Spike sat in silence as he bathed in the sunlight and thought back to how he had saved Songbird by existing. It just so happened to be in the way of her and a falling building and a Serpopard, but that's just extraneous details.

"I should send that monster a thank you present," He decided mentally before stretching on his deck chair and looking around at the ocean view before him. He was currently sitting on the deck of Songbird's 'mini-yacht' which looked like a standard yacht to him, making him question how big her normal one was.

As he was sunning on the deck, Songbird was steering them to the nearest town, lost in thought on how to go about things with Spike. "Is it too late for a romantic first date?" She pondered. "Was that concert our first date? Is this technically a date or are we just a couple going shopping?" Songbird looked out at the town in the distance and decided she had nothing to lose in asking. She turned out her mic so her voice could easily be heard. "Hey Spike, wanna get lunch before we go replace your lost pants?" Song couldn't hear his response but she saw him raise his arm up, thumb extended eagerly. "Great!" She sang back merrily before turning off the intercom. “Couple stuff, just me and Spike.”

Spike looked up to where his captain was and smiled as he got comfy in his seat. “This is gonna go well,”

-Later-

“That is not a town,” Spike said as they closed in on their destination “That is a city!” Before them was an out of place dock. The decrepit and derelict structure was in dire need of repair and as such only a handful of vesicles were using its services. Beyond the dock, Spike could see more than a few neon signs and many winged creatures ranging from ponies to other dragons flying around in a fair number of cloud-based sections of the city. “What is this?” he asked in confusion as he gestured to it.

“A chunk of Las Pegasus and Cloudsdale were torn off when the Stormking’s army came. The airships sent them flying and they crashed right here. The quaint little town that used to be here is now a new hotspot for pegasi. Merchants even sell a powder so any creature may walk on the clouds for a limited time, about 74 hours if I remember correctly.” She smiled as they got to the dock.

“Spike, can you tie us to the dock? I have to go rent this spot for the day.” Songbird extended her wings and flew out to do just that, while Spike began his work of tying the boat down. The drake was puzzled when he saw something rushing his way, something familiar, something leaving a rainbow trail behind it in its rush.

“Rainbow?” Spike managed to question before his friend landed next to him.

“Spike!” Rainbow cheered, “The fuck are you doing here?”

“The fuck me? The fuck you?” Spike shot back as he finished tying the boat down and turned to her.

“Are you kidding me? The Wild Blue Yonder is reopening here, The Gold Horseshoe Gals told me about it. I didn’t even know this place existed until yesterday!”

Spike chuckled. “I didn’t know it existed up until about 50 seconds ago,” he countered as he looked up for a moment.

“So how have things gone with the diva?” Rainbow asked with a shit-eating grin. “I didn’t bring the porn sash but I could probably find something like it if I look hard enough.”

“Things are going good, and I don’t need any articles of clothing exclaiming my successful sex life or lack of it,”

"The world has to know!” Rainbow exclaimed dramatically, “And so do I!" Spike tried to retort and keep their pointless debate going however Songbird had just returned from renting the dock, “Oh! Miss Dash, what a nice surprise. What brings you here?”

“Rollercoaster, you?"

“All of Spike's pants were ruined in an unfortunate accident.” There was a moment of silence before Rainbow began giggling. Her giggles quickly escalated to exasperated laughter.

“So many jokes, so little time!” As Rainbow pondered the real questions in life, Songbird made her way over to Spike and pet his back.
“So, where are we going for lunch?” she asked sweetly before adding. "Oh, and before I forget, Photo Finish is in town. I set up a dinner date so we can work on getting your heroics better known.”
Spike glared suspiciously, “You expect me to believe that not only is Photo Finish coincidentally here, but she, for no particular reason, told you she'd be here?”
“I may have cashed in a favor or two so she’d come down and help me with getting you into the public eye.” Songbird gave a devious smile before adding, “Photo took a lot of time off from her busy schedule to do this, you're not gonna say no and waste both her time and resources are you?” Spike frowned and Songbird added, “I did this before we had our talk and it was too late to cancel. Please, just this one thing... for me?”
Spike didn’t respond for a minute before turning to Rainbow who had gone from laughing to listening. “What do you think I should do, Rainbow?”
“Go for it,” The cerulean pegasus answered with a smile before adding deviously, “Maybe Photo will fall for you too.” She added an extra eyebrow wiggle for emphasis.
“Ha-ha,” Spike replied dryly before turning back to Songbird, “Fine, but I want a clean pair of pants before I have dinner with Photo Finish.”
Songbird grinned at him. “My, what a mighty request." She snaps her finger with a look of sarcastic realization, "You know, I feel like I can meet your demands, you sweet thing you. Now I hate to cut your reunion short but time is of the essence for all of us.” Songbird then faced Rainbow, “Unless I'm missing my mark, you're here to ride The Wild Blue Yonder, which closes in about 20 minutes or so.”
There was a gust of blue wind and Rainbow was gone. They could only just hear the cry of farewell to the duo as she rushed to make it to the ride on time.
“Alright Spikey, first lunch, then your pants. So where are we eating?”
"Well, as I have no idea where I am or what's around, how about we take a walk through the streets and see what's good?"
"You know what, I like that idea." She wraps around his arm, "Lead the way my mighty dragon."

The two made their way away from the docks and towards the ‘town’ as Songbird insisted on calling it and Spike got the best view of it yet, the ground level of it had a noticeable lack of maintenance just like the suddenly less out of place dock.

“Why does this place look so bad?” he questioned.

“Well up until fairly recently, this town's most remarkable tourist attraction was that I once went shopping here. Given some time it’ll probably get a makeover, that or end up turning entirely into a cloud city.”

Spike gave a once over at the ground level of the city. “Not seeing any restaurants round these parts,” he noted before looking up and spotting a district of clouds with more than its fair share of food-related advertisements. “Nevermind I found them,” Spike frowned as he looked up at the cloud district holding the Restaurants, as he looked up at it he could see a fair number of Pegasie pushing smaller clouds around it and the rest of the clouds, one of them landed down the street and an Earthpony jumped off the cloud and tossed a few bits to the pegasus before heading to one of the rundown looking buildings. “Alright so all I need is one of those walking on cloud spells,” before Spike could ask about it he was startled by Songbird giving a Taxi cab whistle, without hesitation, the Pegasus who had just landed grabbed his cloud and rushed to them.

“First time or Running low?” He asked as he set the cloud next to them.

“First time,” Songbird said pointing to Spike “and Returning customer,” The Pegasus didn’t even so much as bat an eye at Songbird as he reached into a fanny pack and tossed her a plastic bottle and she gave him 30 bits “I’m paying for him,” She said as she Pegasus did an impressive fast count of the bits.

“Name,” He said as he pulled out a second plastic bottle.

“Songbird and Spike,”

“Hello I am Winter Winds I’ll be your Cloud carrier today, Alright Mr.Spike please take this potion and drink it in one go, failure to do so might result in the Spell prematurely evaporating,” Spike looked at the plastic bottle then to the Cloud carrier who instantly gave him two answers to questions he might be having.

“It’s in a plastic bottle cause glass isn’t allowed on clouds for safety reasons. When the spell starts evaporating you won’t just instantly plummet through the clouds you’ll start slowly sinking, you’ll have about half an hour to get another potion before you do plummet though so keep an eye out for that,” Spike took a breath and exhaled before chugging the potion as fast as he could, lucky it had no taste to it so it was pretty easy to chug down. Once they had both finished they both stepped onto the cloud and Winter Winds repositioned himself before taking flight and hovering the cloud a little above the ground

“Where might I take you this fine day?”

“The Restaurant district please,” Songbird asked and after giving a thumbs up they headed up.

Author's Note

Supper late as usual.