When We Were Wittle
B_25
I woke up in an empty bed, set in the corner of an empty room with the blinds of my window blocking out any and all light. My eyes opened at once, already adjusted to the darkness, and a sigh escaped my lips before my morning groan could.
But that was normal. When I sat up, rubbing the palm of my claw against a closed eye, that was normal. When I turned, bringing my feet over the edge of the bed, feeling them touch down on the ground quicker than I would have liked, that was normal.
And then I stood up. And then I stretched. And then I mumbled something to myself. And then I left my empty room. And then I strolled down the empty hallway. And then I entered the empty kitchen.
This castle was big. Bigger than me. That was one of the few things I liked about it.
“Free day today,” I mumbled to myself upon approaching the kitchen counter. I was too out of it to make proper coffee. I took a hanging pot, filled it with water from the sink, then set it on the stove and turned the latter on. “The heck am I going to do with myself?”
Hang out with friends? Nearly all of them were working—the girls, anyway. Not like I had many friends beyond them. Hmm. Maybe a walk through town? Where would I go? What's something different I'd see? Nah, it'd just be a waste of time.
I shook my head as the water rose to a boil. It seemed like, if I wasn't working, then I was wasting time.
Steam came from the pot, and I turned off the stove at once. Lifting the pot, I brought it over the counter, hovering it over my mug with instant coffee already in it. 'Best Number-One Assistant!' was written in white over the surface.
I smiled.
Then I stopped upon seeing the mug next to it.
It was lavender, and written across the surface was 'Best Boss!'.
I held the pot in the air. The past crept in, worming its way into my present mind.
“Twilight? What's a boss?”
Giggles. “Somepony that bosses somepony else around!”
“Is that what you do to me?”
“Of course not! I love you too much to do that.”
I groaned. “C'mon head. You're doing this first thing in the morning?”
I stared at the other mug for a few moments more. Now, it wasn't my policy to do any more work than I had on my off days. I'd learned long ago that helping out for a bit usually meant helping out for much longer than a bit. Twilight always knew how to pull me in from just a small favor, so it became my new mission to avoid her as often as possible on days like these... the whole day if I could manage it.
Even still, with a heavy sigh, I raised my mug, poured some of my insta-mix into hers, and then filled them both with water from the pot. Pulling out the drawer below, I took a spoon and then stirred both cups.
I was thankful we both took our coffee black.
“Knock knock?”
No response.
“You awake, Twilight? Sun's nearly up!” I looked down and tried at the knob of the door. It didn't budge an inch. “Hey, Twilight! Are you even allowed to sleep in? Don't you have some important paperwork to be doing or something?”
No response.
“You know it isn't my job to wake up! Today's supposed to be my day off!” I sighed. Bringing my claw to the lock just above the handle, I stuck a talon in, tinkering with the internal latches. “I'm going to be coming inside in a second. You better not be doing, you know, s-stuff!”
The lock clicked and my claw withdrew. Trying the handle once more, the door soon pressed open, creaking all the while. I stepped into the dim room, feeling something crinkly at my feet.
“The heck?” I lifted a foot to my face to reveal the paper plastered to it. With a shake of my foot, it floated off and down onto the ground. With my leg still in the air, I looked along the floor... or what once was the floor. “Aw, Twilight.”
Faint sunlight illuminated the papers scattered across the ground. They went around the bed and went all the way to the closet. Looking over at the desk beneath the window, I saw Twilight, hunched over, her cheek trying to become one with the wood.
“Should’ve gotten her the back-pain medication instead of the coffee.” I walked over to her, setting the mug down on the part of the table that wasn't covered by parchment. “I swear, how does the mare responsible for Ponville forget to be responsible for herself?”
I crouched down until I was squatting. My claw went to her shoulder but stopped halfway. I didn't know why, but it did, and I was simply left to stare. Twilight was lying with her left cheek against the desk, leaving her face exposed to me.
And for a moment, my heart stopped. She looked so cute and so peaceful like this. Her mane covered her right eye, disheveled by the long night, but leaving her left free for me to see.
Her cheek was probably the cutest thing about it. How it inflated and deflated slightly from her breaths. Her mouth was opening, breathing, with a trickle of drool coming from her bottom lip.
My claw went to her mouth instead, wiping away her drool, enjoying the plushness of her bottom lip against the scales of my talon. I made sure to wipe it off on my chest first.
Then, seconds later, I shook my head. “The heck are you doing, Spike?”
My claw went back to her shoulder and, this time, I shook her properly. She groaned at once, her hoof limply raising in the air to bat me away, but fell back against her side nearly immediately.
“Hey, c'mon now, Twi.” I kept shaking her until her left eye cracked open. “You gotta wake up. There's a mess all over your room. And one that I'm not cleaning up either.”
Twilight's eye blinked as she tried to sit up. “O-Ow, my neck.”
“That's what you get for choosing a desk instead of a pillow. Here.” My claw went to her neck, my palm filled with her softness. “Lean your head back. I'll support you.”
Twilight complied. She slowly lifted her head, leaning all her weight into my palm, and though she did groan the whole way with gritted teeth, I liked to think wouldn't have groaned as loudly if I wasn't here. Soon enough, her head was up, and I was sliding her cup of coffee in front of her.
“Look. Coffee. It's good for you.” I kept crouched, watching Twilight sit there, dazed. “Why don't you have a few sips and tell me whatever happened last night?”
Twilight head dipped slightly. I took that for a nod. Her head then dipped fully forward, her muzzle landing inside the cup of coffee. The sound of her drinking sounded like a dog's tongue lapping at water.
I sighed. We were at Twicon three: sleep-deprived and a stressed-filled boss.
“You don't have to admire my work that much,” I joked. “It's only instant.”
Twilight continued to drink anyways. I stood up and came behind her, seeing her mane frizzled everywhere. My claws went to it at once, stroking down the wayward strands and straightening them out along her back.
It felt nice, I guess, to stroke her mane while she drank. There was a strange delight in straightening out her knots. She gave an approving moan every time I got one, though it may have just been from a coffee. Either way, it was a peaceful few moments.
And then the peace ended.
Twilight's head shot into the air at once, startling my head, forcing me to step back. Seconds later her head turned around, her muzzle facing me, her one eye focused in an instant. It was wide and alive and set totally on me.
“Spike,” Twilight said, “I need your help.”
I hunched forward at once. “Oh, c'mon! Today's supposed to be my day off!”
I don't know how, but after a few minutes of being awake, Twilight had us sitting on the floor.
I almost felt like a kid again. Sitting on the floor, my legs crossed, both of us sitting close. Twilight sat on her rump and was looking at the papers all around her. She had her horn lit, levitating papers off the floor and collecting them into a different pile—phasing some out of existence entirely.
“So,” I started, “you going to tell me what happened last night, or are we just pretending to be in Kindergarten again?”
“Oh hush.” There was a line of papers floating in the air, caught by Twilight's magic, floating past her gaze. Only the bottom of her chin was visible beneath the magical current of paperwork... and the pink fluff on her chest that had to be brushed. “You can take some time off tomorrow if this takes too long, alright? Just... sit still and try to be quiet.”
I sighed.
“And, uh, thanks for the coffee.” I saw her swallow and her right hoof lift from the floor. “Y-You didn't have to do that.”
I threw my head back. “Tell me about it.”
Only the shuffling of papers and the sizzling of magic echoed in the room. The air became dense and my wrist suddenly started to itch. Twilight coughed, and I quickly cleared my throat. The room felt hotter.
“Okay.”
There was an explosion of papers shuffling as they all floated and flopped against the floor. Twilight's horn stopped glowing at once, and her gaze was set on me, both of her forelegs coming in closely against her chest.
“Okay?” I replied.
“I need your help.”
I blinked. “We've already been through this. It's my day off. We wouldn't be having this conversation hadn't I brought you coffee out of good will.”
“But it was very good coffee!” Twilight smiled. “You know I'm thankful when you do stuff like that for me, right?”
“Because you're able to hook me in for more work when I do?”
“I don't always do that!”
I blinked. “Really?”
“Well, not always.”
“In terms of probability...”
Twilight slouched forward. “If I give you tomorrow off, will you quit giving me trouble now?”
“What if I have things going on now?”
“Like what?”
“...you're very hurtful to the dragon that's supposed to help you.”
“So you'll help me then? Great!” Twilight clopped her forehooves together, tilted her head to the left, closed her eyes and smiled at me. “I always know I can count on you, Spike! You're my best number-one assistant ever!”
And you're the best boss ever.
I shook my head. There was no way I could say something like that. Sure, I may have hated how far we've drifted apart and all that, but throwing a comment like that while Twilight seemed happy just felt wrong.
I sighed. It was best just to do whatever she needed of me.
“What do you need of me anyway?” I glanced around the room, once more covered in paper, and decided to pick one up. It was covered in equations written in the tiniest format possible, and they all seemed to be concerned with the relativity of... sizes? “If you're doing math again, you might as well count me out.”
“The math has already been taken care of!” Thank Celestia for that. “Luckily, I was able to work out the formula before I... you know.” She looked away for a second, giggling, her cheeks becoming pink. “Anyway, do you remember that spell I used to turn myself and the girls into breezies?”
I thought about it for a second, scratching the side of my head. “Kinda? But that was years ago, Twilight.”
“I know! But I was just thinking about it recently.” Twilight looked back at me, a grin stretching up her right cheek. “Do you know how amazing it is to be able to change the size of a pony? Forget the adventurous aspect of a second and focus on the kind of use that would have in the real world!”
“I guess you kinda have a point?” I stared down at my lap, starting to stroke my chin. I could feel some facial horns growing in. “Sinks would become bathtubs at that point. Crossing the street would become a matter of life and death, though at the same time, sneaking into Rarity's shower would be a lot easier.”
“S-Spike!” Twilight's hoof smacked against my arm repeatedly. I looked up at once, seeing her leaned forward and throwing her foreleg at me. I quickly caught her wrist with my claw, holding it still despite how much it wiggled in place. “W-Will you be serious for a second!”
“What? I'm just having some fun.”
“You can have fun after you help me.”
What happened to us having fun before, during, and after?
“Right. My bad. Go on.” I let go of her hoof, which she brought back to between her legs. Twilight bit her bottom lip, eyes looking away. “I know you're excited to tell me what you spent last night thinking about. Really, go ahead and tell me.”
Twilight looked back at me. “Think about it seriously for a second, Spike. You said it yourself: sinks could become bathtubs.” She shook her head. “But try thinking about it even further! Think of how many ponies you could now fit into one house... or how small you could then start making houses!”
I scratched my face. “Huh. You wouldn't have to worry all that much about food either.”
“Exactly! Now you're getting it!” Twilight bumped my shoulder with her hoof out of excitement, and I couldn't help but rub the spot while smiling. “Now, it's pointless to think about how much this would change society—and of course how society will react to it—unless I can create and perform a spell that can shrink ponies.”
I looked around at the papers before back at her. “And that's what you did last night?”
“Mmm-hmm!” Twilight nodded. “I tied in all the components of an organism to ensure everything shrinks in proportion. Working off aspects from the breezie spell, I was even able to shrink inanimate objects.” Her magic levitated a sheet of paper into the air. “Watch this!”
I almost wasn't sure if I wanted to. Twilight closed her eyes as her horn grew brighter. Around the paper, the lavender shade of her magic darkened. The field of magic shrunk, almost like the power of the spell was being concentrated toward the center of her aura.
“No way!” I leaned back from the sight. In her magic, the paper started to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller while the aura did the same. The shade of magic became darker until it was nearly black altogether. “No frickin' way, Twilight!'”
The magic fizzled out from existence. The tiny piece of paper floated to the floor, but I was quick to reach out my claw, watching it fall and land on my palm, though I didn't even feel it touch my scales. With a held breath I brought it before my gaze, this tiny thing of white contrasting against a field of purple.
I then stared down at the sheet, making out faint black lines across it. “If I squint hard enough, I think I can still read the hoof-writing!”
“See?” Twilight's voice floated over. “I told you helping me would be worth it.”
“Kinda weird though.” I repressed my smirk. “Because I can't read your hoof-writing when its full size.”
“Well that's because—“ Twilight stopped, groaned, and smacked me one on the shoulder again. “You're not very nice, Spike.”
“No need to be professional on my day off, right?”
“True.” Twilight smirked. “But being tiny on your day off is going to be interesting, won't it?”
I blinked. “Hold up. What did you just say?”
Twilight only sat in place, smiling, looking awfully proud with herself. Her mane still covered her right eye, leaving her left focused on me, the violet color nearing glowing in the dimness of the room. “I've had plenty experience shrinking papers and plants, but when it comes to actual living things...”
I shook my head. “What? N-No way! You just wanna use me for a guinea pig for one of your experiments?” I threw my claws into the air. “This is just going to be like all those failed experiments that came before you mastered that mustache spell.” I shook my head and crossed my arms. “There's no way I'm going through something like that again.”
“Come on, Spike,” Twilight tried to whine. She lifted her forelegs into the air as well, holding them flat below her muzzle. “There's no one else I can turn to for something like this! Going about this proper way would take months just to find out if the spell even works!”
“And you don't think I shouldn't get that kind of standard and safety?”
“You know I didn't mean it like that.” Twilight shook her head while her forehooves pressed against the ground again. “It's just... we've done stuff like this for such a long time. Even when a spell goes wrong, you've always been strong enough to handle it.” She smiled, though it shrunk by the second. “Besides, when have I ever failed to get you back to normal?”
“After weeks of being something that's not me?”
“It would be very helpful to me, Spike.” Twilight took the moment to stand up on all four legs, never breaking eye-contact with me. Despite her excitement, I couldn't help but sense a tinge of sadness seeping through. “I know as my... assistant, I have to make it worth your while. So how about it?”
I blinked. “W-What?”
Twilight walked toward me with her head low, her eyes upon me, her smile at its smallest. She stopped before me, and when she did, she offered me her hoof. “You must want something, right? Bits? Time off?”
I shook my head, clenching my eyes while I spoke. “And what's the reason you can't cast this spell on yourself?”
“Oh, t-that?” Twilight laughed in a way sounding like coughing. “It's just, um, if a p-princess were to suddenly, you k-know, be unable to do her duties and—“
“I get where you're going with this.” I opened my eyes to see hers staring at me. “If the world loses Twilight Sparkle for a bit, everything will get thrown into chaos.” I lifted my claw, staring at the tiny paper still in my palm. “But if the world loses Spike the Dragon... no one will notice.”
“Hey.” Twilight's eyes narrowed. “I didn't mean it like that and you know it.”
“But is the meaning any different?”
Twilight stared at me, the seconds ticking by, both of us still. There was a distance between us. Some sort of gap that light humor tried to patch without much success. Heck, was there even a gap between us, or was that something only I felt at the moment?
I stared at this mare standing in front of me. Twilight Sparkle, my boss and my... and my... and my best friend? Were we still that, best friends? Heck, with how things went, were we still even friends anymore?
I don't know what we were anymore. The only thing I did know was that we were once something... something that neither of us could remember. And, out of the corner of my eye, I could see her foreleg retreating.
“You're very strong, Spike. Do you know why?”
“Because I'm a dragon!”
“Close! Your scales and overall anatomy make you resistant to nearly anything harmful. But that's not the kind of strong I'm talking about now.”
“W-What kind of strong am I then, Twilight?”
I blinked. Without even realizing it, my claw had shot toward her foreleg, my palm taking hold of the flat-end of her hoof. Twilight's eye widened at once, staring blankly at me.
“I... I...” I was nearly panted as I was hunched forward. “I'll do it.”
Twilight blinked.
“You shrink me for a bit,” I continued, “and I get one favor out of it. Deal?”
Twilight didn't say anything. She stared at my face for a few moments, and beneath her gaze, I could see her thinking, maybe wondering about something. Years ago, I could read her mind with a glance. Now, I had barely any clue what she was thinking at all.
But then she smiled, shook my hoof, and nodded her head.
“Okay then, assistant.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “You've got yourself a deal!”
