Royal Business
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Twilight’s head shot up from her book. She wasn’t expecting anyone until Spike got back, and he wouldn’t knock. She glanced over to a half shuttered window. Small slashes of orange sunlight streamed in, marking the last few hours of the day. No one she knew would ever call this late… unless it was an emergency. Twilight began to ease herself off the couch next to the hearth and started to make her way to the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Coming!” she called and hurried the rest of the way to the door. Pulling it open with a glow from her horn, she jumped when she saw who was standing outside of it. It was Rarity, and even in the dim outline from the setting sun, Twilight could tell something was wrong. Her hair, which she kept brushed religiously, were tangled and pulled out of its usual curls, making them hang limply on her face, and her carefully applied eyeliner and mascara was smearing in long tracks down her face. The mare had been crying.
“Rarity, what happened?” she exclaimed in shock at her friend’s appearance.
“Oh Twilight, I just got a letter back from Hoity Toity’s fashion company.” She sniffed and her eyes began to well up. “They… they rejected my designs.” She cried.
Twilight winced; the ivory mare had been talking about her submission to Hoity’s catalog for the past month or so, and she had been so excited at her future acceptance into the company’s line. The mare must have been crushed to learn about her rejection, and from her appearance, it looked like she still was.
Twilight paused. She was always so unsure of what to do in these situations. Give her a book any day over an emotional unicorn. The tree would empty until Spike got back, she thought, and that wouldn’t be until much later tonight. Twilight was sure it wouldn’t take that long to calm Rarity down.
“I’m so sorry to hear that Rarity,” Twilight told her, and gave the unicorn her best commiserating smile, “Why don’t you come in, I’ll make you some tea.”
“Oh thank you Twilight.” She perked up slightly as Twilight led her inside. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“What are friends for?” Twilight told her as she directed her towards the couch, and then trotted into the kitchen to start the kettle. Coming out a minute later, she saw the extent of Rarity’s depression in the magical candlelight. Her eyes were bloodshot, and only one had a false eyelash over it. The tracks of makeup Twilight had seen in the dim sunlight were smeared down her face, as well as stamped across her cheeks and forehead in small curves where she had been crying into her hooves.
Twilight grimaced, if the vain unicorn found out that she looked like this, it would just make her even more upset, and while Twilight could decide to not tell her, if she didn’t and Rarity saw herself in a mirror somewhere, she would get upset at Twilight for letting her walk around like that. Twilight cast around for some way to break Rarity’s appearance to her, once again cursing her lack of social skills. She finally decided on a way that would let her carefully skirt around the issue while still remaining in the mare’s good graces.
“Um, the water for the tea’s going to take a few minutes to come to a boil. Why don’t you head up to the bathroom and clean yourself up.” She smiled bashfully at Rarity, who managed to catch the subtext of Twilight’s words.
“Oh, I must look so awful! Thank you Twilight, I think I will.” She got off the couch and trotted a few steps before pausing and looking back at Twilight with a question expression of her face. “Oh I’m terribly sorry Twilight, but could you perhaps direct me?” she trailed off, smiling weakly.
“Top of the stairs, first door on the right.” She told Rarity, and the mare gave her a grateful nod before turning back to follow Twilight’s directions. She watched Rarity walk up the staircase, and once again wondered about what she was going to do about this.
Twilight started to think about what the Princess would do in situation, before deciding that she would probably give her a stern lecture on the importance of friendship, and then list off one of her “Rules” that was appropriate for the situation. She giggled to herself at the small in-joke, but was quickly broken from her thoughts by a shrill scream coming from the upstairs.
Rarity had just seen her reflection, it seemed.
A few minutes of running water and muffled swearing later, the mare came down the stairs. Twilight was always amazed at how little effort Rarity seemed to have to put into her appearance, because even by just wiping off the smeared mascara and eyeliner, and brushing her hair, the mare was back to her usual stunning self.
The sharp whistle of the teakettle rang just as Rarity reached the bottom stair, and Twilight brushed past her into the kitchen to silence its screams. She poured the water into two old, but much loved, mugs and then followed it with matching bags of tea and a couple small shots of cream. She had almost gone back into the main room when she remembered Rarity’s taste in tea, and turned back to add a couple a large scoops of sugar to the mare’s mug. For all her attempts to act like a high class socialite, Rarity’s middle class upbringing by two confectioners did show through time to time, and the mare had the biggest sweet tooth of anypony Twilight had ever met, short of Pinkie Pie.
She made sure to remember which mug had the sugar in it, and turned back to float them into the living room. Rarity was already lounging in an overstuffed and slightly holey armchair just across from the couch, and Twilight set her mug down on the chair’s accompanying end table. She then made her way over to the couch and slumped down with her mug floating safely beside her hooves.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Twilight.” Rarity told her, and Twilight could still hear the slight strain in her voice. “I didn’t know where to turn, I would normally go to Fluttershy with things like this, but I haven’t seen her in a week, and could you imagine talking to Rainbow, or… or..” she shuttered slightly, “Applejack.”
Twilight nodded, those two weren’t known for their emotional sensitivity, and gave the other mare a cheerful smile, “I’m just glad I can help, everypony needs a shoulder to cry on now and again.”
Rarity sniffed and smiled back at her, before sitting up and looking around the library warily.
“Um, Twilight? Is Spike here? I don’t think I could stand for him to see me like this.” She asked while wiping away tears from her watering eyes. Twilight froze, before falling back onto their agreed cover story.
“No he’s… on Royal Business.” She divulged hesitantly.
“Again?” Rarity exclaimed. “That’s the third time this month. I hope the Princess find somepony else as useful as him before she runs him into the ground.”
“R-Right.” Twilight agreed and smiled weakly.
***
Spike lay tensed in the bushes, watching the boar scan the clearing wearily. He had tracked silently for most of the night and every instinct he had was screaming at him to pounce and finish it, but if he attacked now the boar would still be able to flee back into the woods. A memory, one of his oldest, stood out in his mind.
‘Now remember Spike, patience is the key to all things, but especially so with hunting. If you move on your first impulse and attack when your prey is still wary then it will flee before you can kill it; but if you wait until it is relaxed and confident that there are no threats, then you will be able to slay it with no trouble.’
Spike smiled as Princess Celestia’s words floated to the forefront of his mind. It had taken a long time for him to learn that lesson.
The boar began to lower its head to the grass and Spike tensed, but still didn’t spring. He waited until its eyes stopped casting around the clearing and it began to focus fully on rooting through the weave of roots that littered the forest floor. It shuffled around for a little while, and then turned to pull out a particularly difficult acorn that was lodged in between a fallen tree branch and an half covered stone.
Spike leapt, flying from his cover behind the tree line and onto the boars back, sinking in his claws in a desperate attempt to gain purchase.
Princess Celestia stared at the mangled rabbit corpse and then turned to face the baby dragon, whose mouth and nose were still smeared with blood. Her face was stern as she said, ‘It is important that you kill your prey quickly and painlessly. You do not play with it, and you do not torment it. It is giving its life so that yours may continue; pay it the respect it deserves and give it a painless death.’ Spike nodded bashfully as the Princess finished lecturing.
He latched himself onto the boar’s back and tried to get his teeth on its neck, a sure way for a quick kill, but the boar bucked back in a startled rage and threw Spike to the ground, leaving the dragon sprawling and the boar with deep gashes in its hide where his claws had been wrenched out. It swung around to face him almost instantly and pawed at the ground angrily, snorting from its muzzle. Spike pulled himself up and jumped to the side just as the boar charged at him; it tusks narrowly grazing his left arm.
Pain blossomed in his hand and arm and he could feel blood begin to drip from the wound. Anger begin to creep into his mind from the pain, but he threw it out. The Princess’ word’s again playing in his head.
‘Do not succumb to anger. It will make you act rashly and cause you to make mistakes. Instead maintain your calm and wait for your foe to slip because of its own rage. Remember Spike, patience is the key to all things.’
The boar was turning itself back around and beginning to charge at him once more. It held its blood flecked tusks low to the forest floor as it tried to gut him, but Spike held his ground and braced himself for the blow.
The boar rapidly closed the distance between them and brought its tusks up in a slashing motion as it neared Spike. Spike crouched and managed to catch the tusks with his claws just as the boar was about to hit him. Turning his body quickly, he shoved his shoulder under boar’s jaw and heaved it over his head, using its momentum to send it flying into a tree.
It squealed in pain and tried to get back to its feet, but Spike lunged to its throat. He grabbed the boar’s neck with his teeth and bit down as hard as he could, snapping the spine. The boar died instantly, and its head fell limp in Spike’s mouth. He rolled the boar over so he could get access to its underbelly and paused before he began.
‘You are not a monster Spike, just a predator. You do not kill for pleasure or sport, but instead because of need. When your prey dies, it gives itself to you, passing along its own life so that you may thrive. There is a harmony to this, and it is important to never undervalue your prey’s contribution to your life. Always thank them for their efforts.’
He closed his eyes and whispered a solemn vow of gratitude to the boar’s corpse, and continued with a small prayer for its speedy descent into the afterlife. The blessing finished, he opened his eyes and set them upon the corpse’s chest.
His stomach growled.
***
“… and then the pie fell on him.” Rarity laughed as she recounted one of her more recent adventures in dating. The mare had cheered up considerable in the last few hours, after Twilight had managed to steer the topic of conversation away from more volatile subjects, though to ones no less uncomfortable for the purple unicorn.
Twilight sighed. She enjoyed the stories of Rarity’s dates, but they reminded her of how much time she had spent studying magic and how little she had spent socializing with other ponies. Twilight had always envied Rarity’s ability to somehow just stumble across willing suitors. Hell, even Spike had a crush on her.
That last thought tickled at something in the back of her mind but Twilight ignored it as Rarity went into another drama filled tale. This one was about two stallions that were both trying to vie for her affections, and trying to equally hard to sabotage their competitor’s attempts as well.
Rarity, never one to leave a story underdramatized, was throwing up her hooves and acting out parts of the story. Her tale climaxed at the Hearts and Hooves Day dance in Fillydelphia, where both of the stallions tried to propose to her at the same time, and then wrecked the dance hall in the ensuing brawl.
Twilight chuckled; it was like the white mare lived a life straight out of those cheesy romance novels that Fluttershy read. Stretching back in the indent she had made from sitting in the old couch, Twilight idly glanced at the clock on top of the mantle.
And froze.
“and…” Rarity paused when she saw the look on Twilight’s face, “Twilight. Twilight, what’s wrong?”
It was late.
It was very late.
That would never be a problem, normally. But tonight wasn’t a normal night. It was a night when Spike went hunting, and that meant that when he got back, which would be any minute now if that hour hand was correct, he’d be covered in dirt and blood. Twilight paled at the thought of Rarity seeing him like that. Most ponies weren’t as accepting of Spike’s diet as she was, and Twilight could just imagine Rarity’s reaction to his carnivorism.
She turned back to the ivory mare and tried to smile, but ended up giving her a strained grimace. “Oh gee, look at the time. You should probably head back home and get your beauty sleep; you know how you are without it.” Twilight then began to usher Rarity towards the door. “It’s been so nice to talk to you; we need to do this more often. Are you free next Sa-Sunday?”
Rarity was baffled by Twilight’s sudden change in behavior. “Is something the matter dear? I’m so sorry if I’ve imposed. I hope I haven’t caused you any trouble.” She implored guiltily.
“Oh no,” Twilight explained with the strained expression still on her face and started to open the door with a glow of her horn, “It just very late and I have so many things to do tomorrow and…” Her hastily fabricated explanation ground to a halt as the door swung free of her telekinesis.
Spike stumbled through the doorway holding his left arm. “Twilight I’m back…” he called and then trailed off; seeing the two mares standing right in front of him.
Rarity screamed.
***
Twilight had managed to convince Spike to go clean himself up while she tried to calm down Rarity, who had begun to suffer a panic attack. She led the hyperventilating mare back to her seat and tried her best to calm her down.
“Rarity, it’s all right. Rarity. Rarity! RARITY!” The last scream made the white mare turn her focus back on Twilight. She was still shaking, but she got her breathing under control enough to talk.
“W-what h-happened to Spike?” she stammered, “There was so much blood. H-how did he get hurt?” She looked at Twilight with wide eyes and began to tear up again.
Once again Twilight wished she was better prepared for these situations, and considered her options. She could lie to Rarity and try and bluff her way through a poorly made explanation about the blood, or tell her the truth and deal with the fallout. Twilight frowned, neither of those choices sounded good.
'It is far better to tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, and stick to your convictions, than to weave a web of lies and lose yourself in the process.'
One of her mentor’s expressions came back to her, and made the Sun Goddess’ opinion on the matter clear; Celestia had never tolerated lying under any circumstances. Twilight made her decision, and tried to bolster up her courage for what was to come.
“Twilight! Shouldn’t we take him to the hospital! Oh Sweet Celestia! What if he’s going to die!” Rarity blurted out, verging onto another panic attack. Twilight hesitated, but then followed through with her decision, regretting every word she said.
“I don’t think that was his blood Rarity.”
Rarity looked confused, “Were else would it come from then Twilight? He looked like he was attacked by a wild animal!” She froze and then shouted, “Where is he, he needs our help!”
“I told him to go upstairs and clean himself off.” Twilight explained wearily; she was not looking forward to the rest of this conversation. “He’s fine. He always comes back like this.”
“Comes back from what?” Rarity asked hesitantly; her panic being replaced by confusion mixed with fear.
Twilight took a deep breath, and told her.
“From hunting.”
***
“WHAT!”
Spike winced at Rarity’s scream, but tried to ignore the rest of the conversation. He didn’t want to know what she was saying about him.
He sighed; he had known that any shot he had with Rarity would be a long one indeed, but now his chances with her had been completely and utterly destroyed. He sank down into the tub to block out the sounds coming from downstairs and tried to clear his mind by cleaning his scales. As he scrubbed off the coating of congealed blood and dirt that always managed to cake his skin after a successful hunt, Princess Celestia’s words sounded into his mind.
‘You must always wash yourself as quickly as possible after completing a hunt. It is very likely that you will be covered in blood; be it your prey’s or your own, and washing it away will allow you to both properly see the extent of any injuries you may have acquired and prevent infection from setting in...’ Celestia smiled as the blood soaked baby dragon splashed around in the tub. ‘Besides,’ she added with a chuckle, ‘I have heard that cleanliness is next to godliness.’
It took time to scrape off the coating of grime, and when he was finally finished the water in the bathtub was rose colored from the blood. He examined his arm and grimaced at the long jagged slash that ran from his wrist to his elbow. It had stopped bleeding, but still ached whenever he moved his arm, so he reached under the sink for bandages order to ‘properly assess and manage his wounds’.
Spike smiled as he applied some antibacterial lotion, followed with a little numbing cream, before finally wrapping himself with gauze. The Princess’ lessons may have been a little mechanical and repetitive, but the rules she had drilled into his head had saved him more than once, not to mention kept him from starving to death.
The conversation downstairs was growing in volume, and Spike glanced at the small clock that hung over the bathroom mirror. Twenty minutes had passed, give or take, since he had stumbled up here. And it didn’t sound like the mares’ discussion was going to stop any time soon. Or get any quieter.
Spike steadied himself and opened the bathroom door.
“He kills things Twilight. How is that safe? What’s to say that he won’t suddenly decide that ponies are ‘appropriate prey’ as you so eloquently put it!” Rarity was yelling and Twilight’s voice was raised to match.
“How dare you say that! Do you know what he’s been through? What the Princess put him through?! He has more self control than any pony I know!” Twilight furiously rebuked.
“Self Control? Self Control!? Have you forgotten what happened on his birthday?! He turned into a rampaging monster because of his self control!” Rarity pushed.
“That was an accident. Neither of us were prepared. The influx of gifts set off an emotion he’d never experienced before and it happened to cause a magically induced growth spurt.” Twilight’s voice lowered a bit from embarrassment.
“I just can’t believe you would hide something like this! Here I was thinking we were friends, when you’re harboring a flesh eating monster in our town!” Rarity had no intention of being quite, and her voice rang out throughout the house. She stomped angrily over to the door and flung it open hard enough to rattle the hinges, not even bothering to use magic.
“I’m leaving, and I’ll have you know that I will tell the rest of our friends about Spike’s habit.” Rarity proclaimed.
“Don’t you dare...” Twilight growled, and Rarity turned from the open doorway to look into Twilight’s eyes.
“They deserve to know.” Rarity stated flatly, her voice sharp enough to slice diamonds.
Twilight’s face hardened, but then she seemed to wilt. “Rarity… Rarity please, don’t tell them. Please, I’m asking you as a friend, don’t tell them.”
Rarity continued to glare at her, her mouth still set in a thin frown, so Twilight tried again, even softer. “Please Rarity, please don’t.” The mare implored, her eyes pleading.
The ivory unicorn held her gaze a moment longer; then looked down with a sigh. “Fine. I won’t tell them, as your friend. But they should know all the same.” She left the library as she finished; slamming the door behind her on the last word.
Twilight sagged in relief. That had gone horribly, but at least the news of Spike dietary habits wouldn’t be broadcast all across Ponyville. She went over and locked the door, but stiffened when she heard a sharp sound in the now silent house. The noise happened again, and Twilight followed it to the base of the stairs, where she could now here it more clearly. The mare drew closer, and then finally recognized it. Something she only heard perhaps three or four times before.
A crying dragon.
Twilight took the remaining stairs two at a time, and pushed passed the open bathroom door. Spike was sitting with his back against the tub, crying into his claws. He must have overheard, she realized, and then cursed Rarity as hard as she could under her breath, before rushing over to pull him into a big hug.
“Shh. Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.” She whispered too him, and felt his chest hitch against her arms.
“Sh-She hates me.” Spike choked, and buried his face into Twilight’s shoulder. Twilight rubbed his back and tried, for the third time that night, to find the right words.
“No she doesn’t. She’s your friend; she just needs time to… adjust.” Twilight tried to reassure him, but Spike just cried harder.
“Oh, Spike.” Twilight cursed Rarity again as she clutched the dragon to her chest, feeling him sob in her arms.
***
She held him for a while as he cried, doing her best to comfort him. After a long time of rocking him back and forth, Spike finally managed to wear himself out, and fell into an unsteady sleep against her chest. She wrapped his sleeping form in a light layer of magic, and then lifted him out of her lap and into the air next to her. Making sure he was still asleep, Twilight carried him across the hallway to their shared bedroom as quietly as she could; wincing at each squeak of protest the aging wood floor gave.
Twilight floated him into his basket, and pulled his blanket over him. He curled up instinctively in the tight confines of the wicker basket, and wrapped himself around until the tip of his tail rested just underneath his nose. As he shifted, his left arm pushed back the blanket, and revealed a tightly wound bandage. He must have been injured out in the forest, she realized.
Twilight grimaced, and cursed Rarity for what must have been the hundredth time that night; this time for distracting her from Spike’s injury. She scooted closer to his basket, and while moving ever so carefully so as not to wake him, she examined the bandage. It was wound carefully; each roll of the cloth covering the one before it enough to insure a tight binding, but still lose enough allowing mobility and unhampered circulation. Twilight smiled, it was done perfectly, just like the Princess had showed them.
She had always found those first aid exercises useless back then; just meaningless distractions from her lessons about magic. But then Spike had gotten too big to keep hunting rabbits in the Royal Gardens, and had needed to go elsewhere to find prey. At first in the Princess’ private reservation, just across the valley from the castle, where the largest thing around was a bear, but now he was hunting in the Everfree Forrest, which was home to things much more dangerous than a baby dragon. Twilight shivered at memories of the manticore and hydra, as well as the vague recollection of spending a night as a statue after meeting a cockatrice’s gaze.
Now it seemed like he couldn’t come back from a hunt without her having to break out the first aid kit and rusty medical knowledge. She just hoped he never got too injured, because she didn’t know what she would say if they had to take him to a hospital.
The chances for that were slim though, and Spike was careful. He had staked out his own territory in the forest, using some strange method predators used to determine ownership. She was fuzzy on the details, and Spike always seemed to hastily change the subject when she asked, but the Princess had known enough to tell him how. And regardless of how it happened, his claim to ownership of that thin strip of forest was enough to deter the nastiest of the creatures that lived inside the dark wood.
Movement from the basket broke her from her reverie and Twilight looked down to see Spike’s claws twitch and move sporadically, and the tip of his tale flitter back and forth under his nose. Suddenly his claws clenched on an unseen opponent, and Spike’s lips parted into a small snarl.
He was hunting in his sleep, she realized, and frowned as she watched him struggle with his claws against his assailant, followed by a slight twitch of his mouth that prompted a thin trail of smoke to rise from his nose. He was moving quite a lot, and Twilight started to worry that he would wake himself up. Thinking back to barely half an hour ago when he had been sobbing against her shoulder, Twilight decided that it would be far better for him to stay asleep and not think about Rarity or her declarations about him for a little while, so she tried a trick she had learned when he still small enough to sleep curled up in her lap.
Just as he began to start another fight with his invisible opponent, Twilight reached down and began to gently stroke the area behind his earfins, being sure not to press hard enough to wake him up. He tensed at her touch, claws freezing mid strike, but soon relaxed back into the basket as she gently rubbed him on the back of the head. After a few more minutes of careful scratching, she was rewarded with a deep rumbling in his chest, and he shifted his head to the side to provide better access. Twilight kept going a little longer, then carefully extracted her hoof and stood back from the basket. His body was still now, and the only sign of life was the rhythmic motion of his chest, followed by the remnants of his low purrs.
She smiled at him, and made her way to the small bed under the window. Twilight paused before slipping into her bed and looked out onto the moonlit streets of Ponyville. They were empty and almost desolate compared to their regular boisterous traffic, but her imagination filled them with rioters and angry citizens, here to drive out the “evil dragon”. Twilight shook her head and looked away, pulling the blinds shut with a burst of magic. Rarity would keep her promise, she thought, there was no reason to worry.
She hoped.
Accidents
“Tell me Twilight, do you know what Harmony is?”
“Princess?”
“Harmony, Twilight. What do you think it is?”
“What brought this up milady?”
“Oh, just an old mare’s idle curiosity. Now do please indulge me; what do you think Harmony is?”
“Um, okay… its, just a description of peace and prosperity, right…? I could look into some more comprehensive definitions back at the library if you… did I say something funny?”
“No my student, I should not have laughed, but it would do you some good to get your nose out of those dusty old books every now and then.”
“I’m sorry, Princess.”
“Don’t apologize Twilight. Your thirst for knowledge is never a bad thing, just… a little unbalanced. Which brings me back rather nicely to my original point. You truly think Harmony is just a word on a page? A description in a book?”
“Um… Yes?”
“Then scoot closer my little pony, and listen well, for what I am about to tell you may very well be the most important lesson you will ever learn from me… Now Harmony is the most basic- Put that notebook away, Twilight, you won’t be tested on this. Just listen.”
“Sorry Princess.”
“Alright… now as I was saying, Harmony is far more than just a loquacious synonym for peace, it is the most basic aspect of-SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
“Aaauugh!!” Twilight screamed as she bolted up in bed.
A shrill piercing noise was echoing through the library, and reverberating throughout the wooden walls into the small bed’s wooden frame. She took a few deep breaths to clear away the shock, then flopped back down into her blankets and tried to shut out the shrieking sound with her pillow. It receded to a mildly annoying whine, and she was able to hear herself think for the first time that morning.
Despite her rather abrupt awakening, the mare was still mostly asleep, and almost managed to slip back into unconsciousness, despite the piercing wail. But just before she was taken back into the sandpony’s embrace, a stray thought fought to break free of the morning fog that clouded her mind.
Spike.
Something about Spike.
She shifted a hoof out of the bed and flopped it bonelessly towards his basket. Her hoof met wicker and cloth, but no scales. He must have gotten up already. Probably out in town or the forest or something.
Forest… Spike.
Something in the back of her brain was straining to make some unseen connection, but Twilight ignored it. She was so tired. She had obviously stayed up too late talking to Rarity and comforting Spike.
Rarity… Spike… Comforting…
A few seconds ticked by.
“Spike!” her head flew up from the bed for the second time that morning and she scrambled out of her blankets, now fully awake. The last night’s memories were playing in her head so vividly as she scrambled to the stairs that she didn’t even notice that the high pitched wailing had stopped. Twilight clamored down to the main level as fast as she could, and called for him again.
“SPIKE!”
“I’m in here.”
The answer came from the library’s rather small kitchen, and to Twilight’s relief, was no longer choked with sobs or tears. She hurried over to the saloon style doors that separated the kitchenette from the rest of the treehouse, and pushed them aside hastily.
He was standing over their old stove with the help of a chair and was holding a malformed teapot in one hand, and a mismatched pair of steaming mugs in the other.
“Are you okay? Why didn’t you wake me up? What was that noise?” she stopped to take a breath when something in particular caught her attention, “... and why is the teapot half-melted?”
Spike looked down at the melted kettle guiltily and set it and the mugs onto the counter gently before explaining, “I woke up a few minutes ago and I was going to wake you up too, but you looked so tired. So I decided to make us some tea for when you did get up.” He glanced down and scratched his head nervously, “And I may have gotten a little impatient at how long it was taking for the water to boil.” He looked up at her sheepishly and tried to manage a grin, but Twilight could see how red his eyes still were.
Oh Spike, she thought, you don’t have to act strong for me.
“Are you mad?” he asked hesitantly, and his voice cracked a little. Before he knew it, the dragon was being pulled into a hug by both purple hooves and magic.
“Why would I be mad?” she asked him reassuredly; and pulled back to look at him squarely. His eyes were wet again, but he sniffed and rubbed them clear with a claw.
“Because,” he stopped and took a deep breathe, and a well emotions that he had been bottling up since he fell asleep broke free, “…because I can’t even manage to heat up water without screwing up; and... and because, now… Rarity knows… she saw me Twilight… we’ll be chased out of Ponyville.” he sniffed again, and his eyes started to dampen.
She pulled him back into the hug and told him, “I’m the one that told Rarity, Spike. Not you. I‘m the reason she was at the library so late, and I’m the reason she knows now; so if anything, you should be mad at me. Are you mad at me?”
He pulled away and looked at her with wide eyes, and then shook his head furiously. “I trust you Twilight, if you thought that telling Rarity was the right thing to do; then it was. I could never be mad at you for that.”
Twilight sighed, and wished that she merited that sort of conviction. “But I don’t know if it was the right thing to do Spike. I just… didn’t know what to do, and she saw you come in and started panicking and I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I… told her the truth. At the time I thought she would be willing to look past the slant society has put on carnivorism, as a friend if nothing else; but apparently I was mistaken. I’m so sorry Spike; I’m sorry that I told her, and I understand if you’re mad at me.”
He looked down from her gaze, and seemed to be intently focusing on the wooden floorboards. After a few seconds he looked up her, and wiped his eyes dry with a clawed hand. As he looked at her, Twilight could see the worry in his face and the shadows under his eyes, but Spike just smiled and said, “I could never be mad at you Twilight. If Rarity’s mad then we’ll deal with it right? And if she tells Ponyville, then we’ll deal with that too. I don’t blame you for telling her.”
A weight seemed to drop of her shoulders, and Twilight let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding in. He wasn’t mad. She hadn’t appreciated how anxious she had been, but now that she had gotten that of her chest, she was almost giddy with relief. “We can handle anything they throw at us Spike.” She told him with a confident grin, and he matched hers with his own. The tension drained out of the room and, for right now at least, it felt like a normal morning.
Apart from one thing.
Twilight turned her head back to the counters and stove and asked wryly, “So… what made you decide to melt our teapot?”
He blushed visibly at the question, and led her back to the counter where a squat and heavy “I Heart Eggheads” mug sat steaming next to its old and chipped “Number 1 Assistant” counterpart. Next to them, the cooling teapot rested on the stove, still too hot to be put on the counters. The spout had spiraled over to one side and a large portion of the metal wall had caved inward, but there were no holes in the body, and the spout was still clear enough to pour water out of.
“Um…” he started, and Twilight was pleased to hear that the shakiness had left his voice. “Well, I wanted to surprise you when you got up, and I figured that since you’re normally up at the crack of dawn, that it wouldn’t be much longer till you woke up. So I decided to try and make some tea, but the stovetop was so slow. I mean it had been five whole minutes and there was barely any steam, so I… gave it a helping hoof.” He looked at her sheepishly.
Twilight gave him a rather knowing look, and then bent to examine the drooping piece of kitchenware. “Well, it doesn’t seem to have lost any structural integrity, amazingly enough. It should still work just fine even with the… current modifications. I guess we’ll just have a rather eccentric looking teapot from now on.”
Twilight started to go on, but was caught unawares by a deep yawn. She cracked her jaw and let out a deep groan. The mare blinked heavily when she regained control of her facial muscles, and was struck by how tired she felt now that the excitement was over.
“You said you made tea, right,” She asked and gestured over to the mugs on the countertop. “Which one's mine?”
Spike handed her the “I Heart Eggheads” mug that she had taken with them from Canterlot, and Twilight wrapped it in a field of magic and pulled it up to her mouth. Before the mare took a sip, she sniffed the contents warily, and asked, “And you-“
Spike rolled his eyes and cut her off, “Cream, no sugar, yeah. Come on Twi, I’ve watched you make your tea for years.” He smirked at her wryly, before picking up his own Number 1 Assistant mug.
The sat down at the kitchen’s small wooden table and drank quietly for several minutes. There was no need for small talk, they had lived together long enough that the need for conversation to fill the void of silence had long since passed. So they drank soundlessly but for a few slurps courtesy of Spike, and just enjoyed each other’s company.
Twilight took the opportunity to fully process the events of the last half a day. There was no mob of enraged villager pounding on the door, so Rarity must not have told anypony… yet. The mare’s emotions had been frayed since before she had walked through the library door; perhaps her actions last night were just the scared reactions of an emotionally worn pony. Speculation was a pointless exercise though, and Twilight was starting to wish that she knew her alabaster friend a little more.
Out of all her fellow Elements, she easily spent the least amount of time with Rarity, and really only saw her when everypony was getting together to do something as a group. She had planned parties with Pinkie Pie, gathered medicinal herbs in the forest with Fluttershy, bonded with Rainbow over Daring Doo books, and even helped Applejack organize her latest family reunion. But Twilight never really cared much for fashion, and Rarity wasn’t one for books or magical theory, and those two things seemed to create just enough of a buffer to keep the mares apart. And now Twilight was realizing that she really didn’t know what that mare was going to do in a situation like this.
Something in the back of her mind was bothering her; a vague thought that she couldn’t quite get a hold of. Something about Spike.
She looked at him while he drank his tea. He looked peaceful, which made her happy, and seemed to be enjoying what he was drinking, though Twilight was sure he could have eaten his mug and been just as pleased. Dragon taste buds didn’t discriminate.
She felt like she was missing something obvious, and examined him again more thoroughly. He was still a little scratched up from the previous night, and seemed to still be favoring his left arm.
“Spike” she said suddenly, and he looked up at her questioningly, “You’re not wearing your bandage.”
The jagged cut that ran the length of his forearm was unadorned, but had scabbed up nicely during the night and wasn’t bleeding anymore. It looked like it would turn into a rather ugly scar, though Spike would only have to wear it until the next time he shed his skin.
He looked down at his arm and nodded, “Yeah, it stopped bleeding last night, but I wrapped it up anyway to be safe. When I woke up this morning it was itching like crazy so I took off the gauze and it seems to be fine. Still a little sore though.” He flexed his elbow and wrist to demonstrate, and winced a little.
“How’d you get it?” Twilight asked, since she had never had the opportunity to learn last night.
“A boar stumbled into my section of the woods, and I…” he trailed off and shrugged, “…you know… It put up a bit of a fight.”
She grimaced and tried not to imagine him fight a boar that had probably been twice as large as he was. “I wish you wouldn’t go after things bigger than you are, Spike.”
“I know, Twilight. I try not to, but it seems like I just can’t get full on birds and rabbits anymore.” He sighed and looked away, but turned back smirking, “But it’s not like I’m fighting manticores or anything… or a hydra… or wandering into a cockatrice’s nest… or-”
“Alright! Alright!” She held up her hooves and exclaimed, “I admit I haven’t been a sterling example of wise decisions when it comes to the Everfree Forest, but Spike… just please try to be careful. I don’t want you to end up hurt again.” Or worse, she thought.
“I’ll be careful Twilight.” He told her with that same wry grin, and Twilight felt a little irritated that he wasn’t taking this seriously.
“Promise me Spike. Please.”
He looked a little taken aback by her words, and the air of sarcasm slipped away completely from his face.
“I promise.”
***
Rarity had not slept well.
She spent the night tossing and turning beneath her piles of blankets and pillows, but was never able to get comfortable enough to sleep. Memories of her conversation with Twilight kept floating back to her, mixed with half-forgotten parental warnings from her childhood and the words of her history teachers back at the university.
“Remember children:
‘Claws and Fangs; run away,
Hooves and Manes are okay.’”
“Never approach a predator.”
“He’s perfectly safe!”
“Equestria was carved out of this hostile world to provide a sanctuary from the creatures outside our borders. We may devolve to infighting every now and then, but we Equestrians have not known the true horrors of the world in a very long time.”
“The Princess taught him herself.”
“Mindless beasts live out in the old world. They would kill any one of you in an instant and not feel a single flicker of remorse.”
“He only hunts Acceptable Prey; never ponies. Spike likes Ponies”
“…predator…”
“…monster…”
“Spike.”
Her insomniatic mind was a flurry of different emotions. Part of her was still trying to reconcile her mental image of Spike with the countless warnings about predators she had been given since she was a filly. Another, more bitter, part of her was still reeling from the fact that Twilight had kept something like this a secret from her; from her friends. She thought she could trust the other mare, but something like this was… inexcusable.
The last part of her that was trying to sort through her current mess was sending her slight twinges of guilt, but she quickly stamped those feelings out with her sense of betrayal, and any of a countless number of warnings about the dangers of “meat eaters”.
Knock Knock Knock
Rarity jumped at the sudden noise, and considered ignoring it to continue to try and sleep. But it came again, and louder than the first time, and she could hear her name being called through the shield of pillows she was holding over her head.
She gave an exasperated sigh, and started the long process that was climbing out of bed. As she pulled herself out of the cocoon of tightly folded sheets, she could hear her name being called again, and was able to make out a distinct country twang in the yell.
Applejack, then.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
“Coming!” she called, and decided against taking the time to brush herself up in the bathroom. That mare could be destructively impatient sometimes. She half fell down the stairs that led from her bedroom down to the boutique’s parlor, and hurried over to the door.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNO-
Rarity pulled the door open just as it started to rattle on its hinges, and was met by an orange hoof halfway through the motion of colliding with the door. It stopped just short of her horn, and pulled back to let Rarity focus on the ponies standing in her doorway. Applejack stood just on the front step, and was followed by Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Bell who were all standing a good ways back from the mare. None of the fillies were talking.
“Howdy Rarity!” came the country twang of her farmer friend, though in a strained tone that sounded like someone was abusing a banjo. “Ah’ve just come to return your- Damn girl, yah look straight awful. What’s riled ya up so much that’d make ya let yourself look so disagreeable?”
“What?” she asked in a befuddled haze.
“Ain’t ya seen yourself Rarity? Here, look.” Applejack told her and then angled the open door so she could get a glimpse of her reflection in its glass window. It took her a few seconds to realize that the hazy mass of purple she was seeing was her hair.
Rarity winced, and took a step back from the doorway to keep passersby from seeing her in this state. The blurred image in the door only showed the vague shape of her new hair style, but it seemed to have decided to revert to a style that hadn’t been popular for a least three decades. She ran a hoof through it in a halfhearted attempt to get the locks to stand down, but gave up when she made no headway. She was starting to regret not stopping in the bathroom on the way down.
“Ya’ll right Rarity? Ah ain’t seen ya lookin’ this upset since the Gala.”
She had almost launched into one of her well-worn deflections about bad hair days and too much humidity, when something stopped her.
She could tell Applejack.
Right now.
Just tell her everything and let the other mare sort it out. The farmer had been raised on the outskirts of Equestrian territory by a family of pioneers; if anyone knew the dangers of predators it would be her.
The ivory mare opened her mouth, and started to explain, “Actually, I think there’s something you should-”
“Rarity please, don’t tell them. Please, I’m asking you as a friend, don’t tell them.”
The memory of Twilight’s desperate plea made her words catch in her throat, and she closed her mouth with a click. She had promised. Promised as Twilight’s friend. If she told Applejack, the mare would bring down the whole town on the purple librarian and her assistant. A large part of her wanted to tell her anyway, but the memory of Twilight’s beseeching expression kept her mouth closed.
Rarity leaned on the door frame and rubbed her forehead, trying to stave off a blossoming migraine. “…never mind Applejack, I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
Applejack looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but eventually shrugged her shoulders and said, “If yah say so sugarcube. Just remember that if yah do decide ta tell me, Ah’ll be listenin’.” Applejack told her with a touch of worry in her voice. The orange mare turned back to face the three fillies behind her, and gestured at Sweetie Bell to come up.
“Well anyway, like Ah was sayin, Ah’ve come by ta return your sister early. It appears that Applebloom and her friends took it upon themselves to give carpentry a hoof, and their attempts have left quite the sizable hole in the far side of the sheep pen. An opportunity that did not go unnoticed by the sheep, Ah might add.”
The implications of Applejack’s words hit her, and Rarity turned to her younger sister. “Sweetie Bell!”, and was taking a deep breath with the intention of giving her little sister a strongly worded dressing down before she was cut off by the orange mare.
“Now, now, now need to be all harsh with the filly. Ah know full well that this was Applebloom’s idea. Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo ain’t the type of pony that’d suggest destroying another creature’s property.” Applejack turned to look back at her sister, who appeared to be trying to glare a hole in the ground. Applejack continued without noticing, or in spite of, her sister’s attitude.
“Which means that after she helps me round up all the lost sheep, an since she’s so interested, Applebloom’s going to get some one-on-one lessons on carpentry, which she will then utilize to maintain the rest o’ the farm’s fencin’ until a time Ah deem appropriate for her ta stop.” The yellow filly winced at the prophesized workload, and decided to try and speak up.
“But Applejack,” Applebloom started; and Rarity could see Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo shaking their heads at the other filly and making swiping motions across their throats from behind Applejack’s back. “Ah told you, it was like that when we got there. We brought the tools from the barn so we could fix it, but yah found us too soon…” she trailed off whith a whine, and her words just seemed to make Applejack irritated, because the mare rounded on her little sister as soon as she was done.
“Missy, ya’ll are in enough trouble already without tryin’ to fib your way out of it. That fence was taken apart; amateurishly Ah’ll admit, but not destroyed or broken into or out of. And you’re tryin’ to tell me that you just found it disassembled as it was, and then just happened to go get the tools required for such an endeavor, right before Ah found you.” It was not a question, and Applejack’s tone left no room for a rebuttal.
The small filly cowered under her sister’s words, and backed away with her head to the ground to where her friends could offer consolidating pats on the back, and barely heard whispers of “I told you so”.
Applejack turned back to Rarity and rolled her eyes before saying, “Well, Ah gotta get Scootaloo home, so Ah guess this where we part. It was nice to see ya Rarity, and if ya change your mind about telling me that, Ah’ll be at the farm.” The orange pony ushered Sweetie Bell from her place at Applebloom’s side to the boutique’s door and set off with a “Come on you two” to the other fillies.
Rarity watched the solemn trio walk away, and then pulled her sister into the parlor. She turned to the filly once she had shut the door, and leveled her with the best disappointed look she could manage. “I hope you have some sort of explanation for this.” She told the filly. Rarity’s migraine was starting to come on in full force, and she hoped her words and expression would quail the girl enough that she would go to her room without much fuss. What she didn’t expect was for Sweetie Bell to burst like a dam and start to expel out a rushed explanation.
“But Rarity, Applebloom was telling the truth. We really did find the fence all taken apart like that, and then Applebloom suggested that we could fix it and see if we could get our Cutie Marks at the same time so she got the tools from the barn but right when we were about to start Applejack arrived and she saw the hole and the empty pen and…” The words came out in a single breath, and Sweetie Bell had to stop her hurried monologue to refill her lungs, so Rarity took the opportunity to head her off.
“Sweetie, I’d love to believe that, I really would. But if Applejack could tell that Applebloom wasn’t telling the truth, how can I trust this from you? You shouldn’t lie to cover your friends. Now please just go to your room.” She was definitely getting a migraine. The little filly scowled at her, and then opened her mouth to continue, but Rarity cut her off.
“Sweetie Bell…” she warned, and the filly glared at her before letting out a frustrated scream, and started trudging up the stairs to her room. Rarity could hear her muttering all sorts of things under her breathe, but did her best to ignore them. For her headache if nothing else; Spike and Twilight were problem enough without the colorful vocabulary of a vandalizing sister to worry about.
Rarity sighed in relief when she heard Sweetie’s door slam shut, and for not the first time that week, wondered where Fluttershy had gotten to. She was always willing to lend Rarity an ear in trying times.
The ivory mare slumped down onto her chaise lounge and put her head in her hooves.
She really needed to talk to somepony.
