Twilight Sparkle was the recluse. Spike was the socializer. That had always been the dynamic between them and, even when Twilight Sparkle had set out into the world, made friends, rallied communities and defeated great enemies, it had persisted between them.
Twilight Sparkle was the princess a pony would go to petition and she would listen earnestly, but Spike didn’t even need that much. He’d walk up to a pony and start a conversation, just because. Sure, Pinkie Pie’s social circle did dwarf his, but Pinkie Pie’s social circle also dwarfed certain galaxies. It was something of an outlier, and shouldn't be counted.
Measured on his own merit, Spike was definitely a go-to, go-getter, going kind of pony...dragon. He had events and plans and generally kept in touch.
This was all known to Twilight Sparkle, so that, on the second consecutive day that Spike did not leave her crystal castle, the alicorn smiled and chalked up to phenomena.
On the fourth day, she pondered and considered it coincidence.
On the sixth day, Twilight Sparkle frowned. Here was pattern.
Spike’s room was not far from hers, rather, Spike liked being close. But it was, what with the size of the castle and its few inhabitants, sometimes entire wings would be devoid of pony or dragon for stretches at a time. They might both be inside all day and see each other only once every few hours.
To Twilight Sparkle, that way of life was not new, or weird, or cause for concern. To the contrary, relative seclusion had been her happy equilibrium growing up in Canterlot.
Now, with this being Spike... now it was cause for some concern.
Twilight Sparkle watched the kettle boil thusly proving the old adage wrong, but making herself a little impatient in the process. It certainly seemed to take longer under observation, even as she knew all the logical fallacies of why that was the case.
She poured the water and added the cocoa and milk to two separate, equal mugs. Checking through the cupboards, she found marshmallows, pink and white and - surprisingly enough - also blue. She added these liberally to the one mug and a little more reservedly to the other. Hesitating, she added a few more to that.
Then she ate one. A blue one. For science.
It was alright.
Satisfied that the cocoa would cool to its optimum heat in due time (though this was more for Twilight's than Spike’s; the little dragon could and would drink it still boiling, though the tickling effects tended to make him burst with fits of giggles) and assorted the cookies and sandwiches she’d prepared. This little spat of baking had actually been fun, even if it had given her a little too much brooding time.
Her mental checklist signed off on, Twilight Sparkle took these things: the cocoa, the cookies and the sandwiches, and set off with purpose.
Lately the little dragon had been spending more and more time in his own room, and so here it was that Twilight Sparkle began - and concluded - her search.
She knocked, while goodies floated about her. “Hey Spike?” She thought she heard movement and, a moment later, a voice.
“Oh, yeah! Come in.”
Twilight Sparkle girded her loins and, confident yet wary, opened the door.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking at.
Not sure where at all to begin, Twilight Sparkle deferred to her whole premise for coming here. “I made snacks. Um, here.”
Well, she thought. His manner seemed happy enough. Spike didn’t seem to be hiding anything, per se.
Twilight decided to chance it. “Spike, what is all this?”
All this was a large open space cleared from the otherwise lived-in room, in which an inordinate number of candles had been set up. About half of them were lit, but not in any discernable pattern Twilight Sparkle recognized. They were at different heights and distances. If anything, the erratic placements around the circle seemed on purpose. Some of them looked fresh, while many others were at various stages of burning down. Something else caught her eye.
“Are those dice?”
Spike slicked back his frill. “Oh, uh, yeah. Scatter dice. For tabletop gaming?”
“This is a strange tabletop game you’ve set up, Spike.”
Spike flashed her a look. “It’s not,” he said. “It’s...we’ll, I’ve been... practicing.”
Twilight reminded herself not to be judgemental. She didn't even know what not to be judgemental all, for starters. Or panicky for that matter, though ghosts of anxiety regarding the dreaded Talk tormented the fringes of her imagination. She still entertained hope that, come that day, she could defer that particular educational talk to Celestia. Cadence. Her own parents. A book. All the books. Stars above - and Twilight Sparkle herself - knew there were enough of them for it.
Spike seemed too calm for this to be like that, though. If anything, he seemed disappointed. He ate a cookie.
“I was going to show you,” he said. “Like, after I’ve gotten really good.”
Twilight nibbled a sandwich in thoughtfulness. She decided to call it. “I need you to explain what you mean. I really don’t understand. Good at what?”
Spike dragged over a box big as he was, the trouble was in the fine maneuvering more than anything. The air smelled smoky and was spotty with ash. “Look at these.”
“These are...burned books.” Lifting one, yellowed and broken pages crumbled and fell out. “I still don’t understand, Spike. What does this have to do with this?”
Spike walked around his strange amorphous circle of lights, extinguishing the lit candles between his claws until the air smelled of wax and smoke. “Those are all the books I’ve ever burned. By accident!”
“Spike... I know these were accidents. You would never burn a book on purpose.”
“Still, these...I kinda kept them. You always said to throw them out, and I always thought I meant to but, I just, you know... never got around to it. Here they are."
The last candle fizzed out between Spike’s claws. He didn’t seem depressed, Twilight thought. Not exactly.
In fact, he brightened up drastically before her. “When I filled the box, it just sort of occurred to me all of a sudden that I’m a dragon in a library. It’s a castle now, but, you know what I mean. And there’s never been a big accident, but there’s been enough little ones. Anyway... I decided I needed to practice. Like, seriously.”
“Practice what, Spike?” Curiosity and Spike’s roundabout manner getting Twilight a little frustrated, if she were honest with herself.
“Practice my breathing.” He chuckled nervously. “I mean, you know, my fire-breathing. Look, I’ll show you.
Spike took the dice and stood in the circle of candles. “I kind of, uh, made this up as I went along. Okay, so this dice is 1d6...”
Twilight was starting to see, now. “And that one has direction arrows. Hence the scatter dice.”
Spike chuckled and fidgeted, “Well, yeah.” He shook the dice, blew in his clasped claws for luck - a proper little gamer her dragon; Twilight smiled - and let them fall.
A second later on a gust of flame, three candles to Spike’s left were lit.
“Okay, so that was supposed to be four candles, but you get the idea. I usually get it spot on, honest. I’m just...nervous, right now. I was going to show you when I’d gotten really good first. Like a surprise. I was going to figure out how to get moving targets, too...”
Twilight Sparkle had seen enough. “Oh, Spike. I’m proud of you. This is, well, it's a very mature use of your time. Discipline isn’t easy.” Twilight Sparkle remembered her own, sometimes grueling training. “If you keep practicing though, I have no doubts you will become a very precise young fire-breather.”
“It’s just something I could be more responsible with. It is fire, after all. Dragon fire. There's more than just books that can burn.”
The alicorn hesitated. For just a moment, something had flickered in her eyes. Or more aptly, in the perception those eyes allowed her. Twilight Sparkle felt conflicted and watched the candles’ light.
Spike was growing up. Not in the dire, stomp the town flat kind of way like that one time, no.
Slowly. So slowly. But unstoppably.
She found her voice after a moment and, skirting around Spike’s things, sat on the side of his bed. She made sure to smile.
“Cookies aren’t bad,” said Spike, chewing quickly through one. “You make ‘em?”
“I did.” Twilight made sure to smile, and smile big.
“Come and help me eat them all. I'm hardly going to.”
“Now that,” Spike said as he sat beside her and took another, “is a discipline I’ve already mastered!”
They laughed.
Later, after she had time to think and feel, Twilight Sparkle would cry.
Later still, she would smile again.
Right then, though...
Right then they ate cookies, and drank cocoa that had reached its optimum temperature with pink and white and - strangely enough - blue marshmallows.
They were alright.
