Not knowing what else to do, Spike the Dragon paced back and forth, waddling on his stubby legs, his chubby tail swishing from side to side. Turning his head, he eyed the basket, took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out in a huff as he continued to pace. Ever since the basket’s arrival, his world had been turned upside down. He flexed his claws and looked over at Twilight, who had her nose in a book.
“What do we do, Twilight?” Spike asked in a voice that trembled with emotion, quavering, rising and falling in pitch. “How do we make this right?”
Twilight Sparkle looked up from her book, titled, Parvus Draconus. She eyed Spike, noted how frantic he looked, and Twilight, being a decent pony, tried to put herself into Spike’s frame of mind, wondering how this might be affecting him.
The whole situation was pretty awful, of that there could be no doubt, and Spike was having a rough go of things. Her dragon companion looked terrible and her heart ached for him. She slid out of her chair, dropped down onto the floor, sat down, and extended one foreleg in a silent invitation.
Without hesitation, Spike ran to Twilight, plowing into her, wrapped his forelegs around her neck, and began crying. Twilight wrapped her foreleg around him, her wings also closed around him, and she stared at the basket. She felt her own eyes beginning to mist over, sharing in Spike’s rage, sorrow, and grief.
“Why... does... this... happen?” Spike asked between sobs.
“I don’t know, Spike,” Twilight replied as she rubbed Spike’s back, trying to bring comfort to her dearest, closest friend. He had been with her since the very beginning—he had been her friend, her playmate, her study-buddy, without Spike, she wouldn’t have become the princess that she was today, of that there could be no doubt. As Twilight continued to stare at the basket, she felt her heart breaking.
The library room was silent, save for the sounds of Spike’s sorrowful sobbing and the ticking of a clock sitting upon a shelf. Twilight, not knowing what to say, held Spike in silence, wondering what this must be like for him. After giving it a little thought, she realised that it must be unbearable. It was more than what had just happened, it was also a statement about dragons in Equestria, their place in society, and Twilight could not even begin to imagine how this might be hurting Spike, these awful, awful realisations. She felt a growing lump in her throat and a heaviness in her heart as she thought about Spike’s place in Equestrian society as a whole.
Lowering her head, Twilight Sparkle kissed Spike on top of his head, and she felt his sobbing ease. He clung to her, she could feel the faint tickly scratching of his claws against her pelt, and with Spike’s heavy breathing came the scent of wood smoke and sulfur, a scent that she treasured. A long time ago, the smell had bothered her—it had made her want to sneeze, in fact, but she had long since grown used to it. Now, it was like the scent of her mother’s perfume, the sound of her father’s voice, the way her brother hugged her, or the smell of strong tea steeping—it was a source of comfort that she needed in her life. Her foreleg rose and fell as she continued to stroke Spike in an attempt to comfort him.
“How do we make this right?” Spike asked in a voice that cracked and squeaked with emotion, his sulfurous breath hot against Twilight’s neck. “What do we do? What do we do?”
We. Twilight pondered the word. Spike was trusting her to fix this somehow, to make it right, he was trusting her to make some sense of this and help him understand it. She sighed, not understanding this herself. She turned her attention to the basket and what was inside of it.
A dragon egg.
A pygmy dragon egg to be exact.
Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and sighed. Ponies could be cruel. There were bad ponies. Very bad ponies. There were also good ponies. The egg being here in her castle was the end result of some very good ponies encountering some very bad ponies.
The bad ponies, from what little Twilight Sparkle knew, had plundered a pygmy dragon nest, hoping to find an easy fortune in gems and other trinkets that the dragons had hoarded. The bad ponies had pumped poison gas into the dragon nest, a type of necrotoxin known to affect dragons and cause cell death. The end result had been tragic. The dragons and their hatchlings had all died.
The good ponies had arrived to find the bad ponies plundering the nest after the poison had dissipated. Tarnished Teapot and Maud Pie, who had been in the area on an expedition, had done their job as rangers. The bad ponies had been subdued, the authorities had been summoned, and when everything was said and done, there had been a sole survivor, a late bloomer, an egg that had not hatched yet.
The egg that sat in the basket just a few feet away.
“Would you like a sibling?” Twilight Sparkle asked in a low voice. “A companion? A playmate? Would you be happy if I kept the egg?” Twilight Sparkle felt Spike go still, his claws still clutching at her. She could hear his measured breathing and she knew that he was thinking. Spike tended to freeze up completely when engaged in heavy thought, an odd quirk of his draconic physiology.
The clocked ticked the seconds away, seconds became minutes, and Spike made no reply. Twilight waited, her eyes on the basket, and she continued to hold Spike close as he processed whatever deep thoughts he was having.
“Did I make you happy?” Spike asked, breaking his silence. “I mean, as a hatchling… were you happy having me around?”
“Why, Spike, of course you made me happy,” Twilight replied without hesitation.
“Those were happy times for me.” Spike heaved a sigh and smoke curled out of his nostrils. He wrapped his arms around the foreleg that Twilight had braced herself upright with and rubbed his snout against her velvety purple pelt.
Twilight wondered what Spike was getting at. She looked down at the dragon clinging to her foreleg and wondered if perhaps Spike had grown a little bit. He was still so young. She could see that his eyes were closed and she watched the rise and fall of his chest.
“As much as I want to keep the egg, Twilight, I want others to be happy,” Spike opened his eyes and looked up at Twilight, who was looking down at him, “I want whoever is in the egg to be happy like I was happy. I was thinking Twi…”
“Yes, Spike?” Twilight’s ears made an attentive twitch and perked forwards.
“You did a pretty good job of raising me”—Spike paused, blinked, and he squeezed Twilight’s foreleg even tighter—“I mean, I know you had some help and all, but it turned out okay. You learned responsibility and you cared for me and everything worked out okay.”
“Spike, what are you saying, exactly?” Twilight’s brows furrowed and she gave Spike a gentle squeeze.
“I’m saying that things could work out if this tradition was continued,” Spike replied as his gaze fell, his eyes now focused on the basket instead of Twilight. The dragon lapsed into silence and listened to the sound of the ticking clock. His eyes closed and memories began flooding into his mind.
Twilight Sparkle as the purple tickle monster. Twilight nursing him through those rough times when he molted and shed his scales during a growth spurt. Twilight giving him a bath and scrubbing him. Twilight waxing his scales when he was too small and too clumsy to do it himself, polishing them to a mirror finish.
Raising him, Twilight had known responsibility. She had taken her duties seriously. Spike felt a wave of gratitude crash over him like an ocean wave smashing into the rocky shore. Tears trickled down his cheeks and he rested his head against Twilight. He thought about the other dragons he had met—those dragons had been jerks. Colossal jerks. Spike was not like other dragons, and it was all because of Twilight Sparkle. She had raised him to aspire for more than just being a greedy jerk. Spike had hopes, dreams, he had ideas, thoughts, everything he was, it was because of Twilight.
Watching Twilight grow up had inspired Spike and had influenced how he wanted to grow up. Twilight had started off as his playmate, slowly changing into his caretaker, his friend, his confidant, and then into something else. As he clung to her foreleg, he thought about what Twilight meant to him. He wondered what he meant to her. Their relationship was a strange one, defying conventions. What business did a unicorn filly have in raising a dragon?
Spike didn’t know, but he was grateful that she had. Opening his eyes, he glanced at the basket. Whoever was in that egg deserved the same sort of happiness that he himself had found. A best friend. A caretaker. Some special pony that would do the right thing. Some special pony that had the right stuff. Maybe a future princess. Or maybe just a good pony, period. A pony with potential that would be found and seen in much the same way that Twilight’s potential had emerged as she had cared for him. Spike drew in a deep breath and let it out in a slow, thoughtful exhale.
Something good had to come out of this tragedy. Reaching up with his claws, Spike wiped his eyes and his tail curled around Twilight’s foreleg.
Realising that some time had passed, Twilight asked, “Spike, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that this egg could bring out somepony’s potential,” Spike replied as he sniffled, “just like I did for you.” Spike paused, cleared his throat, and looked up at Twilight. “You were the best thing that could have ever happened to me. All I am and all I ever will be is because of you.”
“Oh, Spike,” Twilight gasped as she squeezed him. “I owe everything I have to you. I couldn’t have done this without you. You made everything possible.” Twilight fell silent and when she spoke again, her voice was low and husky. “I love you, you know… I don’t think I say it enough, but I do.”
“I know,” Spike replied as he felt something hot splash against his face, something that fell from up above him. “I, uh, love you too…”
Twilight Sparkle felt her insides melting. She gave Spike another squeeze as she lowered her head down closer to his ear frills, her eyes on the basket. “So, you think the egg should go to some foal that shows promise? Do you think raising a dragon will motivate them into self improvement?”
Spike nodded, his head bobbing up and down, his eyes locked upon the basket. “I can only see good things coming from it. The world doesn’t need more jerk dragons or jerk ponies. We have a chance to make things better. If a dragon and a pony grow up together, they realise that they have a lot in common and that they don’t have to be jerks to one another.”
“Hmm,” Twilight hummed, thinking about dragon and pony relations.
“I want to give Tarnish and Maud a hug the next time I see them,” Spike said in a voice raspy with emotion.
“Oh, I think they’d like that.” Twilight looked away from the basket, glanced at the clock upon the shelf, and then looked down at Spike. “Hey, do you want to go and pig out on ice cream? I think we’d both feel better if we pigged out on ice cream.”
Spike nodded, swallowed, and glanced at the basket. “We should take the egg with us. We don’t want it to feel lonesome… it lost all of its siblings…” Spike shuddered and a wisp of smoke trickled out of his nostrils. “Do you think this will make things better, Twilight?”
Hearing Spike’s words, Twilight considered her own reply, wanting to give an honest answer. “I think so, Spike. Friendship needs understanding… common ground.” Twilight thought about her foalhood for a moment before she continued, “Shining Armor, my big brother, was my first friend… I didn’t know it at the time, but you were my second. You tried my patience. You made me cry. You ate my homework. You set my mane on fire… and I treasure every moment. Even when you ate my homework and Princess Celestia didn’t believe me when I told her that my dragon ate my assignment and I got detention.”
Unable to help himself, Spike giggled, even as tears continued to trickle down his cheeks. He felt another hot droplet strike him on the face, and he knew that Twilight was crying. In that moment, Spike felt a surge of hope as he looked at the egg, the hope shoving away his despair and his sorrow. One day, a dragon and a pony might know the sort of special friendship that he and Twilight had.
“I think I need some ice cream,” Spike said to Twilight.
“Me too… let’s go.” Twilight folded her wings against her sides. “Spike, grab the egg.”
“Hey, Twilight,” Spike said as he disentangled himself from Twilight and stood up.
“Yeah?” Twilight too, stood up and stretched out her hind legs.
“Do you have somepony in mind?” Spike asked.
Twilight, thoughtful, made her reply. “Not yet, Spike… I’ll need to give this a lot of thought… this is a big decision that affects two lives… but when I do decide, you’ll be the first to know, okay?”
“Okay, Twilight.” Spike waddled over to the basket, his tail swishing as he walked, he grabbed the basket by its handle, and picked it up. He could feel heat coming off of the egg. He hefted the basket up, wrapped his arms around it, and gave it a hug.
“You’re going to have a wonderful life,” Spike whispered to the egg, “I promise…”
Author's Note
See you in the next story... Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals.
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