before the meeting, so let’s finish setting up. I will tell you after the meeting is over, do you want to come?”

Twilight didn’t answer, she blinked a few time but let out a small giggle “Are you sure you are my baby dragon? I don’t remember Spike being so serious.”

Spike’s face displayed a large smile, “Maybe I got that from my mother” they both started laughing together, it was childish but it was relaxing for them. It was a way for Twilight to forget for a moment all her trouble and questions. And for Spike it was a relief to see her mother smiling.

Spike left Twilight in her room. He get back upstair to get his luggage, smiling like a child even if he was much older than the young unicorn watching him downstair.

“I think I never see you so happy before, even with the fillies” said Emerald when Spike reached the bottom of the stair.

“Haha, Let’s say I have an interesting conversation with my mother” Spike let the last word trayed in his mind, he liked the sound of it now that it was not a sad memory.

“Is she alright? I heard a stomping nose.”

“Don’t worry, I even promise her a story”, Spike replied before grabbing his bags and getting back upstair, leaving the green stallion confused on his last words.

The time of the meeting was approaching. They had unpacked their bags. Spike and Emerald had checked what the town has already provided as food. Both of them had taken a shower and were in the living room starting planning the next week. They had agreed to let Twilight took care of herself to give her intimacy so she didn’t feel to have to rely too much on them, hoping she will call for help if needed.

It was already ten minutes since they could heard nose of running and splashing water from the bathroom upstair. She has insisted to try to clean herself, but Spike convinced her to let the door half open so they could hear her.

The splashing sound stopped and there was minute of silence before they could heard a shout from Twilight “Gah, Stupid hooves!, stupid towels!”

Spike and Emerald rushed at the door of the bathroom, Spike was the first to talk “Is everything alright?”

“How earth ponies and pegasus manage to dry themselves? How I supposed to dry my back with this stupid towel?”

Spike have to admit to himself he had no idea. He has claws so it was easy to grab thing, and always lived with unicorns when he wasn’t alone. Sadly he didn’t have time to imagine an answer for Twilight, Emerald just asked “Why you don’t use your magic to carry the towel?”

There was a small pause, Spike and Emerald expected something like I can’t or I am too tired, but not“No! I don’t want...to” and not especially with the small hint of fear that was carried in the sentence. Both were shocked by the answer but they look at each other and nodded in agreement to not question the alicorn. They did not want to revive the Crystal Empire nightmare as they had called that.

Spike didn’t want to let her alone, but didn’t want to break her trust by breaking his promise to let her take care of herself. He simply asked through the door “Twilight, can I enter to help you for today?”

“...”

Taking the no reply of the alicorn as an agreement, Spike entered the bathroom. Twilight was standing on her four legs, partially dry, she was frozen staring at nothing. Spike knowing his look just grabbed the towel that was on the floor and started drying her. He talked to her to get her out from her stupor. “Twilight wake up it’s Spike”

“Hu? Ow that hurt” complained the alicorn. Spike was rubbing the towel near her wings, they were shaking from the discomfort. He stopped to apologise but he was happy she was out her stupor. Spike continued drying the alicorn more gently. He looked at her folded wings, there were already dry.

“Getting a hold on this things?” Spike pointed at her back.

“Oh the wings, not really.” The alicorn turned her head to her wings then back to Spike “The book you gave me say when they are not dirty you just need to remove the sweat with water and shake them to dry them. It was not hard, except they are still a bit stiff and tend do whatever they want. Thank for the book”

Spike shook his head “Oh no, you will have to thank Emerald for that. And yes sometime it seem wings have their own mind, I had troubles with my wings at first”

“Hu you have wings?! I don’t see them!” the alicorn tried to turn her head back and forth to see on Spike back.

Spike smiled “Don’t search them, It’s a long story about how I manage to control my grown.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up “Ho I want to know! Do you have note? What do you eat now? Can you make them appear or disappear?” Twilight’s wings were totally unfolded, fully deployed and shaking at her growing excitement.

“Haha easy Twilight, we don’t have time now” Spike tried to calm Twilight. But it was the first time he has a full look at her wings, the feathers were still not fully healthy “Wow, you really sure have nice wings, they look a bit like Cadence.”

Twilight stopped her incessant flow of questions, a bit embarrassed by the compliment. She looked at her full unfolded wings and sighed “Her own mind? Great now I have to fold them again.”

Spike just replied “Just try to relax, wings tend to match your emotion.”

“Interesting, now my assistant is giving me lesson,” Twilight paused “Alright” She extended her left front leg in this air while taking a deep breath. Then she released her breath as she bring her leg close to her chest

Spike was surprised to see Twilight doing that. He just watched while thinking, Wait, Cadence teached her that not long just before her accident, How she remember that? What she remember exactly? That doesn’t seem to make sense.

The alicorn repeated the motion multiple time and her wings folded themselves. They were almost resting on her back when a voice behind the ajar door said:

“I don’t want to interrupt you, but will be late for the meeting.”

Spike just watched the alicorn’s wings deploying again and he thought Oh no.

Emerald watched the door of the bathroom open, nearly slapping him in the face. A purple blur passed in front of him saying “Oh no no no no” He followed the purple blur reaching the stair at full gallop, without stopping it fully opened its wings and flew downstair. what just happened? before he has time to wonder more, another purple blur with green spike pass again in front of him. This time recognizing Spike he just follow him downstair.

Twilight was trying to put her cloaked hood while shooting “Gah we are late, we are late” Spike was staring and just rolled her eyes. Emerald just gave a confused look to Spike.

“What happened? Why did she run like that?” the stallion asked.

Spike looked at the clock on the living room “Twilight, it’s alright we are not late.”

The alicorn stopped fighting with his hood “Really Spike?”

“Yes, we have five minutes left before we should go, and before you ask we have nothing to bring, nether nothing to prepare, at least for you.”

Before Twilight could answer, Emerald finally understood the issue and said “Wait she…” he paused to looked at the alicorn “you run like that because you were afraid to be late? is that a bit excessive?”

Spike laughed at Emerald phrasing, Twilight still seem confuse but Spike finally broke the silence

“Ok Twilight, do you still want to come? I mean, are you not tired?”

Now that her adrenaline rush has ended, the alicorn was showing sign of exhaustion “I... think I will go to bed”

“Should we let you sleep or can we wake you up for dinner?” asked Emerald.

The alicorn looked at Spike “I still want to hear your story Spike, so try to wake me up” Then she climbed the stairs with care.

Spike took a small bag. Emerald used his hooves to put some order in his mane. After closing the door of the house, Emerald asked Spike, “Are you sure we should let her alone?”

“Not really, but we really don’t have a choice, you know I need you for the meeting, and I rather not raise more suspicion about your sister.”

They were walking toward the center of the town when Emerald spoke “The funny thing I really have a sister, but she is only ten years old.”

“Ho I remember now, she is an earth pony right? I don’t think I see her much at your house.”

“Yes, she is quite shy for her age” the stallion paused to straighten his suit a last time “Mind me asking how old is Twilight?”

“It’s a good question, she was twenty two before her accident, so now I guess she is forty two. It’s weird, she still look the same before her accident minus the wings from what I remember.”

“I made myself the same remark. It’s maybe because she is an alicorn?”

“I don’t know, Cadance show me picture of her and Shining when they were younger before their wedding and she looked younger that she is now.”

“I guess they met when the Princess was foalsitting Twilight?”

“Haha not really, it’s a long story. It’s the second time you call her Twilight, giving up on the Miss Sparkle?”

“I better get used to it, It will be weird to call my sister Miss in public.”

They ended their conversation as they reach the town hall. It was more a house bigger than most of the other house in the town that a real proper town hall, but that was enough considering the small size of the town. They entered the main room where was waiting the major and five couples of pony.

There was only one unicorn stallion, the other were mostly earth pony and two pegasus. The mayor was on a small platform, seeing Spike and Emerald entering he invites them to go meet him.

“I present you, Professor Spike who will be in charge of your foals magic instruction, and his assistant Emerald Scroll.”

The young dragon and the unicorn climbed the small stair to reach the small stage. All the other ponies except the mayor were surprised by seeing a dragon at the first place. They were more surprised when he present himself.

“Thank you for coming, I am Professor Spike and before you say something, yes I know I am not an unicorn” it was a small joke that always ease ponies.

“And here is my assistant, Emerald Scroll who is an unicorn” Emerald stepped on the right of Spike.

Some ponies were looking at the mayor, but Spike didn’t let the ponies start ranting.

“You are probably wondering how a dragon can teach magic to unicorn, so let me at least the time to explain myself” Spike waited for the ponies in the room to relax a bit.

“To perform and learn magic, an unicorn need knowledge, practice and guidance. The knowledge is mostly theoretical, you can consider that like an algebra lesson. You don’t need to be an unicorn to understand the basics, but being a magic being helps. Good thing I am a dragon and a certified Professor

“For the practice part it’s like a muscle you have to train, so it rely on the willingness of your foals

“Probably most of your worries are for the guidance part. I am also a certified magic evaluator so I can evaluate well your foals on their progress” Spike liked the certified word, it’s a magic word for most ponies, you could be a timberwolf watching foals at a nursery if you are certified.

“But because we all know, sometime an example if better than longs explanations, my unicorn assistant, Emerald here, who is a student of the Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorn, can show any spells that will be needed.”

Spike speech didn’t get interrupted, mostly because he didn’t let any pause last long enough, it was a well worked speech he performed at each town.

“Now if you have any question outside the schedule of the next month for your foals, I will be honored to answer them.”

The ponies in the room were a bit nervous, but finally a pegasus mare made a remark to Spike, “No offence, but you look young to be a Professor.”

Spike liked this question it was a polite way for some ponies to avoid the you are dragon. He prefered to laugh at it, “Haha I often get this question, don’t worry, actually I am thirty five years old, I look young because dragon doesn’t age like pony. But I am here to teach magic to your foals not to lecture you about dragons. I can only said I was raised by ponies, I eat gems and not foals”

The ponies in the room relaxed a bit and started talking among each other. The mayor was grinning because he already get this talk with Spike. The unicorn stallion spoke to Spike and the mayor “Do we have to pay extra fee for your assistant?” the other couples stopped chatting and were nodding at the question.

Emerald was the one to answer “We understand your concern, but don’t worry it’s part of my studies, the school cover my expense”, which was partially the truth, his expanse were covered by the school and his family.

The question of the unicorn was the start real questions of parents concerned about their foals education and not pony curious about a dragon, like what they will learn and how they can help. Spike took the time to also try to learn about the fillies he would have the care.

After nearly two hours of that, Spike and Emerald were on they way to return to the house. They were interrupted by the mayor who asked Emerald “Your sister could not come?”

“No sorry, she was too tired. Is that a problem?”

“It’s none of my business, but it could have be good to have other pony see her before they start panicking seeing an unknown hooded mare wondering around.”

Spike replied “Oh sorry, we will ask her if she want to come at school tomorrow so some parent can see her, but I promise nothing. Is that good to you?”

“Thank you, I don’t want to bother you anymore. I hope she get well” on this word, the earth pony stallion returned toward the town hall.

“I didn’t expect that” was all Emerald had to say more to himself than Spike.

“We should thank him. He is right, ponies react better to the unknown if it’s already accepted by another pony” Spike let out a sigh of sadness.

“You never felt alone being not among your kind? I mean other dragon.”

“When I was a teeanger I try once to join my kind. You know? to know more about me, but dragons are jerks and cruel, so I prefer considering myself a pony and I barely never regretted it since that day.”

“Barely?” Emerald muttered “Oh sorry for thinking out loud.”

“I guess that should hurt me less now speaking about it, but when Twilight...die I didn’t take it well-”

“No it’s fine, no need to tell me, I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone close to you.”

“I hope that I will not happen to you”

They said nothing more for the rest on their way to the house, nether after entering the room. Spike finished some paper for the next day and Emerald went on his room to read. at least the ponies on this town seems quite tolerant, sometime the meeting with the parent does not go so well. The previous town Spike had to show his certificate and degree, that was something that always annoyed Emerald, Spike is a bucking Professor! not a second grade school teacher.

It was interrupted by Spike knocking at his door “Can you prepare something to eat while I see if I can wake Twilight?”

“Sure” Emerald closed his book and went in the kitchen to make something for dinner. Spike was soon get back upstair, hearing Spike he said through the open door of the kitchen “Still sleeping?”

“Yes, she said to try to wake up her, so I didn’t insist. I prefer she rest actually that she force herself to stay awake. She can be very stubborn sometime” Spike sighed.

Emerald had just finished gathering the ingredient so he asked “Should I make three portion or I just a big meal?”

Spike joined him in the kitchen “Let see if we can make something big as you say.”

Two hours later they were planning their stay, what to buy considering they were three and how to introduce Twilight tomorrow. They stopped when they heard the sound of hooves step descending the stair

“Hu. Did I miss dinner?” asked shyly Twilight.

“Sorry Twilight I didn’t want to force you to wake up, let me grab you something to eat.” Spike replied.

Emerald made some room on the dining table while Spike went on the kitchen. He get back with something for Twilight and sat in his chair

“So, want to hear my story?” Spike said while looking at Twilight and Emerald.

Both nodded so Spike continued “Twilight you stop me if you are not feeling well, but first I have to ask you, what do you remember and especially about the Crystal Empire?”

“I mostly remember some feeling, some faces, names. But I have trouble remembering an exact event” She looked at Spike “Like I know I hatched you, but I can’t remember. I know you were my assistant in my studies, but again it’s unclear. When I remember something new, it’s the same, I think I have something to do with the return of Princess Luna, but I have no idea on what exactly.”

“Hum, can you try to present yourself, talk about your family, your friends?” suggested Emerald.

“I can try, I am Twilight Sparkle, I am… not sure how old I am...”

“It’s alright Twilight, don’t force yourself, just talk about what you are quite sure”

“I am Princess Celestia personal student, I study magic, I grow up and live in Canterlot” she took a sip of her drink “My parent are Twilight Velvet and Night Light, both unicorn, I have a big brother Shining Armor” Twilight paused to ask Spike “are they alright?”

“Yes.”

“So, there is you, Spike my assistant, son? My friends are…” a frown start appearing on Twilight face “are...Shiny and Princess Cadance… Princess Luna.”

“Are you alright Twilight?” asked Spike with worry.

“...”

She doesn’t remember her friends? ok let talk about something else, “What do you remember about the Crystal Empire?”

“Crystal Empire? It’s an empire in the north. We save the Crystal Empire against somepony named King Sombra, leaving Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance rule it.. wait did I say Prince. Shiny married Cadance?”

Spike replied with a smile “Yes, it was an interesting wedding.”

“Gah, Why I don’t remember that?”

“Ok that should be enough for what I have to say”

Spike took a sip of his glass of water “So Twilight hatched me, I don’t know who is my dragon mother and father, I never asked Princess Celestia and I don’t really care. The Canterlot Castle staff raised me until Twilight was old enough to take care of me. I helped her for her studies as his assistant”

Spike looked at Twilight “When you… die, I was not feeling good, I stayed in Canterlot for nearly two years before Cadance and Shining took me to the Crystal Empire. Sorry I prefer not to talk about this two years”

Emerald and Twilight just remained silent and noded

“The Crystal Empire was a nice place for me, crystal ponies likes me and I was far away from most of the memories of Twilight” he stopped to look at Twilight “It’s not like I wanted to forget you, but it was helping to not have something that remind me you weren’t not here anymore at every corner

“I was feeling better so I started searching for something to do. I first did something familiar I was doing for Twilight. I helped in the royal library, but it was rather boring. Shining propose me to be train to be a royal guard, saying that crystal ponies will be more willing to join them if they see their savior around them. I was very clumsy at first but I had to admit Shining idea was right, more crystal ponies join the guards”

“I could have been a royal guard if for the fact it was hard for me to work with the other, not being a pony. But one day Shining spare in a fight with me and realise something was off with my way of fighting. He asked me something like that “Why are you dodging some spells and let other strike you?” and I answered “I don’t know, I just know when a spell is powerful enough to do me harm””

“What?!” Twilight shouted.

“Haha that was exactly his reaction. With the help of some professors we discover that dragon are not only very resilient to magic because of their scale, but we have a kind of understanding of what magic is. And since I live with unicorns most of my life it’s probably more developed for me that most dragon.”

“So that how you become a teacher?” The hint in Twilight’s eyes was betraying her curiosity.

“Not exactly, first I became something you don’t know, since it’s something Princess Celestia created or bring back after you die. I became a magic evaluator. it’s someone that evaluate unicorn power.”

“Hum does the guards had already something like this before?” asked Emerald.

“Not really it was something based on an officier experience, and that was enough from what Shining told me, but the Princess wanted a precise evaluation of the magic power of her army and scholar”

“What?!” Both Emerald and Twilight shouted.

“You aren’t supposed to know that, but that the truth behind this new profession” come to think of it, is that because the lost of Twilight or the lost of the Elements?

“I had to get back to Canterlot to get a proper formation to do officially this job. I didn’t want to stay a burden for the Crystal Empire all my life, you know, I wanted to be able to live on my own.”

“Being a royal guard was not your job already?” Emerald asked.

“Not really. It was more a distraction. And as I already say, I don’t fight like a pony, it would have needed special training for the other guard to work with me. I was in training because I was saw as the savior of the Crystal Empire, not because I was me. I will not lie, It felt nice to be hero, but I barely did nothing for it.”

“Don’t say that Spike, if you didn’t bring the Crystal Heart to Cadance, King Sombra would have won.” interrupted Twilight.

“Yeah I know, I had this argument enough with Cadance and Shining, but still the truth is, without you there were no Heart to bring at the first place. But I am getting off track, where I was already?”

“Canterlot?” Emerald said.

“Thank you. It took me two years to finish the formation, the first year was mainly getting some base on magic, it was a nice way to not reject me. It was boring because living with Twilight, even if you don’t want, you learn a lot about magic. At least I had a lot of free time during this year.

“After the formation, I didn’t get back in the Crystal Empire, mainly because there was not a lot of unicorn in the Crystal Empire to work with outside the Castle. I stayed a while in Canterlot and start moving in bigs city like Manehettan, where you can work for private company between public service.

“It was where I met an old teacher, he was complaining that this job was a lost of public funds that should go to get better education for young unicorn in smaller or isolated town. I didn’t think a lot at this time

“It’s only when I get back at the Crystal Empire to see my family that I start thinking more about it. Cadance had an argument with Princess Celestia, Celestia wanted to take Fairy to Canterlot to train her because her magic potential was great. Shining told me he has never see his wife this mad toward Celestia. Cadance was yelling she prefered having more funds to build more teaching facility for unicorns in the Crystal Empire, and that she wasn’t not a mother to provide a new pet for her.”

“What, who is Fairy? You said mother. I am… an aunt?” Twilight was panicked.

Emerald was more choked by the last part “New pet? No!” his eyes opened wide “you don’t mean-”

Spike cut off the two question, “Yes Twilight you are an aunt, and yes Emerald.”

“I... think I need a break, I...” Ears folded back on Twilight’s head as she left her chair.

Spike and Emerald watched Twilight get back upstair, when Twilight was out of sight Emerald said. “I shouldn’t have ask, I am stupid” and he start moving toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?” asked Spike.

“Apologize”

“I think she want to be alone”

Emerald didn’t reply to Spike. When he reach Twilight’s room, he knocked once, before he could talk he just heard.

“Should I cry now because I should be happy to have a niece or because I am a pet?”

“I am sorry Miss... Twilight”

“Is that what I am to you, is that why you call Miss, because I am Princess Celestia’s pet?!”

“No, I call you Miss because you are Twilight Sparkle, you are a national Hero, you defeated Nightmare moon and...” should I mention Discord? “save the Crystal Empire!”

“Save the Crystal Empire? It was a stupid test for me, I take it as the stupid test, I am not a hero, Cadance is right I am a pet.”

“I am sorry, I come to apologize but I make everything worse, I will leave you” Emerald get back downstair, sadness was readable on his face.

“I told you to leave her alone” Spike simply said.

“You will let her like this? Crying again?” Emerald was angry at Spike, but sad for the alicorn.

“She won’t listen.”

Emerald looked straight in Spike’s eyes “How you can know?”

“How do you think ponies see me when I was in Canterlot Castle just after her death? “Oh it’s Twilight Sparkle’s dragon, poor thing”, nopony knew or called me by my name. I was just Twilight’s dragon or pet, or assistant. It’s easy to convince yourself that you are just a shadow of someone else as it’s easy to ignore pony trying to help you.”

“You should talk to her since you know how she feel, how you get through this?”

“With time. Good night Emerald”

Is he really doing nothing? but what can we do? I guess there is nothing to do “Good night Spike.”

Both get back in their room. Emerald was in his bed trying to find sleep since one hour. He was trying to imagine more of Spike’s life. He heard the sound of front door open. He looked at the window of his room that peered outside. He saw Twilight seated on a bench, she was looking at the night sky, talking to herself. Emerald opened the window to listen

“Who I am...” She was repeating “Who I am...” she heard the window open and noticed Emerald looking at her “Oh sorry did I wake you up?”

The stallion tried to avoid her gaze “It’s fine I was not sleeping, but I shouldnt spy on you.”

She get closer to his window “Do you an answer for me: who I am?”

How I am suppose to answer that? “Err, I don’t know, you should ask Spike or maybe you will remember”

Twilight paused to look at the night sky again, “I should get back to get some sleep, you are right, maybe I will remember. Good night”

Emerald could see the resignation on Twilight’s face but simply replied “Good night.”

Author's Note

And here a part of Spike backstory!

Chapter 9 - Magic

Emerald and Spike were having breakfast, the morning’s sun was already bathing the house of his warmth. They could take their time as they were only expected at the middle of the morning class just to introduce themselves to the foals.

“Do you still think we should hide her. Sure she is getting better physically, but maybe a doctor could help her getting better mentally?” Emerald asked.

“You don’t trust the Princesses?” replied the drake.

Emerald gave a sad look to his bowl of coffee “It’s not what I mean, it look like all we are doing is making her cry or sad.”

“Hm. Maybe you are right, maybe it’s me being selfish and not seeing what is good for her.” Spike took a sip of his orange juice and both fell in the silence of their breakfast.

“No it’s alright,” said Twilight descending the stairs to join them at the living room table.

Emerald kept quiet, avoiding the alicorn gaze. However, Spike opened his mouth “Twilight…-”

“I am sorry for yesterday, you try to help me. I get mad at you and I hurt myself with the few things I remember” Twilight’s ears were down, but she still had a small smile on her face. After giving a look at Emerald’s bowl, she continued “Can I have breakfast?”

“Of course” said Emerald, then went in the kitchen to grab a bowl.

Twilight made herself comfortable in a chair and turned her head to Spike when Emerald get back, “So I have a niece?”

Spike smiled, happy that Twilight asked about her nephews instead of other mater “Yeah. Fairy Heart, she is an energetic filly. she looks a lot like her mother, she is ten now. She like hearing stories about you.”

“Great now I have a fan” giggled Twilight.

Spike chuckled “Her brother is more interested in Shining. He wants to be a guard like him.”

Twilight’s ears perked and she gasped “What? They have two foals?”

“He is their first foal, he is born two-”

The alicorn cut him again, “Thank you, Spike. It’s already a lot to take for me.” She noded to Emerald and thank him as he was poured milk in her bowl of cereal.

They eat in silence and when Emerald was done, he remembered the mayor words, so he asked “Do you want to come to school today Twilight?”

“Hu, Sorry?”

“Yes, you can see how Spike works with fillies. Even if today we will barely do nothing. The mayor said it could be a good thing that other ponies see you with us.”

Twilight looked at Spike, “I don’t want to trouble your work, but I have to admit I am rather curious, are you ok with this Spike?”

Spike was gathering Emerald and his own bowl “Sure.”

After Twilight finished her breakfast, Emerald was left to clean up. Spike went grabbing some school supplies. Twilight was resting on the couch on the living room reading her book about wings. She was able to turn the pages with her hooves.

Emerald went out the kitchen and saw a frown on the alicorn’s face, “Something you don’t understand, Twilight?”

She turned her head at the interruption “Hu? Not really. But preening look hard.”

Emerald chuckled “Haha, I almost hurt my marefriend when I tried. As I understand, wings are pretty sensitive.”

One the ears of the alicorn flicked “You have a pegasus marefriend?”

Emerald sighed “I had.” then put a smile on his face “but Don’t worry, it was three years ago and I learned a sad lesson about being a noble: some mares just want your title.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for me.” Emerald didn’t want to have Twilight worry about his life, so he changed the subject and pointed at the alicorn’s back “You don’t seem to be happy having wings.”

“If you get past the fact that I have no idea why. I find them pretty annoying.”

“I wish I have wings. It must be good to fly.” the stallion replied dreamily.

Twilight sighed and started giggling. Emerald, confused by her reaction, asked “What?”

“I didn’t even think I could maybe fly now,” she paused to look Emerald, ”You must think I am stupid, only seeing the bad things?”

“Err. No. You probably take everything better than I would.”

Twilight gave a sad look at her book, “It’s too sad this book say nothing about flying, maybe Spike can teach me.”

Seeing that the frown on the alicorn’s face has disappeared and was now replaced by a smile, probably thinking of Spike, Emerald remarked, “You look in a better mood this morning.”

The alicorn looked at Emerald then her gaze felt on the book again, “I feel like it will help me to smile sometime.”

Spike arrived in the living room carrying some bags, “Ok, are you ready to go?”

Emerald and Twilight nodded.

“Good, just one more thing to do.”

In front of the school were standing some concerned parents. They were watching as a weird group of ponies walked toward us. They could identify one purple dragon with green spikes, he was taller than the green unicorn stallion walking at his right, the stallion was talking to a hooded pony. Most of them were told that the magical teacher would come today and some of them were told by other parents that he was an unexpected teacher. The few of them who have met Spike were more surprised by the hooded figure.

The dragon was the first to talk to the group, “Good morning everypony, I am Spike, I will be happy to talk to you, but I am expected inside.”

The door of the school opened and the group was greeted by the local teacher. He invited them to come inside. He spoke to the classroom when Spike and Emerald moved in “Fillies please says hello to Professor Spike and his assistant Emerald.”

The fillies were surprised to see a dragon and a green stallion with a suit entering the classroom, but the teacher give them a serious look and they obey the request “Good morning Professor Spike. Good morning Emerald”

“Good morning, young one. You can just call me Spike” Spike smiled and nodded at the teacher.

The teacher clapped his hooves “Class is over for today, only unicorn foals have to stay, don’t forget to do your homework.”

There was a mix of “You are lucky!” “Yeah, school is over!” “A dragon, awesome” on the mouth of the fillies and colts rushing out the classroom.

When all the non unicorn had left, the teacher spoke again “Professor Spike will teach you magic for the next month, just be nice to him as you are to me.”

“Thank you” replied Spike as he place himself near the desk of the teacher.

As Spike was explaining the schedule for the next month to the foals and presenting himself, outside a mare came to talk to the nervous hooded purple mare left behind. There was a lot a suspicion in her voice “Who are you?”

Twilight was too nervous seeing so many ponies watching at her, some wearing frown of worry. She didn’t respond immediately.

The white coated mare insisted “I said, who are you?”

“Hu? sorry Miss. I am Twilight Spa... Scroll” she paused, remembering her story, “I am traveling with my brother.”

“Why are you dressed like that?” the mare shouted nearly throwing dagger with her eyes.

Twilight was feeling a bit scared at the insistence of the mare. She grew more anxious and was in a bit in pain as her wings were pushing against the belt that restrain them under her cloak. It was an idea of Spike to avoid her wings showing up unexpectedly. Meanwhile, the other ponies were talking among themselves. The alicorn stayed frozen, unable to speak.

The teacher hearing the ruckus outside get out the classroom, Emerald was following him, Spike stayed to keep the foals at bay.

“What is going here? You are disturbing the class.”

Emerald noticed the distress of Twilight, he trotted toward her. “Are you alright Twilight?”

The angry mare turned her head to Emerald and asked him “You know her? Who are you? Is the dragon your pet?”

Emerald didn’t mind adult pony talking with disdain toward him, but he didn’t like ponies insulting Spike. He knew that most pony talking like that were some nobles or some rich pony who think they are better than everyone. Sadly for the mare he also knew how to distinct the two categories.

The stallion straightened his posture “I am Emerald Scroll, of House Scroll. You are insulting my friend and scaring my sister.”

The mare back off from Emerald, a apologized look on her face. Emerald was always amused how most rich ponies fear to be judged by the nobility, when most noble just didn’t care about them.

Other parents were not that startled by Emerald words, some were smiling at the mare distress but were still having doubt looking at the hooded mare. Luckily Emerald and Spike had anticipated question about Twilight’s appearance.

The stallion looked at the crowd of pony “I am Spike’s assistant, my sister is ill and must hide from the sun. The doctor says it will be better for her to not stay in Canterlot, so she is traveling with me.”

The teacher took the relay after Emerald explanation “Thank you, Mister Scroll for the clarification. Now if you can get back to your home or stay quiet.”

Most parents just left the school with their foals, some parents of the unicorn fillies were still there, trying to not act too curious at what going on in the classroom.

Before going back in the classroom, Emerald spoke to Twilight, “I need to get back inside, do you want to come? The foals will be less bothersome."

The alicorn shook her head “I... am fine, I shouldn't have come. And I don’t want to distract the class.”

Emerald chuckled “You think you can distract them from a dragon teaching them?”

She replied with a small smile “Probably not.”

Emerald led Twilight to the classroom but the teacher give him a worried look. “Sorry I don’t want to let my sister alone like that.”

He simply shrugged “It’s ok, it’s your class now.”

Upon seeing Emerald reenter the class, Spike said, “Ah, you are back Emerald, I was going to introduce you properly to the foals.”

“So here is Emerald, he is a noble pony so you must call him Lord Emerald. He will assist me to teach you, and maybe teach you alone you when I can’t come” Spike wore a grin on his face.

The class said cheerfully “Good morning Lord Emerald.”

Emerald threw a ‘I will kill you’ look at Spike before looking at the class “Good morning, but just call me Emerald. I am here to show you the spells while Spike explains them to you.”

What seem to be the oldest foals in the bunch spoke while looking at Twilight, “Who is she?” is she your assistant too?”

Twilight smiled at the colt’s curiosity “No, I am Twilight. I am only Emerald’s sister”, she choose to remove her hood, Spike was nervous about that.

But one of the fillies only reacted with more curiosity seeing the horn on the mare’s head “Ho, you are an unicorn too! Will you teach us magic too?”

“No sorry, I just here to watch you.”

“Ha too bad!”

Spike interrupted “Sorry but today I will just evaluate you, only tomorrow we will start real lesson” Spike grabbed from one of his bag a feather, a small rock and a metallic polished ball. He put the three items on the desk in front of him.

Spike pointed at the three item in front of him “You will come one by one and try to lift one of this object. I just want you to try to lift, you don’t need to move them. It’s not a test, there is no success or failure.”

“We have to lift the three of them?!” asked a panicked filly.

Spike put a reassuring smile on his face “No just pick the one you want.”

The first colt came and focused his magic to try lifting the metal sphere, he give up after one minute. Then he tried with the stone, he managed to make it shake but not to lift it. He switch to the feather and had no trouble to make it rose above the desk to one centimeter.

The next filly tried to lift the metal sphere for five minutes and switched directly to the feather.

The three other foals tried, two of them just skip trying to lift the metal sphere, the last one even manage to lift the stone. When they were done Spike talk after taking some notes.

“Good. Now I want to know if there is a lesson to be learned from this.”

One of the fillies shouted “The metal ball is too heavy!”

Spike shook his head, “Yes, but that’s not the issue.”

“The feather is lighter than the stone?” another colt offered.

“Yes it’s true, and the stone is lighter than the metal ball. Can you tell me why some of you try longer and some give up after some time.”

“Because some are better with magic?”

“Yes, but that’s not the complete answer” Spike seeing still the confused look of the fillies he finally answered “The lesson is: you have to be aware of your limit when attempting using magic. But there are two ways to look at that.”

“First, knowing your limits is a good way to avoid magic accident or exhaustion, but it’s also good to test your limit to improve yourself. I want you to think of this for tomorrow’s lesson.”

Spike concluded his speech with “You are free to go now.”

Emerald expected the foals to rush out the classroom like their friends before, but they were all watching Twilight. She was looking at the metal sphere a frown on her face ‘What is she doing? it looks like she is trying to… lift it?’

It was Spike turn to look at Twilight, her horn started glowing, she had closed her eyes. Spike panicked when he felt her focusing power on her horn ‘No!’ “Emerald stop her!”

“What?” but before the stallion thought of something to do, he could see the items on the desk were starting to shake. Soon it was followed by the entire desk, then he could felt the floor and the whole house following. ‘are you kidding me?’

Spike reached Twilight and slapped her to hopefully break her focus. “I am sorry for that Twilight,” He whispered.

The alicorn opened her eyes wide in reaction “Hu? What did I do?”

“That was awesome!” all the fillies in the room shouted at unison.“Do it again!”

Spike looked back at the foals “No sorry kids, she will not do it again, she is too tired, right?”

“What? Hu right” Twilight replied.

“Aww.”

Spike smiled to the classroom “Maybe tomorrow, you can go play with your friends now.”

The drake and Emerald watched the fillies left the room, leaving a confused alicorn. Spike closed the door when they were only the three of them in the room. He put a claw on one of Twilight’s shoulder “Ok, what were you trying to do, Twilight?”

“Hu? I saw that the foals were happy about lifting the things. That looked fun I wanted to try! Did I succeed?”

Spike massaged his forehead with one claw “I don’t know, you were starting to lift the whole school.”

“What?”

The drake sighed in reply “Ok now I understand what Princess Luna mean by not letting you use your magic. How I am going to explain this to the parent?”

The alicorn looked at the door then at Spike “What do you mean, Spike?”

“For Celestia sake. I know you don’t remember everything, but there are very few unicorns that can lift a whole house!”

“I can always say he was me,” proposed Emerald.

“When the filly saw clearly Twilight doing it?”

“You think parent believe everything their foals say?”

“Hm yes, fair point,” Spike replied before rushing outside. Waiting for him, were confused parents listening to their foals, shouting thing like “Awesome”, ‘Ok there is no way Emerald explanation will work, even if I say it’s really Twilight they will think she tried to harm their foals. I am doomed’

A worried mare went to talk to Spike, “What happened here, why the school was shaking?”

“Err, Sorry about that, Emerald’s sister wanted to impress the kids and she got carried away.”

The earth pony mare hugged his colt “Should we worry about her? I mean no offense, but it doesn’t seem harmless”

“What? Oh no, it was just unfocused basic levitation.”

Another mare get into the conversation “It’s hard to believe.”

“I understand your concern, but look. Your foals are ok and we will not bring her at school again.”

The two mare nodded at him, then he get back in the school. Without sitting in the teacher chair, he started writing on a scroll.

“Ok Emerald, can you ask for an isolated area, while I finish writing the foals result down?”

When Emerald was out, he looked at Twilight that had remained silent, a bit confused, like a filly that has done something bad but doesn’t understand what.

“Twilight, I am happy you want to use your magic, but you understand I can’t let you use it?” Spike said softly to her.

“Did I do something bad? I don’t understand” She paused then her ears fell down behind her head “I… don’t understand.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, I am not mad at you”, Spike looked at Twilight for a reaction but she held her head down. He watched her for some time. Hum look like she doesn’t want to talk, she had probably too much excitement for the day.

Spike packed his bags, getting back his little supplies and notes on it “Ok Twilight, let’s go somewhere quieter.”

“I…”

Spike put her hood back on her head, she said nothing. Spike escorted her outside and then he locked the school’s door.

Emerald was waiting for them, all parents were now gone. “Ok follow me, there is a small clearing in the east part of the forest.” He got closer to Spike to ask him, not wanting for Twilight to hear “is she-”

Spike cut him, “Alright? I don’t know. she probably want some peace.”

They walked through the forest, Spike and Emerald were walking side by side, Twilight was behind walking slowly, her head near the ground. Ten minutes after they entered the forest they heard sobs sound coming from Twilight. Spike and Emerald stopped.

“What is wrong, Twilight?” asked Spike

Barely raising her head, she answered “I... don’t...understand.”

The drake sit on her knees to get at Twilight’s level “What you don’t understand?”

Tears started rolling on the cheek of the alicorn “It’s... magic, I don’t... understand, I…remember nothing” she stopped and felt on the floor still crying “I… am… afraid.”

“Afraid of what Twilight?”

Before falling in a sobbing mess, Twilight managed to say “...magic..”

‘Now I realize how Emerald can feel so helpless some time’ though Spike. but I don’t understand, she tried to use magic with the foal, and she looked happy? Emerald said her cutie mark feel faded? hm maybe’

Spike lifted the head of the alicorn “Twilight, listen to me. I want you to try to remember something.”

“...and have some other nightmares?”

“No trust me Twilight, It’s not like that. I want you to remember the day you hatched me.”

“I told you, I don’t...”

Spike tried to keep a soothing tone “I know, but it’s important, try at least for me. Can you do it for me?”

Twilight nodded shyly.

Spike put a claw in his chin “I don’t know, maybe I can tell you.”

The eyes of the alicorn opened wide. “No! no more nightmare”

“Hm, I can try to guide you, you stop me when you want.”

“Ok...”

“Do you remember Celestia’s School for gifted unicorn?” Twilight just nodded “Do you remember the day you get accepted?”

There was a small pause before Twilight answered ”No.”

Spike kept going “Ok, I don’t know all the details but try to remember that day. There were your parents, I am not a doctor, but try to picture your parents maybe”, this time Twilight noded and closed her eyes “There was a test, the last test” I am not sure if it’s a good idea anymore “It was me”

“You?”

“Yes, but I was still in my egg, you hatched me, remember?”

“Yes”

“Good, try to imagine how.”

Twilight took a breath “I…was a filly. There was my parents. Shining was waiting outside. I was nervous. The test… it... was hard. Pain...No! not pain, hard, warmth, It’s...”

Suddenly the alicorn glew with a bright lavender aura. Spike started to panic but as the aura expand from the alicorn and reached him, he felt. ‘warmth, it’s so warmth, she… my mother.’

Emerald watched the scene from far away, feeling it was not a conversation he needed to take part. When the alicorn start glowing and the aura reached him, he felt peaceful, ‘it’s so beautiful, it’s... beautiful’

The alicorn stopped glowing as suddenly as it started. Spike and Emerald were awakened from their thoughts by the excited cheer of a young purple alicorn jumping in circle.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Spike rushed to Twilight and hugged her “Mom!” she could not stop the strength of the hug of the dragon, It stopped her but did not prevent her from returning the hug.

She buried her head on the back of the drake “Oh Spike, thank you, thank you, thank you, for making me remember that.”

After fives minutes of seeing Spike and Twilight share a hug and crying of happiness, Emerald cleared his throat and spoke “Sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but what happened?”

The mother and son broke the hug. Spike wiped a tear with his claw “Oh sorry Emerald, I should have told you, the day she hatched me was the day Twilight get her cutie mark.”

After some more minutes of Twilight and Spike smiling at each other, Spike finally asked, “How do you feel Twilight, about your magic?”

Twilight paused for a moment, “I...am not sure... but I am not afraid.”

Author's Note

Small teaser, next chapter title is Emerald

Chapter 10 - Emerald

Day 1x :

It’s been a week already since she can do magic again. I expected her to practice a lot but she get mad quickly, having to learn like a foal. Well young unicorn have trouble focusing enough magic to lift or move something, she has trouble restraining herself to do the same. At first it was fun to watch small rock fly one hundred meter in the air at top speed, but it get pretty boring after one afternoon. Today Spike tried to teach her some minor spells like creating light with her horn, but she said that doesn’t make sense for her, she said I quote “I understand the theory, but that’s not right”, only when I show her the spell multiple time she said “Oh I see”, and managed to cast it. But being blind for ten minutes was not a pleasant experience, so we choose to stick to levitation for now. When she is too annoyed by magic, she try to fly or go exploring alone the forest, she seem to enjoy flying even if she crash a lot. I guess learning something new is more appealing.

Ok that should be enough though Emerald while closing his journal. This whole thing is crazy, I think I need something to relax, I need... a drink, yeah just a drink, not getting drunk, but enjoying a moment of peace, maybe some company.

He combed his yellow mane and tail with a brush, then took another one for his coat. He eyed his suit that was neatly folded on a drawer, but decided against it. The stallion left his room and saw Spike on the couch reading a comic.

“Spike, I am going out.”

“You don’t have to ask, I am not your father.”

“I am not asking.”

“Whatever, have fun.”

Emerald was trotting through door when Twilight saw him from the stairs and asked “Where are you going?”

The stallion stopped and turned his head “Err, I am going to the bar.”

Twilight reached the bottom of the stair “For what?”

Emerald put a hoof behind his head “Err. to try to meet new… ponies”

One ears of the alicorn perked and she smiled “Can I come?”

“What? No sorry, Twilight. I rather go alone.”

“Ok…” her smile quickly faded.

Emerald was ready to move again, but he noticed the change of expression on Twilight, “Why are you sad? I am not leaving.”

“Oh it’s not that. I spend most of my time here or in the forest. Every time I am in the town, ponies try to avoid me, you are the only pony I am comfortable talking, with Spike.”

“We can talk more tomorrow, if you want.”

“It’s maybe stupid, but for once I wanted to talk with other ponies around” Twilight bit her lower lips “I don’t know, it feel more normal.”

“Hm I see” here goes my plan “Ok Twilight you can come” Emerald switched his gaze to drake in the room “if Spike is ok with that.”

Spike lowered his comic book away from his face, “Why do you ask me? I am not her dad.”

Emerald raised an eyebrow “The way you act toward her?”

Twilight interrupted the small exchange “I am here you know.”

Spike and Emerald shared a small laugh, then the stallion looked at the alicorn. “Alright, let’s get going.”

“Remember-” started Spike

“I know dad, no magic” Twilight stick out her tongue at Spike and giggled then she grabbed her concealing cloak.

Emerald let her out first and closed the door. When they were some meters away from the house Twilight talked again “So, you do that often? Going to bars to meet new ponies?”

Err, I don’t want she think I am some kind of tail chaser “Well, I try to meet new ponies to have some company of my age, Spike is nice but even if he look young, I know he is older than me.”

The mare sighed “It’s still hard for me to see him all grow up like that.”

“You should be happy. I mean he clearly really like his job.”

“Yes, he look serious. he said he took that from me” Twilight smiled “All I remember is seeing him sleep or read comics when he was not helping me.”

Emerald chuckled “Oh he still does that a lot when he is not working.” The house of the town were quite shattered so they still had some distance to trot. Emerald asked “What he looked like when he was younger?”

Twilight was describing some of her memory of Spike when they arrive at the entrance of the bar. Emerald got struck by a realisation, Wait I am going to a bar alone with a mare, ok this is awkward.

They went to a table a bit isolated, even if Twilight wanted to be around other ponies. Emerald didn’t know what they would talk so he wanted to avoid some eavesdropping and that seems to please the bartender to not have a cloaked figure in plain sight.

“I am tired of this thing” Twilight let a small sigh while removing her hood. “I think I didn’t ask. What does ponies know about me?”

“Not that much actually, outside of what you have done.”

“That’s all?’

“Actually Spike explained me why. The Princesses prevented the media to not spread too much information on you, so ponies involved in your life could have a normal life.”

“I guess I can understand their reason. It feel weird they are hiding so much.”

“Not really. Spike told me you can find a lot of information in the Royal Archive in some restricted area that will go to public once enough time is passed, but you can also ask the good ponies to learn more.”

Emerald looked a the empty table in front of them and the waitress serving another table, she was a orange unicorn mare with a beer keg for cutie mark, he asked Twilight “So what do you want to drink?”

“Err, I don’t know, I think I never went in a bar like that.”

“You never hang out with friends?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really remember...”

Hum better not let wondering her memory too much “Ok, want me to choose for you, then?”

“Hu, sure.”

Emerald left his seat and went to the bar counter. He get back with one beer for a him and a glass of a red sparkling liquid. He put the beer in front of his chair and the other glass in front of the mare.

“Thank you”, Twilight looked at his drink a puzzled look on his face

“It’s a Prench cocktail called Monaco. It’s a very light drink: grenadine, some beer and lemonade.” Emerald noticed the small twitch on the face of the alicorn “Oh sorry, maybe you don’t want something with alcohol, I can get you something else.”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to bring you to Spike drunk.”

“I don’t need his permission” Twilight giggled a little and start sipping from the straw provided with the drink. “Oh it’s really good” she took another sip and asked “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes”, Emerald replied just before taking another small sip of his beer

“Can you tell me more about you?”

Emerald almost choked the content of his month on the table but just swallowed, why that sound like something you said on a date

“Err, why that?”

“You probably learn a lot about me and Spike, but you rarely talk about you.”

Ok that make sense “Oh right, hm where to start.” Emerald eyed his glass and took a sip.

“As you know, I am from a noble family, but it’s not the type of noble most pony think. I will not do a complete history lesson of my house. The house Scroll was one the main guardian of knowledge of Equestria, originally we were responsible for nearly everything. But now we only run the Royal Canterlot Archive and the Canterlot Library. It’s a council that take global decision for all Equestria. But you probably know about it already.”

“Not really, I think I always asked the Princess directly.”

“I just realise, you probably have meet my mother, she was at the reception of the library before meeting my father. Sapphire Flower?”

“Hm, no sorry, I don’t remember” Twilight took another taste of her dink “Why did you say most pony think about noble? I probably never paid attention to that.”

“I am surprised considering your brother is a Prince, but I should not assume so much thing about you” Emerald brought his glass to his mouth before talking again “Hm, how to said that. Most pony only see noble as ponies playing politic and seek for social influence.”

“And your family not?”

“Well my father often say: ‘When you control knowledge you don’t really need more’ but it’s more a joke. Actually a lot of noble family are just happy with what they have.”

Twilight paused for a second, “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you talked about your family, but you?”

“Sorry, as you probably guessed I am a student, I study in the CSGU, well now I more on my own with Spike. It’s a long story, but you will probably laugh at me.”

Twilight eyed her drink them looked at the neutral expression of Emerald “Why I will do that?”

Nice how to explain to a genius, that your are not a good student?

“I should have left the school three year ago, but I am not that good with all advanced theory of the last years. Actually I never enjoyed theoretical magic theory” Emerald paused to look at the reaction of Twilight, her gaze was focused on nothing. “Twilight?”

She shook her head “Oh, sorry, I was trying to remember what I have learned, but again nothing or nothing that make sense.”

“It’s alright.” Emerald replied but said nothing more. He was worried that Twilight would cry or start yelling. She didn’t take so well to remember nothing about magic, Emerald could understand, despite not being a model student, he would not be happy himself to forget everything he learned about magic. That left a silent were both of them enjoyed of their drink. Twilight finished her drink, that give an opportunity for Emerald. he also finished his beer and said

“Want another one? or something else?” buck that sounded like I am trying to get her drunk

Twilight released the straw and looked at the stallion with a smile “Another one is fine.”

This time Emerald asked for the waitress to have new drinks. After he was done Twilight talked again:

“Sorry I interrupted you”

“So I was saying, yes. I did the last year twice, but the third time the school didn’t want me again. Luckily for me, Spike was searching for a new assistant and made a deal with my father and the school. I would be Spike’s assistant for two years, in this time I have to write a study and Spike could train me to teach foals and I will get my degree.”

“That’s nice of him.”

The stallion chuckled “Well he really don’t have a choice and me neither. Most of students found that job boring and other just don’t trust him. But I have to admit being his assistant is not bad, and he is good company.”

“Something that bother me. If I remember correctly you can leave the school earlier, there are intermediate degrees.”

Emerald sighed “Yes, but I don’t really know what to do, my dad want me to have this degree, and my special talent offer me a limited job choice.”

Twilight tilted her head, trying look at the flank of the stallion “Oh what is your special talent? Are you a writer?”

Emerald looked behind him, but he could not see the familiar light green quill resting atop a yellow star that adorned his flanks “The quill? Pony always think it’s related to writing because of the quill. No I am good at pick up magic signature. It’s rather useless by itself.”

A frown formed on Twilight’s forehead “I don’t understand.”

“It’s confusing said like this, let me clarify. it’s not like Spike where he have an understanding of what kind of spell is cast or the strength of it. I can memorise and identify pony magic signature, like if you enchant something, I will know it’s you when I find the enchanted item.”

The alicorn splitted the straw she was nibbling on “Wait you have memorised my signature?”

“Oh sorry, It’s a bad habit I have taken when I was younger. Tet’s say it was hard to prank me without staying anonymous. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

“No, I am just curious, how does that work?”

“Well I heard, some powerful unicorn can do the same if they train for it. I can describe it’s like memorise tasting a dish and being able to recognize it, how it work I don’t know.”

The eyes of the mare lit up “Can you keep track of an infinity number of signature? how long can you keep it? Do you need to see it once?”

And here we go that again, it’s kinda cute, “Haha, you are really curious,” Emerald let out a small laugh and smiled.

“Oh Sorry.” Twilight blushed a bit

“No don’t be sorry, it’s fine, but it’s hard to answer if you ask too many question at the same time,” Emerald paused, the waitress arrived with their drinks, put them on their table and smiled at Emerald and give him a wink before leaving. Hm weird, is she flirting with me? Whatever she is too old for me.

Emerald took a sip of his beer before talking, “So to answer your questions, I can’t memorize everything, it’s work probably like smell, the more I get exposed to a magic trace, the more it’s easy to recognize. But they are exception, like I don’t think I can forget your signature, it’s really peculiar.”

“How so?” the alicorn shifted in her sit.

Emerald paused to took another sip of his beer before answering, Twilight did the same with her drink

“Hm, how to describe that, It felt strong, pure...and beautiful” wait did I really say that? Great Emerald, now she must think I am trying to flirt with her.

“Beautiful?” Twilight blushed and had trouble focusing one something.

“Err, don’t get the wrong idea, it’s just magic signature, it’s hard to describe.”

There was an embarrassing silence for both of them, I hope she think I didn’t mean to offend her, Emerald took a large sip of his bear, he start feeling the effect of alcohol hm etheir this beer is very strong or I was more tired than I think. He watched Twilight take a large sip too, but she stopped, a confused look on her face

“I... feel sleepy”

Wait! she barely drink anything “Maybe we should get back home” He rose from his chair.

Twilight tried to rise up too, but she had trouble holding still, she said “Oh, it’s...turning.”

“It’s alright Twilight. Wait here I will pay and help you”, Emerald went to the counter to paid for the four drink, then he get back to their table. He watched Twilight having trouble staying on her four leg. Err, seem like I have to carry her

“Twilight, hm, can you climb on my back? I will carry you.”

“Thank... you” Emerald helped the mare to climb on her back. They started walking out of the bar. Emerald was not an earth pony but the alicorn actually didn’t weigh much, it was more troublesome to avoid slipping on trailing the cloak.

When Emerald was near the exit of the bar, the waitress give him a wink. What again?, No... she was not flirting. Are you kidding me?. He turned to her “What did you do with our drink?!”

The mare smirked “Oh relax, just giving you some help, she looked so clueless.”

Emerald scolded the waitress “You were thinking I was on a date with Twi” buck ”.. my sister?!”

“As I could have know” the waitress waved one hoof and get back at her work.

Emerald moved through the door and left “I can’t believe some pony still does this kind of thing.”

He was mid way to their house when he paused, he felt Twilight shift position on his back, he felt hooves getting around his neck.

“You... are... like... him” said the soft voice of Twilight.

Emerald started panicking What? does she take me for her coltfriend?

“Listen, Twilight I flattered you see me like…” he felt the hooves get a tighter grip on him, he turned his head to look at the alicorn on his back, she was closing her eyes and he heard her said a name with a small smile on her face

“Shiny...”

The stallion smiled too Shiny? so it was his name.

When he arrived at the their house, Emerald was getting tired and sleepy, No light? Spike must be already in bed. He opened the door and he looked at the stairs. He yawned Ok I don’t think I can climb that. “Twilight, wake up”, but he get no answer. He could hear and feel her steady breath on his neck, it was relaxing, too relaxing. He yawned again. I need to put her in my bed.

He reached his room, place himself aside of his bed and lean to try to make the alicorn on his back fall, but her grip on his neck was too strong and only the lower half of her body was on the bed “Hm, Twilight wake up.” again no answer, he tried again “Miss Sparkle? Can you let’s me go?”

Emerald had a last thought before he place himself along her on his own bed great, Spike is gonna kill me

Author's Note

This is the chapter that make me replan a lot of time how this story could go from here. Luckily for you I will stick to the original plan (understand no weird romance starting after that)

I realise I never described how Emerald looked like: so here a picture

Chapter 11 - Teddy Bear

Spike wake up, hopped his bed and stretch himself. He was feeling great this morning, thank to Emerald taking care of Twilight he went to sleep early. He passed Twilight’s door trying to make little nose, there was no reason to wake her. When he reached the kitchen, he was in the mood to make pancakes. Since Twilight was back he was happy to prepare real breakfast again, it was worth the fact he had to wake up earlier. He finished his first batch of pancake for him and grabbed some gems to put on it then he start thinking.

So Emerald took Twilight to talk and maybe meet other ponies at a bar, no it was the contrary. Twilight wanted to go with Emerald, at a... bar, wait, no something isn’t right Emerald probably wanted to go to a bar to meet some mares, nothing wrong with that he is young, and he went with Twilight. No he didn’t want Twilight to come at the first place, nothing to worry. Ok Emerald is right, I act like her father or her brother. Let’s wake him up.

Spike went to knock on Emerald door but he realised the door was not closed, Ok that unusual, he pushed a bit the door and said:

“Emerald, wake up.”

“...” Emerald replied

Spike pushed the door open, “What did you say?” But Spike remained frozen from what he saw in Emerald’s bed. The violet blanket was spread across two ponies, a lavender one holding in her front legs the neck of an awaken green stallion, the rest of their bodies hidden. “You are bucki-”, but Spike was cut by a hush from the stallion.

“Sssh, don’t wake her!”

“What?” the drake replied in a whispering voice.

Spike could see the panic in Emerald eyes despite the dimmed light “It...It’s not what you think. Help me get out of here.”

Spike thought for a minute before replying but the pleading eyes of Emerald convinced him to give a chance to the stallion “Hu, ok. What do you want me to do?”

“She is too strong, I am stuck.” Spike lets out a small snort “and don’t laugh it-”, but Emerald froze when the alicorn’s hooves moved and start pressing him more toward her chest.

“Ok, I see” Spike helped Emerald by pulling off slowly the front legs of Twilight. With his renewed temporary freedom, Emerald wiggled out slowly from her grip and his bed. They moved to the living room in silence. “Ok, what happened?” asked Spike while offering a glass of orange juice to the stallion.

Nursing the welcomed beverage Emerald tell his previous evening to the drake.

After hearing most of it, Spike just smiled and said, “So, you did nothing?”

Emerald’s ears perk up “Hell no, I am not like that” then they felt in the back of his head “But I am sorry, I should not have take her and let her drink alcohol.”

“Na it’s fine, you did nothing wrong, It’s this stupid waitress fault.”

There was a small silence between the two before Emerald asked “Did she had a coltfriend? she called me Shiny.”

Spike simply laughed.

“What?”

“Shiny. It’s her brother, remember, Shining Armor.”

Emerald head dropped on the table “Oh, wow” then he muttered, “I feel stupid.”

Spike smirked “Used to refer him as Prince Armor? But to answer your question, I don’t think she had any coltfriend.”

The right ear of Emerald flickered “Really?”

Spike moved to fetch some pancakes for stallion “Yes, why?”

Emerald raised his head from the table, his gaze following Spike “I don’t know. She was an interesting party, close to the Princesses. Her brother is also somepony important. She must had a lot of ponies trying to court her.”

Spike shrugged “I think she had already her mind full with the idea of friendship to think about more.”

“Ok. Thank,” he said when Spike brought him some pancakes. “I never saw you make something like that.”

Spike chuckled “Like an old marefriend will say, I am a drake of many secrets.”

Emerald eyes opened wide “What, you never talked about your relationship before.”

Spike “Err. Look take care of Twilight while I am gone. I have to go.”

“Hey! Come on, you know about most of my romantic life, you can’t just go like that!”

The drake rushed through the door of the house “See you at lunch, Lord Teddy Bear!”

Emerald winced when the door closed, blaming on the effect of a small hangover. He levitated a jar of jam to put on his pancakes I wonder what kind of mares like Spike, there was probably lot of crystal mares going after their heroes.

This thought was still in his mind when he was lazing browsing the various books scattered across the living room, mainly fictitious work, that constituted a great deal of the alicorn pass time.
He gets interrupted while reading the first chapter of an old Daring Do book by the sound of the door of his bedroom opening and a purple head emerging through it.

“Good morning, Twilight” Emerald greeted.

“Hu, Hi” replied the confused alicorn peeking at the door. Her mane was a mess, she dragged the blanket with her. She looked around in every direction “Why I am...” she trailed looking at Emerald.

Emerald put the book he was holding at rest “Sorry, yesterday I was too tired to carry you in your bedroom, so I put you in mine and I slept on the couch.”

There was a small bush on the alicorn face when she say “Oh, you carried me? I am sorry. It’s a bit fuzzy.”

The stallion chuckled “Alcohol can do that, especially in the morning” He looked at the clock on the wall, lunch was still in two hours or so “Do you want breakfast? Spike made some pancakes.”

Twilight ears perk up at the word pancakes “Oh, thank you.” She took a place at the kitchen table.

Both mare and stallion remain silent while Emerald was reheating some leftover pancakes. He gave the two remaining pancakes to the alicorn before starting to use the leftover batter to make fresh one.

Emerald cleaned up the frying pan and the various plates used. After that, he took a sit at the opposite of the alicorn. He could saw her with a downcast expression, reinforced by the cold pancake resting her plate, her gaze fixed on nothing.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Twilight eyes opened “Hu? Did I zone out?” she sighed, and slowly her muzzle was pointing more and more toward her lap. Moisture formed out at the corner of her eyes, followed by tears rolling down her cheeks.

When the first tear reached one of her hoof she tried to wipe her eyes, but it was not stopping. She looked at a worried Emerald “I am not alright.” fighting against her tears she kept talking “I had this dream...It feels so real.”

Emerald watched with worry as the alicorn fall back at crying openly after she stopped talking. He was again lost of what to do. Should he provide her comfort like Spike does with a hug? If she was her friend or a pony close to him maybe he could do it, but he barely knew her.

The alicorn sniffed and wiped her tears “I miss him… I miss them.”

Remembering how she called him, Emerald inquired “Your family?”

She nodded timidly. Emerald levitated a handkerchief for her to wipe her face. “I miss my little sister.” Emerald paused to look at the surprise on Twilight’s face. “I know it’s nothing like your… situation.”

Twilight wiped her muzzle clean “You really have a sister?”

“Yes, I never mentioned her to you? Anyways the first time I traveled with Spike, I realized that I missed my sister. I was so used to have her around me, pestering me or do what fillies love to do. That when this was not here, it feels really weird.”

Twilight did not answer immediately, but after some pondering she asked, “Can you talk about her?”

Emerald smiled at the idea of talking about his little sister “Her name is Pearl Scroll. She is only ten.”

“Pearl?” inquired Twilight.

“Yes, my mother has a weird idea for names. Since we inherit our last name from our father, she named us based on our coat color.” The stallion pointed at himself “I am Emerald because I am green, and she is Pearl because she is white pearl.”

“You sound like you don’t like your name.”

“Not really, It’s more… my mother. But I don’t want to bother you with her. So, yes, Pearl. She is an earth pony, she really like to draw.”

After some time of Emerald speaking about her sister, the mood of the alicorn was slowly becoming better as she was laughing at some anecdotes the stallion was sharing about her sister, often involving him.

There was a lull in the conversation and Twilight excused herself to go the bathroom, leaving Emerald again alone. He cleaned the kitchenware she had used and get back at reading the Daring Do book. When she get back, it was his turn to go to the bathroom to shower and other cleaning activity.

He descended the stair and saw the alicorn, not reading a book as she usually does when she was not outside. She had one wing spread wide and she was looking carefully at it.

“You know it’s funny,” she said abruptly when he reached the bottom of the stairs keeping her gaze on the wing.

“My sister?” tried to guess Emerald.

“No. Wings” she pointed at her the wings then her horn “magic” and finally she brought her hoof toward herself “me.”

“I am not sure to understand.”

She looked at the stallion with a small smile “I always thought magic was the most important thing for me, but-” She pointed again at the wing “-Flying is really nice, even if I mostly just crash a lot.” She giggled.

Emerald chuckled, but Twilight continued “Yes I know. Still it feels nice.” she paused “Then magic is quite frustrating, for all I remember levitating stuff was never a trouble after I get my cutie mark. But... you will found that stupid. I don’t think I would have been interested in going out with a friend just to enjoy each other company.”

“Yes, Spike told me you were not the most social pony.”

The smile on the alicorn’s face faltered “Yes… but I mean. It’s what socials ponies do? Doing things with their friends?”

Emerald eyes opened wide “You think I am your friend?”

Twilight’s ears felt in a neutral position “I don’t know, maybe? I mean you are the only pony I can talk and you are always helping me.”

Author's Note

I am sorry for this short chapter and weird ending. But I had lots of struggles to write this chapter.
Next chapter will probably came at the end of the week.

It's sad because here a nice piece of art I commissioned for the start of the chapter

Chapter 12 - Hidding

Twilight entered the house first, she slammed her hood and the belt holding her wings on the floors “I am tired of this! Three times today!”

Spike entered and let down his bags near the door, “I had some idea for the next town, we could talk about over dinner.”

The alicorn shouted, “I am taking a shower, you better have a solution!”

“Wow, she is really mad today,” Emerald said to Spike after Twilight disappeared upstairs.

“Can you blame her?” sighed Spike.

“Not really, some stallions are reals jerks, but today was a close call, an unicorn started lifting her cloak.”

“What did you do?”

Emerald chuckled “I hope he doesn’t expect to get laid anytime soon”

“Remember to don’t get on your bad side.”

“Say the dragon that can probably remove me one leg with one claw sweep.”

“Or worse,” Spike said pointing at the rear of Emerald.

Emerald crossed his forelegs instincly. After calming himself, he said, “But seriously, you have some ideas?”

“Yeah but sadly most of them are unpractical.”

Spike went on the kitchen and Emerald went on his room. He chose to lay on his bed until Spike called for dinner. He was pretty tired. Today, Twilight had asked him to show her how to teleport. Emerald didn’t like it, teleporting is pretty taxing and the dazzling sensation after teleporting was something he was still no used. He also reminded him the hours of boring theoretical things to learn before teleporting safety. He had only teleported three times before Twilight understood or remember, Emerald had still had no idea how she learned magic by just watching him, it’s magical genius for you I guess. The three teleports had been exhausting for him, but it was worth the view of an alicorn teleporting happily everywhere while he was resting.

But what Emerald preferred was watching Twilight fly, or trying to fly, it was something very relaxing, beautiful and sometimes funny when she lost control of her flight. It was also the most stressful part of the day, Emerald had to get the weather control planning to have an idea where the local pegasus in charge of the weather would be for the day to avoid them, but that didn’t exclude the risk of wandering pegasus.

“Ok dinner's ready” called Spike.

Spike took three plates and served dinner. He sat on his seat and started to speak when Emerald and Twilight were seated too.

“I will be direct Twilight, there is no immediate solution.”

She looked at him and asked, “What do you mean?”

“No magic ways will not work, wearing a hat to hide your horn show already too much, not to mention your wings are bigger than those of pegasus.” Spike paused, “We can dye your fur and mane on top of that, but you will have to not do any magic at all, and most dye doesn’t last long”

Levitating her silverwares to make a point she answered “I prefer if I can use my magic.”

Spike added “I don’t propose something like a dress to hide you wings, I don’t think you want to restrain them anymore”

Twilight fluttered her wings on her back “No, it’s really awful.”

“So remain magic ways. Illusionary spells powerful enough to hide you and last a day can only be found on restricted area of the Canterlot Royal Library, which Emerald can probably have access but not let out any book.”

Emerald nodded but corrected “Actually, even if my dad runs the library, I am not allowed in every area.”

“So that remain only two ponies that can really help, the first one is Cadance, and the second one… her old apprentice. Well no, she can’t really help. There is probably Princess Luna but I have no idea what she can do in magic.”

Emerald took a bit of his salad and said, “I didn’t know Princess Cadance has knowledge on illusion.”

Spike served Twilight “Yes, her private library is probably the most complete on the subject.”

Twilight thanked Spike “So why did you wait to write her a letter?”

Spike agreed “Well that my conclusion, but if you have any other idea.”

“What the issue about hiding the wings under a dress, you don’t need to restrain them?” inquired Emerald.

Spike answered, “I think you don’t understand the willpower needed to not move them an entire day. Even if you can, will you want to control your emotion all the time?”

Emerald shook his head “Err, no, but, I was thinking. Spike, you can hide you wings?”

Spike smiled “Yes, but it’s more a biological function that magic, and I have to sleep an entire day hide or show them”

Twilight released her fork and her ears perked on her head “How you do that exactly? How that work? how much sleep exactly?”

Spike watched his spoon “How to explain this. How did you learn to walk, Twilight?”

Twilight followed Spike spoon with her eyes “By… trying when I was a foal, but I guess there are books on the subject!”

“Yes, but for me there was no book, I don’t have many details, but I can show you my note when we are back home.”

“Thank, Spike”

Emerald wiped the corner of his mouth that was full of dressing with a napkin “So the letter? You want me to make another story again?”

“Hum not really, I can just say you want to learn more about Illusion, Cadance will understand why. Twilight do want me to add something for Cadance?”

“Just tell her...I am...fine, I am...fine,” replied Twilight, she brought her silverware on her plate and finished her glass of water “Thank for the dinner Spike” Twilight went outside.

Watching the alicorn crossed the door, Spike asked Emerald “Gone flying again?”

Emerald was levitating the empty plate of Twilight to the sink “Yes, she doesn’t have to worry at this time. It’s too dark for most pony and she told me she had no trouble seeing in the dark.”

Spike sighed, his smile faded “She doesn’t talk to me much. Should I worry?”

Emerald picked up a yogurt from the fridge “I am not sure. Maybe because you know a lot about her?”

Spike for his part, picked up a big green gem “Make sense. and you, how are you doing?”

“It’s not easy, since the more I learn, the more I make some connection”

Spike took a bit of his -ironically- emerald “Like what?”

“Who are some of their friends, like Lady Blueblood.” he replied.

Spike frowned “Oh, please don’t talk about her.”

A grin formed on Emerald face “Hm, what are you hiding?”

Spike said sheepishly “I...had a crush on her.”

The grin on Emerald morphed on a small smile “On her? Well, I can’t blame you, she look good for her age.”

Spike smiled too “I should be offended by your remark, but you are young.”

Emerald stuck his snoot in the air, while passing a hoof in his mane “A Lady must always look at her best to face the day.”

Spike chuckled “You talk like her.”

Emerald laughed “Haha. Well my dad try to find me some noble mare after my break up, some of them talk like that.”

Spike gulped the rest of his emerald in one go “He didn’t force you? since you told me commoner and noble don’t wed often.”

Emerald shrugged “My dad is strict on family value, but not for this, as long I don’t go for stallions.”

“Let me guess, he just want an heir to carry the name?”

“Yes”

Spike gather his plate and his silverware to put them in the sink “Haha, Ok I have a letter to send and some research to do. So I guess it’s good night.”

Emerald raised an eyebrow “Research?”

Spike moved to the bottom of the stair “Yeah something I should have done a long time ago.”

“Good night, Spike.” said Emerald when Spike starts climbing the stair.

He moved to the kitchen to do the dish. When he finished drying them, he heard hear the sound of Twilight landing on the roof. Emerald remarked that she was doing that since she started feeling confident enough about flying. She stayed on the roof and watched the sky.

He get in his room to retrieve a book and exited the house “Twilight, over there.”

The alicorn brought her head over the edge of the roof “Oh Emerald. What do you want?”

Emerald raised his head to talk to her “Sorry I have a book for you. I see you staring at the stars for quite some night and I think you maybe want this”

Twilight eyed the book quickly and she slowly glided from the roof to land near Emerald. She walked toward the stallion and read the cover “Cartography of the night sky.”

Emerald borrowed a recent edition from the small library in the town hall. But instead of a smile on Twilight’s face, all he could see was confusion “Hm, you don’t like it?”

“Hm? Oh no, it’s not that” Twilight pointed at the stars “I just watch the night sky because it’s relaxing. It apease me.”

Emerald followed her hoof and looked at the sky “I don’t know, I never really spend time stargazing”

The alicorn beamed “I can teach you!”

Emerald shrugged “Sure.”

Twilight grabbed the book in her magic and open it at a specific page. Then she started explaining: “First you have to search for a major star or constellation easy to find.” she put her hoof in one page and pointed at the sky “You see in this area near the moon, it’s Ursa Major. Try to find a big bright star with four around forming a square, you can imagine it’s a bear head with the nose.”

Emerald looked the book and the area Twilight was pointing and after few seconds he find the stars in question. “Oh, I see, yes. I have to admit when you know what to search it’s not that hard, so what next?”

Twilight turned a page “Once you get a starting point, you look the references on the book and try to find an adjacent constellation.”

Emerald frowned at the uninviting text on the page and said, “Hm that sound tedious, can you just show me?”

Twilight looked at the stallion with curiosity “You don’t like books?”

Emerald smiled “It’s just since you are here, It rather watch the night sky than a book.”

Twilight invited the stallion to sit on a wooden bench that was behind the house, she put the book on her lap “Ok, so if you follow the line of star at the bottom of Ursa major you can find a small triangle of stars. It’s Ursa minor”

Emerald followed the instruction and after yawning he said, “Hm, that doesn’t look like a bear.”

“Well, I have to admit, sometime you need a lot of imagination” Twilight giggled.

Twilight kept leading the stallion to different stars and constellations, sharing stories when she remembered one. Emerald just followed her instruction mainly remaining silent and occasionally yawning more.

“And this one is… Emerald?” Twilight was interrupted by the head of a stallion resting on her shoulder, she listened to him sleeping but was embarrassed

She poked the stallion to wake him “Emerald?”

Emerald slowly opened his eyes and mumbled “Hu. Oh sorry, I felt asleep?”

Worried, the alicorn asked, “Did I talk too much?”

“What? Oh, sorry” Emerald shook his head “Teleporting taxed me a lot. It just like you said, looking at the night sky is relaxing.”

He rise up from the bench and dusted himself “I am going to bed. Good night, Twilight.”

Author's Note

I decided to cut this chapter in two. I was over 3000 words after the first draft.
Next chapter will probably be shorted.

I still in need of an editor, but I don't need like a super grammar nazi one. Just make the whole thing looking less than random English x) So If you are interested feel free to PM me.

EDIT: How you can picture Spike in this story : http://metalmane.deviantart.com/art/Teen-Spike-573880445

Chapter 13 - Dragon & Magic

The next day was a normal day, except Emerald choose of his own will to let Spike advance his research while he would be teaching the foals. Emerald was a bit nervous, it was the first time he was alone with the fillies, but when he get back for lunch he was smiling. Spike was waiting for him in the living room. Twilight was on the sofa reading an adventure book

“So how was this first time alone?” asked Spike, a small smile on his face.

“It was...stressful but rewarding, the first few minutes I thought I was going to give up because they were all asking for you, where you were, if you were sick, if you were leaving to fight monsters, thing like that.”

Spike chuckled “Haha, I can imagine.”

The stallion continued “But at the end of the morning, I don’t know, I was just happy to do this on my own.”

Spike moved from his seat to pat the stallion on the back “Good, maybe we can do something out of you Emerald.”

“I am happy for you, Emerald” added the alicorn.

He gave a curt nod “Thank you, Twilight.”

They moved to the table to have lunch. Emerald spend lunch telling his morning to the other, even if nothing really big happened he was proud of his achievement.

After Spike finished cleaning the dish, he gathered the two ponies of the house “I finished a part of my research and I need you, both of you.”

Emerald asked, “Ok, what do you want?”

Spike showed Emerald and Twilight a scroll with a schema draw on it “You saw that?”

Emerald put a hoof under his chin and thought for a minute, “Yes it’s amplification matrix, they are thing different from what I remember, no wait, this part, that look like a meddling matrix.”

“Ok, well there isn’t only that, most of them are failsafe, but I think you get the idea.” Spike nodded.

Emerald continued his reflexion “Hm, you want to cast something using two casters, one casting the spell, the other one fueling with power.” He concluded looking at Spike, then Twilight.

“Hey, you are not that bad. Ok, we will use that for some things, but first I want you to scan me for magic signatures, You will cast the spell and Twilight will provide the magic.” Spike gestured to Twilight that had a smile on her face.

“I am proud of you Spike, It look like a very good work,” she said.

Spike blinked multiple time “I...thank you Twilight, I mean a lot for me for you to say that to me.”

Emerald waited for Spike to wipe the corner of his eyes before speaking again “Is that really necessary? I mean I don’t need that much power to do a scan.”

Twilight released her embrace on Spike to let him continue, “Yes, but I am not a pony, and you will need all you focus.“

“What I have to do exactly, Professor Spike?” said Twilight with glee in her voice

“You just pour power in the matrix, but slowly, I don’t know how much power is needed and how much Emerald can handle. Don’t think of any spell in particular. You think you can do that?”

“I will try,” she affirmed.

Spike pointed at the stallion “Emerald you lead the whole thing, you stop if something goes wrong.”

Emerald traced the runes on the floor with some chalk forming a circle while Spike stood in the middle, Twilight was watching the whole scene thinking, when Emerald was almost done she started removing and redrawing some runes.

Spike was confused “What are you doing Twilight?”

“It’s better like this.”

Spike gave a look at the new pattern, it looked... different, but he could not point what, but she was right, in a way that looked better.

“Ok I don’t know what you did, but I trust you. Ready everypony?” both Emerald and Twilight nodded in approval.

Emerald horn was the first to glow and pour magic toward the circle on the center of the room, he was making the link with the construct, then he turned his focus to Spike.

“Wow you were not kidding when you said you have a great magic resistance”

“Yes, don’t strain yourself, guide Twilight to give you the power to overcome this.”

Twilight was wearing a serene face has she start linking herself, she pour her magic in the circle. Emerald face was in shock when he get in touch with Twilight magic it’s...so beautiful, so...right, so...strong. He could barely focus on the spell, overwhelmed by the feeling.

Spike, seeing the stallion having trouble focusing asked “Emerald? are you alright?”

“Wow, wow, Hu? Oh sorry, it’s...strong”

“Can you continue?”

Emerald shook his head to clear his mind. “Ok, let me try again...hum I need more”, now that started getting used to the strong presence of Twilight’s magic, he could focus on the task, I feel like I could do anything.

After few try and adjustment, Emerald could feel the magic inside Spike “Ok, what do you want me to search exactly?”

“Search for multiple signatures, ponies signatures.”

Emerald closed his eyes, projecting his mind vision into Spike “There is three signature, wait, there is a fourth, it’s...like Twilight.”

Spike smiled “Ignore this one, the other must be the Princesses, try to find a dominant one, my bet in on Celestia.”

“Ok, yes I see.” confirmed Emerald feeling the presence of a strong foreign magic.

Spike moved on the next step of his search “Hm, does there is some kind of interaction with the other?”

“Yes. It’s weird, it’s like it’s connected to the other.”

“Ok the tricky part, Can you identify the spell? or remove the connection? or reproduce the spell?”

Emerald paused for a moment, closing his eyes to focus on the structure of the spells present in Spike body “It’s...no.”

Spike just shrugged “Ok it was worth a try”

Emerald guided Twilight to slowly remove her presence from the link, and when it was done Emerald collapsed on the floor.

Twilight rushed to the stallion, helping him to get back on his hooves “Are you alright?”

“Yes, It was… just, not that used to deal that much power.” He cleaned his coat from the chalk that ended on him and turned his head toward Spike “I catch some glance of the spell Spike if that help, but I couldn’t do anything, what was that anyway?”

Spike started cleaning the floor with a rag “I wanted to see if we can alter the spell that allow me to send letters to the Princesses, apparently Princess Celestia know when I sends letters to the other.”

“Speaking of which.” Spike emitted a gulp of flame and two scroll appear in front of him. The first one was sealed by Cadance sigil and the other one by a silver crescent moon.

Spike put the scroll -with what was probably Princess Luna sigil- on the coffee table and rip off the seal of the other one “Let see Cadance first” Spike read the letter and spoke “Ok, apparently she had no real answer for us and asked Princess Luna for advice, but she doesn’t know what Luna has for us.”

Twilight took the scroll sealed with Luna sigil.

Dear Spike and Twilight Sparkle

First, we want to renew our apology for the situation you are in, we wish we could provide more assistance. Don’t fret, we are not planning a dread plan on Equestria by hiding your presence. We wish we could tell you more, but we think it’s for the best you just focus on recovering.

For your need of discretion, we also fear we don’t have a book or knowledge to offer, mastering traditional Illusion take time, but fear not, we think Twilight Sparkle you knew someone that once offer you apprenticeship, and well-versed in the art of deceiving other.

Once you figure who she is, we can give you her location, once you pronounce her name, her location will appear the back of this scroll.

Sincerely, Princess Luna that can not never thank you enough for saving us.

Twilight was in shock after reading the letter, Spike took the letter from her, read it and matched Twilight’s expression, “Wait, no, no, she…., she can’t be serious!”

Twilight whispered a name, “Chry...Chrysalis.”

Emerald became pale, his eyes wide open “You mean.. .mean, Chrysalis, the queen of the changeling?!”

Day 2x :

This day was crazy, especially for me, for once I will talk about me, well it’s weird considering it’s my journal. Twilight didn’t do anything particular.
The start of the day was just me doing my first lesson alone with the filly, I never seriously considering doing that, but seeing Spike working hard while dealing with Twilight at the same time, it’s the least I could do for them, and how hard it could be after trying to help a crazy alicorn controlling her magic? Well, that went well.
After lunch Spike proposed me to scan him, I don’t like scanning living thing. It’s not easy for me, I am nearly overwhelmed by the pony natural magic signature to distinct other one. Spike had already told me he was very resistant at magic, but I didn’t expect that to be this true, my own magic could barely get a grip on him, but the most craziest thing was Twilight magic, I don’t even know how to describe it’s beautiful, strong, pure, it make magic so...easy, so right, I never felt so at ease with using magic, it was hard to lose that. Using my own magic feel dull now.
After that, I don’t know who is crazier, Princess Luna or Twilight? The Princess proposed to learn from the Queen of the changeling and Twilight was ok with that. But I am not a hero, I talked to Spike about that, I will not go with them. I still felt bad for making this decision, I hope Twilight don’t think I abandoned her, it’s just... It’s dangerous, I don’t want to be a burden for them.
Spike gave me a gift, with the information I gathered about the spell that allow him to use his dragon fire. He managed to find a way for me to imprint my signature in him so he can send me letters, once again it was possible thank to Twilight’s magic.

Author's Note

Next chapter take place in Canterlot :)

Note: Queen Chrysalis offer apprenticeship to Twilight in on of the comic.

Chapter 14 - Canterlot

Emerald was in one of the art room of the Scroll manor. This one has a direct access to the garden to offer nice lighting in the afternoon. It was also one of the rare room of the whole manor that was quite messy since the servant were instructed to not clean it. He had not been in this room for a while. It was a noble tradition to pick up an artistic activity at the age a unicorn foal show the first premise of his magic. The goal was to refine your mastery of basic telekinesis via a somehow interesting activity. He himself chose to sculpt things and he stopped some years ago like many of his noble peers.

But he was mostly just relaxing, enjoying the simple motion of fooling around with clay, not with his hooves as most commoner could think -something that just made the clay dry faster- but with nice wooden and metal tools. It was a way to try to forget his doubts and worries of letting Spike and Twilight alone.

“Emy!” Interrupted the cheerful voice of his sister. She quickly found a way to lock her legs around one of his legs.

“How was school today?” Emerald simply ruffled her mane with a hoof.

“Hey! Not the mane!” She released the hug and pouted while spending time straighten her mane back on a proper way “Well it was school.” She stated and climbed on a nearby chair to be at eye level with the sculpture. “Is that Twilight Sparkle and a weird… thingy on her back?”

Emerald finally took a look at his work, he chucked to himself seeing clearly the outline of a unicorn mare. For some reason, he drew her cutie mark and the straight and plain mane style you could find in most portrait of Twilight Sparkle. It was a bit strange because when he left Twilight and Spike, she had a more lax mane style.

“The thingy as you said” On the mare back Emerald had started to do a small ball with spike and he struggled to make it look like a sentient thing “is Professor Spike.”

“That does not look like a dragon” stated Pearl “But why would you want to put your Professor with Twilight Sparkle?”

Emerald cursed internally himself for this slip “Can you keep a secret?”

The filly replied with excitement “Of course!”

“Well. Don’t tell father but Twilight Sparkle is Spike mother.”

“No way! That does not make sense. He is a dragon. Ponies don’t do dragon.”

Emerald smiled at the formulation of his innocent sister “You are right. But she adopted him when he was a baby.”

She poked him with a hoof “Are you making fun of me Mr. Scroll?”

Emerald does not like when he was called Mr Scroll, but it was the way her sister found to show him that she wanted him serious. “No, No. Do you want me to tell you this story after dinner?”

The filly smiled and removed her hoof from the stallion chest “I guess it’s okay then.” then she looked at him “So did you find me a mommy on your small towns?”

“Pearl… That’s not funny” he replied with a small laugh.

Emerald spend a large part of the week with his sister, telling her story about Twilight Sparkle. But the rest of the time he was feeling bored and guilty. He tried to lose himself in story books when not sculpting. After some days he decided to attend to some class at the Celestia School for Gifted Unicorn, It was still weird seeing most of the other student younger than him, but he had long stop caring about that

On Saturday night, he decided to meet some of his friends at their usual bar.

He was greeted by a red unicorn wearing a small tie “Hey, Emerald long time no see.”

“Hi, everypony.” Emerald took a seat at the table.

An earth pony with a white coat hit him on the shoulder “So how is life on country towns, how are the mares?”

Emerald sighed and smiled, it was nice to have some form of normality in his life, but his friends were always teasing him about either finishing school or found a mare to wed “...pretty boring, you just need to tell them you are nobility and they stick to you like crazy.”

The unicorn replied, “You are still doing that?”

“Well, I stopped, it’s...annoying.”

The earth pony raised an eyebrow “Hm, did you meet a mare you care this time?”

Emerald stopped, did it do? He did not even tried to meet one of his mares friends since he was back in Canterlot “maybe...”

His unicorn friend teased “Oh, who is the lucky mare?”

Emerald paused, wait, What I am doing here, it’s easy to lie to stranger, but there is no way I can hide thing to my friends, they will bother me to no end.

“Hey, I started teaching foals alone.” he tried to change the subject instead while making a sign to a waitress to approach their table.

“What? The dragon leave you alone with foal, he must be crazy.” snorted one of his friend.

“I told you, his name is Spike, he is not just a dragon.” angrily responded Emerald.

“Roh you know I am teasing” the stallion narrowed his eyes and move closer to Emerald “but you are avoiding the question. Who is this mare?”

Great, now I need to get out of here “Oh I forget I have some studies to finish.” lamely said Emerald.

“Emerald talking about studying. is that a joke?” laughed heartily the unicorn and was joined by his friends.

“He must really care about this mare.” chuckled the other stallion while Emerald was rushing to the exit of the bar.

Actually doing some studies isn’t a bad idea, why I didn’t think of that sooner? Emerald left the bar and rushed back to his house. The scroll manor was close to the Canterlot Library. He went to his father’s desk and start searching the drawers If I remember the key is...here. It was the key for a private study place in the Royal Canterlot Library, Emerald had his own key but his father had removed him this privilege after failing the last year of his studies again.

He walked to the Royal Library, getting greeted from the receptionist at the front desk. Even of Saturday night, it was still open to the public.

“Evening Mister Scroll, it’s a rare sight to see you here a Saturday, well any day.” The mare behind the desk joked.

Emerald forced his own Canterlot accent “Evening Miss Ink, as crazy as it’s sound I find myself in the need to study.”

“You talk like you father” replied the mare and they both start laughing. Emerald almost knew all the staff of the library. They’d grew to know him when he was following his father around the place at a young age. They also knew that, after his teenage years, he almost never come here unless his father needed him.

The stallion then makes his way to the most esoteric places of the library and some restricted areas he has access, he remembered using them for less noble purpose than studying.

He was already past midnight lost in fruitless research when a soft voice moved him out of his focus. “Quite the interesting subject to study mister Scroll.”

“Hu? What?” When he saw a tall dark blue alicorn staring at him, he get up his chair and bowed. “Princess Luna, Your highness, What I have done to get the honor your visit?” does...she knows who I am?

The Princess smiled “A fine gentlecolt. But may we ask you why choosing to study these peculiars subjects?” She watched the many books on magicals creature that was laying on the table amount books of history and some studies on changelings.

Emerald was holding his breath, his mind racing to find something to reply “Err, I had some free time and was curious, your… highness.”

“We already meet many students that were curious about…” She lifted a book about magical creatures “let me guess alicorn?” She took another book on her magic “but none were also doing research on changelings” She fixed the stallion “It’s quite a particular combination, don’t you think?”

Emerald froze and gulped.

The alicorn mouth formed a straight line “Did we make yourself uncomfortable? We apologize for toying with you, we knew exactly why you are here. So Tell us, how is she?”

Emerald released his breath “You...scared me, your highness”

The princess looked behind her at the entrance of the study “You should be. You are lucky you are doing your study at night. You see our dear sister and we placed some wards on book related to alicorn, we tried to know who is trying to study us.”

Emerald was choked “You...what?” He nearly blurted, but he excused himself immediately “Sorry for the outburst your highness.”

Luna sighed “We saw you are a well-educed stallion and you are from a Noble lineage, but we appreciate if we refer as us as Luna.”

Emerald tried to wrap his head around the idea of addressing a pony in a higher position than him by something else by his title. It already took him a while to stop calling Spike ‘Professor’ “As you wish Pri...Luna.”

“That better, now where we were, yes, we don’t mind our curious subject trying to learn about alicorn, but we try to acknowledge their motivation.”

“I don’t want to be rude P...Luna, can you talk more...” He trailed to not offense her.

“We suppose we…” She smiled “I mean I can do that, How to say that, I think Discord will say “What is the fun in that?””

Seeing the stallion was not reacting at her tentative of a humor she simply continued “But more seriously, be careful with your research, even if I doubt anypony can find out why you are doing that. You should try to not bring too much attention on you. But enough about that. I want you to tell me. How is she doing?” Luna asked taking a seat at the table of the stallion.

Emerald get back in his seat, he cleared his throat “Well, it’s not always easy, she can be sad one hour and be happy the entire day, she probably take that much better than I will do.”

The princess rested her head on one of her hoof “Hm, tell me more.”

Emerald was surprised by seeing the princess make herself comfortable, but he did not say a thing and tell to the attentive listener his days with Spike and Twilight.

And the end of the tale, Luna finally spoke, “I see, you said she can’t learn magic a normal way?”

“Yes it’s very strange, that why I tried to search something on alicorn magic.” Emerald pointed on a book written by Clover the Clever.

Luna smiled “You will find nothing. And even if you find something, something true for an alicorn isn’t always true for another one.”

“Sorry?” said a confused Emerald.

“Yes, the only one true fact you will find on alicorns is: we have the attribute and magic of the three tribes, magic and horn for the unicorn part, wings and weather control for the pegasus legacy and strength and endurance for the earth pony part. Sadly the earth pony magic isn’t that relevant since we are not farmer and magic make a lot of hoofwork pretty useless and unpractical.” She concluded grabbing a book in one hoof after removing the horseshoes at the tip

She put back her horseshoes with magic and continued “Sadly for the nature of our magic is not easy to explain. It’s true we can learn any unicorn magic, but some aspect of our magic doesn’t work like this, it depend on the nature of our bond to the world and how we use it. How to explain? You can see my sister as the ultimate unicorn with millennia of knowledge of magic, she use mostly her bond to the sun to empowered her magic. Nightmare Moon and I had a very strong bond to the night” She lit her horn to make the room dark and stopped, then she made her mane spray across the darkness to display stars everywhere “and we use this aspect to create spells any other pony can’t do. It became rather confusing to do the distinction between normal unicorn magic and our own magic. is that clear?”

Emerald pondered while the alicorn was making the room and her mane back at a normal state “I think I understand it’s...like a special talent for gifted unicorn, It’s hard to explain how I do some things to another student, I… just do it.”

Princess Luna gave a genuine smile to the stallion “Yes, it’s quite close, but on a greater scale.”

Emerald smiled to himself for the praise but his smile quickly faded when thinking about his main concern “But what the issue with Twilight?”

Princess Luna brushed her mane with a hoof before looking at the stallion “The question is: what is magic for her? it’s not just a part of her magic that is different.”

They both stay silent for a moment until Emerald finally spoke again “Can I ask how you find about me, did Princess Cadance talk about me?”

“It’s not every night I can watch a grow up stallion having nightmares of a lavender alicorn being purchased by changelings.” she replied mysteriously.

Emerald shivered at the memory “Is she really safe? I mean do you really think Queen Chrysalis will do nothing to her?”

“You can call Queen Chrysalis a monster, a tyrant, a thief, but she is a ruler and not stupid. She has nothing to gain by harming Twilight. If she kills her nopony will know except us, if she chooses to expose Twilight, do you think somepony will believe her? Queen Chrysalis can decline to help her, but she is not in a position to refuse future potential leverage of us.”

Emerald could not understand all the implication but was happy to know that Princess Luna was in some way in control of the situation “I see, yes. I supposed you will not tell me what happened to her.”

The Princess rose from her seat “Sadly it’s only for her to hear this story. But I have a gift for her, maybe it will help her” Luna summoned a strange book packed in a nice dark silk with a silver moon embroidered on it.

“It’s rather personal so I appreciate if you don’t try to read it” She said leaving the room.

Author's Note

Alright. Next chapter will probably take more time to come out. I have nothing drafted for it and it's one of these chapters "I need a chapter/pause before the next plot moving part, but I don't know what to put in it."

Sorry for people expecting to see Chrysalis in this chapter :)

Chapter 16 - Shopping

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Prologue

“It’s time for you to fulfil your destiny!” Celestia finished the last verse of her song. A myriad of great purple lights started glowing and engulfing Twilight’s body. Celestia was smiling, witnessing her student achieve the transformation allowing her to achieve her full potential and be an inspiration to everypony. Equestria needed a new, young figure to inspire its citizens—to lead and protect them.

Suddenly, the purple light shone brilliantly, reaching a blindingly white colour with a small lavender aura. Celestia couldn’t keep her eyes from her student. “It’s beautiful... it’s pure magic,” her mind starting to drift, staring at the beauty of the magic in front of her She was abruptly stirred by Twilight’s scream.

“Princess! Help me!” The unicorn’s head jerked in a peculiar motion before her cries resumed. “Help me—I can’t, I can’t... noooo!”

The white light grew more intense, the magical radiance becoming unpleasant to look at.

“No, no it can’t be—not like this, it was not...” Celestia said in a voice of disbelief, trying to make sense as to what was happening right in front of her.

A gracious, dark blue alicorn appeared from a cut in the pocket dimension, her lustrous, starry mane floating in the surrounding void, a hint of panic on her face.

“Sister! We have to stop this; it’s dangerous!” Luna shouted to make her sister came back to reality.

“It… it can’t be! She was ready. She was...” Celestia, her head hang low, was still muttering to herself.

“Tia! Hurry, we must act before it’s too late!”

On these words, another surge of radiant light exploded, mixed with another shriek of pain from Twilight. The glare was becoming stronger with each pulse. The, suspended images showing episodes of Twilight’s life vanished with the light.

Finally, Celestia was brought out her thoughts from pain. ‘Pain... what?’ Celestia was old, and her mighty alicorn body and magical strength prevented her from being truly injured. She knew physical pain, but her will was strong enough to ignore most of it. Even when fighting Nightmare Moon, she was hurt more by the need to fight against her sister than from her injuries.

No, this pain was more brutal—not something you can feel from a great injury, something rawer something that can obliterate your mind.

“Did you feel that? We have to do something!” A hoof pressed at her horn, Luna shouted again at her sister to awaken her.

Celestia’s head rose and turned to face the other alicorn. “But what can we do?!”

“I don’t know, but it’s too dangerous; we have to stop this or Equestria will be at peril!” Luna stopped to think for a moment. “...Let’s try to contain her.”

The two sisters’ horns started shining brightly, their magic slowly forming a dome around Twilight’s body, Telling whether she was hurt was impossible,, as the magic radiating from her was utterly blinding.

“That won’t work, that will not work,” Celestia kept mumbling to herself with an undertone of despair in her voice.

Slowly, the two powerful alicorns’ faces exhibited a frown as the struggle to curb the stark magic worsened.

“And now what? We can’t contain her forever!” Celestia barked.

“What?!” Luna was taken aback more by the sternness in Celestia’s voice than her choice of words. “Do... don’t you have faith in your student? We can give her time.”

“Time to do what? She…... she’s lost control; she wasn’t ready, she was...” Celestia regressed to her previous murmuring, but now with a bit of fear in her voice.

“No! I don’t believe you, sister, you told me you had already stopped one of her surges, and you taught her how to bridle her magic, she even managed to control the element of magic! She is ready, we—”

Luna’s attempt at quelling her gleaming counterpart was cut off by another swell of magic. Both alicorns frowned as they searched for more strength to contain the ever-increasing force.

Eyes closed, the two alicorns remained silent for several moments, both focusing on the fierce magic in front of them and trying to ignore of the pain carried with it, lost in their own thought.

Luna was worried for the mare. ‘Poor Twilight, it’s probably your pain that your mind suffers from, trying to contain such might. It’s both beautiful and dangerous... there must be a way to save you.’ Her train of thought was suddenly derailed by Celestia.

“We have to. No—! Wwe must destroy her before it’s too late!”

Luna was startled; she couldn’t believe her own sister’s words. ‘Destroy..?’ Even when she was Nightmare Moon, Celestia had never intended to truly kill her, as she only wanted to stop her, despite knowing she hadn’t the power to do it. But Celestia wanted her sister back. Nightmare Moon, on her part, really wanted Celestia dead, Her intentions clear: she wanted domination, and was willing to destroy everything that crossed her path. Celestia had all the rights to destroy her, yet chose not to.

‘Now, Celestia‘s facing a frightened young mare. Even if Twilight isn’t her sister, she probably sees Twilight as her own child… yet she wants to kill her? ...True, Twilight’s state is actually a threat to the surrounding ponies, as raw magic without purpose is more harmful than any evil or chaos intentional spell. But she’s just an innocent child, not a lord of evil or some crazy alicorn’ Luna’s internal monologue was interrupted by her sister’s interjection.

“Luna, it’s the only way! Listen to me, we have to destroy this,” Celestia kept shouting, a resolute tone in her voice.

“Tia! What?! Do you realise what you are saying?” ‘this, she had really just called Twilight this?’ Luna was still having trouble understanding the behaviour of her sister.

“We have to protect Equestria!” Celestia’s face was still dead serious.

‘“Protect Equestria”... it’s true that eliminating Twilight from the equation would do that, as it’s true that killing is always the easiest solution... but they always chose not to. Keeping Equestria from peril is one thing, but annihilating every possible threat will instill fear in your subjects, instead of just feeling protected.’

Enduring pain as another wave of magic had to be contained, Luna’s thought process ceased yet again. ‘I don’t have time to argue or understand Tia’s strange behavior; I have to do something for the pony that risked her own life to free me.’

Luna took a deep breath and spoke, “Fine! ...Fine, sister, but I shall do it alone.”

“What?” It was Celestia’s turn to be taken aback by her sister’s words.

“I know you don’t really want to kill Tw—...somepony... and you know how magic works, as without the right mindset, it won’t be strong enough.”

“Are you saying I’m not strong enough to protect my people?!” Celestia’s nostrils flared, and a forceful gust of air was expelled as she stomped the ground with her hoof.

“No! No, it’s just...” ‘Is that fear in sister’s face? No, more importantly, what to say? She wants to protect her people… that can work.’ “Forget that! Can you protect me while I do... what has to be done? Since it’s almost night, my powers are stronger.” Luna knew Celestia couldn’t object to that fact.

“I guess you’re right, but we have to hurry.” Celestia again bore an appearance of resolution, but now Luna could see it was only a mask, hiding her true concern.

‘At least now I can try something... but what? There’s no way I can cancel the transformation or reach Twilight’s mind to ease her, as she will need time… Time is all she needs, but how? Complex spells wouldn’t work. Even the simplest thing like... like killing her... would take a lot of power. No! You can do it Luna, she saved you, think, think... there must be a way!’

It’s... so simple. Oh yes, it’s simple.

“Luna, are you alright?” Celestia was getting worried, seeing her sister basked in a dark blue aura. She had only encountered such a similar feat when combating foes such as Nightmare Moon or King Sombra—those that just threw everything they could without worrying for the consequences.

“Please, don’t worry about that, just protect me!” Celestia’s mind started focusing on the task to maintain the shield in front of her partially containing the magic from Twilight’s body. It was enough of a struggle with the help of Luna. Now that she was feeling pain coming from within her horn, she knew she couldn’t last much longer.

Celestia’s sight was blurred from the strain on her horn and the beads of sweat falling in her eyes, but she managed to catch sight of her sister putting all her magic toward the center of the dome. She saw Luna struggle to stay on her legs, her body shaking the more she poured magic into whichever spell she was casting.

Then everything was gone, the bright white magic, the dark blue aura from Luna, the pocket dimension finally giving up and fading away. They were back in the sky above Ponyville. Luna’s sparkling mane was now a dull, light blue mess; she was very exhausted.

“It’s...” Luna said, catching her breath, “done. Now, sister, I must rest.” Luna spoke, awaking Celestia.

Celestia was temporarily lost, her eyes wandering over the form of her tired sister and the town below them. ‘What was done?’ Confusion was clearly expressed on her face.

Before taking flight to Canterlot, Luna gave a last look at her sister. Managing to put on a serious expression despite her exhaustion, she said, “I guess that leaves you to explain the situation to her friends.”

Celestia was unnerved. Since her return, Luna had always spoken to her with either a soft or stern voice, but this was the first time she heard so much... disdain toward her. Luna was already out of sight when her last words echoed in Celestia mind.

situation to her friends... her... friends.’ Celestia came with realisation as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“No, Luna has... no, we have killed Twilight Sparkle.”

Author's Note

Thanks to SPrice for editing this chapter :)

Chapter 2 - Secrets

Today was another beautiful day of spring, the sun was bright, but the evening would not have the oppressing warmth of summer. Still, the sunshine was barely here, but that was enough to wake the green coated occupant of one room.

Stretching his legs, pulling away the plain blanket that kept him warmth for the night, he hopped off his bed. It was a plain bed, comfy enough to sleep, but a far cry from what he had in Canterlot. Here his room had very little furniture: a simple wooden chair, a functional desk with ink and quills, a small wardrobe with just enough space to put some clothes and other personal stuff, in his case a few books. Simple, plain and functional was all that mattered anyway.

He took a look at the clock on the wall. “Hu...already? breakfast” talking to himself, he was out of bed, but still not fully awake. He reached the door and opened it to enter the living-room / kitchen / dining-room. Small town. He noticed the sound of someone in the room.

“‘Morning, Spike,” he said before heading to the fridge. When he finally reach the fridge he started to search for something to eat.

“Good morning, Emerald,” replied Spike.

“‘Mor...morning,” said a surprised shy voice.

Now more awake because of the light of the fridge and the need to put a bit of focus to find something, Emerald tried to think of the second voice, it sounded like a mare.

“I didn’t know you liked mares.” the stallion said while turning his head. This time, he tried to pay more attention to his surroundings and the source of the voice.

It was a mare, a purple unicorn, her dark blue mane looked like it hadn’t been taken care for long, there was some touch of purple and pink, but after an hour in the bathroom, Emerald thought she would probably look nice. Her violet eyes were fully open, showing her surprise, probably expecting Spike to live alone. He couldn’t see her back because a blanket was covering her. Wait, no, the blanket was now falling from her because something was pushing it away, revealing... wait-.

“What?” Staring at the mare, it was all he was able to say.

Spike was looking at him and sighed “I think we need to have a little conversation, please come.”

Before leaving Spike turned his head to the mare “Twilight, can you finish alone?”

The purple mare gave him a small nod.

Spike’s room was the same as his room with the same plain, simple, functional feeling, but now Emerald didn’t really care about the house he was living in. He had followed Spike to his room, it was not a long walk but that seemed like an eternity for him, trying to make sense of who this mare was and why she was here. She was a unicorn, he couldn’t miss the horn, no she was not a unicorn, she had wings, so a pegasus, no idiot, she has a horn...

“Emerald Scroll!”, Spike shouted with a gentle but firm enough tone to make Emerald escape his thoughts.

“Hu? Sorry Spike.”

“Listen, I don’t really know how to start, but, what do you know about my past?”

“I don’t see- “

“Please, just answer that for now,” Spike interrupted.

“Ok, I guess you have been studying magic in Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, which makes little sense since you are a dragon, but” seeing the look of disapproval in Spike’s eyes, Emerald stopped, it was probably not what Spike wanted to hear.

“Ok, not your student past? So your family? I have no idea, probably a nice dragon couple in Canterlot, but I thought dragons lived in herds” Spike was still wearing his disapproval face.

Emerald gave up on trying to imagine Spike’s past life “I… don’t know, I thought I knew you, but obviously not.”

“Exactly” Spike switched to a more serious face.

“Now listen, I will tell you things you have to promise me to tell no pony, but I know you will keep that promise. First, because I trust you, and also because you don’t want to see an angry dragon.”

Spike waited for Emerald’s answer, to which he only replied with a nod, but the stallion was still confused.

Spike tried another angle “Do you remember the stupid last test the poor foals have to pass to enter Celestia’s school?”

Emerald had resigned himself to stop making sense of Spike’s questions. He settled to just answer whatever question Spike had for him.

“Ho, I remember, it wasn’t a pleasant memory, you have to try to hatch a dragon’s egg, but you can’t, it’s designed to fail. It’s to teach you that… wait, is that how you were born?” Emerald’s eyes opened wide.

“Yes, I know it’s hard to believe but-”

“But how? No... who?” It was Spike’s turn to get cut this time, but seeing his assistant’s face he knew it was better to let him finish figuring out the puzzle.

“Wait, there was a rumor about somepony who passed this test, so it’s true? He must be very powerful but-”, something was missing for Emerald.

“But I still don’t get it!” He nearly shouted to calm himself.

“You are close, you asked the good questions. It was a filly and you just met her.”

“Her? Her? Wait. Ho, so your... mother” yeah this was probably the word, ”is paying you a visit and you don’t want anypony knowing she is a pony?” That sound weird, but that could explain why he wanted to keep it secret, still that doesn’t-

“No” Spike cut off Emerald again.

“I mean, no, yes. Rah sometimes it’s hard to remember what everypony really knows,” Spike was a bit angry, but he continued.

“Ok, in a sense you are right, it’s my mother and I don’t want ponies knowing that, but not because she is a pony. Didn’t you recognize her?”

Emerald was confused again, recognize her? how are you supposed to recognize a mare you only saw for, like five seconds? Wait. Think, she hatched a bucking dragon egg when she was a filly, she must be a powerful unicorn. Unicorn? But she has... no, focus on what you are sure of : school for gifted unicorns, so unicorn, a purple powerful unicorn and Spike had called her...

“You called her Twilight? It can’t be... you are saying Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic, the... savior of Equestria is your mother, and she is here, but she is-”. Emerald’s voice raised in volume as the realization struck him.

“Stop it!” Spike put a claw on the mouth of the stallion, then showed him the door, the door that leads to the main room of the house, where a lavender mare was eating. Spike slowly removed his hand seeing the comprehension on Emerald’s eyes.

“Dead, yeah. She is supposed to be dead.”

The two of them remained silent. Something was missing for Emerald, so he broke the silence.

“So, Twilight Sparkle is not dead, and she has... wings, yes I saw them. Is that something you were hiding from all Equestria? Or you are messing with me in the morning? Or am I still dreaming? Or...” Emerald was shaking as anger and panic started to appear in his voice.

“What? No, on the first part I am as lost as you, she... teleported in front of me yesterday evening...” Spike stopped and opened his drawer to pick up a rolled scroll with a broken seal on it.

“I guess I should show you this letter”

Spike proffered the scroll to the unicorn, Emerald grabbed it with his magic. He looked at the seal first, it was a crystal heart with a crown around it, the Crystal Empire royal sigil Emerald thought.

“Go ahead, read it”

“Ok” Dear Spike, Professor of the University of Canterlot and Savior of the Crystal Empire Emerald paused for a moment then said “What?”

“Please, just read” Spike sighed, as he had anticipated the reaction.

“Ok” Emerald started again, reading the whole letter without stopping this time.

Dear Spike, Professor of the University of Canterlot and Savior of the Crystal Empire

So she chose you, we suppose that makes sense.
But first thing, Yes it’s really Twilight Sparkle that appeared to you tonight, it’s maybe not the same unicorn you remember, but we can ensure you that she is who she is.

Her body is now as one of an alicorn, she is surely very tired and hungry but do not fear, she will live. However we can’t ensure the whole integrity of her mind, we think that only her memory is affected so it’s for the best that she reconstruct and remember herself. We understand it will be hard, especially for you.

It is also very important you don’t tell anypony she is alive, especially Celestia, yes, Princess Celestia, Diarch of Equestria, our own sister and aunt. She must not know.

Also, don’t let Twilight use her magic around others, you will be the sole judge as to when you will let that happen.

We are deeply sorry that we can’t explain the whole situation to you, but we trust you

Sincerely,

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, ruler of the Crystal Empire & Princess Luna, Diarch of Equestria and Protector of the night

Post Scriptum : Twilight, we are certain you will find this letter, please don’t give up.

“Horseapples” was all Emerald was able to say after finishing the letter.

Another pause, another endless silence for the two of them lost in their thought. Rattling sounds could be heard from the living room, but something else finally broke the silence in Spike’s room.

DING DONG

“What now?” Emerald nearly jumped out of surprise “Oh it’s just the clock.”

“Hm, the clock? Wait, what time is it?” Spike became worried as he looked at his own clock on the wall.

“It’s already seven and a half! I didn’t realize that, I was so busy-”

“Hiding more things from me?” Spike was cut by the sharp words from Emerald.

“What? Err, can we discuss that later? There are some young unicorns waiting for you” saying these words, a small spark of anger made its way in the drake’s eyes.

Emerald only had paid attention to Spike’s face, he knew this face, it meant “There is a job to do, and you will listen to me”. It was a part of being Spike’s assistant that he didn’t like, Spike was very serious about his job, dead serious. Emerald understood why Spike felt this way toward his job, and although he didn’t really want to cope with Spike bringing their job to cut off further discussion because he was, in truth, afraid of knowing what an angry dragon looked like. He still he couldn’t accept it given the situation.

“Spike, you really want to leave her to do your job?” this time it was Emerald showing some sign of anger.

“That is why I said, you will go while I stay here,” Spike simply replied.

Me teaching to foals alone? I can’t do it, no I don’t want to, well not now. Ok Spike you want to play the “job” card, I can do it too.

“You think I can do it alone, really?” What is that sound in the kitchen?

“We already discussed this, I trust you for this”

Shoot!, I didn’t expect that, he trusts me? Hm…

What about “No, what I mean is: do you think I can focus on teaching now after what you just told me?”

“Ah.” Spike stopped for a little to think, he is right, being the first time alone will be stressful enough, but if you add that, it will stress the fillies too, no wait-

Finally, the recurring sound in the living room stopped and was replaced by a loud metallic crash.

Emerald was the first to leave Spike’s room to check on the main room. He probably could have laughed at the scene in front of him: a lavender alicorn lying on the floor in front of the fridge, her head still in the bottom of the fridge. Her horn was stuck in one of the refrigerator grates. He could have laughed too at the celery branch that managed to get stuck behind one of her ears. But he didn’t laugh.

It was the first time he had a full view of her body. He had only previously seen her head, the rest of her being hidden behind the table and the blanket. Obviously, he had seen her wings, but now he had a full view of the mare’s state: she was very thin, very very thin and the part of the letter that said she would be very hungry was not an understatement. Her wings were folded, but the feathers were dry and not neatly lined up. Worst of all, she didn’t seem awake. He had half expected her to rise on her hooves and say something like “ouch”.

Spike joined Emerald before the unicorn had the time to panic.

“What happened here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Help me clean this mess and put her on the couch.”

There was no time to wonder what the alicorn was doing in the fridge. Emerald was levitating away the grates of the fridge that had landed on her body and the floor, while Spike was slowly removing the grate stuck on Twilight’s horn. When that was done, Spike started to gently put his claws under her belly and her hind legs.

“Can you lift her head?” the drake asked.

Emerald made one attempt to levitate Twilight’s head but instead felt a weird sensation, he shook his head and tried again

“I can’t” it was just a statement, there was no anger neither confusion in Emerald voice.

“What? Nevermind, you have hooves?”

Carefully Emerald used his front legs to lift and hold the alicorn’s head, one hoof holding her head, the other one holding her neck. Spike was holding the rest of her body, lifting most of her light weight. While they were on the way to the couch, Emerald used his magic to finish removing the various vegetables and content of the fridge that were still on her body. Both were focused on their respective tasks while saying nothing.

Having her head close to him, Emerald could now feel the slow breath of the alicorn on his fur. He spoke, more to himself than to start a conversation.

“I think... she is sleeping”

This simple statement seemed to ease both Spike and Emerald. Spike put Twilight on the couch and before hurrying to his room, he said; “I will bring a pillow for her head, hold still!”

Spike was soon back with his own pillow, he put it on the edge of the couch and Emerald carefully removed his hooves to let her head lay on the soft pillow. When it was done, both looked at the alicorn for a while, her breath was steady, her muzzle was making a soft sound at each inspiration she took, her face was peaceful, showing no sign of pain.

Spike broke the silence and let out a breath of relief “I think you are right, she is back to sleep again.”

“Again?” Emerald rump felt on the floor after the stress of the situation had caught on with him.

“I don’t know if you heard me, I found her yesterday evening,” Spike paused to grab a chair and sat on it, “She passed out in front of me so I brought her here. She woke up once in the night, she was thirsty but she fell asleep before finishing the glass of water I brought her,” he paused again to make sure Emerald could follow.

“Then she woke up this morning, she said she wanted to eat, she managed to reach the living room when I was making her something. I helped her sit to eat, then you saw her.”

“I am... lost”, Emerald said looking at the floor, the blanket that he had previously seen on the mare was here “Oh”, he picked up the blanket with his magic and put it on the alicorn, that was a welcoming small distraction for his mind.

Spike was watching Emerald put the blanket, letting him take his time to adjust the blanket around the mare body. When Emerald was done Spike finally spoke.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“I mean thank you for ...” Spike was staring at the sleeping alicorn not finishing his phrase. I had to trust him. “You know what? You are right.”

“Hu?” Emerald was staring at Spike more confused than ever. Spike had left his chair and was picking up his bag of school supplies.

“I will tend to my class, and you will stay here to watch her”, On these words Spike went to the sleeping alicorn, slipped one claw on her dry mane and lowered his head toward her ears.

“Don’t worry Twilight, I am not leaving you.”

Emerald was slowly recovering while watching Spike rush toward the door and leaving the house, Emerald saw something on Spike’s face he hadn’t seen in all this crazy morning. He had seen Spike a bit angry and annoyed at him when he was trying to explain this nonsense, he had seen him try to stay calm when noticing Twilight in the fridge but still sharing the same concern and relief Emerald had felt when noticing the alicorn was only sleeping. This time, he saw Spike wearing a sad face, his eyes watching a nonexistent point on the floor, slowly getting wet, is that tears?

“I am an asshole,” he muttered to himself, but Spike was already out.

Author's Note

Thanks to Celestial Pony for editing this chapter

Chapter 15 - Train station

Author's Note

(Sorry for the 6 month Hiatus)
Previously on Twilight Journey:
Spike found Twilight as an alicorn after she was declared dead for 20 years. With his assistant, Emerald Scroll, they get her back on shape. Wanting to have a better way for the new alicorn to hide her true nature from ponies, Spike and Twilight went to see Queen Chrysalis. Meanwhile Emerald get back in Canterlot where he had a meeting with Princess Luna and learn a bit more about the nature of Alicorn.

Chapter 15 - Train station

Spike was anxious. He was waiting at the train station of the town of Tours. It was a sizeable town with a few thousands of pony living here. It was a nice city with a center where houses were still of an older style than the current area. He had also the particularity of not being centered around one type of ponies, cloudhouses were quite close to the ground to not have the pegasus population too reclused. They were here for only 2 weeks, just the time to replace a sick local teacher before heading to another place where Spike was less eager to go for various reason.

He was nervous because he was not sure Emerald would show up at all. Spike last letter to him had just pointed out where to meet, but since the stallion could not give a reply it was impossible to know if he wanted to show at all. Spike was aware that it was an annoying situation to be in, to keep so many secrets to other ponies and be careful with what he said in the presence of Twilight. Spike was himself used to this, considering all the know ponies involved in his life and the secrets he could learn from Cadance and Shining Armor, but sometime it was overwhelming. Spike liked to tease the stallion because of his noble birth, but it was an advantage for him. It gives the stallion lot of social education and he had probably some things only ponies of his house were in the know.

At Spike side was a yellow unicorn mare, she was pacing on the train station, checking the clock every minute or so, even if the train was only supposed to arrive in 30 minutes. Spike tried to remain calm for his part, he does not want to put more stress on her.

He was glad to be out of the Changeling’s cave. It had been a tense situation, even if in the end it was not that bad. In second thought it was just a big gamble, a lone dragon and an untrained alicorn going to meet an unknown situation. Well, Spike was pretty sure they would have no trouble to escape if the changelings did not have proper anti-magic measures, but it was hard to forget that their Queen managed to empower Princess Celestia. It was no surprise Emerald did not want to join then.

It was a crazy endeavor. They followed the location given by the map on the verso of Princess Luna’s letter. They took a train to reach another isolated forest area, then they have to walk toward the entrance of a cave. To their surprise, there were welcomed by only 4 changelings guards wearing spears. They were led straight to their queen. Neither Spike or Twilight spoke before the guards went away. Queen Chrysalis beamed with a mad glee when Twilight removed her hood. After Twilight made her request to learn a way to disguise herself, the queen dismissed Spike. He had tried to protest, he did not want to let Twilight alone in a dangerous situation, but his mother had insisted that she would be fine.

Spike quickly discovered that the cave was a temporary place of meeting, probably chosen by Princess Luna herself because beside the guards there were only 2 other changelings. They constituted a small servant staff to cook, clean or just whatever need the Changelings could have. It took fifteen days for Twilight to manage to be able to change her appearance. She had tried to hide it from Spike, but her training with the Queen was painful, she even passed out the first day. Spike had to lie to Emerald in his letters, just saying that they were doing fine when he was worried about Twilight well-being. She always looked exhausted when getting back from her “training” or whatever the Queen was doing to her. But as days passed he could see Twilight coming back for dinner with a different coat color, then it was her mane and tail. Hiding her wings took more time but she could not really change her general morphology neither fully her cutie mark. When it was enough to foul most ponies, they left. Spike was uncertain of the queen’s motives to help them and let them just leave when they wanted.

During their stay, Spike occupied his day learning what he can on the changelings. It was not that hard since he was mostly left unattended. The issue was the changelings themselves, Queen Chrysalis was staying away from him and the other changelings hissed at him the first days when he was getting too close to them. After a week he finally managed to talk with a guard that was off shift, he must have been getting bored of hissing. Spike learned that Changelings does not trust dragon because warriors were trained to fend them away from their hive.

He did not manage to get that much useful information but Spike was pretty sure Shining Armor and the guards would be happy if he decided to share the gained knowledge without having to answer how he get it.

“Hey, are you Spike the dragon?” Spike felt a tiny hoof poking him on the back, bringing him out of his thought.

He turned on his feet and put a gentle smile on his face seeing a young filly with a slightly glimmering coat and a horn on her head. He recognized her as a rare case of a hybrid between a crystal pony and an unicorn. “Yes, it’s me. What is your name young filly?”

The filly turned around and rushed to an unicorn stallion with a yellow coat waiting near a bench. She beamed “Daddy! Daddy! I told you, it’s Spike the dragon!”

The stallion walked toward Spike and Twilight followed by the filly “I am sorry.”

Spike kept smiling to the stallion, he was used to Crystal Ponies having this kind of reaction when meeting him, but it was rare to meet some outside the Empire or the principal big city of Equestria. “It’s alright, don’t worry” he crouched to be at head level with the filly “You did not answer my question. What is your name?”

The filly blinked and then beamed “My name is Orchid Rose!”

“That’s a very cute name,” Spike stated.

“Thank you! My mommy talk a lot about you!” Orchid turned her head toward the yellow unicorn at the side of Spike and said keeping her enthusiasm “Is she your special somepony?”

That get the attention of Twilight as she finally turned her head away from the clock, “Hu?”

Spike laughed both at the filly statement and Twilight bewildered expression “No, she is…” he trailed “family.” yes it’s a better answer than Emerald’s sister.

“Hoo” the filly put a hoof under her chin “You don’t have a…” the rest of the sentence was muffled by a hoof placed on her mouth by her father.

“I am sorry, she is a bit too curious.”

Spike watched the filly trying to struggle to get out her father grip, then he looked at Twilight. She had a small smile of her own. Twilight bite her lips and asked, “I never saw a filly like you.”

The filly managed to wiggle free from the hoof restraining her “I am a very super special filly!”

Twilight narrowed her eyes, her horn glowed with a faint purple aura and soon the filly was engulfed by it. Spike thought for a second to stop whatever Twilight was trying to do but she was able to eat without issue with her magic and he does not want for her to feel like she was being bribed.

“Hey, it tickles!” the filly giggled but that did not break Twilight focused expression. The disguised alicorn levitated the filly in front of her, slowly spinning her, eliciting some ‘Weeee‘ from the jovial filly.

Spike tried to keep smiling to prevent the father from panicking seeing his daughter being used like a plush doll.

“You are a very interesting filly! You have two flows of magic inside you, but one is dormant. I think it can fuel the other. It’s so fascinating! Spike take some notes! We need to start some experiment! Study more of it.” Twilight spoke still making the filly spin in front of her.

“Right on…” Spike trailed “Wait. No.” He shook his head. He almost replied ‘right on it’ like he was back at being a baby dragon and the number one assistant of Twilight Sparkle, but the frown on the father of the filly stopped him.

He put a claw on Twilight’s shoulder “Now, Now. Twilight, first we don’t experiment on fillies,” he paused “Please, let’s her go.”

The filly pouted as she was deposed gently on the floor. His father gently checking on her, pulling her between his legs. Twilight’s ears dropped.

Spike felt like he was negotiating with one of Cadance’s foal; better distract her with something else “And we are waiting for somepony, remember?”

“Oh” The alicorn face lite up and nodded to Spike “Right.”

Spike rolled his eyes and focused on the stallion. “I am sorry, Mister. She does not go out very often, she forgets her manners.”

“I am sorry, Mister.” the disguised alicorn parroted.

“It was so cool!” the filly replied, but was hushed by the stallion.

Both filly and stallion shared goodbye with the dragon and Twilight. They get back to the bench they were previously occupying.

Spike was still busy giving a lecture on proper use of magic to the alicorn when the speakers announced the upcoming arrival of the train from Canterlot. Soon the train followed with the hiss of the brake and vapor and come to a stop.

Spike anxiety went back full force. Would the stallion show at all? He squeezed the handle of his bag, marking each second passed, waiting for the conductor give the signal for passengers to disembark. Please be here, Please be here.

Luckily for him, the first class cabins were at the front of the train and soon the first passengers were out.

A green head with a perfectly groomed yellow mane poked out. Spike could swear his mane was shimmering, but it was probably a trick of the light. He followed with his eyes the stallion getting out the car. Like his mane, his coat was trimmed groomed to perfection. He was wearing what Spike called the “Full Lord” suit. The collar was adorned with the two lines of colours. symbol of his house. A golden badge with a scroll symbol was pinned on it.

Spike also knew the fabric was more delicate that the usual suit Emerald wore when they are traveling. Normally he would tease the stallion or just be annoyed but knew the purpose of him wearing it.

When he met the eyes of Emerald, the stallion smiled at him, all Spike’s worries were gone. He wanted to rush to hug stallion to show how he was glad he was here. But he extended an arm in front of Twilight to block her.

A light pink mare followed the stallion. She planted a kiss on his cheek and giggled while putting a piece of paper in one of his pockets before trotting away. Emerald just rolled his eyes at the gesture. He started moving and immediately stopped. He sighed noticing the 2 city guards walking toward him.

The first one to reach him talked first “Sir, please can you wait a minute-”

“-Changeling control” Emerald finished.

“What are they doing to him?” asked a worried Twilight to Spike.

“Guards must perform checks on important ponies to see if they are not infiltrated changelings. Don’t worry, he gets that every time we travel to a major city.”

Twilight watched the weird procedure. One guard asking mundanes questions about pony society while the other, an unicorn, cast a spell on the stallion. When it was over they saluted respectfully and get back at watching passenger disembark.

Emerald approached the duo, stopped unsure of what to do. Spike moved first and hugged the stallion and patted him on the back. “I am glad you are here.”

“I am glad you are alright. I was so worried” Emerald smiled to both of them and eyed the yellow mare “Is that you, Twilight?”

The unicorn snap out and threw her hooves around the stallion neck, imitating Spike previous gesture. The dragon smiled at the slightly embarrassed expression of Emerald and the genuine smile on Twilight face.

“You are back!”