Author's Note
This entire story was edited, received a mild re-write, and got new Cover-art Enjoy
You're my Friend
"Where is it" Pumpkin demanded of the empty room as she pulled a variety of toys out from beneath her bed and sent them flying haphazardly across the room, upon running out of ammo she ran to her closet and repeated the process. the entirety of her room was now nothing but a massive mess, She had torn it apart while her twin brother, Pound Cake, was out playing with some of his friends.
He had tons of friends.
Pumpkin had friends too, at least that's what she told her parents, her brother, Pinkie Pie…and herself. In actuality, all her ‘friends’ were just her stuffed animals. She did all the kinds of things with them that one would do with friends. They went out for walks, they had lavish tea parties, they threw crazy parties with Pinkie. But out of all her stuffies, her favorite one by far was that of a little purple and green dragon. She'd gotten it at a fair in the Crystal Empire after spending all of her tickets at a booth and managing to knock over all the cans at once with her last throw. The tag that had once been on the stuffies leg declared its name as Spike, and she'd loved it ever since. She'd done her best to take good care of it, she even tucked it into her bed whenever she wasn't playing with it.
But upon returning home from a study session she had found her side of the room a mess and several of her toys missing and some broken. All that remained of her little dragon was the tag that had been ripped from its leg, and now that she knew it wasn't in the room she knew who had stolen it, the resident of the other half of the room.
"Pound!" Pumpkin screamed out, she instantly heard him and his friends go quiet, "Where's my Dragon!?" Pumpkin came out of the room and spotted Pound running down the stairs with his friends in tow, Pumpkin spied that none of them had it and instead chose to raid the room her family used as their living room. After failing to find her Spike she proceeded to look in every other room save her parents and Pinkie's room.
Upon finding nothing the only place left to search was the dining area where the customers ate. Pumpkin rushed downstairs and gave the area a once over, checking to see if any customers were in the restaurant when she saw who was at the counter talking to her mother. It was Spike, the real one, The little purple dragon who ran the library in the castle.
"That will be twelve bits please," Mrs. Cake said, Spike was fishing out the appropriate amount when he saw Pumpkin from the corner of his eye, turning his head to look at her.
"Oh, hi Pumpkin," he said, his face shining with a cheerful smile. "It's been a while since I've seen you." Pumpkin jumped back out of view, hiding behind the counter. Spike frowned at the reaction "Oh dear," Spike turned to Mrs. Cake, "She's not afraid of dragons is she?"
"Oh good heavens no," Mrs.Cake politely "She just gets nervous around others," Mrs.Cake said as she took the bits and Spike went to wait on his order. Cup Cake turned and went to find her daughter, who was peaking out to see if Spike had yet left the premise. "You know," her mom said ", If you want to make friends, you should try talking to others." her piece said, she went to bake Spikes order. Pumpkin mumbled a response under her breath.
"I have friends, I just lost one…” Pumpkin poked her head out from around the counter and saw Spike sitting at one of the tables, reading a really long piece of paper and talking to himself.
"Oh," She heard him say with a groan, "I forgot, It's re-shelving day," Pumpkin's ears perked with curiosity and she took a deep breath and walked out from the counter and quickly ran and hid behind the nearest table. She heard her mother call his order and Spike rolled up his paper and retrieve his snacks.
"What’s a re-shelving day?" She wondered quietly as she watched him take his bag of goodies. Wanting to know more but also not wanting to have to talk to him, she waited for him to leave, and decided to follow him. "Mom I’m going out for a bit," she called.
"Alright, have fun and try and make a friend or two," her mother replied as Pumpkin left and started her journey to discover what a re-shelving day was. Spike was pretty easy to follow. It was raining slightly, so not too many ponies were out, she saw her brother and his friends playing in the mud. Most of the usual market stands were closed due to weather. As Pumpkin followed Spike, she saw he was heading for the library.
"Is it a library thing?" she wondered, She continued following him for a distance until he entered the castle. Pumpkin quickly ran up to the crystalline stricter and then slowly made her way up the steps, and using her magic she phased through the doors so as to not attract Spike’s attention. She saw his shadow on the floor as he made his way into what she guessed was the library, so quietly made her way to the entrance, waited until his shadow dictated he wasn't looking at the doorway, and then looked through it.
The library was huge, it had so many books. She gasped, then shoved her hoof in her mouth and looked to see if Spike had seen her. She had almost forgotten she was supposed to be hiding. Thankfully, he had his back turned and seemed to be reading from his list again. She watched as he walked to one of the shelves and started selectively taking books off of them, once his hands were full he then put them on a table where a big book was sitting. She just stood there and watched as he kept doing this.
She was wondering if this was the re-shelving day when it happened, Spike was grabbing a book and pulled it out, only for several others to be pulled out with it and tumble down on him. He flinched at the incoming barrage but before any of the books even came close to hit him, Pumpkin used her magic to push them all away from him, scattering them around him.
Spike looked at them then turned on the spot, surprise evident in his eyes when he saw the little orange filly. They both looked at each other for a second, before Pumpkin took several steps back into the hall and covered her face with her hooves.
"I'm sorry!" She squeaked in embarrassment. "I wanted to know what a re-shelving day was, and I followed you here, please don't be mad!" there was a moment of silence before a shadow covered her
"Mad?" Spike asked with a chuckle as he popped out of the Library and looked down at her. "It’s hard to be mad at somepony when they just saved you from getting smacked in the face by a bunch of heavy books."
Pumpkin took her hooves off her face and returned them to the ground as she looked up at Spike.
"So you’re not mad?" she asked, and to her surprise, he just laughed.
"Hahaha! Pumpkin I'm honored that you chose me of all the ponies in this town to spy on, otherwise, I might be missing a tooth right now." After he stopped chuckling, he wiped his eye and then look back down at her. "Re-shelving day is the day I take all the books off their shelves and put them back in order."
"Order?" Pumpkin asked with a curious tilt of her head. "Why wouldn't they be in order?"
"When the Library is open, ponies are touching and moving books all day, not only that but this is also the day I put the returned ones back on the shelves, and resort any misplaced books." There was a moment of silence, then Pumpkin surprised Spike when she rubbed the back of her neck and asked with a flush face.
"C-Can I help?"
"Help?" he asked, repeating what she said to make sure he heard her right.
"Yeah, I'm a unicorn after all, so wouldn't it go faster if I helped you by putting them back?"
Spike smiled at her enthusiasm. "My dear friend I would be honored if you would help me," he said as he made his way back into the room Pumpkin stood in shock for a second before following after him
"friend?" she asked, looking like she was gonna cry
"Hm?" It was his turn to tilt his head now. "Well sure, saving someone from a book-themed avalanche and offering to help them in a hard task is something a friend would do, so I'd say we're friends,"
Pumpkin said nothing at first as Spike made his way to the bookshelves, her eyes started shining as she smiled, and declared for all of one dragon to hear "You're my friend, my first friend."
Spike was having a fairly interesting day. In the last 5 or so minutes, he had been saved from being hit in the face, discovered he had picked up a stalker at the Cake’s bakery, and became some pony's first-ever friend. Not too bad if he said so himself. He made a new friend, and she was willing to help him with his job. Of course, he wouldn't blame her if she wanted to quit during it. Re-shelving was a long and boring job after all. It used to go faster, but with Twilight’s job as a Princess, she had less time to help him.
Spike brought Pumpkin over to the big book on the table and did his best to explain what to do. "This is the logbook, the first part has listed inside it the names of all the books in the Library." He then opened to book and flipped through it until he was in the middle. "The last part where all the books go and what shelves they’re supposed to be on."
"What kind of books are in the Library?" Pumpkin asked him as she looked at the pages and pages of words and numbers.
"Well, we have books on Equestrian history, geography, and such. Adventure novels, romance books, and other fiction. A few books about Dragons, Griffons, and other species. A few about nature and how to grow gardens and take care of them. We have spellbooks for beginners, all the way up to advanced spellcasting. Honestly, the list goes on and on."
"Wow, and we have to sort them all?"
"Well, I have to. Technically you’re free to go whenever you want."
"No!” Pumpkin stomped a hoof and shook her curly mane. “I’m your friend, and it wouldn't be nice to leave you where you could get hit in the face by more falling books."
Spike chuckled, "Well thanks pal, now let’s get to work."
Pumpkin began taking books off the shelves, and Spike began looking through the logbook and organizing the books in accordance to where they belonged. And that was it, that was all there was to do and so that was all they did do for several long hours but much to Spike's delight they finished it in less than half the usual time it took him to do it alone.
"That took forever!" Pumpkin moaned as she flopped into a comfy chair, Spike sitting in one next to it.
"You think that was bad?" Spike chuckled. "Usually it takes a whole day or more"
"WHAT!?"
"Yeah, thanks to you I know have nothing to do until tomorrow at noon," there was a long awkward silence before Spike scratched his chin in thought and looked over to Pumpkin, "So what do you wanna do now?"
"Me?" Pumpkin blinked.
"Yes you,” Spike smiled. “We just spent the last 4 hours doing something I wanted to...or needed to do. So, what do you want to do?"
"Um....can I try one of the spells in the spellbooks?" She could tell immediately by how Spike's face lit up like a Hearth’s Warming tree, that this was something he would be happy to help with, he practically bounced to his feet as soon as she had said it.
"I'd love to show you some!" He Declared as he showed no hesitation in looking through the books they had on hand, which there were tons of, Pumpkin had her pick of any kind of beginners magic and in the end, she decided to settle on a tome of summoning for beginners.
"Oh, this one looks easy." Pumpkin said as she looked over one particular spell.
"Try it," Spike said happily. Pumpkin’s horn lit up and She tried to cast the spell, but nothing happened.
"Aw, I guess it didn't wo—eep!" Pumpkin squeaked as a water droplet hit her nose. She rubbed at it and turned to ask Spike if that was it when suddenly the entire room filled with very light rain, She and Spike stared at each other for a second before slowly looking above them, overhead was a massive storm cloud.
"Uh oh…” They both said in unison, and with a loud boom of rolling thunder, It started pouring.
"Oh wow," Spike cheered as he looked up at the rain "If this is your first time trying that spell, you have a serious talent for Magic,"
"I am so sorry," Pumpkin said as she shut the book and tried to shelter it from the rain.
"No problem, Twilight has a spell on this place, It'll take more than some rain to ruin this place, Altho you might want to try for the un-summoning spell. Pumpkin opened the book, looked at the list of spells, and cast it just as Spike said, "Wait...un-summoning spells aren't a thing," The entire room rocked as the storm cloud increased massively in size, spilling out into the rest of the castle as it grew larger.
"Um...Spike," Pumpkin said as she pointed to the floor, the rain had more multiplied more than 3 times in water power and the floor of the castle was now flooding.
"Oh yeah, Twilight has a spell to stop the castle from being flooded during...well a flood. I guess it does the opposite when the flood starts inside the castle if this is any indication," Spike watched water level rise and climbed up on the table Pumpkin had originally set the book on, Pumpkin joining him as she quickly found a flotation spell and cast it on the table, the legs snapped off and they were now on a make shift raft.
"Maybe this will stop it," Pumpkin said as she picked a spell that looked simple, she lit her horn and the rain started coming down faster.
"Well now it won't last as long," Spike noted before taking the book and looking over it "Let me see if I can find a way to stop this,"
Twilight was exhausted, she had been in Canterlot all day and had only just gotten back…Well and truly missing her usual dinner time.
"Spike's probably already eaten without me," She sighed as she got to the castle. Only to find the door seemed to be bulging. "What the hay?" she asked, on the other side she could hear what sounded like the ocean. She moved to one side of the door and opened it, instantly a huge wave of water joined the already wet ground and poured out along with a huge storm cloud that wafted up into the air and joined the storm above.
"Ye-ha!" Spike and Pumpkin both yelled as they surfed the wave out on their Library table raft, Twilight looked at the bizarre scene in front of her when Spike groaned and facepalmed as he snapped the book shut
"She just...opened the door, Why didn't we think of that?"
"I think my attempts to stop it just made things worse," Pumpkin added. Twilight just stared at them for a second, trying and failing to piece together what happened.
"H-How? Why?" Twilight asked Spike. The dragon was about to answer when Pumpkin stepped forward.
"It was my fault Princess Twilight,” she said and looked down. “I cast a rain spell and it… kind of got out of hoof." Her ears flattening against her head, but her new friend quickly jumped to her rescue.
"Look on the bright side" Spike added with a grin. "At least you cast that Protection spell on the library, so none of the books were destroyed." Twilight just stared at them, then shook her head.
"I’m going to my room," she sighed. She was way too tired and didn't have enough information to deal with this and simply teleported away hoping her room was at the very least dry. Spike and Pumpkin looked at each other for a moment before they started laughing. At least until Pumpkin sneezed.
"We better get you dry and to a warm place," Spike said, noting she was soaked to the bone.
"I don't think the Castle is any better than outside right now," Pumpkin said as she looked up at the rainclouds still pouring out of the door "Want to come over to my house since I got yours all wet?"
"I'd be honored"
"It’s not too hard to honor you," Pumpkin giggled.
"So I've been told." and with that Spike and Pumpkin made their way to Sugarcube Corner, and when they walked in, the look on Mrs. Cake’s face was priceless
"Oh my! What happened to you two?" Cup Cake asked while moving to get them both a towel.
"I made a new friend, it’s Spike, Spike’s my friend now!" Pumpkin said with a huge grin as her mother toweled her off. Spike chuckled.
"You’re my friend too,"
Author's Note
This entire story was edited, received a mild re-write, and got new Cover-art Enjoy
