"I still can't really believe this is happening," Spike admitted, sitting on the edge of Twilight's bed as she rushed around the room. "I mean, everything was so weird and messed up, and then you fixed it, and you - you have wings now! When was the last time that happened? When someone had the great idea to move the sun? You're the bookworm, doesn't this feel weird to you?"
Twilight sighed, turning briefly to give Spike a sad smile over her shoulder before going back to digging through her dresser. "I know it's strange, but I trust the Princesses. My magic is just special, that's all." She laughed, a little faintly, as she pulled out another pile of clothes Spike was sure he'd never seen her actually wear.
"Yeah, and your magic first showed up by making me huge. And I'm your family, Twilight. I'm worried about you. What this means for you." Spike folded his hands in his lap. "What's going to happen to the library when you're a Princess? Is Ponyville going to be filled with people all of the time? Will you even have time to come home?"
Twilight stopped her search, turning to face Spike properly. "It's okay to be scared of change, and I want to talk to you about this, but I really, really don't have time right now. I have to find something to wear before the coronation tomorrow, and I have to leave early to make sure everything's prepared. I promise, we can have this talk right after."
She pressed her head against his gently, the closest a grown pony and a small dragon could get to a proper hug in a rush, and then said a soft goodbye as she grabbed her saddlebags and a clump of messy lists and all but ran down the stairs and out the door. Spike stayed sitting on the bed, rubbing his head with one hand.
"I don't think this is really something that can wait until after the coronation," he mumbled to himself, flexing the claws on his other hand against the soft covers, careful to keep them from catching at the fabric. He eyed the mess she had made on the floor, scrutinizing it, and then slid down off of the bed and began picking it up.
"What good is being a personal assistant if she doesn't ever want to talk about anything personal? Doesn't she ever wonder if I get lonely without any other dragons my age?" He spotted Twilight's gala dress rumpled against a shelf and rushed to it, smoothing out the creases and returning it to its hanger. "Just because she liked reading and organizing all of the time when she was a filly doesn't mean everyone else does. Maybe I want to help her shop for clothes! I know what she likes!"
He'd gotten the clothing section of the mess folded and put away - he was proud that Twilight considered him a capable assistant, despite his age, though he wasn't sure which of the lists scattered around the room she still needed and whether the placement was important - and doing something had made him slightly less frustrated. His anxiety had not faltered, though, and seeing the rushed scribbles of Twilight's usually immaculate writing was not helping.
Resigned, he hopped back up on Twilight's bed and lay down with his back to the disarray, staring out the window at the weather team adjusting the cloud cover, and hoped the ceremony, at least, would go well.
"I'm sorry for coming by on such short notice, Rarity, really. This is a big event, and I don't want to put you under too much pressure." Twilight stopped herself from rubbing her foreleg sheepishly, having nearly forgotten the fabric pinned carefully over the limb. She thought back to her gala dress, and how hard she had pushed Rarity in altering it, and couldn't withhold a brief wince at the instant recall that she had somewhat thrown it across the room while looking for something new.
"Really, dear, for something this important it's really not a bother. One doesn't get to design clothes for a Princess every day! Though it might be a bit more often than I'm used to after tomorrow. Can you see that ribbon I just had from there? I could have sworn I put it down around here." Rarity turned in place, a frankly alarming amount of fabric spinning around with her as her focus drifted.
Twilight squinted down from the raised podium through the gaps, trying with some difficulty to see anything but - at the moment - blue sequins. "By your left hoof. No, other left."
"Ah! Thank you." Rarity grabbed it quickly, drawing a span of it off of the spool and holding it up to Twilight's side for comparison. She continued working, easy with how much practice she had, as she visualized different designs. "You don't mind pink, do you? I believe it's still in fashion, and you'll be spending most of the ceremony beside Princess Celestia."
"You're the designer, Rarity. I trust your judgement." Twilight watched idly as Rarity sorted half of the bolts of fabric away at once, and multiple pairs of scissors began cutting shapes out of the remaining. "Do you mind if I bring up something personal? To keep between us?"
Rarity stopped for a moment, concerned. "Of course."
"It's about Spike," Twilight admitted, noting as Rarity resumed working at a slower pace. "I think he's worried about me having to leave after the coronation."
Rarity sat down, nodding for Twilight to continue as she pulled up a sketchbook and began to absently record designs.
"I don't know what to tell him. I don't know if I'll be allowed to spend a lot of time at the library once I'm royalty. Everything has happened so fast, and I haven't found anything on the other Princesses to imply that I can or can't stay here. He had friends his age back in Canterlot, and he lost contact with all of them when we moved here, but I wasn't a good guardian. I barely noticed, since Nightmare Moon was so distracting, and it just seemed like I never had the time after all of that. Not that I would change it, no, I'm so happy I met you girls, and so much would have gone wrong if we hadn't-"
"Twilight." Rarity's gentle voice broke her train of thought, and Twilight stopped, noticing she had started crying. She did her best to wipe the tears away with magic, taking the scrap of fabric Rarity offered. "It's okay to be scared," she laughed gently, "and you helped us learn that."
"I know. But I don't want to take Spike away from here, too. If I have to go back to Canterlot, he has to leave his life behind a second time. He was taken away from other dragons! But I can't force him to come with me, into a busy life that he might not be allowed to be in. He's not a pet like Philomena, he's my... my son? My nephew? My brother?" Twilight sighed, closing her eyes. "He's family, and I can't hurt him like that."
She paused for a few moments before continuing. "I know you have your hooves full with Sweetie Belle, but if I do have to leave, do you think you could... sort something out with the girls? He's probably old enough to live by himself, but I don't want him to hide away in there. If you could invite him over, or, or, or something, I would be so grateful."
"I can't speak for the others, but I would do everything I could to give Spike a place to call home. But," Rarity tapped her hoof on the ground, emphasizing, "I think this is a discussion you have to have with him, first. Even if you don't have time until after the ceremony, there's no way you'll be expected to drop everything at once to take up Princessing."
Twilight nodded, nodded again at Rarity's continued stare, and then straightened herself back up so that it was easier for Rarity to work. She watched as the mare matched colors and adjusted layers, let her mind wander to how she would find time to talk to Spike, and hoped the ceremony, at least, would go well.
Spike didn't notice he had fallen asleep until he woke up, smelling burnt pastry and lying on Twilight's concerning untouched bed. A glance out the window revealed the sun was only just rising, and a string of mild curses from downstairs told him breakfast had made a desperate attempt to avoid its fate.
He slid down off the bed, landing heavier than he usually did; a quick glance at himself in Twilight's vanity revealed he was a little taller, looking a little rougher around the edges.
"Not a greed thing, not today," he moaned to himself, walking over to the mirror and running his hands over his crest as if to force it back into being round. With the attempt failed, he steeled himself a bit - partially against Twilight's inevitable reaction, partially against the increasing smoke - and headed downstairs.
Twilight's inevitable reaction proved evitable, as she looked about as frazzled as a pony could. Coat ruffled and matted around the edges of her wing brace - "Just until the muscles strengthen a bit, she should be able to take it off by the coronation," Princess Celestia had informed him when he pried, - eyes reddened from lack of sleep and smoke, nearly dancing off her nervous energy, staring down at a frying pan full of fire and looking a bit charred, Twilight was not exactly looking like Princess material on the day she was going to look like it the most.
"Twi, go open some windows or something!" Spike yelled from the stairs, waving the smoke away from his face. "I'll get the pan, but you're going to ruin the books like this!"
Twilight broke her stare at the pan, seemed to nearly jump out of her skin at the sight of Spike - he thought it was his appearance, until she said something about not hearing him wake up - and obediently, if a little forcefully, started opening the windows. Spike set to his task, noting without surprise that she had somehow melted the pan to the stove-top, and soaked a towel to smother the fire a bit while he tried to pry it off. The fire had turned to charred pancake remains by the time Twilight returned, looking no more composed for the absence.
She moved to take Spike's place at the stove, and he put a hand against her shoulder, not pushing but not letting her closer either. "Twilight, you've been up all night. Go have a shower and maybe a nap, and I'll make breakfast and make sure everything's in order. Okay?"
Twilight nodded, casting a spell to clear out most of the smoke and for her credit only teetering a little bit when she did, and quietly went into the bathroom. Spike waited until he heard the water running to haul the pan off of the stove, wincing at the loud crack it made while it did so, and ran it under cold water in the sink so he could throw it out. He scanned the fridge, found it deplorably empty, decided to just make toast, and then pondered why this responsibility was so easily his while he waited for it. He wasn't sure how dragon age matched pony age, if there even was a direct comparison, and then realized he wasn't sure what responsibilities foals his age in their years even had. It wasn't that he didn't like the respect, he thought to himself, staring vacantly at the toaster light, but it would be nice if he could just... go roll in dirt, or something. Even though having to clean between his scales took forever.
And then the toaster popped - a four-slice, a purchase Twilight would never regret - and he had suitable distraction to keep from thinking about it. He still found himself running a claw along his cheek as he loaded up the toaster again, feeling the edges of his scales catch a little more than usual, but it wasn't worry. Of course not. He couldn't let himself worry until all of this was done; he was a big dragon now, and he had to act like one. Even if he wasn't really sure that he was, or how one would act.
Twilight exited the bathroom just as the toaster finished the second round, looking much more awake and a bit more calm, and wolfed down her breakfast at a somewhat alarming speed. She practically slammed the dish into the sink, composed herself with a deep breath, and then turned to Spike, who was watching her with mild apprehension.
"I've got to go to Rarity's to pick up my dress, and then the Royal Guard is coming to escort me to Canterlot. I already asked, but the chariots have very specific limits and... you'll be taking the train up in a few hours with the girls." She winced, avoiding eye contact. "You're welcome to stay with any of them in the meantime so you don't get lonely, but, you're a big dragon, right? I know this is an important day, but we won't be apart for long."
Spike wondered, but didn't ask, if he should have expected this treatment as her family, as she rarely visited her parents and didn't even know her brother had been getting married. To a Princess.
Taking his silence as enough confirmation, she stumbled over a goodbye, and then the doorstep, and then was gone. Spike watched her run past the window at full speed, skid to a halt, and then disappear in a flash of light as she remembered she could teleport, and went back to picking at his toast. He wasn't really that hungry.
Figuring Twilight wouldn't be checking in again, he rinsed off the dishes, checked himself out in the mirror to make sure he wasn't going to embarrass Twilight on her big day, and left the library as well. His direction was notably the opposite; he wanted to do something, not just sit around and wait to be called. If he was lucky, Sweet Apple Acres would have something for him to tire himself out doing, and that was exactly what he needed.
(He considered Fluttershy, but also realized that if they were all dressing up for today, as they almost undoubtedly were, she would be trying to help Rainbow Dash find something to wear that hadn't been flown ragged, and he couldn't exactly fly up there to help them - though not for lack of trying.)
Winona greeted him at the gate, nearly bowling him over, and was followed pretty shortly by Apple Bloom, who was giggling and looking extremely proud of herself. "Spike! Hey, you got taller!"
"I did," Spike laughed, jogging a bit to meet up with her faster. "Are you doing any work this morning?"
"Aw, nah, we're all invited to the Princess thing, so Applejack told me I couldn't," she paused to deepen her voice, mimicking her older sister, "go around getting yer hooves all dirty and trackin' mud on those fancy carpets. But I had to walk through mud to get over here, and I'm not sure if that counts. Big Mac's helping her get all gussied up and I think they're almost done, so I'll just have to wash 'em real quick."
"Do you know when we're leaving?"
Apple Bloom gave him an odd look. "Didn't Twilight tell you?"
"I, uh, wasn't listening." He rubbed his arm, looking away, hoping it looked embarrassed enough. It seemed to work, because she stopped looking at him like that. Like she was concerned.
"It'll prob'ly be an hour or so, I reckon. Applejack wasn't super specific, but she wants to make sure Granny don't stress herself with a rush to the train. Oh! And Rarity's got a new tux for you, I was supposed to tell you that when I saw you. I wonder if it'll match my dress! I wanted a suit like Mac, but Sweetie Belle convinced Scootaloo to get all dolled up, and I couldn't wear a suit if Scootaloo couldn't. If we hurry, we can make friendship bracelets before we go, and then we can all match!"
Spike laughed out an 'alright' and followed her back up to the house, listening to her recount how much bribery it had taken to get Scootaloo into a dress - according to Apple Bloom, it had taken a promise from Rainbow Dash that she would make sure her favorite little wingpony looked better than her, and made Scootaloo promise to stand with her so she wouldn't steal Twilight's thunder, and nobody was really sure which part of the statement had changed her mind - and letting her chatter push his fears to the back of his mind.
He almost didn't notice the golden carriage swooping gently into town, and definitely almost didn't notice the trumpets and fanfare and awed, distant cheering, and also definitely almost didn't notice Apple Bloom stopping to stare at it too even when she pulled on his arm to get him to turn around. He was used to the fancy Princessing stuff. It wasn't worth being late over.
There was a moment between them, an unspoken question as Apple Bloom turned to face him, concerned. He didn't meet her eyes, clenched the hand on the side she couldn't see into a tight fist. He muttered, "too heavy", and she leaned briefly into his side.
When the carriage lifted off again, feather-light enchantments all but shining in the sun as the six-pegasus team lifted it effortlessly into the clear blue sky, Apple Bloom didn't look up either.
Apple Bloom skidded to a stop in front of the door, her face instantly falling. "I gotta go wash before Applejack sees! Head in without me, distract her!"
Before Spike could really reply, she tore off around the side of the house, leaving Spike in front of the door with Winona and not much else. He lifted his hand, but didn't quite make it to the door. He wasn't - he wasn't dreading it, was he? Dreading seeing Twilight's friends?
Winona gave him one long look before nosing his hand, and then stepped around him and pushed the door open with a paw. Spike patted her head as he went past, and she happily followed him.
Spike wasn't sure what he had expected from Apple Bloom's explanation, but it wasn't Applejack and Scootaloo excitedly picking clothes together while Sweetie Belle watched, offering suggestions from atop a pile of makeup that was almost certainly not her own.
"Oh, hey Spike!" Sweetie called, waving briefly, not wanting to topple the hoard. "I borrowed some stuff from Rarity. Do you want any?"
"I'll pass," Spike waved back, moving over to the side of the room to watch. Applejack had chosen an outfit, by the look of it - a simple chestnut-brown dress with a small, golden, apple-shaped pin that, by the way she moved in it, was something she had owned for a while - and Scootaloo had decidedly not, though she seemed to be having a great time trying things on.
She turned to him, waving, and then nearly disappeared under a massive green hat covered in some extraordinary feathers that Applejack had dropped on her, laughing. "Hi, Spike!"
"Hey, Scootaloo." He didn't bother waving, and it didn't seem missed as she ducked out from under the hat and chucked it back at Applejack, happily yelling something about having enough feathers already.
Apple Bloom ran in, soaked from the knee down on all four legs, and simply stated loudly that they weren't allowed to have fun without her before she joined in finding more and more obnoxious choices for Scootaloo to wear. As the three tossed old costume clothing at each other, and Sweetie Belle tried to find equally odd makeup to go with it from the mound, Big Mac quietly led Granny Smith from the kitchen out to the porch, careful to avoid any flying garments and an exuberant shower of chunky glitter, and after a few quick words with her outside, came back in and stood next to Spike.
"I have the suit Rarity picked up for you in my room, if you'd like to try it on. It was in Applejack's closet, but that's been," he eyed the growing mess of clothing, "raided."
"Oh, uh, yeah. Sure." Spike fell into step not-quite-beside him, hovering around Big Mac's hind legs and feeling rather dwarfed by the large stallion.
Big Mac slowed down, only slightly angling his head to look back at him. "Spike," he said quietly, making sure his words weren't audible to the rest of the room, "you're allowed to walk beside me."
Spike shook his head, but moved up a bit anyway. Big Mac led him up a set of stairs and down a wide hallway, stopping at the door closest to the stairs and pushing the door open with a hoof.
"It's hanging in the closet, low so you can reach. I'll wait out here, you just yell if you need help with anything." He tilted his chin towards Spike's crest. "Careful with those points, especially since I haven't seen you try to put anything on with those."
Spike nodded and went inside, carefully shutting the door behind him even though he had already seen Big Mac walk down the hall to the landing of the stairs to wait. The suit was hanging up as Big Mac had said, not actually draped over a chair or hanging somewhere else in the room, and the hanger itself looped around a length of twine tied to the bar higher up so it was easy for him to reach. He lifted it off carefully, like he would have done with anything, but - he wasn't balancing on a stack of books, or clinging to a shelf, or anything. A part of him wanted to throw it on the floor almost to protest it being this easy.
He got the pants on fine, even if they were a tad shorter than they would have been a day before, but he tugged them down low enough to compensate without being too lewd. The shirt and jacket, he had some concerns about; the scales on his elbows were sharper, now, and they felt rough enough to his scaled hand. Having them tear through his clothes at an event like this would be embarrassing beyond belief.
He turned to the door, feeling oddly lewd in just pants even though he was normally completely unclothed. What if Big Mac just laughed at him for worrying? What if he -
Spike nearly jumped out of his skin as the window slid open behind him, and quickly recognized Fluttershy hovering there with one foreleg over her eyes and a wad of... bandages, maybe, in her other hoof. She was wearing a longer and more flowing dress than Applejack was, probably a benefit of being able to fly, and it was close in color and pattern to her Gala dress. Spike wondered if she had this one made afterwards for less party-focused events.
"Sorry, Spike, Rainbow just finished up and asked me to fly ahead with this; she said Gilda used to wrap her claws up whenever they were playing any sport with an inflatable ball, and thought that you might use something like it to keep your scales from tearing things. She was going to fly over herself, but she's not great at... going slowly. I made her walk." Fluttershy laughed, setting the roll on the windowsill, and then frowned. "Spike is in here, right? I didn't want to seem like I was spying on you, so I covered my eyes, and Rainbow said you would probably be in here."
"Yeah, yeah, it's me," Spike said, walking over to the window. "Thank you for not spying. And for the..."
"Claw wraps." Fluttershy clarified.
"Thank you for the claw wraps. Uh, Applejack and the kids are downstairs, you might want to go see if they need help. And you can tell Mac I'll be fine, he's waiting up the stairs."
Fluttershy nodded - her hoof slipped down, and he noticed her eyes were shut tight as an extra precaution - and carefully backed up from the window, turning around before opening her eyes and flying down to the porch. Spike took the wraps with a rush of gratitude, tearing a length off and binding his elbows with it. He tested the strength, moving his arm as much as he could, and the barrier held up. He stopped short of wrapping his claws themselves; he didn't want to look like he had to be prevented from being dangerous. Even, he considered as he pulled the shirt on, if he might have to be.
He flattened down the front of the tux, figured whether he looked good or not there wasn't going to be much time to change it, and left the room. Big Mac had vanished from the landing, but judging by the much more subdued talk downstairs, Fluttershy had brought him down and all ponies present seemed to be involved in preparation. He could hear Rainbow Dash and Rarity's voices, too, and in a quieter moment he faintly heard Pinkie Pie, saying something about cooking, and realized she must have been outside and chatting with Granny Smith. A part of him kept listening, seeking that one last voice, but he mentally pounced on the feeling and pressed it down until he was almost okay with hearing only five mares, and then went downstairs.
As he expected, all of the more odd clothing had been put away again - a task likely made much easier by the presence of a unicorn - and everyone except Scootaloo seemed to be ready to go, and that was mainly because she insisted on comparing every option next to Rainbow Dash before choosing. Rainbow Dash was exceedingly patient, watching the filly fondly and picking for her when she got stuck between options. Spike wandered into the room and ended up beside Fluttershy, who smiled down at him before looking back at the two pegasi.
"Can I trust you with a very important secret?" Fluttershy asked, glancing back down at him. Spike nodded. "Well, I'm sure you know that Scootaloo's birth family isn't very present, even though she doesn't like to talk about it. We - Rainbow and I - asked around, and learned that Miss Cheerilee had been fostering her. After the coronation, we're hoping to have the time to go through all of the paperwork together and formally adopt her."
Spike blinked, shocked but not surprised. He'd noticed how close the two mares were, but hadn't given it much thought, and definitely hadn't considered much of Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo's relationship beyond the latter's admiration of the former. He watched as Scootaloo decided on the final part of her outfit, a simple necklace with a silver pegasus pendant, and definitely did not feel jealous in the least. He forced his hands to relax, his face to stay happy. Why should I?
It was Pinkie Pie, however intentionally, that broke his focus and drove the thoughts away, as she slammed the door open - catching it with a hoof before it actually hit the wall - and announced that it was time to go. She went ahead with Big Mac an Granny Smith as the remaining mares herded the fillies towards the door. Rarity lingered behind, ending up alone with Spike as she cleared up the worst of the mess as fast as she could.
"Does your suit fit alright?" She asked, eyeing it. "I had some extra dress shoes, but they were made for hooves. I've got a pair custom-made and waiting in Canterlot, on the way to the castle, so we can stop by there and pick them up on the way in. How are you holding up?"
Spike fidgeted with the sleeves, self-conscious. "It fits fine. Thank you."
Rarity smiled warmly at him, even though they both knew a question had gone unanswered. "If you ever want to try those extra shoes on, you're always welcome to drop in for a stay, alright?"
Spike hoped he wasn't so easy to read, but he found himself smiling anyway, genuinely. "I'd love to."
"Thank Celestia, it's the fast train," Rainbow Dash sighed dramatically as she nearly flung herself into one of the plush benches, stopping short as Fluttershy fixed her with a pointed glare to remind her she was not going to wrinkle her clothes after so much prep time, and settled more gracefully. Pinkie Pie picked out a seat, unintentionally ending up with the fillies all sitting around her, and happily exclaimed that she was the Pie-d Piper to a ring of giggles. Fluttershy and Rarity sat across from Rainbow, and Applejack and Big Mac went ahead with Granny Smith. Spike barely had a moment to look around before Rainbow patted the window seat next to her.
"Hey, Spike, sorry we didn't get a good chance to chat earlier. Didn't think Applejack would have had so many options for Scoots." She opened her wings a bit, looking casual but easily blocking the line of sight between Spike and the fillies. "Pinkie wants to talk to you a bit too, but she's not great at being subtle, so she wants to make sure it's more private first."
"You don't have to be so nice," Spike said quickly, almost stumbling on the words. "This is Twilight's big day, and-"
"And we want to make it special for her little brother too." Rainbow finished for him, wrapping a hoof around his shoulder. "Just because we share magical friendship rocks with Twilight doesn't mean we can't have any other friends. Or family."
"Oh. Yeah, Fluttershy mentioned adopting Scootaloo. That's great."
He had tried to sound excited, but it didn't seem to have come through as Rainbow squeezed his shoulder a bit. "I'm hoping to get rings soon, before the paperwork goes through. They make special ones for wings, now, so there's no worry of them falling off during flight like on a hoof. It's just a bit pricey for three." She paused, as if feeling his confusion, and then continued, "one for me, one for Flutters, one for Applejack. They aren't together, but I'm with both, and - well, three rings, anyway."
"But don't you two have a rivalry?"
"Of course! But sometimes you have to have little fights with the ponies - the people - you love. If we ever did anything to really hurt the other, we'd say so, but we both like racing and challenges. It's an added bonus that we can enjoy them together."
Spike definitely did not think about how he didn't think Twilight had ever sounded so wistful with him as Rainbow Dash did about Applejack. Maybe it was different for family.
"But I didn't bring it up to talk about my love life. I brought it up because, well, if Twilight's going to be... away, you can have a place in our family too. Scootaloo can't fly yet either, and since Applejack and Fluttershy both have homes on the ground we'd love to have you stay with us. Unless you don't mind staying in the library alone, in which case, you know, visits." Rainbow Dash tried to look nonchalant, but pulled him into a tighter hug to show she did mean it.
Spike halfheartedly tried to shrug her hoof off. "That's only if Twilight's too busy."
"Only if," She confirmed.
He looked out the window, watching the scenery whip past. He hadn't even noticed the train beginning to move, and felt distinctly out of place. The gleaming castle looming closer with every second seemed unnatural and foreign despite all of the years he'd lived there. He realized first that he hadn't said thank you, and realized a second later that Rainbow had started chatting with Fluttershy over her wing and he had been leaning into her hug and she didn't mind the lack of reply.
It felt much different from when Twilight simply changed her train of thought and ended up ignoring him, even if that was a totally okay and not-bothersome thing. He was okay with this.
He glanced up at the castle once more, squeezed Rainbow's hoof in affirmation, and felt her wings fold back up in acknowledgment.
He was okay.
"-and you will be expected to move back to Canterlot," the unicorn mare standing in front of Twilight finished. Twilight had forgotten her name almost after she was introduced, the only part sticking with her being the fact that she wasn't allowed to talk to the Princesses until afterwards, and being struck with the sensation this was quite possibly the time she needed her mentor's affirmation most.
Twilight shook her head, unbalancing her crown. "I can't move back. I haven't talked to Spike. I need to see the Princesses."
The mare frowned, straightening the crown again with a quick flare of blue magic. "It is not up for discussion. These are the terms of being a ruling party in Equestria, and the Princesses do not have time for discussion until the ceremony's reception."
"If these are the terms, I didn't agree to them," Twilight snapped back, deflating just as quickly to ask, "you can't even send a note?"
"Miss Twilight Sparkle, you have been agreeing to these terms ever since you began tutoring under the Princess Celestia herself and have continued to agree to them with every completed assignment you turned in."
"Those were letters," Twilight protested weakly.
"And with the affirmation of the Element of Magic, your position has been set in stone to lead, if not Equestria, some sector of ponykind for the benefit of all of it. All of which involve your initial rule beginning in Canterlot, and no, I cannot send a note to her."
"Can you send a note to a guest?"
The mare nodded, slowly. "As long as that guest is not of royal standing and the message contains no classified information."
"Perfect." Twilight scanned the room, finding an abandoned notepad and quill, and scribbled out a messy, fast note. She magically passed it to the mare, who read it over with some difficulty and then nodded her assent. "I need it given to my assistant."
"It will be done before the ceremony begins. May I have the assistant's cutie mark for identification?"
Twilight stared at her, somewhat incredulous. "The dragon."
Spike's toes felt cramped in his shoes, but if the awkward steps the fillies were making was a tell, it was a universal sensation. The rest of him didn't feel much more comfortable either, pressed between his companions in the crowded entry hall. Big Mac and Granny Smith were taking them aside, though with the number of attendees and Granny Smith's age it was a slow process. Twilight's friends were doing their best to give them more room to move by drawing people away with tales of their adventures, each now showing off their Elements freshly polished around their necks. He almost wanted to yell out that he was related to the Princess-to-be, but with how intense some of the interactions with the mares were getting, it was an easy feeling to hide.
"That stallion keeps staring at Applejack's flank!" Apple Bloom whispered angrily, flicking her ear towards her sister. "I think we should go and pull his trousers down when he's not looking so everyone can see he's got a-"
"Nope," Big Mac interrupted, stepping away from Granny Smith to block off the fillies.
"She's your sister!" Apple Bloom hissed. "Betrayal!"
"And you're an earth pony," Big Mac reminded her quietly, "while she's standing next to a friend who isn't."
Big Mac moved ahead again, clearing the view, and it was obvious to anyone seeking it that Rarity's horn was sparkling with magic under the applied glitter. His belt buckle glimmered with the same hue as it silently undid and began to slide out of place. The stallion eyeing Applejack took a step towards her, halted, and then looked around rather frantically. Applejack caught Rarity's eye and mouthed a silent thanks; Rarity shrugged back in a don't-mention-it kind of gesture; the fillies giggled. Spike wondered if it was normal for ponies that close to do things like that for each other. Or maybe they were closer, like Applejack was with Rainbow Dash? Surely she would have mentioned it. Or maybe they were all dating each other somehow and hadn't mentioned it? Maybe not Twilight, after all, he was always with her, he would have known.
The thought of Twilight standing with them and being stared at like that made his blood boil. He looked down at his claws; he wasn't sure he would have taken the same solution as Apple Bloom would have. He wasn't sure he could. A seam on his undershirt snapped.
The crowd ahead of them parted as a royal guard approached, a pristine white stallion with gleaming golden armor, a unicorn, the usual. He somewhat pushed past Big Mac, in the way that they didn't touch but it was clear that it would not have stopped him, and loomed over Spike. He didn't look down, keeping his gaze firmly ahead as if meeting eye contact with a pony.
"Are you the assistant of Miss Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and Princess-Heir of Equestria?"
Spike all but bristled, and could see Twilight's friends drawing closer out of the corners of his eyes. He didn't lift his head to look at the guard, either, just stared into his own reflection on the polished chestplate. "I'm Spike, yeah."
"I have a letter for you from Miss Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and Princess-Heir of Equestria." He levitated the slip from a hidden slot in the flank of his armor, presenting it to Spike while still staring ahead. He then turned, meeting the eyes of Spike's group, and addressed them to their faces to inform them they were wanted in the ceremony room ahead of the crowd.
Spike wasn't listening; he turned the folded paper over in his claws; it was crumpled at the edges, and blots of ink were showing through the blank side. It felt like an afterthought, like giving someone a gift that was unwrapped and still had the price tag on it, like the kind of thing you only gave someone you had almost forgotten about. He almost didn't want to read it.
Apple Bloom shoved his side a bit, and he noticed the group moving away. He placed a hand on her shoulders as she waked, guiding him while he tried to decipher some of the worst handwriting he had ever seen. He picked out a few words - Canterlot, moving, staying, library, apart, Spike - and decided he didn't want to know the rest. He crumpled the paper in his fist and shoved it into his pocket, smiling weakly at Apple Bloom as she cast him a sympathetic look.
The room they were led into was, at least, devoid of ponies that didn't look incredibly official. One lone reporter was setting up a camera at the corner of the aisle, monitored by two guards who were pointing out who was going to be standing where. Another four guards, unicorns, flanked the door, two holding it open while the other pair briefly gave the group a magical scan, and six pegasi guards were perched on platforms above the seating area. The whole room had the faint bitter tang of powerful magic, and Spike doubted anyone with a weapon could have made it to the raised platform where the Princesses would be standing without being incinerated, guards or not.
The stallion who had fetched them led them to the front row, placing Twilight's friends next to the aisle and letting the rest of them sort out the remaining spots. Once he had turned away, Rainbow Dash and Rarity switched so that Rainbow was next to Scootaloo, and then kicked up her hind hooves on the decorative barrier in front of them and loudly exclaimed that she hated crowds. Spike tuned out the resulting discussion, which was mostly you know the Wonderbolts usually have an audience, right?, and stared down at his hands.
He couldn't help but feel out of place. He seemed to be the only non-pony present; there hadn't been so much as a griffon feather in the greeting room, never mind another dragon. He flexed his claws, felt the wards placed on the room resist even that small of a movement. He felt angry, but it was a deep anger, something cold and quiet. The Princess's Prized Assistant, a dragon she couldn't live with, who was pushed out by just the protective wards around her quarters. He could almost picture ponies protesting, once he was older, dragging her name through the mud for owning a creature made to be a weapon.
Apple Bloom leaned against him, even though he hadn't said anything. "It's a lot to get used to, huh?"
Spike just huffed.
She prodded his leg with a hoof. "It took me a while to get used to knowing most fillies had a mom and dad around, and Twilight's the closest thing to a mom you've ever had. But she'll still be around, 'n you can still write to her. I'm sure she'll come to visit."
"Ponies aren't scared of fillies." Spike grumbled back. His suit was uncomfortably tight, and he knew it wasn't just his imagination.
"Well, I know some fillies who aren't scared of you," she said sternly. "If other ponies can't be as brave as me, 'n Sweetie Belle 'n Scootaloo, that's not your fault."
"Can anyone be as brave as you?" Spike asked, smiling a bit despite himself.
Apple Bloom sat up, looking mock-mortified. "I would hope so! Applejack dropped a pan last night when I was readin' scary stories under my covers, and I couldn't sleep for hours thinkin' something was gonna eat me!"
Spike's laughter, and Apple Bloom's indignity at him laughing, were drowned out as the doors were fully opened and the rest of the crowd began the lengthy process of being scanned and seated. Spike felt like sinking down in his seat, not wanting a stranger sitting as his back and staring at Twilight over his shoulder, but he didn't.
Twilight stood anxiously in front of the great door to the audience chamber, hearing the din of ponies chatting while they waited for her though not able to make out the words. The Princesses stood at either side of her; Celestia dressed in a luxurious gold and red gown edged in black, Luna in an equally stunning purple and blue dress with silver accents. Twilight felt almost frumpy between them in frills of pink and gold - the colors of her element - with her crown's oversized crystal dwarfing those of the two sisters.
Celestia spoke, quietly, informing Twilight that she was to enter once they had made it halfway down the aisle, and that there were spells in place to keep her hidden from sight until she crossed into the room. Twilight was grateful for the last part; it would not be a good image for her to stare out, scared and confused, from a door at the back of the room, while her co-Princesses walked gracefully between the rows of seats like they had been born to do it.
Twilight considered if there were medications to make this easier, and if there were, whether or not she could get some and have them work in half a minute. The answer was probably not, and by the time she had reached that conclusion she noticed Celestia and Luna had already been announced and were nearing the halfway point.
Twilight suppressed her emotions in a quick, tight knot and put on her formal-well-behaved-student face, just in time to hear her own name being announced. Forcing herself to walk slowly instead of sprinting up to reach the safety between the Princesses ahead, she entered the room.
Aside from the band playing, it was dead silent. She walked slowly, purposefully, with her chin up and her wings tight against her back. She kept her eyes fixed on the short ramp up to the platform, feeling the eyes of the room on her and looking at none of them. The awkwardness of the attention set her on edge; she was just a student! Just a librarian! Just a socially awkward bookworm! This wasn't her place!
Reaching the platform couldn't have been more of a relief, just for that brief moment of being able to look out the grand windows at the rolling landscape below before turning back to face the crowd. She swallowed the lump in her throat, all eyes still on her even as Celestia launched into her grand speech, followed by Luna with hers. Twilight couldn't help but scan the crowd, smiled a bit easier as she got encouraging waves from her friends in the front row, and then her heart sank as she found Spike, staring at her with an expression she could barely force herself to read.
Fear? Anger? It was - distrust, she pinned down, though the idea tried to wriggle out from under her and she almost wanted to let it go. A foal who looked up and found their parent had walked away without saying anything, suddenly lost and alone and in a sea of strangers. A dragon who hatched from an egg and saw a mare instead of a mother. She felt the need to comfort him more than she felt the crowd, or Celestia and Luna turning to face her, or the magic beginning to coil around her hooves. If the spell hadn't held her, she would have run to him, and the thought that circled with astounding clarity was that she was an alicorn, she could break this if she wanted, but - did she want to?
She hesitated, and the spell leaped up around her, a column of shining ethereal light that was solid until you tried to focus on it, shredding and reforming like clumps of soap bubbles around a tap. She stared at Spike, unable to form words, unable to form movement, but able to see him standing, growing in size, in strength, and crashing through the wards with force alone - or maybe they let him through, she could see his claws were sheathed, even as he dug into the polished marble for purchase and hauled himself towards her, and Celestia and Luna turned towards him with the beginnings of a warning, and for a moment their eyes met through the magic, and then -
The column of magic erupted like a supernova, shoving him backwards until he slammed upright against the partition between the crowd and the stage, white-hot strands whipping through the air like lightning. The protective wards blew out with a bang, and everything was filled with noise as guards dropped down, began forcing ponies to move, screams of terror - of the lightning or of him? - and thousands of hooves on stone, the faint chiming as glass fell from the chandeliers and windows and bounced off of the now-cracked stone.
Spike roared in pain, drowning out the chaos, blinded and burned from the explosion, and fell back on all fours between the crowd and Twilight. For a moment, it seemed as though he had been physically blown open, with great swathes of purple scales drooping in limp sheets on either side of his back - but - no, they were moving, and he was whole, and he was winged, and he pushed himself up on to his hind legs and stared down at the new weight on his paws and between his claws at the Princess, at Twilight, lying sprawled on the ground in front of him, and -
she was moving, pushing herself up into a sitting position and shaking terribly, but she -
Spike swallowed the lump in his throat -
she was so different, and it was his fault. His brain caught on all of the little things, the changes, the parts of her he could see through the torn, burned mess her dress had become; her mane was tangled and matted from the blast, but her horn was now a sleek spike with a crest behind; her ears had notched at the tips; her front hooves had sharp, curved dewclaws -
he choked back a sob, tried to reach out to her but couldn't bring himself to touch her -
and her wings, so beautifully feathered, were draconic and leathery; and her - her entire body was marbled, patched with round amethyst scales, but - her hind legs had warped completely, leaving no trace of equine past behind, replaced by thick, four-taloned paws.
A dragon's paws, Spike thought to himself, staring down at his own claws outstretched to her. He pulled his hand back, trembling. I did this..
He saw her eyes open, staring up at him in - fear? anger? pain? - and closed his own, turning to flee, when magic like a branding iron wrapped around his muzzle and shoved him to the ground, holding his jaws shut and searing into his skull. A second force pinned his limbs down, frostbite digging into his flesh, and he bled through his clenched teeth where new fangs met tongue.
Twilight was standing, now, he could see her just at the corner of his vision, and she was looking at him, at herself, at the crowd - they had seen her rising, were pushing back against the guards trying to get her to leave, the noise was rising - and looking almost insignificant in her terror and pain, turned away from the crowd and leaped through the gaping hole left by the blown-out windows, and was gone.
Someone was yelling for the guards, and they were yelling back that she was flying, and fast, and there was nothing -
- there was nothing. Spike sank into the pain of the Princess's binding spells, against the cool, shattered stone under him.
The Princesses had taken too long, and some part of him could feel it. Twilight had gone to where they could not safely follow - could not find her, could not find her body, either - and Spike grabbed a hold of that fleeting glow and held it close to his own, whispering to the darkness that she still had a home to return to, even as the binding spells broke him into unconsciousness.
Twilight stumbled from the air, legs folding underneath her, and scrabbled with both wings and hooves for the nearest thing that resembled shelter, leaving scraps of blackened, glimmering fabric coiled behind her as it ripped off in strips. She slipped between the roots of an ancient, gnarled tree, slipped down into the cool earth, her body hot and shivering, and lay curled in the damp earth.
And withdrawn into herself, trembling in an abandoned den deep below the ground of the wildest place she knew, she sought him out in the same, strange way, and with them together, on some level, she let herself fall into a dreamless sleep.
Author's Note
It's been a year. I recommend rereading the first chapter.
Two
The low, darkened ceiling made the room Spike was in feel restraining even before he tried to sit up and found himself chained belly-up to the floor. Pain rocketed up from his right side while his left was limb and numb, and his shoulders dropped back against the cold stone hard enough to draw a shout from him; a muzzle had been put on him too, he realized as it happened, and as he tried to recall what would have needed it, the reality came rushing back.
Twilight was gone. He'd ruined her.
His claws flexed involuntarily, scraping across the stone with an unpleasant screech. The muscles in his arm burned, and he forced them flat again. Feeling was starting to return to his numbed side, a prickling, cold burning that reminded Spike of catching snowflakes on his tongue when he was younger and didn't mind the cold so much. As the feeling spread to a searing itch under his scales, he figured it would be more like catching an avalanche in the face.
He poked the tip of his tongue out of his mouth, as far as he could with his jaws bound, and tried to wet his lips. He felt a gap in his teeth, near the back - he must have lost it. Had he swallowed it? He wasn't supposed to swallow teeth when he lost them. He used to get in trouble.
Not that it mattered, really. He was in trouble anyway.
Someone walked up behind Spike, the sound of metal horseshoes ringing on the smooth stone. They stopped, and after a brief pause, tapped their hoof against metal - Spike assumed he must be in a cell, so it was likely the bars - and cleared their throat.
"You're moving around. Are you awake?"
Spike's heart dropped in his chest, and possibly through the floor. He went to reply, rediscovered his mouth was bound, and nodded slightly.
The familiar gentle tingle of magic slid under the bindings on his muzzle and limbs, slicing them open like the thick leather was warm butter. Spike lay still despite being freed, fighting back whimpers of pain and tears at how soft it had felt, how familiar.
Different families had magic that felt different ways, Spike had learned, though most ponies never noticed it between themselves. If Spike had another dragon to ask, he would have confirmed the idea. Rarity and Sweetie Belle both had magic that felt precise and clean, like a needle, or more fittingly, a shard of gemstone. The magic he had just felt was like a breeze on a summer night, one he had felt almost daily around Twilight, and now...
...Shining Armor.
The Prince pushed the gate open with a hoof, letting it screech on the old, rarely used hinges, and walked across the cell to Spike's side. Spike braced himself, turning his face away and pulling his arms in despite his muscles screaming protest. He deserved this. He ruined his sister, he ruined a Princess, he -
- he felt Shining's magic weave between his fingers and push them open, where Spike hadn't felt his own claws digging into his palm.
"We had to tie you down because you kept thrashing in your sleep," Shining explained, his voice quiet. "The Princesses didn't expect their magic to have such a powerful reaction, but they should have used more caution after such a strange event."
Shining's magic withdrew as Spike sat up, and he didn't falter even as the young dragon looked evenly into his eyes despite still being halfway on the ground. Spike felt something around his chest as he moved, and looked down, wondering if Shining Armor had missed something.
It took Spike a second to process what he was wearing, still feeling woozy and unsure. He ran his hands over the smooth black fabric, feeling the hardened leather padding underneath. He felt... well, it was more accurate that he didn't feel anything wrong with it, other than it being a bit tight. Then, why...?
Shining cleared his throat, a little awkwardly. "It's, ah, it's a wing brace. We had to find something on-hand, so it's the largest pony size. Not really meant for dragons, but it's better for your muscles than nothing."
"A wing brace," Spike repeated, still thinking it over. "Twilight needed one of these when she got her wings, so she would be able to..."
"So she would be able to fly." Shining finished. Tentatively, he reached out with a hoof to Spike's side. Spike moved his arm out of the way, and Shining drew open his wing with practice that only felt slightly awkward on a larger subject.
Spike stared down at the limb Shining had opened, his mind blocking out the amount of pain it had taken to open it. The upper side was the same purple as his scales, but underneath, the skin was a pale green flecked with pink and white spots on the edge. Some of the scales on his shoulders looked as though they were close to shedding, and piercing them were the narrow, fragile stems of feathers.
"Twilight's should look like that too," Shining Armor mused softly, bringing Spike's focus back to reality.
"She'll probably have different colors, though," Spike added with a weak laugh, trying to hide the gritting of his teeth as he drew the wing back in. The brace shifted, easing the effort it took to hold his wings closed.
The two of them waited there, for a second, Shining looking at Spike's closed wing, and Spike looking at the Prince's hooves.
"I'm sorry."
Spike's own apology died on his lips. He looked up at the Prince's face, only to find he had turned away, staring at the wall with his ears pinned back. Ponies were easy to read in comparison to dragons, especially when they were failing to hold back tears.
"You... you're sorry?" Spike questioned back. Shining bit back a sob, and Spike hurried to continue. "You didn't - you didn't do anything wrong! You've been a great brother to Twilight! She wouldn't think any of this was your fault!"
Shining tried to smile, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "I may have been a good brother to Twilight, but have I been a good brother to you?"
Spike closed his mouth.
"I haven't seen Twili much recently, but when she lived in Canterlot, I tried to spend as much time as I could with her. But she lived with you then, too, and I just... never thought about it. I didn't ever see you as a little brother, and I'm sorry." Shining sat down, half-looking at Spike but not sure if he wanted to. "I felt protective over Twilight today too, but I was able to talk to Cadance about it. You didn't have anyone to talk to who really knew what was going on, and we both know how Twilight is when things get busy - she probably wasn't doing much to help you either."
"She's been doing her best," Spike replied, knowing his tone was sharp even though his heart wasn't behind it. "The girls have figured it out anyway. If she gets too busy, I can live with them."
"She's been doing her best," Shining Armor agreed. "But I haven't been."
He stood up, and turned to Spike, his stance speaking volumes of confidence his face lacked. "You don't have to forgive me. But I want a second chance at being your brother."
Spike stared at him, still as stone, and then looked down at his claws. He watched a drop of blood seep from the hole he had almost torn in his hand, flexed it as he remembered how Shining's magic had felt, forced himself to keep it from closing into a fist as he realized he might never feel Twilight's magic again.
He met Shining's eyes, trying to convey gratitude as well as he could, even though the words felt alien in his mouth. "We'll find her together... brother."
Shining gave him such a hopeful smile that it practically lit up the dark corners of the cell, and then settled back into the role he had assumed for so long; a Captain of the Guard. "The Princesses think she's gone into the Everfree. Most of our magic won't track her there, and the spells that do will take days to set up, and it might be weeks before any of our unicorns can get a result. She hasn't been seen since we lost sight of her from Canterlot; so many people were focused on the festivities that nobody was prepared in time to intercept her. You've been out since yesterday - it's about noon, now - and search parties on foot and in the air haven't been able to find anything more than scraps of fabric."
If Shining's second chance had been a sunrise, thinking about Twilight again was night. Spike fidgeted with his claws. "...What is she?"
Shining paused, his head nodding slightly from side to side as he tried to balance facts with family. "I... I didn't see much of her. Everything was happening so quickly; Cadence and I weren't supposed to be seen, so we were seated back behind one of the guard platforms, and armored. Once the guards started moving, there wasn't much we could do to get closer."
Spike waited.
"I don't know what she is." Shining admitted. "I don't think any of us really know yet. The Princesses have been talking with each other, in private. Cadence says she's been left out of most of it - she doesn't mind, she's handling the public reaction, mostly - but she thinks this isn't the first time a pony like this has existed. Probably didn't happen the same way, but it would be a start in figuring out how to fix this. She's going to start calling on scholars once she has the time."
Spike winced. Fix this. Broken. "And what about me?"
He answered, though with the unsteady tone of someone who had read a summary but hadn't really understood the meaning. "Pony magic doesn't react with dragons the way dragon magic reacts with ponies. Your wings have developed faster, and you'll probably be more comfortable on all fours or leaning forward, instead of standing upright. The size is likely temporary, a reaction to wanting to protect Twilight."
Shining Armor's voice, and Spike's heart, threatened to break on her name.
He continued, "As for Twili, her wings look more like yours, now, but they'll probably grow in more feathers later. We - Cadence, mostly - thinks that most of the change will be in her magic. She might be able to breathe fire, or eat gemstones, or swim in lava. Her changes could also be just in looks. We don't know enough yet, which is why we need to make sure she's safe.
"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are hoping that whatever magical reaction happened, you'll be better at finding her than anyone else."
Twilight rolled in the mud of the riverbed, coating herself in a sheet of filmy brown muck.
Her scales had been itching awfully since she woke up, and where she had rubbed at them in her sleep, strips of translucent, scalloped skin had peeled off to reveal firmer, glossier scales underneath. It was, in her opinion, a completely awful process with an only slightly less awful outcome. At least once the skin had come off, it stopped itching. Now, she just had to hide bright, shimmering scales from prying eyes, and even thinking too hard about trying a spell to do so had given her a headache.
Which led to her rolling in the filth on the shore of a river, in the middle of the wilderness.
It was search parties that had woken her up; two groups of five had passed by her hiding place, picking up the scraps of her dress that she had torn off while dragging herself into the den. She wasn't sure what had kept them from a more thorough search, but the Everfree was dangerous and alien to most ponies, and they had all seemed on edge, and who would have expected the Princess to be hiding, awake, in a dirt hole and not respond to their calls?
She waited until even the distant sounds of them crashing through the underbrush had faded before she had crept out, tearing off the rest of her dress - praying to Celestia (however much good that would do, now) that Rarity would forgive her for ruining it after all of her work - and leaving it behind underground.
Since she had started moving, she hadn't stopped. The Everfree was dangerous, but it was a danger she knew; research and experience led her to edible plants, around non-edible ones, far around the nest of a manticore and her cubs. For a brief distance, she had even traveled through the entwined branches of the trees above, wings still weak and claws scoring the wood, to pass over a swampy pit surrounded by kelpie tracks. Every inch of the deadly forest had seemed like home.
Rolling sideways to scoop mud up over her shoulders, soaking in the warm sun that broke through the thinner canopy around the water, she closed her eyes and relaxed. She let her focus slip inwards, through drowsy blackness and into her thoughts, visualized easily as a many-shelved study.
She wasn't sure if she had slept for so long because she had been awake for so long and the exertion, or because of the magic, but it was not a test she could repeat to study it better; the thought was bound up and put aside, like mystery books with the last pages left blank, and added to the ever-expanding catalog. She hesitated, although she knew that she would always be able to find it again in her own private library, knowing at the same time that many of the thoughts she put away she never reopened.
She put it on the desk.
She considered that this might not be the best way to keep things in order, and wondered how other ponies did it. She made a note to ask, and left that sheet on the desk as well.
Could she go back? Probably. She was still a Princess, technically, she had the wings and the horn, even if they weren't really the best suited for the job. The element was still hers, though worse for wear - finding it obviously glaring on her head, and twisted out of shape, she had pried at the metal until it relented into something more resembling a collar and draped it around her neck, where the jewel hung relatively centered on her chest - and that gave her some standing if the title was revoked.
Should she go back? Harder to determine. She knew that there had been enough tension in the past that two Princesses had been too many for a fledgling Equestria, and even now she knew Celestia could bear ruling on her own. Cadence, young in comparison though she was, had a capable hold on the Crystal Kingdom, and if Twilight could hazard a guess, would likely be having talented foals of her own that may be eligible to rule as well in the future.
Twilight wasn't even quite sure what she was the Princess of, if she was being honest. Magic, maybe, or friendship, but as far as she could tell these were things that didn't really need constant supervision like, say, celestial bodies responsible for sustaining life on the entire planet, or a kingdom that was only now making up for hundreds of years of lost time. She didn't feel much different, like she was tuned into some vast network of ideas and concepts that she was in charge of adjusting.
She was, though, the first to be given Princesshood in thousands of years. Being the Princess of the people could have some strong effects, but she had grown up taking care of Spike; she knew what kind of treatment dragons got, and under Celestia's tutelage, knew the general consensus of what Equestria thought of everything else, and the general consensus was essentially 'no'. A Princess who was not pure-bred pony would probably not be best for the position. It might have been better if she had stayed, reassured the crowd, avoided all of the political and physical quagmire she was in.
But something was drawing her south.
She felt it more clearly after waking in the den; a tug in her chest, not her heart, but seeming to come simply from her center. With her emotions and environment stable, it wasn't uncomfortable, not the way it had hauled at her when she first stood up and felt her magic flooded with an alien fire. It was like she had grabbed the wrong quill, and though it wrote fine, there were moments when it felt profoundly wrong to be holding something green instead of something red.
She checked in on the riverbed and noted, passively, that she had ended up facing south while she was resting.
It was not something Celestia had told her about, which ruled out an ancient Princess pilgrimage tradition, and any instinct to migrate that might just have to do with wings. Which left her with it having to do with dragons.
Twilight knew dragons tended to migrate, once their wings had grown in. Inner fire or not, their scales were awful in the cold, and so traveling to places with more favorable temperatures was common sense even without instinct. (She wondered, briefly, if it might not be instinct, but taught between dragons; she knew studies only came from ones hatched in captivity, or kept forcibly there after being 'wild', and while the latter would try to escape anyway, the former tended to stay close to where they had been raised until they were sent to live with other dragons, which was generally when their wings grew in. She, a little less briefly, cursed herself for not bringing it up with Celestia when she had written to her during the last migration.)
Of course, that wouldn't explain why she was being pulled south now, when it wasn't until the cusp of winter that dragons tended to leave. Actually, now that she was thinking about it, she had noticed there hadn't been much dragon activity this year. Old lairs were abandoned, and most known dragons around were older ones that had not flown south the last year.
She sat up and forced herself to turn north. Something tightened inside her chest, bringing her wings just a touch closer to her sides.
Something was wrong.
It would have been easier to deal with if the Princesses had been angry.
Spike was seated beside Shining, who was casting him assuring looks out of the corner of his eye, and across from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, with a long table and a shorter map spread between them. Luna looked subdued and solemn, while Celestia seemed drawn and frayed; a mare seeing her own actions repeated from the sidelines, a mare terrified of the scene playing out the same way. Both barely looked at him.
"We know now that she must be in the Everfree. We've cast seeking spells over every other sector we can, with no results." Celestia gestured with a nod at the small, golden horse-head figurines dotting the map; the carved eyes stared, unseeing, at Spike. "The magic of the Everfree is wild, and even spells of our strength can't work over it as they should. We have enough of a response to know she is in there, and alive. Beyond that, we have nothing."
Spike studied the board, the dark, questioning smear across Equestria's core shimmering back at him with statuettes of silver wings and horseshoes. "She's moving?"
"She has to be," Celestia confirmed. "The second sweep brought us her dress, but not her, or her Element. It's safe to say she's on the move with both of the latter intact."
"There would be no doubt if her Element had been broken, or if she was dead," Luna added. "We would not have to inform you if it happened."
Spike nodded, looking over the map again. He didn't want to meet anyone's eyes - was kind of terrified to, if he was honest with himself. Did they fear him? Did they fear what he was capable of? Would royalty be able to hide it well enough for it to surprise him later? Even the fact that he could look forward instead of up to see their expressions made him want to wince. His bulk hunched over the table, even with his elbows and wings tucked in and head bowed, and the realization that he was a match for the rulers of his entire world shook him whenever he caught a glimpse of his own claws resting on the edge of the table.
The room was quiet for a long, long while.
Spike took a shaky breath. "Will... will she come back? What happens after this?"
Luna gave Celestia a pointed look, and the elder Princess sighed. "If she does not return, we will return to the way things were without her. I will take on a new student, as will Luna, and with hope we will find someone with the same innate magical strength before too many years have passed."
Spike's claws tightened on the edge of the table, a move that would have been invisible even a day prior but now split the room with the sound of cracking wood. He lifted his hands quickly, bringing them in close to his chest and staring blankly down at the damage. He had pierced a ring of holes around a mountain range in the south, obliterating the towns around it.
"The way things were without her," Spike echoed softly, his eyes tracing the new canyons carved into mountains he had never seen, where painted dragons writhed around the holes piercing their wings. "What about me?"
Celestia said simply, "your task is to bring her home."
Two hours later, on the border of the Everfree, while Shining Armor explained the methods of ground cover to a fresh group of guards, Spike slipped away into the bushes and all but disappeared.
Coat and scales dulled to a dusty brown by dried mud, Twilight slipped through the forest like an ashen ghost. For all the practice and skill of the Royal Guard, the Everfree had no parallel, no training ground, and no second chances. She didn't know how many ponies had been lost, but she had heard screams, and had seen stranded pieces of armor; the hunt for her was not without losses.
She had almost considered showing herself, once, hunched under a bush of thorny tendrils while a search party passed by. They spoke of her brother, and her mentor, and her friends, and she had wanted to lunge out and throw herself down to be captured. But their talk turned to monsters, of legends of vampires and demons, parallels to ancient evils she had fought (and bested) - and she was among the beasts.
She could not disagree with that, and the thought that being part dragon would make her a monster - after raising a dragon herself and knowing how many of the things said about them were wrong - drove her further back into the brambles, poking holes in her pelt between the purple scales.
Once, a lifetime ago, she had prepared to face down a Goddess with nothing but her fledgling magic and a fragile promise of hope.
She reflected on the monster that had faced her down that night, and saw herself. Ponies wanted the daylight, wanted courage, wanted strength, wanted to look to their leaders and see themselves - as she had done, a lifetime ago, when a snow-white mare took her under her wing and taught her of legends.
Something was wrong in the south.
Twilight knew she would not have noticed it had everything gone as planned.
Twilight believed in destiny.
Every fiber of Spike's being wanted him to flee the darkness of the wild forest, so as soon as he was out of earshot, he did. His wings were still only just strong enough to carry him, the brace trying to balance his new-grown bones, and his muscles burned; he flew as much as he could to avoid leaving tracks, the exhilaration of finally being able to take to the air balanced keenly by the fear of being spotted.
He had seen the guards deployed in Ponyville, and knew better than to try and slip into the library, but this close to the Everfree, everyone was focused on searching. Unchallenged, Spike crossed from wilderness into Fluttershy's backyard, where he attempted to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible. Fluttershy was alerted to his presence not by a knock or soft, pleading call, but by a veritable flood of small animals pushing through her back door while he loomed outside.
For what it was worth, she barely flinched.
"Oh, hello Spike. The Princesses wrote to tell us that you'd be working in the Everfree, but I didn't think they'd let you come and visit so soon. Unless you already...?"
Spike shook his head, stepping closer to the door but staying outside. "They don't know I'm here."
She reached out with a hoof, but he shook his head. He opened his mouth to reassure her, but the words caught in his throat and he shuddered, his claws curling into fists as he pulled himself in.
"I... I'm scared, Fluttershy. Twilight's gone, and I ruined everything, and I thought I could trust the Princesses but I don't know what they'll do to her if they can't get the dragon out, and what about me, who would want a dragon around that might have killed a Princess? You said if I couldn't stay with Twilight, I could stay with one of you, but what if I hurt someone else? I couldn't... I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hurt any of you. I don't know what I'll do if Twilight's not alright. She's out there on her own and I'm here and I'm a monster and-"
Fluttershy stepped closer to him, meeting his eyes to make sure he was going to let her near. He did, and she did, standing up on her hind legs so she could hug his shoulder, wings wrapping as far around his chest as they could.
"You'll always have a home with me, Spike. You're not a bad dragon." She pressed her head against the bottom of his neck, comforting him as best she could, and stayed there until he curled his neck down to press his chin against her head.
She tapped his side with one hoof. "Can I ask you a dragon question?"
"I guess."
Fluttershy paused for a moment, figuring out what to say. "Sometimes, animals from the Everfree come to me when they're not hurt, if there's something I need to know. With how much goes on around here, there's a lot to tell, even if most of it just has to do with rebuilding some bird nests, or finding new burrows for bunnies before the winter."
Spike huffed softly, acknowledging.
"A lot of them have been saying that dragons have started to... vanish."
Spike stiffened.
Fluttershy hugged him a little tighter, but continued. "They aren't being forced out, and they aren't migrating. They're leaving hoards behind, and a few have left eggs. The guards said something about the dragons when they came through here earlier, but I didn't quite hear it. I meant to ask you sooner, but... Spike, do you ever feel like you have to leave?"
Spike was tempted to say that he very much felt he needed to leave right now, but something about Fluttershy's tone was too serious for that. He sat silently, the tip of his tail twitching as he considered it. He had wanted to travel before, or fly, but not to leave - not in the way she had described. He couldn't imagine living away from Ponyville enough to even have a traditional lair, but to have one of those and leave it, too? He couldn't wrap his head around it.
"No," he said, after a pause he noticed was far too long, "Ponyville is my home now. I couldn't leave all of this behind, not for anything."
Fluttershy was quiet for a few moments - and had started nervously twirling a curl of her mane around her hoof. "Twilight was ready to leave Canterlot when she wanted to stop Nightmare Moon."
Spike frowned. "She wouldn't go to chase down danger when she knows you've all got her back."
"She doesn't know if we've got her back or not right now." Fluttershy reminded him gently, unnecessarily. "You're scared you made her a monster - what if she's scared she is one? She's a... logical pony, Spike. If she convinced herself she was needed somewhere else more, she would go. You know that."
He did, but he wished he didn't.
"And she's part dragon, now. And being a dragon is new to her. If something is convincing dragons to leave Equestria, it might have taken her too."
"Are you saying I should find the dragons?"
"I'm saying you should find Twilight. She's your family. You might be the only one that can." Fluttershy tapped his chest with one hoof. "No matter what happens, you've always got a home here with... the rest of us. We want you to be happy, and you want Twilight back. It'll work out. It always has."
Spike huffed.
"Rainbow Dash is working with the weather teams to keep the sky clear while the patrols are out. She'll make sure you'll get through unseen." Fluttershy gave him one last squeeze, and then stepped back, looking up at him with hope that he prayed was not misplaced. "I know you can do it. Go."
The border of the Everfree was not so dramatic on this side of the forest. The trees dwindled down to bushes, and then to grass, and then to scrubs, and then to reddish, dusty sand, and then gentle, rolling plains as far as the eye could see.
Twilight had not seen any patrols in a long while. She expected they were staying to the shallower parts of the forest, expecting her to return home for supplies, and as surviving the deep forest would be difficult, getting enough ponies around to the southern side to patrol it would take days longer, if not weeks.
She was free.
Her breath caught in her throat as the realization caught up to her. She was still in Equestria, and would still have to avoid ponies in all but the most remote of places, but for now, hooves (and claws) pressing into the warm red earth and the brilliant blue sky stretching wide and clear above her, she was unbridled, unstoppable, unnecessary. She was no protege, no Element of Magic, no Princess; just a pony standing on the precipice of a strange new world.
She laughed, and it filled the silent sky with joy.
She had flown once with her new wings, a swift but unsteady flight that had carried her to safety, and now all she wanted was for her wings to carry her away from that sanctuary. It was as if the scales had poked holes in her brain as well as her fur, letting all of the exhilaration and compulsiveness leak into the thoughts she had kept orderly and closed for so long, like an empty jar of black ink being refilled with a dragon's ransom of gold. Home still pulled her back, a little bit, the thought of her friends waiting for her, the thought of Spike trying to reach out to her at the castle, but it was only glints of it, an inky darkness between the draw of the warm sun.
She answered the calling of the open sky with a short run and a leap, the talons on her hind legs digging gouges into the sand as she jumped, and spread her wide, leathery wings to catch the sandy winds; the hot air billowed upwards, and she soared higher than she ever had, the world falling into patchwork fields seamed with roads below her, and began to cross the last stretch of Equestria between her home and the land of dragons.
Spike, though he had no way of knowing, had no draw to the south. Instead, with every scale, he felt the warm, easing draw of Twilight's magic, running through his veins and desperately seeking the source; an invisible trail as wavering and unsteady as slick rocks beneath a shimmering, shallow stream. And with every step, it itched at him as though he was being judged and being found wanting.
Spike had not been witness to Twilight's magic at full strength very often, but the white radiance she channeled through the Elements had torn burning, ragged holes in the natural orders, ones that blackened around the edges for months after the rest of the world had recovered. He felt like those holes; like the taste of unfiltered power had poked through his skin and was going to burn him alive from the inside out.
It was stronger, now that he was following Twilight. He didn't know what that meant. Was kind of afraid to think about it, too, if he was being honest with himself.
What he knew for sure was that the Everfree was thinning, patrols had stopped showing up, and even for a dragon of his new size, he didn't have to weave between trees to find a path he could fit through. Patches of sunshine were wider and wider, and if he really looked for them, glints of open sky fluttered between the undergrowth still ahead. And yet, even with wings, even knowing how easy it would be to fly to her, even knowing, at the very least, how freeing it was to just be able to fly, Spike kept his claws in the musty dirt of the wild forest.
Because Spike, chasing the pony closest to him - his mother? His sister? His family, - wanted only to go home.
He wanted to be back in the library, comfortably curled in a reading nook, looking out the window at the world going by and tending to the tree he had called home for the strangest, dearest part of his life. He'd been a spectator to the kind of mayhem that Twilight was usually involved in, and now that it had taken him by the tail and thrown him into the midst, he just wanted things to be normal again.
Spike walked through the last wisps of the Everfree, careful to avoid bending any of the small, resilient trees that clung to the last of their feral soil, baked pale by the glaring sun above; and between them, where the dusty red moss gave way to dusty red dirt, was a deep gouge where a four-taloned claw had torn through the earth to take to the sky.
And there, above it, a distant gleam across the grassy hills, was a Princess,flying south.
And Spike, keeping her in his sight, settled himself on all fours and began a steady, distance-eating lope through the fields.
She kept going.
It wasn't long before the hills evened out into low, golden pasture, and Spike found himself skirting between thinner patches to avoid leaving too much damage in his wake. It felt profoundly odd, seeing over the tall stalks even while standing on all fours, especially with the added care he needed to walk through the crop without crushing it.
Worse, though, was that he had lost Twilight a short while ago, as she had turned upwards and vanished into a bank of clouds, heavy with the promise of rain. He felt her ahead of him, her magic seeping into his scales, but how far she had gotten, he could only guess.
She landed at dusk, settling in the safety of a cluster of trees, fruitless and isolated. Her wings ached, but not as bad as she had feared they might; her wing brace had done the job while her muscles settled, sped by magic. She hesitated before lying down against one of the trunks; a hint of routine had wormed back in now that her hooves were on solid ground, and she felt a sudden, unobtrusive shift into being considerably out of place. Where was the stairwell to her bed? The lamps she needed to put out? Her nightly journal entry? Spike?
She pushed the doubts away, and then felt guilty about not caring as much as she should have, and then pushed the guilt away, and then turned that part of her mind towards the maps she studied under Celestia's training and told it sternly to try and figure out where she was.
That settled, she set to checking for shedding scales, poking and prodding with her magic, testing both her magical strength and her physical. Every tiny spell she tried to nudge against the scales oozed around them, never quite hitting the mark, and every time she tried to cast another, an ache in the back of her head grew stronger.
Frustrated as her magic rolled off again, splitting out of her control like beads of water, she turned pointedly away from her side, staring straight ahead through the trees, and her headache swirled around to directly under her horn as Spike stepped into the clearing from between them.
If you were to ask her, she wouldn't be able to tell you how she recognized him. He was still a rather large dragon, easing back into softness at the edges, with two braced wings, on all fours, and looking rather rusty from running across the red earth, and his breath was hitching like he was about to cry, and his eyes were a warm, familiar pink.
In the breath it took for him to run to her, she figured she looked about the same.
Spike lifted her up in his arms, rising on to his hind legs to bring her close. With her head against his shoulder, she couldn't see his face, but she felt his jaw against her back, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the words, and his grip tightening when he couldn't.
Twilight patted him on the back with one hoof. "Um, hi, Spike."
His grip loosened. Twilight resisted the urge to try and slide to the ground, to be out of sight, to be unnoticeable.
"I'm so sorry," His voice broke. She remembered that her heart should have. "I did this. You should be in Canterlot, celebrating, probably at some high-end party or, or a book signing, but you're like this, and you're here, and I don't even know where here is, and - and -"
She tried to turn a grimace into a smile, her head throbbing. "Spike, could you - could you put me down, just, for a second?"
He obliged a little too fast, almost dropping her (but not quite) and taking a few steps back. She thought she caught a glimpse of relief on his face, too, before both of them tried to hide it.
"It's my magic, isn't it?" Spike asked gently. "It's hurting you."
"I don't... I don't know." Twilight rubbed at her eyes, trying to soothe the pain. "I thought it was because I was casting spells, but..."
"I can go again." Spike said, voice gentle, voice breaking. "That was always the plan, right? You'd stay in Canterlot, and I'd stay in Ponyville. We can be apart if you come home. It'll be okay. It'll be the way it was supposed to be. You'll be a Princess, and I'll be me, and I'll take care of the library, like I always have."
Twilight wanted to leave, to break this contact, to do... something, other than look at the dragon crying in front of her, not seeming to notice he was doing it. Almost without meaning to, she started scraping pebbles up from the ground, sorting them by color. She hoped Spike wouldn't notice.
He didn't seem to; he was focused completely on her, searching her face for some kind of reaction, some kind of reassurance, and finding nothing. It felt so wrong that Twilight's coat prickled at the base of her neck, some kind of familiarity echoing from those prying violet eyes that peeled off of her like shed scales, so much like Spike's own. She wondered, briefly, if her eyes were green.
"You're running away," he prompted, gentle, almost parental.
Twilight shook her head, regretted the movement, looked down at her pebbles. "There's something I need to find. I can feel it, the same way I felt when I realized how to use the Elements. I'm not sure where it is, but I can feel it calling me. I have to go. I'm not sure I can turn around and go home. It's something-" she remembered the large map Celestia had taught her from, ancient and hoof-painted, and the wary guess Celestia had given to where Spike's egg had been found, "-something to do with dragons."
Spike's claws dug into the dirt, pulling up stones into his palms. "I don't feel anything that way. I only want to be back in Ponyville. I'm supposed to bring you back. If I go back without you, I don't know what the Princesses will do. I can't leave you here."
They both sat in silence. Spike watched her, waiting for an answer; she started ordering her pebbles by shape.
"Take my crown," Twilight said, not looking up. "Take it back to Princess Celestia."
"Twilight-"
She stomped her hoof, driving a small, round stone back into the dirt. "It's irresponsible of me to bring such a valuable stone this far from Canterlot, and I'm going even further. It's best if ponies don't recognize me. I'll find a way to be inconspicuous, but I can't if I'm worrying about the element the whole time."
"You can't resign from being an Alicorn." Spike's voice was hard, but wavering; a landslide waiting to fall. "You're probably immortal now. Someone could capture you for ransom."
"If they do, I'll just outlive them and come back," Twilight countered. "Spike, I'm going. If you have to go back, say this is all you found."
She lifted her hooves to her crown, still twisted upside-down around her neck, and pulled it up over her head. She held it for a moment, looking down at the gemstone gleaming back at her. Spike hesitantly moved to take it, and she slowly, carefully, held it out to him.
Claws mere inches from the metal, Spike met her eyes. "Are you sure?"
Was she? There wasn't any doubt that she could dig up, only the resistance to the digging that told her that she probably should have been a touch more concerned, or she should have at least given it some more thought.
"I'm sure, Spike," she whispered, her voice seeming impossibly loud in her own ears. Had it been this quiet before? "I'm not a Princess any more." Was I ever?
Spike's hand closed around the crown, and her hoof, and in her last glimpse of the crystal, it flashed a brilliant white, and all of her senses exploded.
Spike opened his eyes to a milky white sky dotted with the shadows of rain. He was on his back, head propped up slightly by a mound of dirt pushed up behind his shoulders, sore but whole. His chest felt like it was on fire, and he sat up, pressing a hand to it to try and find the source. Hazily, he found the Element of Magic, hard under his claws and set in a simple gold choker.
As it burned against his fingers, his mind cleared and he nearly choked on air as he fully realized that he was wearing the Element of Magic. He drew his hands away, afraid to touch it, and as he stared at the stone in disbelief, it winked in the light and the heat faded, even the prickles under his scales that had been searing at him ever since he'd seen Twilight soaring above the plains.
His attention was drawn away from it as something across the clearing moved; Twilight, standing up shakily from her own crater, directly across from him. Her eyes, gleaming green in the diffused daylight, found the gemstone and mouthed a silent 'oh'. They stayed that way for probably too long, Spike trying to find a way to put all of this into words - Why me? Why now? Why not come home? - while Twilight seemed to just be taking everything in.
She walked over, slowly, and Spike lowered his head so she could press her own against it, the closest thing a large dragon and a young mare could get to a hug in a hurry.
"I have to keep going," she whispered. "We'll figure out what this all means later. Go home, and tell them I'm alright."
"The Element of Magic is on me." Spike said, staring at her. "Shouldn't we try to sort this all out now?"
Twilight turned to look south, her mouth set in a grim line. Softer, firmer, "I have to keep going."
Spike nodded, and took a few steps back. Twilight's chest tightened at the thought of him having to face this mess alone, but the pull to the mountains was even stronger now with her element out of the way. She could almost feel the peaks looming just beyond the horizon.
"You're still you, Twilight." Spike's voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned to face him. He smiled gently, echoing a lesson she'd taught him so long ago. "Who you are is not the same as what you are."
"What I am might change who I am. Every Princess becomes an Alicorn." She smiled back at him, tried not to linger on the stone set around his neck. "Maybe to be what I'm supposed to be, I can't be a Princess."
His smile weakened, and she saw it happen. A week ago, she wouldn't have ever given up her chance, and they both knew it.
A week ago, he would have given it up for her.
He gave all of his fears voice; "Come back home."
She didn't settle any of them; "I will."
Words filled his throat but didn't pass through his gritted teeth as he watched Twilight take a few steps back. Eyes closed, grimacing, her magic fizzled to life just long enough to hide her; a wide white and green flame over her flank, a white slash down her forehead - not much, not to someone who had seen her, but just enough for passage through a land that still expected a Princess.
She stared up at him, green eyes defiant, anxious, waiting for him to stop her but fearing that he might try. There was nothing he could say, no matter how much he wanted to. Not to her. Not like this. He couldn't make himself blink - couldn't make himself lose any more seconds of her - but he dipped his head, and she turned away.
Twilight didn't meet his eyes again as she steadied herself, took off into the air, and soared off towards the south, even though he watched her go under the clouds broke rain between them, long after he was soaked to the bone, and long after he turned back north, checking over his shoulder with a hand to the Element he now bore, until he had crossed the plains and the Everfree swallowed him up.
