Twilight Sparkle could rightly say that her life was rather hectic a lot of the time. But, thankfully, she was nevertheless given time every once in a while to simply sit back and relax a little. Today was just such a day, as she and Starlight had taken some time out of their usual relationship of teacher and student to simply enjoy the quiet of the day. Each of them had taken to sitting in the study, taking a book of their own choosing and merely reading through it. While Starlight was not as into books as Twilight, she still seemed to enjoy this. Twilight, as per usual, looked pretty much glued to her pages, as she flipped through them at a fair pace, a smile plastered over her. It was a nice moment, but, it was soon interrupted when there was a sudden crashing sound. Immediately, both mares looked up from their books, and together, they gained looks of confusion.
"Spike?" Twilight asked.
Sure enough, it was indeed Spike there before her. The door to the study was open right now, giving them a look into the hallways beyond, and there, standing just on the other side, was the young dragon himself. He had dropped what appeared to be a hammer of some kind, and was in the middle of picking it up again when he looked over to the two mares.
"Afternoon, Twilight. Starlight."
The other mare gave a nod to this, while maintaining her confused expression. As for Twilight, she seemed more concerned for her young ward.
"Um...Spike? What are you doing?"
Looking down to the hammer in his claws, Spike turned back to Twilight, smiling as he did so.
"Just a little something I thought I'd do today. Nothing to worry about."
The confident way he'd said that was one that could easily sway one into thinking it was true, and yet, as Twilight watched him go, she continued to stare at the door. Starlight, for her part, seemed just as unnerved, but soon got back to her book. Twilight did the same a few moments afterwards, but with less enthusiasm. Her demeanour soon proved to be well-earned, however, as a loud banging noise could then be heard.
"SPIKE!!!"
Both mares leapt to their hooves, charging out of the study and down the nearby flight of stairs. They galloped as fast as they could, until they, at long last, reached their destination; the chamber of the friendship table. Here, they caught sight of the young dragon, but it was not as they'd been expecting. For Spike was now busy placing long wooden panels upon the windows around the room, using his hammer to batter in nails to secure them. Naturally, Twilight was completely at a loss for words over this, an attitude which was soon reflected in her tone of voice.
"Spike?"
Looking over his shoulder, the dragon smiled to his carer.
"Ah, Twilight! Could you hand me one of those other nails over there?"
For a brief moment, Twilight seemed to forget why she was here, and used her magic to levitate said nails over to her assistant. But, just then, she remembered herself, shaking her head and dropping the tools once more, before taking a step closer.
"Spike...what are you doing?"
To this, Spike shrugged his shoulders before getting back to work.
"I'm boarding up the windows."
Frowning, Twilight moved closer.
"Yeah, I can see that. But why?"
While continuing his hammering, Spike answered his friend.
"Because we didn't get a bad guy."
Of course, Twilight had no idea what he was talking about, and neither did Starlight for that matter, who at last added her own voice to the mix.
"Um...bad guy?"
Putting down his hammer finally, Spike turned to the two of them and nodded.
"Yeah. Every year we get some bad guy trying to do...you know...bad guy stuff. Discord, Chrysalis, all the rest of them. They stomp around, cause mayhem and stuff. And we never try and prepare for it."
Twilight placed her hoof upon his shoulder.
"Spike, I understand you want to be cautious, and I appreciate that, but we can't really predict when such a person will turn up, or even what they'll do."
Spike nodded.
"Sure...but we can't be too careful, right? I mean...look what happened last time!"
Here, Twilight titled her head.
"Er...last time?"
Again, Spike nodded.
"Yeah. I mean, we usually get a bad guy every year, right at the start of it, and then again at the end of it. But this year...we didn't!"
Hearing that, Twilight let out a brief giggle.
"But...isn't that a good thing?"
Spike shrugged his shoulders once more.
"Sure, it sounds good. Until you consider what happened the last time we didn't get a bad guy at the start of the year. I mean, we may have had some vines and stuff, but they weren't really bad guys, were they?"
Twilight considered this for a moment, before giving a brief nod, acknowledging her assistant's point. This, naturally, gave Spike an opening to continue.
"So, no bad guy when that year started, and by the time it ended, we got Tirek, the guy who blew up our house!"
The young Princess grimaced, memories of her old home still fresh in her mind.
"Well...yes, that is a fair point. It does seem as if trouble tends to build up around here."
Spike folded his arms and nodded back to her.
"I mean, no offense, Twilight, but you're a Princess. Shouldn't a Princess' home be...you know...more secure than this?"
Twilight looked down to him, breaking into a small smile and gently patting the top of his head.
"Oh, Spike. I appreciate your concern. But I don't think we'll ever have to bother about security precautions around here."
To this, Spike raised an eyebrow.
"What about when Starlight broke in?"
Twilight opened her mouth to reply, only to be struck with the realisation that she had no answer to give. In fact, she found herself turning to Starlight for aid, only to discover that even she seemed concerned all of a sudden.
"In fairness to Spike...it was kinda easy for me to get in here."
Twilight looked back to Spike, then back to Starlight, and back and forth several times over, before simply staring at the walls. She looked over at her door, which she now noticed didn't have a lock, and was suddenly struck with a rather concerned expression. Then, at the end of it all, she darted over to the nearest window, using her magic to lift up Spike's hammer.
"Spike! Get some nails! Starlight! Help him find more boards! We've got a lot of work to do! In fact..."
She looked away, observing the rest of the room and looking increasingly thoughtful as she did so.
"...we should probably start working on even further fortifications, like extra towers and such. What's the price of stone and mortar these days?"
Recognising Twilight's "crazy" face, Spike, all of a sudden, seemed somewhat regretful.
"Oh no...what have I done?"
