"Spike, youshould really get to bed."
"But I don't wanna!" Spike whined, kicking his feet into the couch. He was laying forward on it, a comic in his claw, its pages covering his face as he read. "Mane-iac just unleashed her special attack on the power ponies, and they're looking to be down for the count. If the city doesn't find some way to fight back fast, then it’s game over for good!”
Twilight sighed from where she stood at the library’s archway. She was unsure what to do, looking out of a nearby window to find the moon high up in the sky—it would be midnight soon.
She began to walk towards the couch. "Spike...you know that's just a comic book, right? That the city won't be destroyed if you stop reading it now."
"Oh yeah?" Spike said as he put down the comic, glaring at her from across the room, challenging her with his gaze. "Can't the same be said for the romance novel stashed underneath your pillow? For something that's just a book, you sure glee loud at night whenever the ponies kiss."
"Spike!"
He tilted his head. "Am I wrong?"
Twilight bit her lower lip. She looked around the room for anything to aid in her argument, but alas, she knew the dragon was right—she got the same enjoyment out of her novels as he did his comic books, and it would be unfair to criticize the other simply because she didn't 'getit’.
"No, I suppose not," Twilight said as she approached the couch, raising a hoof and rubbing into the scales of his scalp. He inched away in discomfort, clenching an eye shut. "You're starting to indulge in heavy reading, and your arguments are becoming a lot more direct." She removed her hoof, giggling as she did so. "Start being antisocial next and Celestia might take you as her next student."
"Har-har," Spike mocked, before his face became suddenly sad. "So, uh, I guess I gotta go to bed then?"
"Hmm." Twilight tilted her head in thought, before her shoulders came to shrug. "Nah." She looked back down at him. "Finish up your book, then it's straight to bed."
Twilight felt something smooth brush again the fur of her foreleg, and by the time looked to examine, she found two stubby arms wrapped around her leg, and a face pressed into her chest. Spike began to nuzzle, his snout ticking and causing her to laugh.
"Thank you Twilight," Spike said, holding onto tightly for a few moments longer. "I promise you won't regret it."
Twilight raised her free hoof to the back of his head, rubbing it once again. "Just make sure morning Spike keeps that promise, alright?"
She felt his snout brush up and down her chest. Twilight enjoyed the sensation, she always enjoyed it when it came to giving and receiving hugs, but when it came hugging Spike, the sensation was slightly different. Not better and not worse. Just different.
Twilight reflected on this as her hoof found its way down his back, rubbing his scales softly. Was that the cause for the difference in sensation: that out of all the creature's she hugged, Spike was the only one with scales? Logically, it made the most sense in her mind, but the feeling was not the same in her heart.
Why was Spike's embrace different from the rest?
"Oh! Um..." Spike's voice wafted up to Twilight's ears, and by the time she returned to the present, she could feel his arms sliding off her leg as he then sat up straight on the couch. "Guess that lasted a bit longer than it should have. Heh, my bad."
Twilight frowned. "Spike...you don't have to apologize for something like that."
He only nodded, his cheeks tinted pink. Twilight wanted to say more on the subject, but that hope was squished when his claws raised the comic once again, and his eyes began to scroll from section to section, slowly escaping reality and entering fiction.
Twilight frowned, turning around. "I'm going to finish baking some sweets for tomorrow, alright? If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen."
An absent-minded nod was her response. Twilight frowned even more, but there was nothing to be done about it, so she went forward, and did the only thing still within her power.
Horrible cooking.
"Is it supposed to be black?" Twilight muttered to herself, standing before the counter. Plates were set across the surface, each bearing something akin to charcoal, but masked in the facade of being edible. "I don't think they're supposed to be black."
Twilight’s horn lit in a purple glow, summoning a book atop the counter to before her muzzle; she flipped through the pages that spoke of treats. There were photos of cakes with sprinkles and brownies with hot fudge, making her stomach growl at just the sight, but when she floated the book back and looked upon her food again, her stomach settled itself immediately after that.
"...They're not supposed to be black."
Just like that, all the plates were collected in a large bubble of magic. Each plate floated through the kitchen like they were on an assembly line, dumping their contents once they reached the open garbage can, and floating back upside-down.
Once the line was clear and all the dishes in the sink, Twilight released a mighty sigh. The last hour, like most hours she spent inside a kitchen, had come to a total waste of time—funny, how, while she could alter time itself with a single spell, she could never bake hash-browns without setting them on fire.
"Spike will have to show me the ropes one of these days," she said to herself, digging a hoof into her neck, trying to get at a kink that simply wouldn't pop. "He's been cooking for me ever since he stopped wearing diapers. Surely—" she cracked her head left, finally feeling the kink pop; much to her bliss "—my hooves still stand a chance."
That thought made her blink. All her life, Twilight had someone to rely on for food. Her parents cooked her every meal at first, though sometimes Shining Armor would surprise her at school with lunch. By the time she'd moved into a place of her own, she had none of the skills required to make herself any food, except that which came already made. Thinking back, Twilight was glad to have Spike around—she didn't want to consider of how unhealthy she would have become without his proper meals.
Twilight sighed, turned around, and began to exit the kitchen, intent to the lobby once more. While she did so, she was also awash in thought and in memory—she couldn't pinpoint the exact time the little drake started cooking, only that it happened one day and kept repeating, and she came to expect it always to be like that. Thinking back, she always thanked him for her meals, a single sentence of praise, but she couldn't be sure she actually thanked him for all the years he's cooked for her.
She wondered if he came to expect the same out of himself. "He's certainly mature for his age..."
Twilight shook her head, but the try as she might, the flood of thoughts surrounding her assistant never ceased. A sense of guilt followed her out of the kitchen, one that she couldn’t hope to understand, only that it grew stronger the closer she drew to the living.
Any such thoughts of her assistant, however, were disturbed by the sound of distant snoring. Twilight turned the corner into the lobby of the library, where she was then greeted by the sight of her dragon sleep on the couch. His arm dangled off the sofa, the comic book still clutched in his claw.
“So much for retiring by himself,” Twilight said under her with a small giggle, before approaching the couch. She couldn’t suppress a smile. “Guess he’s still a bit of a kid after all.”
She reached a hoof towards his shoulder, but something stopped her inches away.
‘But for how long?’ a voice echoed in her mind, dark and direct. ‘He’s been a child, your child, for quite some time. But you’ve said it yourself: he’s mature for his age. Tell me, Twilight, just how many years together do you have left?‘
Twilight’s expression became conflicted; her gaze turned astray as she bit her bottom lip.
‘There’ll come a time he’ll be too big for your back,’ the voice hissed. “There’ll come a time he’ll grow to the size of this library, and not long after, the size of this very town. He’ll have to leave then, to be among his kind.’ Something giggled. ‘There’ll come a time he’ll no longer be your child.’
Twilight drew back her hoof to the floor. She stared at her little dragon as he slept, listening to the soft sounds escaping past his lips, watching his body twitch every so often. He looked so peaceful and childlike, so totally unaware of what was in store for him in the coming years.
‘All your life, you’ve had him to rely on,’ the voice began again; Twilight didn’t even try to silence it. ‘When your brother moved away, you held him close. When you left your parents, you brought him along. He’s your first friend, the one that’s always there, but just how long will his friendship last?’
Twilight stepped back from the couch, her eyes beginning to burn.
‘He’s helped you through your story,’ the voice said, ‘but soon he must embark to find his. To live among the dragons and perhaps find his parents, and you’ll never see him again once that happens. You’re going to lose him, Twilight, and when you do, you’ll lose yourself as well.’
She wanted to cry. To hide under the covers of her bed and ignore reality, but that would only make the voice louder. It would tell of the little time they had left and how she was wasting it away. How their routines would continue without any real show of affection of emotion. They would continue what they had until the day they couldn’t—the thought alone causing her to shiver.
Twilight lowered her head, hearing her tears pelt against the wooden floor.
“You wouldn't….you wouldn’t stand….you wouldn’t stand a chance anyway.” Twilight raised her head, looking in surprise at the couch. Spike shifted in his sleep, more words tumbling out from his lips. “...Twi...Twilight never loses...she’ll save the city...because she’ll always be there for me!”
Twilight stood with her mouth open, walking toward to the couch.
“...she’ll be there…because I love her…” He turned once more, facing the mare once again. “...and I think...deep down...she loves me as well...no matter what…”
When Twilight came before the couch, she couldn’t suppress the tears anymore as they leaked freely from her eyes. She cried and she cried, keeping them as whimpers as to not wake the dragon, brining her lips to his forehead, where she kissed him gently. She stayed like that, for a time unknown, transferring all love she possessed for him.
Spike smiled in his sleep.
Twilight pulled back, her horn igniting in magic. A purple aurora formed around the baby dragon as he was gently lifted into the air, then gliding onto her back, which he promptly snuggled into.
“I love you, Spike,” Twilight whispered to him, smiling as she did so. “You won’t be my baby forever, so it’s important we treasure whatever time we have left. But no matter what happens next, you’ll be my baby dragon, always.”
She then carried him to bed.
