"Did you mean it that time?"
Ever since Spike had moved in with her, Rarity hadn't needed a bed. She would simply cuddle him, the hardness of his scales balanced out wonderfully by the tenderness of his grasp and the soothing heat that seemed to radiate off of his chest. Were it not for expectations of modesty, Rarity felt confident that she would be able to sleep anywhere when she was with Spike, from bedroom to bathroom to abandoned castle.
She smiled a little at that thought. The camping trip to the Castle of the Two Sisters was far from the most thrilling night of her life, but that was mostly because she had led quite an extraordinary life. To any other mare, she was sure that being kissed by a dragon in the ruins of a thousand-year-old chapel would have been amazing, the defining moment by which all other romantic escapades were unfairly measured. To any other mare, the moment that Spike finally grew up and acted on his crush might have melted hearts, or perhaps set them a-flutter with a million billion butterflies.
To Rarity, though? The kiss had felt... wrong. It had seemed inevitable, but not in the amazing way that her taking up the Element of Generosity for the first time had been. Every time that she remembered that kiss, she found herself remembering all of the times that she had tried to let him down easy. She also remembered all the times that she had pretended not to notice, taking advantage of the poor drake's infatuation for a few hours of free labor.
Rarity shifted uncomfortably under her lover's massive purple arm, hoping that he would wake up soon. It seemed so much easier to be in love when he was awake. At the very least, it was easier for her to move.
As if in answer to her silent plea, there was a rumbling sound that shook her bones. Spike shifted and groaned, waking up in a way that evoked all kinds of imagery of towering wyrms atop great piles of treasure. Of course, instead of sending millions of gold pieces flying with every twitch of his muscles, all the treasure that Spike could move was his darling Rarity.
She remembered one of the more romantic things he had ever said to her, that she was more prized to him than any gold or silver or jewels. As one of his arms lazily pulled her closer and his enormous snout nuzzled against the back of her neck, she really could believe it.
"Good morning, Rarity." Even though he had only just stirred from sleep, Spike's manners were still impeccable. He rolled his R's like a Canterlot high-born, but not in that overdone way that Manehattanites always used in their stage parodies. His voice had matured into a fine, buttery baritone, the light side to the oppressive thunder of the old Dragon Lord.
"Good morning, darling." She turned her head and nuzzled his scaly cheek, smiling with a practice that denoted how long she had been awake. She looked up into his eyes, frighteningly cold despite all the warmth of his heart. "I hope you slept well," she crooned, letting her weight rest against him even as his arm moved away from her back.
"Mmmm, how could I not?" The dragon— her dragon rose to his full height, towering over Rarity in a way that made her wonder how it was he was possibly small enough not to scrape the roof with his head. "I have you right here beside me, keeping me warm." He leaned down for another nuzzle, one she was glad to give. Nuzzling was easy.
"Right, I keep you warm." Rarity got up and stretched, making sure to arch her back just so. A low rumble was her reward, and she smiled as a snort of warm air blasted against her mane. She straightened herself, and began to strut out of the bedroom, putting just a little extra sway into her hips as she moved. "Hmm, I suppose I do, now that I think about it."
Spike laughed, and Rarity felt a chill shoot up her spine. That laugh of his was a strange sort of cultured thunder, rolling over the hills and bearing down on the unprepared village of her eardrums with all the destructive force of a bloated centaur, stripping away the wooden shanties of her decency to harass the little girl of her deepest desires to be swept away by a charming rogue.
Rarity scrunched up her nose in frustration at her own inner monologue. Those poetry classes were clearly not helping.
Seeking a distraction, Rarity wandered downstairs and allowed the sweet smells of breakfast to fill her nostrils. The crispy sweetness of honeyed pancakes wafted up from the kitchen, and the obtrusive tang of citrus in the air denoted a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, Rarity took a moment to wipe her muzzle to make sure she wasn't drooling.
"Good morning, Sweetie Belle," she trilled as she stepped through into the kitchen-cum-dining-room.
"Good morning, Rarity." Sweetie turned away from the oven, floating a crispy-golden pancake over to a silver platter on the dining room table. She cut a very charming figure in her sunset-orange kitchen apron, her infectious smile glowing as if lit from below by a comforting fire.
Fire, always fire. Sweetie Belle, Spike, Ember, it seemed that every aspect of Rarity's life had something of fire about it. There were fires that raged, fires that were always there to come back to, and fires that went out.
Sweetie Belle's smile faded, replaced by a grimace of concern. "Are you okay, Rarity?" Her eyes flicked up to the top of the stairs, and she took a few steps closer to her sister. "Did you want to talk about it?"
Rarity sighed and shook her head after a moment's thought, kicking herself for not being able to get it out. She didn't talk about... this with anyone, but she came the closest to talking about it with Sweetie Belle. It had started as most of these things did, with words unsaid and a certain look from across the dinner table. Rarity must have prepared a thousand excuses for why Sweetie Belle wanted to spend a few months living under their roof, but Spike had just smiled and helped her sister move in.
She had no idea how much Sweetie had pieced together, but every time they locked eyes these days it felt like a clock was counting down. One day, that look in her eyes seemed to say, Rarity would answer the question.
The stairs behind her creaked as Spike descended, and Rarity fought down a shiver. She turned and shot him a warm smile over her shoulder, sauntering over to her seat and adjusting the knives and forks. The smells all but floored her, and she grinned at the stack of pancakes that was just begging her to dig in.
"Morning, Sweetie Belle." Her lover's buttery drawl was more subdued with her sister, more casual. She didn't really know how to deal with that. "Breakfast smells delicious."
"Well, thank you, Spike. I do my best, but I know you can do better." Sweetie Belle took her own seat, her eyes on Spike as he settled on the cushion at his place. Any experiments with stools and chairs had long since concluded, with results that could only be described as splintery.
"Well, of course I can." Oh, Rarity should have flicked him with her tail for that remark, but his grin as he said it was just so dashing that she could only summon a little 'tsk-tsk' noise in response. "Still, I appreciate the effort." Spike cut his first pancake expertly with the edge of a claw, keeping the razor edge just high enough that it didn't touch the rest of the stack. "I mean, anything that lets me spend a few more minutes curled up next to Rarity is amazing in my book." The look that he shot across the table made Rarity's heart skip a beat. His eyes, she could have sworn, were sparkling like rubies.
"I love you too, darling."
"Heh."
Rarity's ears pricked up at that. Spike's eyes had already returned to his pancakes, and he was lifting a new slice of honeyed perfection to his lips. "What do you mean, heh?"
Sweetie Belle and Spike both looked up, Sweetie raising her right eyebrow and Spike raising his left. The dragon coughed a little awkwardly, and his voice sounded a touch less confident as he spoke. "Well, nothing really. It's just..." He looked down for a second, his claw toying with the stack of pancakes. When he looked up again, there was a weak smile on his lips. "Sometimes, you say that you love me and you mean it. And sometimes, you don't. That time, you didn't. It's nothing to get mad about. Happens to everypony."
Rarity's hackles rose at that. "It happens to everypony? What the hay is that supposed to mean?"
"That it happens to everypony," Spike answered. "Trust me, Rares. I grew up in Canterlot. Half the marriages in that place were arranged. I know what it sounds like when somepony is in love."
The worst part, she would say later, was that Spike didn't sound angry or sad as he was explaining these things. To his ear, he was explaining a simple fact of life. Not a good fact, or a bad fact, just a fact.
"Are you saying that I don't love you?" Rarity asked, with such an edge to her words that she could have sworn she tasted blood.
"That's not what I'm saying at all, Rarity." His voice was infuriatingly calm, as though he didn't understand how bad this sounded. "Nopony can be in love every single moment of the day. You just happened to say you did when you didn't."
"You..." Rarity ground her teeth and stabbed her fork into her pancakes, so hard that she heard it hit the plate beneath. "Love isn't something you can just turn on and off. I'm either in love with you, or I'm not."
Spike narrowed his eyes. "I'm not saying you turned it off. These things ebb and flow, Rarity. Everypony has moments where their special somepony seems like the most important thing in the universe, but they can't feel like that all the time."
"Really? Because ever since I met you, I've never once felt that you didn't love me." Out of the corner of her eye, Rarity spotted Sweetie Belle inching backwards from the table. The all-too-quiet chime of a warning bell began to go off in her mind.
"I can't help it if you only ever hear the good things ponies say about you," he barked. For the first time in a long while, Rarity was deeply aware of how sharp his teeth were. "And believe me, there've been moments where you weren't the most amazing thing to ever happen to me."
"You've been obsessed with me since the moment we met!" Rarity reared up from her seat and planted her forehooves on the table. "Every time I've turned around, you've all but had hearts in your eyes over me, and I can practically hear your pulse race whenever I flick my tail! You love me, Spike, you love me with every fiber of your being, but how long has it been since I looked at you the way that you look at me?"
"Rarity, I think you need to calm do—"
"Not now, Sweetie Belle!" Rarity growled, all but shoving her sister back with her magic. She stared down the dragon in front of her, and started to catch her breath. But then she saw his mouth open, as though he could possibly have an answer for her question, and she couldn't stop herself. "No! Not a word of it! You can't tell me I've ever looked at you like that, Spike, because I haven't! You're right, I didn't mean it today, and do you know why? It's because I don't love you any more!"
And like that, the room fell silent. Rarity stayed poised on the edge of the table, her lungs heaving as she caught her breath and her legs began to ache. She hung her head, closed her eyes and took stock. She had just said it. She had just admitted it, not just to herself but to him. It was out there. She didn't love him. She wondered if she ever had.
A few breaths later, Rarity felt she was strong enough to make eye contact again. She looked up, expecting to see hatred. Instead, she saw Sweetie Belle trembling like a leaf, her hooves twitching as though she were debating whether she should comfort him. As for Spike, he didn't look angry. He didn't look sad, or lost, or even happy. He just looked like he had been caught off-guard.
"Oh." The thunder was gone. That wasn't the voice of her Canterlot dragon. Even for that one syllable, it sounded like his voice would crack under the pressure of speaking. "I..." He didn't say anything else. His lips formed the shadows of words a few more times, but nothing else came out.
Rarity eased herself off of the table, and with only a brief apologetic look at Sweetie Belle, pushed her plate of pancakes away. She sat back, sipping her orange juice and waiting for one of them, any of them to think of something to say. For her part, Rarity couldn't think of anything else.
"I think... I should probably move out." Spike seemed smaller now than he had been for some years. "It, um, it might take a few days. I hope that's not... I hope that doesn't..." He took a long, trembling breath and let it out. "I hope I won't be a burden to you."
"You never were," she said on instinct. "If anything, I was your burden."
There was a look in his eyes like he wanted to disagree, but it didn't last long. He got up from his seat, snagging one more pancake on a claw and chewing it thoughtfully before speaking again. Her vision might have just been blurry from the tears, but Rarity could have sworn his scales looked smoother, his teeth less pointed.
It occurred to her that she really should have paid more attention to dragon greed's effects.
"If it means anything, I never felt bad about carrying you."
"It does mean something." Rarity had to set down her glass, for fear her magic would flicker out and it would shatter. Her brain kept screaming at her to turn, to look him in the eye one more time. "I always felt bad about being carried."
There was a claw on her shoulder. She turned, and looked into those eyes. They seemed so warm now, when he had the most reason to look cold. She was glad for that.
"Regardless, my lady Rarity." For a few sparse words, the shadow of that confident baritone managed to fight its way back into his throat. "It was an honor to bear you on my back. I look forward to seeing what you can do on your own four legs."
There was no kiss. There was only a look, and then several very awkward days of dancing around each other as Rarity and Spike tried to live their lives as though that breakfast had been the ending to their relationship.
The real end to their relationship wasn't anything special at all. Rarity helped carry one of five suitcases out of the door, set it on the carriage and said a very brief goodbye. Spike watched her walk back into the house, and wished that they hadn't tried so hard to make that moment at the breakfast table the perfect last time they were ever together.
It would have been nice to say that she ran back outside at that moment and gave him one last kiss. But she didn't.
