Radio Station Dilemmas

Chapter 2

The next few days passed without anything meaning much to Azura. Nothing mattered other than come to work, get to lunch, have lunch, finish work in the afternoon, go home, sleep and repeat. She barely even noticed she had Rarity with her in the dusty records room and it all seemed part of a normal day. However, a few days later Rarity trotted beside her unexpectedly.

“You know I’m getting my gem today,” Rarity enthusiastically cooed and Azura had the feeling she shouldn’t turn her head, but she did.

Azura saw Rarity had quite a happy smile on her and she immediately thought it odd. Plus, she had colour on her as most of her fur coat was white and it looked freshly groomed along with a beautiful purple mane that just drew Azura’s attention of it being out of the ordinary.

“Discord promised me one month of work for one gem and it better be big,” Rarity spoke and Azura noticed her blue eyes look on with eagerness. It all appeared very odd to Azura.

“Here, let me hold the door open for you, darling,” Rarity generously offered and then held the door to the stairs open for Azura. Azura hadn’t really noticed she had been trotting throughout Rarity’s attempts to speak to her, but thought about whether she wanted to accept the generosity. She shrugged and thought it easier than opening the door herself and began climbing the stairs with Rarity following behind her.

“Oh, are you going to return the favour?” Rarity asked as Azura gripped the second floor door handle and was about to turn it when Rarity asked her the question.

Azura shrugged, but thought briefly about Rarity opening the door for her and it was perhaps an insignificant kind and generous thing Rarity had done for her, but did it warrant returning the favour? Azura wasn’t sure and her mind felt frazzled and unable to come with an immediate answer, but then the door was opened by the dragon.

“Oh, hi Spike, let me help you with those,” Rarity said happily and then Azura noticed a blue aura of magic coming from Rarity’s horn and surround the papers Spike was about to attempt to climb up the stairs with as he stepped through the door and appeared to be struggling.

“Huh? Hey, what are you doing, I’m supposed to take those papers to Discord on the third floor and I don’t need any help,” Spike growled.

Azura looked on, but she began to think she had meet Spike before and he just as resistant to help then too. Then, she realised Rarity had called him Spike and he had a name.

“Oh, but with this heavy load, a trip or a slip and you’ll tumble all the way down to the bottom of the stairs,” Rarity said with concern.

Azura shrugged and decided she didn’t really care about Spike or Rarity’s concern with him and she had a job to get to and went to go through the door and Spike slammed it shut with his tail onto her head. She immediately whined in pain and felt the sharp impact.

“I told ya’ I don’t need any help, now give those papers back to me,” Spike growled angrily.

Meanwhile just before Rarity spoke again, the door slamming onto her face and the resistance of Spike to receiving help made Azura remember she had indeed meet him before. It was on her first day of working for the radio station and he had refused her help too. Then…

“Spike! How dare you slam a door onto your colleague’s face!?” fumed Rarity’s voice which instantly drew Azura’s attention.

“What do I care?” Spike snorted, “She shouldn’t have stuck her head in the way.”

“Consider this a punishment for that dreadful behaviour!” Rarity yelled.

Azura happened to look up and noticed Rarity’s magic aura around the paperwork stash faded and then they flew and dropped around the stairs in messy heaps.

Spike huffed in annoyance and then went to go and get them and Rarity stopped him by pushing her left front hoof against his chest.

“Spike, what’s wrong with you? You don’t normally act like this,” Rarity spoke out with some concern and then tilted her head in confusion as if another conflicting thought was competing for head space.

Azura thought Spike didn’t deserve Rarity’s concern as she rubbed her sore face.

Spike huffed again and looked like he didn’t care and pushed his way past Rarity’s hoof to go and get the papers.

However, as Spike headed down to get them, Azura eyed up him up and noticed his scales were and hair were grey and the brief memory of their last meeting suggested this was odd. Azura tilted her own head in confusion and remembered seeing purple scales and green hair on the last time they had met.

“Really, I must say, I have no idea why he’s acting like this,” Rarity spoke up with a puzzled tone.

“He’s normally friendly and actually a little affectionate, though I can’t seem to recollect the last time we met,” Rarity continued and Azura noticed her blue eyes looked puzzled.

Azura felt her own confusion grew as two conflicting thoughts did battle in her head. One of them wanted to just to scowl at the door being slammed on her face, shrug and ignore the incident entirely, but the other wanted to seek a little vengeance upon Spike.

“Look, I know he doesn’t deserve our help, considering what he did to you, but maybe he apologise if we go down and help him,” Rarity commented.

Azura noticed Rarity’s eyes shot her a concerned look and looked down toward Spike and it was clear to her he was getting frustrated trying to sort out the messy heaps of paperwork that was all over the stairs. Azura briefly considered not helping and watch him struggle and she doubted he would apologise, but then a memory shot through her as remembered feeling guilty about not helping him previously and this small guilt made her feel she had to help. Azura sighed in great reluctance and trotted down with Rarity to help Spike out.

“Spike, darling, let us help you,” Rarity commented to Spike gently as Spike glared at the paperwork.

However, something Rarity had said made Spike’s ears perk up and he even raised a small smile.

“Aww, Rarity, you called me a darling,” Spike said softly and his smile increased and Azura noticed his eyes turn green and then became dominated by love hearts and he began to float.

Azura found this behaviour a bit weird, but it made her giggle a little. Something about it was a bit amusing as it was unexpected considering he had been rude and anti-social before and then Azura felt a little positivity from her giggle as she felt she enjoyed it.

“Now, let us help you with these stacks and don’t slam the door on your colleague’s face again or next time we won’t help you,” Rarity lightly threatened and puffed her chest out.

“I’m sorry Rarity, and hey, I don’t think we’ve met,” Spike said in a confused tone and Azura noticed he was looking at her, but she remembered they had met.

“Greetings there and I’m Spike,” Spike introduced himself with a small friendly smile and Azura saw him look up at her with friendly looking green eyes.

Azura stroked back a bit of her mane as her recollection told her they had met, but he hadn’t introduced himself in such a friendly manner last time and his smile was friendly too.

“I’m Azura, but we’ve met before,” Azura decided to tell him.

Then, out of nowhere, Spike grabbed and shook her front left hoof before she could stop him, but as she was about to protest, he looked up at with another small smile and let go.

Azura noticed the small smile and couldn’t resist feeling that she should smile back especially as Spike looked much friendlier than on the last time they met. Then, Azura allowed a small smile to cross her mouth and Spike smiled back, but then he seemed puzzled and scratched the back of his neck with his left claw hand.

“Wait, did you say we’ve met before?” Spike asked and scratched his chin in bafflement with his right claw hand and then Azura saw a yellow swirling effect take over his eyes and remembered seeing this effect in Rarity’s eyes.

Rarity acted instantly and Azura felt a light push as she saw Rarity push past her and touch her unicorn horn onto Spike’s head and then there was a bright flash. Azura instinctively shielded her eyes and when she re-opened them, Spike no longer had the yellow swirling effect in his eyes.

“Rarity, what’s going on?” Spike rubbed his claws up and down his forehead.

“Actually, right now, I don’t exactly know,” Rarity rubbed her eyes and reopened them.

“Wait, what’s this?” Spike asked and glared toward the messy heaps of paper.

“That’s the paperwork that you were carrying,” Azura simply answered.

“Oh yeah, I remember now, I need to get them to Discord’s office,” Spike remembered and gave Azura a light smile for helping him remember.

“And you’re going to need our help,” Rarity said eagerly with a small smile.

“Come on Azura, let’s get these papers to Discord,” Rarity smiled triumphantly.

Azura nodded and felt inspired to help as she helped Spike and Rarity pick up the papers and then they split the workload of carrying the papers into three manageable stacks and Rarity used her magic to make the stacks neat and tidy.

Azura couldn’t help but feel a slight tinge of jealously that Rarity had magic to help her out, but after going through the effort of making three manageable stacks neat and tidy and leaving one stack for Azura to carry, Azura could see the mental toll it had taken for Rarity to concentrate and sort it out and decided to take a stack to help her and Spike out was the least she could do to help.

Azura picked up her stack with the grip and her front left hoof and held it close to her chest, so she could keep the remaining three hooves on the stairs and to make sure her stack didn’t slip out of her grip. In the meantime, Spike held his stack out with his two arms and Rarity had enough mental concentration and levitation magic skill to hold her stack with her magic and the three of them climbed up to the third floor.

“You know, thanks for doing this, you’ve really saved me a lot of trouble,” Spike said in a friendly manner when the three of them reached the third floor door.

Azura smiled as she liked being thanked and put her stack down and opened up the third floor door and then picked it up again.

  “Well, we’re almost there,” Rarity commented and trotted through the door and then strangely stopped and paused.

Azura trotted alongside her and wondered why had she’d stopped.

“You know I have just got a strange feeling that going to Discord might be a bad idea,” Rarity commented and Azura noticed her doubting eyes.

Then, Azura felt a strange feeling that Rarity might be right as there seemed to something just beyond her memory that didn’t feel right about Discord.

Spike stopped and paused to think about it also, but then a dull and grey alicorn galloped toward them.

“Spike! You’re late!” The alicorn yelled unhappily at Spike….