“STARLIIIIIIIGHT!”
Starlight Glimmer’s eyes shot open, despite the soothing allure of her mattress attempting to pull her back into her dream world, but before she had the chance to fall back asleep, the door to her bedroom swung open, revealing a purple alicorn in the doorway. “Twilight?” the unicorn said, groggily lifting herself from her bed with a yawn. “What’s the matter? Is the honey on fire again?”
“It’s the map, Starlight! It’s something I’ve never seen before!”
As soon as she heard that the map was involved, her attention focused, waking her up enough to finally concentrate on Twilight’s words. “What do you mean? Does it look bad?”
“Come with me. I’ll show you exactly what I’m talking about.” Starlight then jumped out of bed and galloped to the throne room with Twilight, where the map stood displaying all of Equestria in the center of the room. Once the two ponies arrived, they saw that the map was calling somepony's cutie mark to a friendship mission, but there were two things that were odd about this specific circumstance. “It looks like there’s a friendship problem right here in Ponyville!”
Starlight looked at the map closely, and sure enough, there was no mistaking that whatever friendship problem was going on was happening right under their noses. As Starlight squinted her eyes to see whose cutie mark was being called, though, she noticed that it was somepony that the map had never summoned before, but there was still something fishy about it…
“I don’t even know whose cutie mark that’s supposed to be!” Twilight exclaimed, motioning to the feather and hearts cutie mark circling above Ponyville. “What am I supposed to do now? I can’t very well send somepony on a friendship quest if I don’t even know who the map is supposed to be calling!”
“Wait… I’ve seen that cutie mark somewhere before…”
“You have?! It’s one I’ve never seen, and I’ve met just about everypony who lives even close to Ponyville.”
“Then maybe this pony doesn’t live close to Ponyville.” As soon as the words escaped her lips, her eyes went wide. If she had seen this cutie mark somewhere outside of Ponyville, there was only one logical place where this pony could be, and suddenly, the memories came swarming back all at once. “FEATHER BANGS?!”
“You know who this cutie mark belongs to?! Wait, who’s Feather Bangs?”
Starlight Glimmer took another long look just to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, but the longer she stared, the more confident she became that she was right. “Feather Bangs was a pony who lived in my old village. He said that he was so tired of competing for love that he wanted to be just as equal as everypony else. That was a long time ago, though.”
“Do you think he’s still there?”
“Maybe,” Starlight said with a shrug. “I don’t exactly know anypony who’s left the village besides me.”
“Then we have to go there now! He’s probably just as confused as we are.”
After a long train ride and a trek through various elements in the wilderness, the two ponies finally made it to a small village stretched out along a single road. The ponies all seemed to be busy and bustling outside on their one stretch of land, which meant that it shouldn’t be too difficult to find wherever this Feather Bangs guy was.
“Point him out if you see him,” Twilight said, staring at a unicorn's flank before the pony turned around with a glare, making her chuckle awkwardly.
“Actually,” Starlight replied, “why don’t I just ask?” Of course, seeing as how Starlight knew everypony in the village, it wouldn't be difficult for her to ask around until somepony eventually knew where he was. The unicorn then trotted over to an old friend of hers, a white earth pony with a silver mane, sitting at a nearby table while reading his newspaper and gleefully said, “Hey, Double Diamond!”
Upon hearing his name, the stallion put down his paper, glanced over to his side and smiled a large grin. “Hey, Starlight! Welcome back to the village! Did you need help with anything?”
“Actually, would you be able to tell me where Feather Bangs is?”
Double Diamond’s smile faded into a confused stare. “What did you need him for?”
“Oh, it’s a long story. Do you know where he is?”
Without saying a word, Double Diamond pointed to the edge of the road where a tan earth pony with a beautiful mane juggled three balls in front of three very entranced mares, and sure enough, his cutie mark was also glowing across his body, signaling that they had found the exact pony they were looking for.
“You know, I can’t tell what’s more thrilling,” the stallion began, “the pressure to keep these balls from falling, or the pressure to keep myself from falling in love with you.” The three girls all swooned themselves to the ground, but as soon as he turned his head, he began to see out the corner of his eye two familiar mares approaching. “Starlight Glimmer! It’s so good to see a beautiful new face around here.” Feather Bangs then caught all of his balls with one hoof while he used the other to bring Starlight’s hoof into a kiss. “And my, oh my! If it isn’t the princess of friendship herself! Has anypony ever told you that you look even more regal up close?”
Starlight quickly yanked her hoof away, waving the germs off as best she could as Twilight took a step back, just in case the germs were contagious. “Hello, Feather Bangs,” Starlight said. “It’s… nice to see you haven’t changed…”
“Oh, but you most certainly have!”
“Yep. I’m a good guy now!”
“Oh, sure, that may be the first thing you think of, but when I see you, all I can think about is how much prettier you get after every passing day.”
Both mares cringed, nudging to the other that they didn’t want to be the one to take the lead, but after several awkward moments, Twilight took a step forward, doing her best to smile. “Soooo! I’m sure you must have noticed by now that your cutie mark is glowing.”
“I think I may have seen a reflection of it in your eyes, or do they always sparkle like that? Ha ha.”
Twilight groaned, smacking her hoof to her face. “What I think Twilight is trying to say,” Starlight said, taking over momentarily for Twilight, “is that we think we might know why it’s doing that.”
“I’m not surprised that it’s the connection that leads me straight to you adorable young ladies.”
“Alright! We’re pretty! We get it!” Twilight exclaimed in frustration, suddenly looking around to see all the ponies around her silently judging her. “I mean--that’s not what I was trying to--I’m not saying we’re pr--”
“Basically what Twilight is saying is that you need to come with us,” Starlight intervened before Twilight could say anything further to embarrass them. “And also no talking on the way there."
"Wait... you mean I can't talk at all?"
Starlight quickly glanced over to Twilight. She was mouthing the word no. "It’s for friendship.”
With a shrug, the stallion followed them on their way back to Ponyville, still unsure of what he was getting himself into or why some map was calling him in the first place.
Feather Bangs stuck to his word and did not speak the entire way back, although neither Starlight nor Twilight were exactly thrilled about his three groupies tagging along and gushing over him during the entire train ride back home. Now that they were back in Ponyville, though, the only task left was to find out whoever was having a friendship problem and let Feather Bangs work his magic… whatever that was. Luckily for them, however, as soon as they passed by Carousel Boutique on the way back to the castle, they saw Spike walking out and slamming the door, steam practically sizzling from his scales as he marched away.
“Spike?” Twilight said, approaching the dragon. “Are you OK?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Spike replied, never making eye contact with any of the ponies around him. “I just wanna go home.”
“Did something happen over at Rarity’s?”
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it!”
Twilight flinched from the dragon’s fiery attitude, but rather than follow him, she let Spike trudge his way back home, turning instead to Starlight for guidance. “You don’t think…?” Starlight began, raising an eyebrow.
“What? I don’t think what?”
Starlight then quickly moved over to Twilight’s ear, covering her mouth so that nopony around her could read her lips. “You don’t think that Spike is the one with the friendship problem, do you?”
“What? That’s ridiculous! If Spike had a friendship problem, certainly I would be able to fix it, right? Right?” Twilight then began to laugh uncharacteristically, snorting betwixt her boisterous chuckles, trying to convince herself that it wasn’t true, but after receiving weird looks from Starlight and the others, she just had to make sure. Zooming over to her dragon assistant, she said, “You know what? This may sound crazy. I don’t even know why I’m asking this. Morbid curiosity I guess! Heh heh heh… You and Rarity are still friends, right?”
“No.”
“...OK! Great talk there, Spike! I’ll see you back at the castle.” After allowing the dragon to make a little distance and giving the other ponies a chance to catch up, Twilight groaned loudly. “I think the map is just here to torment me.”
“Why the long face, princess?” Feather Bangs asked, noticing Twilight’s dismay. “Is that dragon causing you any trouble? You know, saving princesses from terrifying dragons is actually a specialty of mine. Ha ha.” Again, the girls around him all swooned to the ground, and again, Twilight groaned while covering her face with her hooves.
“Actually,” Starlight intervened, saving Twilight before she had to speak any further, “I think that would be the perfect idea!”
“What?!” Twilight shouted, but before Twilight got any more frustrated, Starlight sent her a discreet wink.
Feather Bangs chuckled, flipping his mane to the side. “Ask no more, princess. I’ll get that taken care of for you, like the humble servant that I am.”
Twilight wanted to react, but she knew that whatever she would say was not only not helpful to the mission, but also not helpful for Spike. As Feather Bangs casually walked in the direction of the castle, Twilight hung her head to the ground and frowned, still upset that not only was she not able to help her friend in his time of need, but somepony like that was. With a sad eye turning up to Starlight, her friend patted her on the back as the two of them did their best to ignore the three mares passed out on the floor beside them.
A few minutes later, Feather Bangs finally arrived at the castle doors, allowing himself in and staring wide-eyed at the stunning surroundings of the interior. After a few minutes of searching around the massive corridors of the building, Feather Bangs finally found himself in the throne room, where Spike sat sadly on his throne with his head in his claws. Following the dragon’s eyes, the stallion then traced Spike's glance to his own cutie mark circling above Ponyville, and suddenly what the ladies had said about a map and some kind of friendship quest was finally beginning to make sense.
“What’s good, scales?” Feather Bangs said, taking a seat on Twilight’s seat and resting his hooves behind his head. “It sounded like you had some kind of bad run in earlier. Lemme guess. Lady problems?”
“What’s it to you?” Spike grumbled, lifting his head up and matching Feather Bangs’s gaze. “Speaking of which, who are you?”
“The name’s Feather Bangs,” the stallion replied holding out a hoof, which the dragon hesitantly shook. “I see this here map has sent me to take care of some kind of friendship problem, and that led me straight to you.” Spike folded his arms and looked away in frustration, confirming the pony’s theory even further. “Now what seems to be the problem, scales?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Feather Bangs smiled. “But this map here says you do, and if it summoned me, it means you probably need somepony’s help in the language of love.” The more Feather Bangs pushed, though, the more silent Spike became. “You can play the quiet game all you’d like, but the map here says you’re gonna spill the beans eventually.”
“Alright! Fine! It’s Rarity! I’m done being friends with Rarity!”
As soon as Spike had finished speaking, Feather Bangs wrapped his hoof around the dragon’s shoulders, bringing the two closer. “Now that’s what I wanted to hear! Hmm… Rarity, you said? I think I actually met that girl. White lady with the purple mane? Most beautiful thing you ever seen?”
“You got it.” Suddenly, Spike’s demeanor softened as his eyes turned into hearts. “She’s beautiful and charming and generous and--” As soon as Rarity’s qualities came to mind, though, his eyebrows furrowed with his earlier anger returning to his face. “--and totally self-absorbed! She doesn’t care about me at all! Even though I’ve been doing everything I can to get her to like me, she just falls in love with the next pretty boy that comes into her life!”
Feather Bangs chuckled, shaking his head. “Nothin’ worse than a self-absorbed pony, is there?”
“...You don’t realize the irony in what you just said, do you?”
“Don’t worry, scales! With a little one on one time, we’ll have that girl groveling at your feet in no time!”
Suddenly, Spike's eyes went wide with a smile forming on his face. “Wait, really?! You really think that you can get Rarity to like me?”
“No doubt. Now the first thing that a lady likes to see is confidence. The real question is, how confident can you be?”
Spike then put a finger to his mouth as he thought deeply of how to make himself more confident, but after a light bulb went off in his head, he quickly ran to a different room and came back with a full-length mirror. Immediately, he began doing bodybuilding poses, stretching the muscles in his biceps and quads while making awkward grunts with each new pose he transitioned into. “Oh, yeah!” he exclaimed. “How do you like that, Rarity? Do I look juicy enough for you? I haven’t even gotten to my triceps yet.”
“Actually, maybe you should work on being less confident. In fact, I want you to be the polar opposite of how confident you just were.”
“Huh? Oh, sure!” Spike then squeezed his green head spikes until they flattened down over his face like a mane, a mane that matched another one of his friends. “Excuse me, Rarity, but um, you wouldn’t mind, um, checking out my muscles, would you? If that’s OK.”
Feather Bangs slid his face into his hooves, much like he had seen Twilight doing earlier. He could see where she learned it from. “Let’s… just get away from your muscles for a bit, eh scales?”
“OK. What else did you have in mind?”
Later that day…
After Spike and Feather Bangs had spent lesson after lesson trying to improve Spike’s appeal with each one becoming less appealing than the last, Feather Bangs sought out the help of his three groupies, all of which swooned at the chance to be of service to their dream stallion. This time, they were all out in a field not too far off from the castle which had a beautiful view and romantic shades underneath the trees.
“Alright, scales. For this next one I’m gonna need a little bit of help.”
“I’m Spike, by the way.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell her.”
Spike then turned his head to see a gorgeous red mare with a mahogany mane curling over her ears and suddenly began blushing, his body becoming frozen solid as all the confidence drained from his body. With a gulp, he shakily held out a claw and said, “H-hi! My name’s Spike!”
“Hey, there,” the mare replied. “I’m Swoon Song.”
“Heh heh, yeah! Heh heh.” As Spike scratched the back of his neck in enchantment, he quickly turned to Feather Bangs, who swirled his hoof as if to tell Spike to keep going. “Anyway, *ahem* do… you like Ponyville so far?”
“It’s really big. I’m not really used to it yet.”
“Heh heh, yeah. Uh… you know what else is really big?” Spike then flexed his biceps and shoulders, making Swoon Song take a step back as she involuntarily cringed. “I haven’t even shown you my triceps yet.”
“Alright, stop!” Feather Bangs said, quickly intervening before Spike could scare her any further. “Maybe we should try somethin’ else.”
Spike, though, unable to read the emotions of the ponies around him, jumped on the tips of his toes. “Did I do good, Feather Bangs?”
“No, that was weird. Like, imagine a grown stallion watchin' a show for little girls.”
“Whoa. That is weird.” The dragon suddenly began to see the awkward expressions on everypony’s faces and immediately went red from embarrassment. “So, uh… where did I mess up on?”
With his own confidence beginning to wane, Feather Bangs put a hoof around the dragon’s shoulder to connect with him as best he could. “You know what? Why don’t you just start by tellin’ me where you two went wrong in the first place?”
The dragon then looked to the ground as unpleasant memories began to surface back into his mind. “Well, I was helping Rarity all day make dresses for this fashion contest in Baltimare.”
“OK.”
“Then when I finished, instead of telling me what a great job I did, she said how much her designs were gonna impress some hot new trend-setter in the fashion world, Cotton Guard. She just kept going on and on about how much she wanted to impress him, and after a while, I guess I just got angry and stormed out.”
“And this girl knows you like her?”
“Yeah, but…” Spike paused as the emotions all began to gather in his chest. “No matter what I do for her, it’s just never good enough!”
“Has she ever told you that she likes you too?”
“No…”
Feather Bangs smiled, finally realizing what he needed to say in order to help him with his friendship problem. “Then maybe she isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s you.”
“What?! I can’t believe you’d say that! I’ve been trying so hard to get her to like me!”
“But it doesn’t sound like she was trying to get you to like her. Here she was, tellin’ you, her friend, all about this guy she wanted to impress, and you up and left her! Don’t you think that’s a little cold?”
Spike wanted to interject, to tell this pony pretty boy that he wasn’t giving him enough credit, but sadly, as much as Spike wanted to disagree, he knew that Feather Bangs was right. “Maybe a little… but she knows I like her!”
“Lemme tell you somethin’, Spike. Back in my village, there was this girl that I was absolutely crazy about. Her name was Sugar Belle.”
“Wait.” Spike then pushed Feather Bangs’s hoof off of his shoulder as his eyebrow began to rise. “Sugar Belle? You had a crush on Sugar Belle?”
Feather Bangs suddenly shrank underneath his shoulders as the situation became that much more embarrassing. “You… know Sugar Belle?”
“Sure! She’s dating Big Mac right now! Wait… You lost to Big Mac?”
“Hold on now, scales! I wouldn’t exactly call it losing per se.”
“You got beat out by a country bumpkin who only knows two words?!” Without warning, Spike fell onto his back, holding onto his sides as he laughed voraciously, rocking back and forth in hilarity. Feather Bangs then anxiously looked behind him to see his three groupies glaring at him, knowing that they had tried impressing him just like Spike had tried impressing Rarity.
“Alright! Alright! Chill! Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is, she needs a friend right now, and you abandoned her.”
“But… can the two of us really be friends after I’ve liked her for so long?”
“Sugar Belle and I are still friends. It hurts at first, but the only thing stoppin’ you from beings friends is you.”
As soon as the message sunk in, however, Spike looked back to the ground, pulling his knees up to his chin as his demeanor changed from full of life to filled with gloom. “Does… that mean I’m just going to have to accept that Rarity is never going to like me?”
“Hold up, scales. That’s not necessarily true. Sometimes patience is a virtue.” Feather Bangs then made sure to look back at his fangirls and wink, causing them to fall back to the ground as they swooned helplessly again. “It does mean that you’re gonna have to apologize and not ask for anything in return for being a good friend from now on, though. You think you can do that?”
“Yeah, and who knows? Maybe after a while, she’ll actually start to return my feelings! It’s not like I have Big Mac competing with me or anything.”
“...Alright, now that one just hurt my feelings.”
Ignoring Feather Bangs’s emotions, the dragon confidently got back up to his feet and puffed out his chest, smiling eagerly as his self-esteem skyrocketed. “You’re right, Feather Bangs! Maybe I was being a little selfish there. Don’t worry, though! From here on out, I’m a new dragon, and if she still doesn’t like me after a while, I can always pull out my cannons.” Spike then flexed his muscles again, making Feather Bangs cover his eyes in discomfort.
“Please don’t ever do that again.”
Spike shrugged. “Meh. Whatever. See you, Feather Bangs! Thanks for all your help!”
As Spike took off towards Carousel Boutique, Feather Bangs wiped a cold sweat from his forehead, flipping his mane to the side and falling back onto the field of grass. No sooner had he done so, however, when his flank began to burn brightly, and upon looking down to his side, he saw that his cutie mark was flashing just like it had done back when the map had first called him to Ponyville.
“Oh, Feather Baaaaaangs,” a voice called out. Quickly lifting himself off the ground, Feather Bangs saw all three of his fangirls staring deviously at him, their eyebrows furrowed but their mouths curled upward in a mischievous grin. “You don’t still have feelings for Sugar Belle, riiiiight?”
Feather Bangs tried his best to smile, but as sweat poured violently down his face, all he could do was gulp. “Uhh… Did you ladies know that I can juggle?”
Author's Note
On the first day of Feather Bangs, Princess Cadence gave to me:
A Spike slice-of-life comedy.
