Meeting & Misunderstanding
And speaking of which. My eyes turned to Spike with relief, happiness and hope, ignoring the snarls and groans of the imprisoned chimera behind us. "You don't know how happy I am to see you, brother." Starlight looked flummoxed, meanwhile, from the dragon being addressed as a sibling, followed by a warm embrace between myself and Spike.
Thank God. He was safe and sound. That's one down, and one more to go.
"Same bro. I was so worried about you, and Twilight!" Spike proceeded to explain. "When I landed in this strange new world, I ended up in somepony's attic! At first, a group of ponies who were having a slumber party, well one of them, Star, found and mistook me for a ghost or something! And they let me joined in the sleepover after the misunderstandings were clear, which was a blast, by the way. Get this, dragons are considered to be myths in this world! I was the talk of the entire sleepover! Those ponies I was defending just before were those exact friends I made! I should probably go and assure them everything's fine now. Oh! I can introduce you guys to them-!"
This explanation was about to get even longer, at least for him. The memories started flooding back to the previous night...
"Urgh... Wh... Where am I?" The young dragon asked himself, trying to scan the room he now found himself in. His vision was a little blurry from only just waking up. All he could tell was that it was dark, cold and breezy.
Initially, the first thought that came to mind, apart from his location, was the whereabouts and well-beings of his friends.
"St-Stardust? Twi...?" He asked, rubbing his head, then his eyes.
He soon mustered the strength to stand up, and got a better look at his surroundings.
"Let's see..." The dragon quietly muttered to himself. "It's cold, it's dark, it smells and nothing in here looks useful."
He wasn't wrong; everything in the room with him looked broken, empty, overfilled or used for holidays.
"It looks like I'm in some kind of storage, like a basement." He muttered to himself, before scurrying to a window he just spotted on top of a pile of boxes. When he got to the top, he saw the dark and stormy weather outside, and how high up he was doing so.
"Whoa. Make that an attic."
Hoping to get a better idea of his exact location, he put his claws to his eyes like binoculars and peered to the outside world. Trees, houses, roads, bushes and a couple of ponies holding umbrellas. This seemed like another version of Ponyville.
"Okay, let's see... How do I get out of here?" He asked, looking around the room again. He searched for a while, before looking back at the window and noticed a hitch on the side of it.
"Perfect!" He said loudly, before covering his mouth with his claws. Taking a brief look behind him, he took his claws away from his mouth and tried to open the lock on the window.
It took a little bit of a struggle, making it seem like this attic hadn't been used for a while.
"Come on... Come on." He grunted, as he tried harder and harder to undo the hitch, with it barely even moving an inch with each pull.
Fortunately, with one mighty pull, the one thing became undone, allowing the wind outside to blow the window wide open. Unfortunately, with the lock being undone, not only did it emanate a loud *SCCRREEEAAK*, but with the whole thing going at once, it caused Spike to let go of it and throw him off balance, combined with the window opening at full blast, knocking his in the torso.
"W-whoa!" He exclaimed, losing his balance and falling off the boxes and onto the floor, with the stacked crates going with him all at once.
Little did he know of the particular characters below him that heard the tumble.
Getting up off of the ground, he saw what he had just done and thought of the sound he must have made.
'... Oops.' Was the best he could think up. 'Hope nopony heard that. Or, if anyone, Stardust or Twilight; then I'd at least know they're here. I just hope that they can find me, before I get spotted by anyone els-'
*CREAK*
In an instant, Spike's blood froze at the sound of motion beneath him. With no idea of where he was, the thought came to mind that literally anything could be approaching him right now.
*Trot Thud Trot*
Something was creaking beneath him, under the ground he stood on. Sounding like someone was moving, possibly to another room or maybe even trying to get up here using the...
"Stairs!" He quietly exclaimed to himself when he saw his possible escape. A wave of relief began to form inside of him, as he jumped to the square opening. "Thank Celestia! Now hopefully I can find Twilight and Stardust, or heck, I'll even be relived to see Starli-"
Quickly, he slammed his claws over his mouth upon seeing what could potentially be either a salvation or a threat:
Light.
More specifically, a flashlight, shining in his direction. And judging by the faint noise that came with it, and the way it was shaking and getting closer, it was fair to say that it wasn't just a magical light that the spirit of the banshee possessed who just decided to bestow him with a visit.
No, someone's coming up here.
'I gotta get outta sight, FAST!' The young dragon thought to himself, before scurrying off towards the attic to hide.
Time was running out fast, and he had to think faster. After a millisecond of panic, he found a suitable little box titled on its side.
'Perfect!' He thought, diving into the wooden crate and burying his body inside. And it was just in time too; the light was now inside of the attic, scanning the place.
But more importantly, at least for him, so was the thing casting it. The unmistakable sound of hoofsteps echoed slightly in the cold loft. A pony was in here.
... Was his initial thought. The sound of the steps was over-consistent for a single pony to make; they weren't alone up here.
'There's two of them?' He thought, now trying to think of a better escape idea. But before a single idea came to mind, more hoofsteps were heard.
Now he was sure there was three of them. No, wait... Was there four? Make that five. Wait, six?
'At least six ponies are up here with me!? Well now what do I do!?' He thought, sweat now dripping from his head. 'Okay, okay, breath Spike, breath... Just think, what would Stardust want you to do?'
"INSERT STARDUST QUOTE HERE"
'He's right.' The young dragon thought. 'I shouldn't let them see me, if I can help it. But still, I gotta find a way out of here.'
Suddenly, the steps drew closer to him, and he tucked himself into a ball, trying to conceal himself as much as he can.
*Click Click.* The sound of what appeared to be something be activated, or at least trying to be, came from nearby, followed by a much more unwelcome *CRASH CLAP!!*
"I-It's not working!"
With those three short words, most of the fear that the young dragon was feeling inside disbanded, not from what was said, but by the sound of the voice that said it.
It... SHE sounded so innocent. Like she was just a little girl. Not even too much older than the Crusaders.
"S... Squire?" Another girl's voice asked.
'Wait...' Spike thought to himself. 'I'm not just in some kid's house, am I?'
"Okay, he's not here; let's go!" Yet another girl suggested, this one sounding just as scared as he did about 20 seconds ago.
'I'm... Gonna take that as a yes. Okay, so where actually am I?'
"Maybe he's hiding." The second girl spoke up again. "Let's check it out."
"Wait, what if the dragon is in here?"
When the fifth word alone was said, the anxiousness that had left Spike's body for a moment had returned.
'WHAT!?!' He completely froze at this girls statement. 'Is... Is she onto me!? A-a-are dragons not allowed in this country!? Oh man, now I really AM worried about being spotted!'
*THUD*
"There it is!"
The sounds of scared gasping now filled the room, with eveypony now on high alert. Although, not as high alert as the actual dragon in the room. The thud was near him, and now the girls were all the more closer to finding him.
"It's him; it's the dragon! It's Basil!"
'OH NO!! I'm a dead dragon! I never even got to tel- "Basil"?' The name echoed in his head. 'Wait, wasn't that the dragon that Fluttershy scolded for polluting Ponyville that one time?'
But that wasn't important right now; the hoofsteps only got closer by the second, with two pairs approaching more than the others.
'Great; they're about to find me. Can this get any worse?'
"Careful, Starlight." One of the girls said, answering his question.
'"STARLIGHT"!?' He thought to himself, yet again. It's like whatever spiritual force that was watching him from above just wanted to have his day get worse by the second.
'Okay, I take it back, I won't be relieved to see her! If she's brainwashed these girls as wel-'
The sound of a sheet being pulled off from something caught his attention, although it didn't sound close to him.
"Nothing to be afraid of." One of the girls said to the others.
'Wait... That's not Starlight's voice.'
By this point, Spike had just about enough of being in the dark about who was up here with him. Carefully, he peeked his head around the corner of the box he was hiding in, hoping and praying that he wouldn't be spotted.
Luckily for him, the girls had their backs turned to him, looking at what looked like a bird cage on a stand. But less importantly, he could see what these girls looked like.
A strange flurry of pink, blue, yellow, purple and white just barely came into sight. One of them was holding a sheet in her hooves, which would explain the sound from before. All Spike really cared about right now was that he didn't recognize any of these girls, and hopefully they wouldn't see him.
Rather than spend too long lingering about the identities of these fillies, he noticed the now empty stairs from a moment ago.
'Looks like this is my chance to make a break for it!' His inner voice told him.
Quickly double-checking that the girls had their backs turned to him, he tried his best to carefully sleuth away from them, out of the attic.
"Phew. Well, that's a relief." One of the young mares said, walking backwards slowly. "Guess now we can go back downstairs."
Spike once again, froze on the spot, still out of sight.
'That's bad.' He thought, halting on the spot
"Wait! He could still be up here. Why don't we look around a little bit longer first?" Another one called to her.
'That's good.' He thought, resuming his creep to the stairs.
"Well, maybe you girls can, but I'm outta here!" A third character called, running in Spike's direction.
'THAT'S VERY BAD!' He thought with his heart freezing once more. 'Think! Think! Think!'
"Clover, wait!"
"Let me know if you see hi- Oof!" The filly cried out, tripping over something. "Ow!"
"Are you okay?" The white filly asked her, running over and offering her a hoof.
"Yeah, I landed on something soft." She said, taking her hoof and getting up.
"Be careful, Clover. We don't wanna wake Sweetheart's parents up." A yellow filly said, walking over to them.
"Sorry, girls." She said. "Guess I tripped over something."
"Clover... What DID you trip on?" One of the two pink fillies asked her, walking over as well. "And for that matter, did you land on the same thing?"
"I think it's just a cushion or someth-" This girl, apparently called Clover, said, before looking down at the dragon she just fell over on.
"Um..." Spike tried to think of a dialogue for the seven girls, before growing an awkward smile. "Hi?"
"AAAHHHH!" She screamed, before jumping back and falling on her back.
"Aaahh!" He screamed in a lower volume.
"AAAHHH!" She screamed again.
"Aaahh!" He copied his first scream.
"AAAH-mmp!" She exclaimed once more, before her friends had to cover her mouth with their hooves.
"Again Clover, we don't wanna wake Sweetheart's parents up."
"Smmry." The muffled girl said, before looking back at Spike.
"H-hello." The blonde-haired pink filly said to him, getting a better look at him.
"Hi." He nervously said. "... Please don't hurt me."
"Who... What are you?" She asked, as her friends came closer.
"I'm..." He thought for a second, before looking at the girls that were now all staring at him, thinking back to what they were saying and debating whether or not he should tell them the truth.
"You think he has amnesia?" A green filly whispered to another pink one, who gave a sly nod.
"I'm a... Dragon."
""Dragon"!?" The girls exclaimed quietly in unison.
"Yes! I know, but don't be afraid of me; I'm looking for a friend!"
The pink filly got closer to him and began to circle him.
"Hmm..." The filly looked him over for a couple of seconds, before an idea came to mind. "... Basil?"
A pale filly's eyes lit up at the name, hoping to find the dragon she had in mind.
""Basil"? No, my name's Spike." He said, standing up.
"Aw..." The pale girl said, looking disappointed.
"Oh. Well, glad to meet you, Spike." The girl stuck her hoof out to him. "My name's Starlight."
He smiled as he took the hoof with his claw and they shook.
"Nice to meet you too, Starlight." 'Never thought I'd be saying that.' He thought to himself. "Pretty, uh... Nice place you got here."
"Oh, no, this isn't my house; it's Sweetheart's." Starlight said, pointing a hoof at the white filly with a pink mane.
"Um, hi." She said, blushing in a way that could rival Fluttershy. "This, uh... Is a little surprising."
"I understand, Sweetheart. But I'm friendly, honest."
"So are we. Really truly honestly."
"Well, I can tell you are."
Suddenly, she was moved aside by a pink hoof.
"So you're a dragon?" A blue haired pink pony asked him, looking impatient.
"... Yes?"
"And you're sure your name's not Basil?"
"... Yes?"
The filly was now looking him all over, expecting more.
"Well, that's kind of a let-down."
Spike looked insulted by this, but didn't want to show it.
"Um..."
"No need to glare, Mel." Starlight said, walking up to her side. "Sorry Spike, this is Melody. "
"Oh, right. Hi." She said bluntly.
"... Hello?" Spike said to her, sounding unsure whether or not to be friendly.
"So what're you doing here, dragon? You're not about to eat us, are you?"
"Uh, no?"
Despite his answer, and the honest expression he carried with it, she continued to look him down with an unsure manor.
"Hmm..." Spike heard a voice behind him.
He turned around to see a green mare with a orange mane.
"Um..." He was about to say something to her, before she spoke up.
"A Pheromone Rector, not yet fully developed, clearly connected to the cheekbones, along with a small percentage of Dover Line in each of the scales, a lack of wingspan, possible yet to sprout, as well as a V-horn on the end of your tail... You're a Class-C type Drake, aren't you?" She asked him.
"Wow. You can tell that just from looking at me?"
"Yeah; studying and revision really pays off in the long run."
"Heh heh. If I had a bit for every time she's told me that before." Spike said to himself.
""She"? Who's "She"?"
"Oh, uh, nopony." Spike quickly answered her, not yet certain on giving complete information.
"Ah, classified. Typical dragonic behavior."
"If you say so. Who are you?"
"My name's Bright-Eyes." She said, shaking his claw as well.
"Hello Bright-Eyes." He said to her, feeling more relieved to talk to her than Melody.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance too, Spike." She said, letting go and looking him over again. "You certainly are a stimulating disclosure for an arguably trivial sundown."
"Heh heh. Thanks." He said, feeling flattered. 'Wow, she kinda reminds me of Twilight.'
"How many other drakes do you know? Surely there's at least a small colony in your home."
"Oh, well, um..."
"Hey dragon!" Another filly called out to him.
It was the pale orange one, and she was coming over to them. "You don't look so tough to me. What can you do?"
Spike looked up at the girl for a moment, who looked somewhat disappointed by him.
'Gee, kid. A "Hello" woulda been nice too.'
"... Well?"
"Patch, there's no need to be rude." The Sweetheart girl told her friend. "This little guy's our guest."
"Yeah, so are we." Patch responded, turning to her, then back to him. "So, what? Can ya fly?"
"Um, no." He said.
"Do ya have your own mountain?"
"No."
"You ever killed and eaten something?"
"What? No!"
"Can ya breath fire?"
"Yeah, of course I can breath fire."
Patch looked smug at his reply.
"... Prove it."
"W-what?" He asked, looking nervous.
"Prove to us that you can breath fire."
"Patch, no." Starlight insisted. "What if he burns the attic down?"
"Fine, we'll go downstairs and do it." Patch said, walking towards the stairs.
"Yeah, why are we still up here? It's freezing." Melody followed up, following her, along with the others.
"C'mon, Spike." The lavender pony said to him, crouching so that he could climb up on her. "You can spend the night with us, if you want. I'm sure Sweetheart wouldn't mind."
"Thanks." Spike said to her, climbing up onto her back.
"Heh heh. You're kind of light, for a dragon." She said, as the two made their way downstairs.
"Yeah, I get that a lot. And then I ask ponies how many dragons they've lifted before."
"I guess they're just not as lucky as me."
"Sure, that's it."
"Oh, I'm Clover, by the way. But, I guess you already knew that."
"Yeah, I heard. Sorry about tripping you up before."
"It's not your fault. I shoulda looked where I was going again."
"Heh. You say that as if you've done it a lot of the time before."
"Well... I have. More than my friends, to be honest. I admit, I'm a real klutz."
"Oh. Well, it's okay. That's just who you are."
"Hm hm hm. You're a sweet dragon."
"Thank you. You're a nice mare yourself."
"Hm hm. Thank you, I've bee- Oof!" Clover stopped walking, not realizing until too late that she had just walked into a wall. "Ouch."
"Are you OK?" Spike asked her, rubbing her head for her.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine." She replied, liking the feel of his claws. "Your, uh, hands feel nice."
"T-thank you." He said.
"Heh, guess this proves what I said."
"C'mon, it can't be that bad. Anypony ever use you as rodeo practise?"
"No... But knowing my luck, it's bound to happen soon."
"Hopefully not, but if it doe-"
"Can you two talk about this in the bedroom?" Patch interrupted them. "We're waiting on you."
"Oh, sorry." Clover responded, continuing her walk to the bedroom.
Once inside, they resumed their positions prior to their drake discovery. Each of them had a duvet with a mark on the corners that matched their Cutie Marks. Or as they were called in this world, as Spike quickly discovered from them, Hip Marks.
Spike was sitting closest to Bright-Eyes, possibly because he found some resemblance to his ~~mother~~ caretaker, Twilight. Also for her own benefit, as she seemed to be writing down some notes, looking over Spike every now and then.
"So Spike..." The green filly asked in between scribbling her pen. "You must know tons of other dragons. Tell me: does the constant impact of lava have a more beneficial reflex on your scale-line with a constant stream or with a still calmness that will cool off?"
Apparently, this girl was oblivious to how dragons worked, or at least how this ones did.
"Um..." The purple drake hummed, trying to come to an answer to a question he did not understand.
"You want to think it over with one of these?" The yellow filly asked him, leaning over to him with a tray of cookies.
"Oh, thanks." He happily replied, accepting the dark orange cookie.
It looked like there was more chocolate on it than dough. Stardust would be so proud.
So far, this one was his favorite, and he didn't even know her name.
"I'm Bonamy, by the way, but you can just call me Bon Bon."
Well, so much for that.
"Nice to meet you, Bon Bon." Spike responded, taking a bite into the over-decorated treat he wielded.
As soon as his sharp teeth dug into the hardened dough, his taste buds exploded with glee.
Pinkie Pie. Mr & Mrs Cake. The OTHER Bon Bon. Sugar Belle.
All of them almost paled in comparison to this culinary creation.
"W-wow..." Spike muttered, looking over the cookie.
"You like it? I made them myself."
"It's amazing!" He exclaimed. "How did you make them!?"
She held her hoof over her lips.
"Chef's secret, Spike." She said, watching him scoff the rest of it down.
"Wow... I wish Pinkie Pie could taste this, too. She'd have a field day."
"Who's Pinkie Pie?"
"... Oops." He said, looking guilty.
"A friend of yours?" Starlight asked him, now curious.
"Well..." Spike pondered the idea of alliterating what he just revealed.
"Spike, if she is, we're really truly not gonna tell anyone." Sweetheart informed him.
'Hmm...' The young dragon thought to himself. 'Can I really trust these girls... They don't look, sound or act bad.'
"Well, yeah, she's someone I know. Pinkie Pie, and the rest of the Elements are great friends of mine." He continued.
"The rest of the what?" Clover questioned?
"The Elements Of Harmony." Spike answered. "Magic, Laughter, Kindness, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. They're something that my friends represent, with these little jewels that they wear."
"Really?" Melody asked, most likely interested by the idea of wearing unique gems. "What do they do?"
"Well, for the most part they just show ponies that they are the Elements. But they also helped pull our rumps out of the fire, like with Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek..."
"Like with what, who and huh?" Patch asked, understandably unclear on what he was talking about.
"Oh, well, basically..." Spike took a deep breath in. "When I was hatched by Twilight, I was raised in her family's house as their own, and we were once assigned to go to a place called Ponyville, where I met the other Elements and Stardust, who also raised me as his own son. Then we were invaded by Nightmare Moon, who was the sister of the princess of the sun that ruled over our world, who was contaminated by hate and jealousy and wanted to create an everlasting night, until Stardust, Twilight and the other Elements stopped her and banished her back to the moon, which is where she was banished to before to stop her tirade. Then, she came back ages later, as the near same time that Discord, the spirit of chaos and disarray, broke free from his stone prison that the Elements sealed him in, and spread more chaos over Ponyville, until the Elements stopped him and sealed him again, before he was released and reformed, until he betrayed us and teamed up with Tirek, who wanted to destroy Equestria, before the Elements defeated him and forgave Discord."
"... Oh, is THAT all?" Patch sarcastically questioned him.
"Yep."
"Y-you don't think something like that'll happen to us, do you?" Clover asked, looking somewhat concerned.
"Yeah, and then the next thing you know, our town's gonna be invaded by some guys who used to live here, Teddy, Ace and Lancer are gonna be kidnapped by this evil organisation, and some ponies are gonna hunt us down and blame us for both of them(!)" Melody added to the sarcasm, before taking a bit out of her cookie.
"That's an... Oddly specific scenario, Melody." Bright-Eyes retored.
""Teddy?" "Ace"? "Lancer"? Who're they?" Spike asked.
"They're colts. They go to our school."
"Oh. Well, what're they like?"
"Uh... It's not really our place to talk about them..."
"Hey, come on, that's not fair; Spike just told us about HIS friends." Sweetheart retorted.
"Yeah, but that's different." Patch responded.
"How so?"
"They're not our friends."
"Patch, Sweetheart's right." Starlight agreed.
"Fine, fine. Teddy's a jerk, put simply."
"Patch..." Sweetheart muttered. "He's not..."
"Ace is a bit of a jerk at times, but apart from that-"
"He's amazing!" Starlight blurted out, before slamming her hooves to her mouth.
The other girls just looked at each other, not paying particular attention to her faded blush.
"If... You say so, Starlight."
"And the other guy?" Spike queried, biting into a cookie himself.
"Lancer. He's rich and... Not really a jerk. Bright-Eyes has a thing for him."
"I- I do not!" The green filly denided, looking at Patch sternly.
The girls started giggling at her reaction, leaving her to hide her now blushing face.
"C'mon, Bright-Eyes, it's so obvious." The girl named Patch responded through laughter. "All the times you've spent with him reading, studying, tutoring, revising, all that type of stuff."
"Th-that doesn't mean we're dating or anything!"
"I think it's sweet if you were." Sweetheart spoke up.
The young dragon quickly followed up that last comment.
"Yeah, me too. In fact, I'm crushing on someone I know too, and we hang out ALL the time."
"Really?" The minty coated girl asked the juvenile drake. "A mate from your colony?"
"Er… You could say that." Spike answered back, not 100% sure what she meant.
"You like someone too?" Starlight asked him next, holding a pillow.
"Yeah, and she's amazing..." He murmured, looking dreamily at the ceiling.
"Go on, tell us more." Melody requested.
The rest of the girls seemed to mutter and encourage him to illiterate.
"Oh, I... I can't, I shouldn't, really." He answered them, seeming to catch the blush that Bright-Eyes had just tossed.
"Oh, come on, please?" Clover politely requested. "We promise we won't tell anyone."
"At least tell us what class drake she is. That is, if she's even related to your common ancestor in that bloodline, or if she's from an evolved species."
"Uh..." Now rather than blushing, Spike was just looking at her in confusion, trying to make sense of what she just asked.
"I think she said tell us what kind of dragon she is."
"Oh, Rarity's not a dragon."
"Really? You're in love with another reptilian being?"
"Um... No?" He answered back, somewhat confused.
"Oh..." She just said, before giving her friends a brief lookover.
Her attention turned back to the baby drake.
"Then... Then what is she?"
"She's a pony." He nonchalantly answered them.
There was an ominous silence lingering in the air around them.
Spike couldn't understand why this was apparently hard for them to compute. Then again, they did regard him as the apparent only dragon they've personally encountered.
"W-what?" He finally spoke up, getting their attention back. "Was it something I said?"
"A dragon... In love with a pony?" Starlight questioned, sounding unsure with herself.
"Yep."
"Wow." Bon Bon quietly exclaimed, but resisting the urge to smile. "Wow, that's so..."
"Romantic!" Sweetheart blurted out, quiet enough to avoid her parents from hearing, holding her hoof to her heart and holding a face that smiled on the verge of tears.
"R-really? Glad you think so." Spike happily responded, happy to discover a pony as delighted and serious about this as he was.
Although, they hadn't met Rarity, so it was possible that they just though she was closer to his age group than actuality.
"That's beautiful." She continued. "I mean, a pair of ponies in love is one thing, but a pony and a dragon? That's just... Poetic."
"That's one way to describe it..." Patch leaned over and whispered to Melody, who just started giggling.
"So, wait." Bright-Eyes spoke up again. "Do you... Not live with any other dragons?"
"No, I don't."
"You... Live with ponies?"
"Y-yeah... Why?"
"Oh... It's, uh, strange, that's all."
"Why?" Starlight asked, looking puzzled. "Aren't you dragons supposed to live in a colony, or something?"
"Hey, I..." The young dragon looked sad at what he was prepared to say. "I didn't have a choice."
"Huh?"
For some reason, this got the attention of Patch, who was now standing up from her bed.
"My parents left me without a trace, and I've been living with ponies all my life."
The girls let out a sad "Awww" in unison.
Sweetheart stood up as well and went over to comfort the upset child, embracing him in a warm hug.
They shared this loving hug for a few seconds, until Spike then felt a soft rubbing on his head. He expected this to be Sweetheart as well, or Bright-Eyes as she was already the closest.
But to everyone's surprise, including somewhat her own, it was Patch next to him now.
"Wha..." He murmered, before she knelt down to face hiom at eye level.
She leaned in closer and whispered in his scaly ear "I can relate."
"Oh..." He said, looking down again.
"We're all sorry to hear that, Spike." Starlight informed, as the girls, once again, began agreeing over each other.
"Thanks... But don't be sorry; it wasn't your fault. I mean, it's been a great life, living with them all, and I wouldn't ask for anything else."
The girls just closed their eyes in sympathy for him.
"And I know living with a princess sounds great, and Twilight's a great leader and friend, but even then I hav-"
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone." Melody interrupted him.
The others stared at her with confusion.
"Did you just say... "Princess"?"
"Yeah, Twilight Sparkle, the Princess Of Friendship. She was the one who hatched me."
"You live with a PRINCESS!?" She exclaimed, a tone of jealousy in her voice.
"I know it sounds great, but the amount of stuff you have to do-"
"That's rad!" The musician exclaimed, again, quiet enough to keep it between them. "You must be SO lucky to have that kind of life!"
"Melody, he's been separated from his parents!" Patch snapped at her, looking more angry than sympathetic at this point. "That's not exactly a fantastic trade off!"
"You-you're right, I'm sorry."
"But still, a princess?" Clover piped up. "That's still gotta have some benefits to it, right?"
"Y-yeah, I guess it does... I miss her already."
"Well, where is she?" Bon Bon asked the young dragon, returning at last to the point of conversation. "In fact, where are YOU from, Spike? You never told us."
"I'm from a place called Equestria."
"Equestria, huh? What's it like?"
"It's... A lot different than this place. What's this place called?"
"Coltonville."
"Yeah, it's a lot different than this place. Most of the stuff is manual, like we don't have vehicles or houses that look this these ones."
"But, didn't you say you live in a castle?"
"A tree shaped castle, and yeah, it's still growing on me, after the change of our home."
"Where did you live before?"
"In a tree."
"... Naturally(!)" Melody answered.
"Well, compared to what I've done in my life..." Spike couldn't even finish, before letting out a yawn and rubbing his eyes.
"You tired?" Starlight asked, feeling a yawn herself.
"Yeah, a little..."
"I suppose we should be rejuvenating now..." Bright-Eyes advised, looking at the clock. "It's already past midnight, girls."
"Yeah, I guess we oughta hit the hay." Patch suggested, walking back to her own sleeping bag and pillow. "G'night girls."
"'Night, Patch. 'Night girls." Starlight said falling into her own sleeping bag.
Eventually, the whole room was sound asleep, with Spike secured in a make-shift sleeping bag under Sweetheart's bed, so as to avoid detection from anyone other than the 7 girls he met, or the stallion/mare that he'd give the world to see right now.
But... Worse case scenario, he'd be stuck here, and at least he had a few friends already. And maybe a few more, as time went on. In fact, maybe he'd see these 3 colts in the future.
But more importantly he wanted to see his parents...
