Perspective
It was a rare occurrence when everpony had lunch together. Twilight’s schedule was nearly always full with assignments from the Princess; Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were kept busy by their jobs; Fluttershy always had some sick animal to tend to; and though she did slack off on weather duty, it was a rare sight to see Rainbow Dash not practicing in some way to get into the Wonderbolts. So it was a small miracle that all their schedules were clear this Saturday.
They decided to spend the afternoon at Sugarcube Corner enjoying the Cake’s delicious treats while talking about their lives. The conversation had taken many turns, flitting from the Wonderbolts (Dash’s favorite topic), to baking (A major interest of Pinkie Pie and Applejack), to dressmaking (Fluttershy and Rarity’s domain), and skittering very briefly around the faults of the Dewey Decimal System (guess who), until it finally ended up on a topic that held the largest common ground: younger siblings.
“I swear, I know she is just trying to be helpful, but Sweetie Bell can be so frustrating!” Rarity expelled; finishing up a rather long monologue about her younger sister.
“Ah hear ya. Applebloom’s just so set on getting her darn cutie mark. She keeps getting herself into heaps of trouble.” Applejack added to Rarity longwinded diatribe.
“At least you guys don’t have to deal with hero worship. I mean it’s nice and all, but Scootaloo never stops!” Rainbow Dash interrupted.
“Um… but… she isn’t your sister, right Rainbow?” Fluttershy asked meekly.
“Heh, try telling her that.” Rainbow Dash replied huffily.
“What about you Twilight. Does Spike ever give you any trouble?” Rarity asked. The mare had been unfocused throughout the entire conversation, and Rarity wanted to draw the purple unicorn back in.
Twilight started, her mind refocusing from the problem on temporal magic she had been thinking of. “Spike? No, he’s never been a problem.” She said, then remembering something added, “Wait. There was one time… though it wasn’t me he got in trouble with, it was the Princess. She even threatened to banish him if he ever did it again… though I’m actually kind of glad he did what…” Twilight trailed off when she saw everypony was staring at her with dumbfounded expressions.
“What?”
“The Princess threatened to Banish Spike?” Rarity asked; her voice traced with horror, “Whatever did he do?”
“Yeah Twi, tell us. Ah just can’t see Spike doin anything bad enough to make th’ Princess want ta banish ‘im.” Applejack added.
“Um. It’s a little embarrassing actually” Twilight said nervously.
“Oh don’t worry Twilight! Secrets between friends are safer than an armadillo in a chicken coop!” Pinkie Pie burst out.
Trying not to think about that statement, Twilight agreed, “O-okay. I guess I can tell you guys. I mean it’s been so long. I doubt Spike even remembers.”
The five other mares scooted closer.
“Well,” Twilight began, “like I said this was a long time ago, when Spike was just this big.” She held her hooves about two to three hoof lengths apart. “He was just starting to learn to talk, and I had taken to carrying him with me everywhere…
Twilight set Spike in her saddlebag, on top of her textbooks and started for the Castle. She had been taking private classes with Princess Celestia for about a year and a half now, but still lived with her parents.
“Are you gonna be good this time?” She asked the little dragon.
“Yeah!” he responded enthusiastically.
“No more trying to eat the Princess’ hair?” she continued.
Spike nodded bash-
“Wait.” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “The Princess threatened to banish Spike because he tried to eat her hair?” she said in an incredulous voice.
”Oh no!” Twilight responded hastily, “She found it hilarious, but it interrupted my lessons, so I had to make him stop.” She breathed in deeply, “No, I’m still getting to what he did.” She said and restarted her story.
Spike nodded bashfully, and tried to tuck himself under the saddlebag’s cover.
Twilight chuckled, and set out towards her lesson with the Princess. As she passed the clock on the way to the door she froze.
She was running late!
The thought of the Princess waiting for her in the classroom flashed into her mind and Twilight took off to the Castle in a gallop.
‘Oh,’ she moaned, ‘What if she decides I’m not worthy of being her student? What if she sends me away?” a hundred different scenarios filled her imagination, each more horrible than the last.
Twilight was in a frenzied panic by the time she reached Bridle Street, and instead of following the road until Mane Street like she normally did, she decided to take a short cut by going through the alleyways that led straight to the Castle gates.
She ran through the first few alleys quickly and managed to maintain her orientation, but of course, the idea of a straight route through alley-ways, however shorter than the main streets, was an oxymoron, and after three more turns Twilight lost her sense of direction.
She was stopped at a crossroads well in the labyrinth of back alleys that traced the outskirts of the city, and was trying to think about which way she need to go, but her panic at being late drove her to action, and she rushed down the left alley. It was a dead end, and Twilight had to keep herself from running head long into a brick wall lined with overflowing trash cans by skidding drastically to a halt. Spike giggled at the sudden movement from her saddlebag.
She nervously tried to back out of the alley, but something blocked her path. Turning around her gaze fell on three stallions standing in the mouth of the alley. Two of them were hardly older than colts and looked nervous, while the third, who standing between them, was older and had a twisted sneer on his face.
‘Well, well. Just what do you think you’re doing all the way back here little missy?’ he asked mockingly.
The three ponies circled her and Twilight felt a film of fear began to filter through her panic. She stammered, ‘I’m lost. I don’t know where I am.’ She looked at the older stallion and quickly added, ‘I don’t want any trouble.’
The stallions looked at each other and laughed, the younger two nervously, the older one viciously. ‘Well ain’t that a shame, boys. She don’t want no trouble, I guess we better leave.’ He laughed again, but quickly stopped with a jerk of his head towards the two young stallions.
They sprang on her and one of them held her down while the other ripped off her bags.
‘Check her stuff’ their leader ordered to the one with her bags. ‘You’ he said to the one pinning her to the ground, ‘hold her still’. He moved closer, and Twilight could smell his rancid breadth. ‘I hate it when they struggle’
Twilight screamed-
“It’s okay Twi, ya don’t need ta tell us this.” Applejack said with a horrified look on her face.
The others nodded.
“Oh darling I had no idea.” Rarity had scooted over to hug her, and Pinkie joined in immediately.
Rainbow was looking distinctly green, and Fluttershy had even started crying.
“No, it’s okay.” Twilight said, when the pink and white ponies had finished hugging her, and continued with a grim smile on her lips, “Besides, you didn’t let me finish…
Twilight screamed, but her screams were quickly matched by those of another.
The pony that had been checking her saddlebags was running around screaming, banging into trashcans and walls.
His right front hoof was bleeding heavily from a cut that went all the way to the bone. It was matched by a gash in his face that had gouged out his left eye. On his back was Spike, who was in the process of ripping into the pony’s neck.
The dragon tore out pieces of flesh with his claws and teeth and dug into the stallion’s neck. After a minute or two of thrashing the wild pony fell to the ground with a sudden ‘snap’ as Spike ripped out part of the pony’s spine with his teeth.
He crawled over the still twitching corpse on all fours, growling at the two remaining stallions.
They stood frozen for a moment before the older pony seemed to unlock, ‘What are you waiting for!’ the leader screamed at the other stallion, ‘Kill it!’
The younger pony let go of Twilight and she began to carefully crawl over to the farthest corner she could see. She heard screams behind her, but she didn’t turn around until she was away from the leader.
When she did turn back she saw the young stallion rolling on the ground holding his abdomen and vomiting blood. There was a hole in the side of his chest, and Twilight could see the skin of his stomach bulge and twist. After a few more moments of writhing on the ground the pony stopped moving and Spike burst out of his chest, drenched in blood.
He was hissing now, and his tongue was flicking in and out of his mouth. He turned and faced the last stallion, who was frozen in fear.
Spike cocked his head to the side and leapt at the pony and-
“I closed my eyes after that, but apparently they never found enough pieces to prove that their actually was a third stallion. It was like Spike shredded him.” Twilight finished, and then added, “The Princess was furious. I think she was really mad that something like that happened in Canterlot, right under her nose. I think she took out some of her anger on Spike; she said that she was worried that because he had tasted blood, he would attack other ponies and revert to his baser instincts, so she told me that no matter what he had done, she couldn’t risk the lives of her subjects on the chance that he wouldn’t do it again, so she said that I had to get rid of him.”
Twilight paused and then said, “I t-told that if he was leaving then so was I.” She blushed and added, “That’s the only time I’ve ever spoken back to the Princess.”
Twilight stopped and looked up at her friends. Their looks of horror had changed to complete and utter shock.
“Sh-shredded?” Rainbow asked weakly. She looked a little nauseous.
“Spikey-Wikey did that?” Rarity said in a feeble voice.
“Um… Twilight… what did you mean by ‘revert to his baser instincts’?” Fluttershy asked. She still had tear tracks on her face, but now seemed to be dealing with the situation better than the others.
“Oh. Well apparently the reason that Spike is… Spike is because he was raised by ponies.” Whatever distress the memories had caused in Twilight faded away as she started lecturing.
“Dragons normally start fighting as soon as they hatch out of their eggs. Apparently the reason that dragons are so rare despite the fact that a dragoness lays up to ten eggs in a single clutch is because the clutchmates will fight until only one or two of the strongest hatchlings survive.” Twilight explained in a startlingly calm voice.
A silence descended across the table.
It was at this moment that the topic of the conversation decided to walk by carrying a bag of blue gemstones.
“Hi girls.” He said happily, “You all enjoying your day off?”
Everypony but Twilight looked at him with wide eyed stares.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, slightly bewildered by their attitude.
Rarity regained herself first and hastened to lighten the mood, “Oh, no darling, you didn’t say anything.” Looking for a topic of conversation, Rarity’s eyes landed on his bag of gems, “Wherever did you get so many gemstones?” she asked.
Spike let out a laugh, “Diamond Tiara bet me thirty sapphires that my claws couldn’t cut through diamond.” He said while jiggling his spoils. “Sucker.” He added and then crunched down on a jewel the size of a chicken egg. Everypony but Twilight winced at each cracking sound the gem made.
He smiled at them with a mouth full of blue dust and continued on his way back to the library. The mares watched him walk away, and no one spoke until he was well out of sight.
“I must say Twilight, I never imagined that Spikey-… Spike, could do something like that.” Rarity said shakily, and took a sip from her glass of ice water. The drink rattled slightly in her hooves.
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, and turned to the white mare with a look of bookish innocence that she usually only wore in the presence of alcohol or dance music.
Rarity stared at Twilight and seemed unable to speak, so Applejack decided to speak for her.
“Ah think what she means is that, what with him being so helpful and kind and all, it’s easy to forget sometimes and see him as just a baby, and not a… a...”
“A dragon.” Rarity finished.
Her words echoed each of the others thoughts, and as they got up to leave, everyone save Twilight was thinking about this new image of Spike, and how it fit with their own views of him.
The next day, Rarity was still thinking about Twilight’s story. And while working on a new batch of dresses the purple mare’s description of her scaled companion kept echoing through her head.
She shook her head.
‘How easy it is,’ she thought, ‘to lose perspective of something so close.’