Not Enough Love

Chapters

Ø - Prologue
II - Games that Don't Need to be Played
III - You Don't Need to Scheme for Me to Like You
IV - Princess and Hero
V - Old Love on New Matters
VI - Just Enough Love
I - Breakfast at Starlight's

Ø - Prologue

Not Enough Love
B_25 & Midnight

I laid back in my bed with a sigh, my chest heavy and mind heavier, doing my best to forget my own existence. Weeks had passed since I gave up on Rarity. Turns out mares like you more when you stop chasing them around. It seemed like with the connotations of possible love gone from the atmosphere that girls settled down easier. Not fearful of a compliment or a revelation being received with an ulterior motive.

I rolled onto my side and pushed a claw into my face. Rarity was a close, treasured friend now, one I could go to about anything or anyone. Having a close friend that's a mare can be useful for knowing how they work.

Apparently, however, deeming mares as 'different workings' was enough for a swat on the wrist. Rarity rubbed the spot afterward, then explaining why a mare would then act like that. I knew better than to raise any questions and simply nodded along.

And then I rolled onto the right side of my bed, and during the turn, became assaulted by memories of the ones that came afterwards. One and then two. A few girls I knew from back in Canterlot. Little flirting and casuals dates. Positive experiences that never led to anything more.

Dear Celestia... why am I wasting my one day off?

Then came the click of the door.

My eyes travelled across the floor to its base, seeing the light from the hall shine inward, expanding upon swinging of the frame. Soft, violet hooves walked into the room. I didn't even bother to recover from my pathetic position.

“The storage room should be in... oh.” Starlight Glimmer took a few steps across the floor before stopping, blinking, and then moving her muzzle around. Her eyes narrowed as confusion swept across her brow. “Was it a wrong turn on the left or the right this time?”

Her eyes then fell upon my own. “Oh.”

I groaned, blinking. “S-Starlight? Do me a favour? Tell me its still morning.”

“Sorry, Spike.” Starlight chuckled while rubbing a hoof vertically against a foreleg. “Afraid I can't cut you that good of a deal on this one. I can settle for very very late morning.” She then laughed, clopping her hoof against the floor. “But I can take out one 'very' because it's you.”

I turned onto my chest and pressed my claws against the mattress, feeling them sink as I pushed myself up, arching my back, popping the kinks developed from my hundred-year slumber. For whatever reason, she watched me intensely, following the curve of my frame. “Don't say something like that. You'll give me the false hope that I'm something special.”

“So you want to be something special then?” Starlight said the words while breaking out from her star, the jerk of her subtle and sweet. Mares were dangerous creatures for they could be cute without trying. Easy there, heart. “Tell me you've passed out in the supply closet, and I'll think of you as something special, all right.”

Living with two girls with the sharpest wits in all the lands wasn't cracked out like it's made to be. Starlight was teasing, and Twilight was outright torture. Those two took particular joy in twisting me about. How I kept up with them, sometimes, was beyond me.

Finally done with my stretch, I slid my legs over the side of the bed, letting the dense blanket fall from my chest. Starlight's gaze fixated there. She seemed stunned even before I had the chance to talk. “Not sure what supplies you're going to find in here other than some books and toilet paper.”

That did the trick. Starlight backed a step with a blush awash on her cheeks. Her hooves fiddled with the other while, above, she turned her muzzle away. Shivers. Subtle but no doubt there. “S-Spike!”

“Hey! I didn't tell you what I'd been using them for.” I turned my head, sneezing over my shoulder. “Sometimes a dragon has to sneeze! Not like I'd actually use them for anything else, nowadays.”

It took a few jerks, but Starlight's muzzle turned back toward me, her expression soft. “Still giving up on love, huh?”

“Who else is going to take Princess Celestia on in her challenge?” I asked with a blink of my eyes, slowly twisting my torso, tensing the muscles beneath taut to work them all out. “Already at a high-score of over a thousand years with her virginity. None else stand a chance taking her on but me.”

Starlight gazed at me for a few seconds later, without a doubt using the whole facilities of her ingenious mind, at full processing power to work out how much of an idiot I was. Rarity said this made me a goof instead of an idiot. We sill haven't reached an agreement on that one.

“There is so much wrong with that statement,” Starlight began by taking a step forward, expression exasperated, “that I would need all of your walls, and with the tiniest writing possible in chalk, to tell you everything wrong with that.”

“Y'know, I recall seeing some chalk the other day.” Once done my twisting, I kept with the flex of my abdomen. Holding your muscles tightly for a few moments, and then relaxing them, soothes the body into a gooey-freedom. “It was in the supply closet in the hall right of here. Second door; third shelf?”

Starlight kept walking, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, the acts beyond faux, though something about them seemed off. She approached the space-in between my legs without break, placing her hoof on the fallen blanket, pulling it back an inch then laying her sole on my thigh.

That muscle tensed for a different reason.

“No wonder why you've given up on mares,” Starlight whispered the words in a soothing tone I'd never heard before, a pitch of warmth and comfort, a dash of a spice that teased to something more. An aroma of heat radiated from her body, warming me the closer she drew. “Can't keep that mouth of yours shut long enough to fool a girl into thinking you're sweet. Has Rarity suggested biting your tongue yet?”

My heart kept thundering in my chest. Between my legs her lithe body rose, using my thigh to bring herself higher against me, coming to place her other hoof against my chest. Something must have flooded her for her next bout of giggles sounded drunk on something.

“Afraid it's been a failure every time, ma'am.” I'd gotten used to little touches of her body pressing against me, of hooves feeling across my scales every now and again for the contact. Starlight and I had been close—but this was closer than usual. “Too slippery to catch. It even keeps in the same place just to tease me.”

“Mmhmm.” Starlight dipped her muzzle while gazing at my chest, the pre-heated warmth of her hooves rubbing across the broad surface. I'd stop flexing, and yet, she continued to search across me. “Quite the shame, Spike. There's more than a few girls that would be lucky to have you.”

“Other than you and Twilight? We're all aware that I'm boned once a mare gets to know me.” I grabbed her foreleg softly, pulling it away lightly, smiling down at her warmly. “And I appreciate this little game you're playing with me right now... but it's not going to cheer me up.”

The flush of her expression dropped at once. “Aw. You saw through it already?”

“The oldest trick in your book, Starlight.” I grinned while letting go of her hoof, seeing it settle on my other thigh. She still kept herself tall and against me, the height of her muzzle only reaching my chin. “Just like our first time together in the Crystal Empire. Bloat me up so we delay your friendship mission.”

Starlight shook her muzzle and, from the movement, rubbing her snout against my jaw. Plush with gentle curves and fur brushing against my smooth scales. “No fun in making up all these games if you refuse to play. None of our other friends are like this.”

I chuckled while flicking back my head. “Because most of them have too much of a good heart to see through you.”

Something about that line caught her. I wasn't sure what the exact word she'd become seized upon—but I felt her shudder in a way that was horrible. I exhaled. Words were supposed to leave me... but they didn't.

“I suppose the friends that can see through us... are the ones we should value the most.” Starlight's face consumed my gaze as she hovered below my chin, then inching toward it. “You were my first friend during that phase, Spike. Don't you ever forget that for me, alright?”

She leaned up and laid her lips against my chin, kissing the spot for a second that lingered, softness and warmth, a flooding of something ethereal coursing through my body. Genuine. It was the first genuine thing the mare had done since entering my room.

But I'd been stunned looking forward by the act. My frills twitched at the clacking of hooves. I barely saw over Starlight's head when the purple hooves appeared before the distant frame of the open door.

Twilight peered into the room at once, the happiness on her face the kind when she was excited to share something with me. But then she stopped. Her joy dripped from her expression. Something had drained her. Had it been the sight? But why?

“Hmm?” Starlight drew back from her kiss with a foreleg already wiping her lips. Holding herself up on my thighs, she checked over her shoulder, the slender curve of her frame pushing out, even just a bit, from the sight. “Oh. Afternoon Twilight. You get lost and enter the wrong room too?”

“We... have maps on the walls.” Twilight glanced behind her to point to such a thing. “It was right here too. Full layout. Marked rooms. The current location stated?”

“You learn something every day, don't we?” Starlight finally hopped down from my lap, turning to the door. She walked across the room, and my eyes followed her every step. It was hard not to. “But I think I've had my fill of games today. It was fun playing with you, Spikey.”

I scrunched my face upon hearing my nickname. I even shook my head as she sauntered out of my room... something which I knew I shouldn't have. There was no denying Starlight had a perfection about her. The sway of her hips elongated and slowed down, the swishing of her tail draping over the plumpness of her flanks.

Worst came once she reached the door. Starlight's tail had been rising ever so slightly as she left and, upon reaching the frame, nearly had it lifted. I didn't mean to look, but... having such a sight made it harder to turn my head away. The end of her tail rising over the start of her crotch, teasing to the contents below it.

And then the mare stopped.

Starlight turned around and, seeing where my eyes had been fixated, then grinned to herself. A haughty chuckle that flounced her mane onto her back. “Well, wouldn't you know it? Maybe there are some games hopeless boys have no choice but to play.”

Starlight paused upon reaching the side of Twilight. The two mares glared at each other—Starlight looking smug and Twilight looking annoyed—with some invisible communication going on between them. I wanted to say something, do something, but silence and inaction became of me.

And then Starlight left with a light hum.

And then Twilight glared at me with an angry growl.

“First things first,” I started by already holding up my claws, “I want to complain to the landlord of his castle—which is you. Now I pay a hefty price of nothing to stay in this room, so I expect the best service here.”

Twilight stepped into the room, her muzzle lowered, eyes up, stalking me. It'd been the same technique of scaring me ever since I was a baby dragon. Talking never ever seemed to save me. But at least it made the upcoming situation a little less scary.

“That crazy mare broke into this room because that door doesn't have a lock, a bolt, and a metal bar to keep it closed.” I waved my claws to opposing sides before letting them drop into my lap. “Therefore, I'm at zero liability for whatever just happened.”

Twilight stopped her assault into the room. That... was another thing that didn't usually happen. Her body tensed and she froze. She kept locked for a few seconds, contemplating something. And then, with a sigh, she broke out from her funk. “And... just exactly were you two doing in here?”

“I was just trying to mop around in bed like a good dragon before she came in here.” I sat back on the bed, taking hold of the blanket still covering my legs. I tossed aside to the flap of fabric and wind. Once more, for whatever reason, now Twilight turned her head away. “But it was just Starlight being Starlight. We joked around and teased each other for a bit. She was trying to cheer me up a little.”

“By kissing you like that?”

“Certainly not the worst way to be cheered up.” I rubbed the spot where the kiss still lingered, not knowing why it had the power to stay there, to still be felt despite the minutes that had then passed. “Still kinda weird flirting with a mare. I mean, it's Starlight, so I guess it really doesn't count. But certainly throws the heart for a whirl, y'know?”

But Twilight didn't take part in the jest or anything like that. For whatever reason, she stood there, muzzle down and now the same true of her eyes, her body feeling like it was shrinking before me. My scales tingled at the activation of my number-one assistant senses.

“Hey, what's wrong with you? Something happen?” I patted the spot next to me on the bed, doing my best to smile through the storm of anxiety. “Come sit down next to me. It's supposed to be my day off—but because you're an old friend, I'll make an exception.”

Twilight gave a silent laugh. There was a smile that tugged her lips back despite the sadness of her expression. Without words, she came to me, slowly raising her hooves to the bed and climbing onto it, the moving of her figure always soft and pleasant on the eye.

But she didn't stop there. Even as I leaned back out of respect, Twilight came to the side of my thigh. She gazed at it for a second, almost like she was unsure of it. Once more, my mouth opened, although I was clueless as to what to say.

“C-Can I... s-s-sit on your lap for a while?”

That... wasn't like Twilight. I nodded my head, of course, as she slowly found herself on top of my legs, settling her barrel in-between them, getting herself nestled in nice and tight. We'd only started doing this recently as well. After the growth-spurt, I mean. My claw hugged around her neck while the other stroked down her mane.

It was different than Starlight. Where she would arch her frame over my body, giving me a feel for her every soft curve and feminine composition—Twilight bundled herself on top of me, nothing sexual, only her overwhelming softness growing closer.

“Hey, Twilight? I'm, uh, s-sorry about earlier.” Even though all I could see was the top of her head facing forward, I somehow hoped she knew how mucked up my face was right now. “You know how Starlight and I get when we're in a mood. We didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. It looked like you had something important to tell me before you came in.”

That caught her attention. Slowly, Twilight's head turned and tilted, craning back to gaze up at me. Her eyes seemed tired, ever so tried—but her smile bore her last bouts of hope. In a small voice, she spoke. “B-Before that... Spike, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Twilight.” I nudged the side of my head forward. “That ear-fin is always for you. Feel free to tug it down and scream into it if you need to.”

Twilight gave a weak laugh through her apparent sadness—but it was still a laugh all the same. “It has to do between you and Starlight... you two... you aren't... seeing each other, are you?”

“What?” My recoiled and my face scrunched at once. “Of course not.”

“O-Oh.”

“I don't think Starlight's ever seen me in the kind of light before. We flirt and tease each other, sure.” I sighed and slumped forward. “But there's no real weight behind it. I think she knows I don't have much in terms of luck when it comes to mares and just wants to give me some practice before the real thing happens.” I chuckled sadly to myself. “Which, of course, will never be. Just seems like love isn't for me.”

Twilight twitched at that. She probably hated stuff like that coming out of my mouth. But I learned long ago that it's better to be honest, even if the words seem desperate for pity than to repress one current state. “Besides. Her liking me would be like you liking me. You girls are my best friends. So you don't have to sweat anything like that.”

I wanted to ask her why she was even sweating something like this in the first place. Did she dislike the idea of having two lovebirds living in her castle? I could see how having her closest friends become closer to each other, leaving her out and alone.

But surely Twilight knew nothing like that would ever happen to her, right?

“Apparently, I'm having a ball thrown for me.”

I blinked. Those words came out of nowhere. “Ponies in the alleyways pulled your name from a bowl?”

“N-No! Nothing like that, you silly.” Twilight snorted in that adorable way only she could do, turning her muzzle away as a blush warmed the purple of her cheeks. It was something she was always self-conscious about despite how much I loved it. Not once did I stop stroking her mane. “It's going to be happening in Canterlot!”

“So Princess Celestia drew your name out of a fishbowl?” I whistled while I leaned back, giving a little laugh once I was done. “Not going to lie, that's pretty impressive. Do you know how big that fishbowl would have to be to hold that many names in it?”

“Spike! C'mon now.” Twilight lifted a hoof and booped me on the snout. I wrinkled it in response. “Be serious. It's a huge thing!”

“Tell me about it! Soon my lap won't be good enough for you.” I sighed for effect. “The moment your flanks touch Celestia's throne—I'm a goner.”

“You keep brushing my mane like this,” Twilight countered, “and maybe I'll see to making you into the throne.”

“So I get to be with your flanks more? Don't threaten me with a good time.”

“Spiiiike!”

“Sorry! Forgot what mare I was talking to for a second there.” I chuckled away the lingering tension in my chest, feeling a pleasant lightness to my body. It seemed like this morning would be self-inflicted torture. Thankfully, I had the wackiness of these two to take me away from my woes. “So how about it then? When are you going to get Canterlot to praise the very existence of Twilight Sparkle?”

“In approximately two weeks from now,” Twilight said with a final laugh, although something substantial chained itself to the end of it. Her muzzle dipped with the weight. “Everypony is going to be there for it.”

“You're saying that like it's a bad thing.”

“Because... he's going to be there.”

“Oh? Oh.” I went to breathe in but, upon hearing those words, breathed out instead. The lightness beneath my scales turned hollow as I finally understood the pain of the mare bundled close to me. “So what are you going to do, then? Show off how much you're like Princess Celestia and banish him to the moon? Tell the Sisters to move their thrones because you're getting yours truly installed?”

Twilight laughed again. There was something painfully sad about it. “I'm not sure about it yet. I don't want to make a fuss for Princess Celestia considering all the effort she's put into this. Kinda... the reason I came to you.”

“Giving me good throne practice, that's for sure.” I chuckled weakly and turned my gaze aside. There had to be something I could say to cheer her up. But my pointless jokes didn't seem to have the stinging power like they used to. “But, y'know, if you need a dragon to play bodyguard for you...”

Twilight's muzzle zipped to me at once, a flushing of energy suddenly brimming with excitement. “You mean you'll come?”

“'Course I will,” I replied. “If a ball is being thrown for you, then, of course, I have to go. Can't promise to stay around long because of all the super-important princess stuff you have to do. But I'll have your back whenever you need it—which you won't. Hey, it's there anyway.”

Twilight sat up on my lap, the gaining pressure sudden but not terrible. She weighed a bit more than Starlight though that added pudge was dished out proportionally. The mass of her rump flatted over the whole of his thighs while the compressed figure of softness rose to meet me.

“You know I'm not anypony different because of the wings, right?”

I glanced away and already broke my rule.

I lied. “Of course I do, Twilight. The moment you're off that throne, you're exactly like normal.”

Not a whole lie, but not the entire truth, either.

“Exactly! Though, as a princess now, there are a few things I can do for you that I couldn't before.”

I smiled when I gazed back at her. Twilight's muzzle hovered inches before my face, the sudden proximity brushing my cheeks with its warmth. She was so cute up close. Perfection of a mare so out of reach that I gave up that hope before she'd even gotten her wings. “I don't doubt it for a second. So two weeks from now, right? Consider it a date.”

I don't know why, but Twilight leaned in, kissing me on the cheek, something she'd done countless times before. But something felt different about this one. Both of the mares had been acting different ever since I gave up on Rarity.

And for whatever reason.

I swore I heard some laughter from the hallway.

~ Starlight ~

It'd taken far too long to get things off the ground.

So many days and nights spent waiting and planning and thinking and dreaming. Trying to set everything up perfectly so I could enjoy the experience the same. Spike had always been the only one able to see through me. Seeing the mare beneath the schemer only to still smile at what he found.

There'd been something endearing about that. From there, I played my little games, finding every reason to travel a hoof across his body. He was such a cute boy to tease. It was always the shy ones, the kind ones, the good ones that caught my eye.

As if they could save what I was underneath it... never mind.

It made me sad that the boy could never catch on. He took to my teasing quickly, able to handle my flirting. But he could never seem to believe it was all for real. After the games I made him play, I suppose I could see why he thought this was one of them.

But how much more obvious can a mare get!? One night came where I left my bedroom door open, listening for his footsteps, pretending to be panting all to disguise my intent. And then he strolled past, and I started to moan, rubbing a hoof across my slender curves and drawing circles on my belly, threatening to go lower should any peak on.

Of course, I clenched my eyes shut to deny the possibility of my seeing of him. I was hoping he'd stare and watch, save some things to memory and, if I was fortunate, to sense him doing the same as me. But even upon finding a mare masturbating loudly for his sake... the dragon then quietly closes the door!

But I'd finally gotten my revenge now, standing before the parted door the washroom, the flooding of steam making the ends of my fur moist. There was a scent to the air. Crisp freshness found in dewy woods. All of it masked with the natural odour of an adult dragon.

“S-Starlight! What do you think you're doing there?”

And there goes my cover!

“Shhh! Will you keep it down?” I looked to my side to see Twilight walking toward me. She looked annoyed and confused but kept quiet all the same. “If you don't mind, I'm trying to do some dragon watching right now.”

“Dragon watching?” Twilight tilted her head upon reaching the side of the door, then peeking inside seconds later.

Her gaze cut through the fog of steam to the tall figure standing in the stall within. A gorgeous body standing beneath cascading steams, scales made slick and glossy by the water, accentuating the slenderness of his physique.

“T-That's Spike in there, Starlight!” Twilight shouted in a hushed whisper. I didn't envy her vocal cords. “You can't be spying on him like this! How would you like it if he was invading your privacy?”

“Happy actually,” I replied in a matter-of-fact. “I've been trying to get him to notice all the little things I do for him. Maybe even get invoked in the things I usually do alone.” I rolled my hoof in the air. “Do you know how many times I leave the door open while I shower, hoping he would take a peek?”

“But you... but I... I thought that...”

I smirked. “What's the matter? Spike tell you that I don't actually have a thing for him?”

Twilight looked shy, suddenly. It wasn't like her to act like a filly in a mare's body but, when it came to sensitive things she was inexperienced with, anything could regress her to such a state. I couldn't blame her for it. Even thinking of the dragon dork created trembles in me that I didn't let anyone else see. “W-Well, it was something along those lines.”

“And how about you? Do you have feelings for your number-one assistant as well?”

“W-What! Don't be ridiculous!” Those words cut her despite being hollow and thrown in an attempt to save her. Her eyes snapped to the dragon in the shower at once, her expression melting to the sight. Peace and warmth consumed her. Bubbling happiness evoked so suddenly. “T-There's no way t-that I could f-feel that way about him.”

“You're a terrible actress, so I know you've already accepted your feelings for him.” I laughed and pressed a hoof against my chest. “It took a little while for my crush to go on into something more. For a while there, I was almost hoping Rarity took him away so I wouldn't have to worry about falling in love with him.”

Twilight sighed and looked away. “You're telling me.”

“So you admit it then!”

“Wait? What? No, no!” Twilight went to go on to say something more but, knowing it all would be pointless she gave up. With a final sigh, she looked to the delicious, slender muscles beneath the scales of his frame. “Alright. You've got me. Spike's... always been there in my heart. Especially recently.”

“The boy who broke your heart?”

“Everypony likes the idea of me as a princess... but when they get to know the mare underneath it better? My friends love and accept me for who I am.” Twilight shook her head. The refection of the showering Spike looked so tiny in her eyes. “But not too many stallions willing to not only be with a princess, one taller and... powerful. But apparently, the mare beneath it isn't worthwhile either.”

I smiled if only because of the connotations of my following words. “But Spike?”

“The fact that I'm a princess doesn't affect him as much as the others.” Twilight dropped her muzzle and gazed at the floor, pawing one hoof against the other. “We're still able to keep equal after all is said and done. And not only that, but he knows me for the mare underneath.”

I then laughed. “Ironically enough. I get you, Twilight.”

Twilight looked up.

“Always thought I'd have to keep making up plans and games to have a stallion wanting to keep being with me.” I sighed as I tried to block out the memories. “Don't get me wrong. Being that kind of mare is fun for the most part. But when it comes to the moments in-between the fun, well... let's just say most didn't end up sticking around once I opened myself up.”

“Except for Spike?”

“He may not be great or powerful or anything like that,” I admitted without an iota of disappointment in my voice. “But he's always there for a girl. Doesn't matter what I said or did. He always seems able to see through it all. Something about always having a guy there for you is... mmhmm... incredibly sexy.”

Twilight looked at me for a few seconds, not angry or upset, but if I had to guess, equally emphatic to it all. We both ended up looking at the shower at the same time, watching the dragon who'd given up on love not realize what was standing outside his door.

“I always thought you were too quick to touch and tease him around.”

“And I always thought you were jealous because you were too shy to act on anything.”

Twilight glared at me. “Spike almost saw underneath your tail today.”

“Can't blame a boy for watching hips swaying for him.” I laughed as I took a step forward, pressing my snout against hers. I expected Twilight to back away—but she held her ground. “And besides. If you weren't there, I would have given him the full view.”

Twilight shook her head, which, since we were touching snouts, made me do the same. “We both can't have him.”

“I couldn't agree more! So why don't we have a little game then?” This had been the moment I'd been waiting for, the reason why I hadn't swooped in right away and taken the win. We were still friends, after all. Things needed to be fair for that friendship to continue that way. “Starting this moment, both of us have to do her best to make Spike fall in love with her. Whomever he chooses, that mare gets to be his.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “And the other mare can't get mad at them no matter what happens.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” I said with a snort. “So should we shake on it?”

We didn't even need to look at our hooves for them to meet and then shake, each of us pushing on the contact longer than needed, glaring into the other's eye. Despite the intensity of it all, both of us were still smiling.

“I guess that settles that, then,” I said while pulling my hoof back to the floor. “Which one of us do you think he'll pick? Sexy or romantic?”

“Do you struggle to be both?”

“Those are fighting words.”

“Then let the best mare win.”

II - Games that Don't Need to be Played

~ II ~

Games that Don't Need to be Played

There was a certain bliss in keeping so close to him. I'd lost out on countless positives during my reign in a period I'd... rather not think about. But of them was in keeping close to a guy. To be next to someone strong and tall, the heat falling off his scales subtle and different, a masculine strength to it I'd never know had existed before.

Even as we strolled through the packed, earth-paved lane of ponies and booths, a small carnival having set on the outskirts of the town, I kept close to him, much closer than I needed to. It was actually against my goal to have my fur an inch away from his scales.

But something about his body, even done unconsciously, beckoned me closer to him.

Above, the distant head of the dragon whipped around, unsure of itself, looking everywhere except at the source of his anxiety. It delighted me of how much of an impact I had on this boy. All with little teasing strung into a game of lust.

Much better than the last boy, the dear who meant so much to me, who left so... never mind.

“You alright?” I was blinking into reality, only to see the brilliant glows of green settling on me. Spike's pointed muzzle consumed the bottom of my gaze while the rest became fixated on the greatness of his eyes. Sharp but kind. Truly divine. “Looks like you've spaced out there for a second.”

“Hmm?” With a sharp shake of my head, those thoughts became banished, the pains of the past not preventing the pleasures of the present. With a step, my side pressed into his, using his stiff hip for support. “Just thinking about some things I'd rather not. Strange how some things can creep up on you, huh?”

Spike chuckled. In an act of smoothness beyond him, his arm swung over the back of my neck, nestling itself there, holding me close against him. Once more I was blinking as its heated weight hugged me in a sweetness unfelt before.

And the dragon did it so easily, not by a trick or a scheme, but because for a second, something terribly real struck me so suddenly. I exhaled sharply and tried to clear my mind. Being frizzed by nothing always made me talk weird.

“Story of my life on that one... especially lately.” Spike scratched the back of his head, his eyes then lightning up while his head inched back. He suddenly became aware of something as he glanced down at me. “Hey. I know this is a mock date and all that, but... is this okay?”

“Of course it is, Spikey.” Something cracked within my chest, a horrible, minuscule snap. It didn't hurt me. It didn't wound me. But it did something to me. It depleted me of will and soul. The building warmth now starting to fade. “And don't say this is a mock date to a mare. You could seriously hurt her feelings.”

“Maybe if it isn't a ploy.”

“I heard that.”

He chuckled at that. Despite whatever he felt, I snuggled my head deeper into his hold, something which he locked all so pleasantly. We walked and we walked. Some of the passing mares came to stare at us. Something in their eyes made me feel pleased with myself. Not only were they starting at an apparent couple...

…but also a dragon off the market.

Was this what normal mares got to feel upon snatching their prize? To lord over it all others, to indulge in the bliss, the greatness of being with a guy—all while fending him off to those also hungry? I giggled my delusions away. Without a doubt I was building up the wrong kind of energy.

There was still villainy in this mare after all, then.

But by the time that feel-goodness had passed, however, I glanced up the dragon, smiling, only to find that he was not. I scrunched my muzzle. Wasn't he happy to hold me? The way his digits brushed over my fur, searching my skin proved he found me pleasant.

“Now it's my turn to ask the question,” I said with a laugh, my heart thundering beneath it, unable to keep my hooves straight as we began the incline of a hill. Had I done something wrong? Should I have led in-front while swishing my tail about? “Is everything okay with you?”

“I'm always okay,” Spike said as his eyes followed a couple passing on our left, the kind unable to get enough of the other. Hooves searching, muzzles touching, laughter spewing. The type of intense love disgusting to everyone else. “Just never great it seems.”

My expression dropped at that. The stroking fires of my chest told me to take advantage of this, to allow my hooves to drape over his shoulder, kissing him all over his face, whispering sweet little things into his non-existent ear.

But something caught the better of me. Unplanned and dangerously spontaneous. “What makes you say something like that? You see another villain in the distance?”

“Besides the one around my arm—not at all.” He shook his head as his mouth blew another harsh exhale. “Seems like that's the only time I matter, though.”

I blinked at that. “Wha... what makes you say something like that?”

He blinked as well as if catching himself. “Sorry. Didn't mean to turn a downer on you—“

“The breeze is good and your body is warm enough that I think I can handle whatever your words have to say to me.” I nuzzled his hip, not due to a ploy, but for the honest joy of being there for him. It felt heavier. I snuggled because that's what cute little mares do. But now... it felt beyond a mere act. “So how about it, big guy? How many times have conned your way into my room with chocolate ice cream?”

He smirked weakly. “You were upset then? I just always tug around a tub of ice cream to be safe.”

“Always out to save a mare and her pride, huh?”

“Lesson I learned from Rarity... Rarity.” That name was a throne in his heart as much as my own, no longer a threat but still a pain, an actual pain—not one that was just bothersome. “I was supposed to take her out here. Once upon a time, at least.”

“You mean inside your fantasy, right?”

Spike gave me a sideways grin from above. “So you're able to see through me as well, huh?”

“Villains are always transparent with each other.” I slid a hoof across his abdomen and threw myself, dramatically like another, into the fall. “We were meant to be together, you and I, the strength of a dragon, the magic of a unicorn, claiming the world together.” I laid my cheek against his scales, six pecs of hardness brushing against me. With an evil giggle, I continued. “So whaddya say, partner.”

“Think I'll have to pass, sorry.”

“Good that you did.” I pulled myself from his stomach, allowing us to resume our walk, but my eyes kept locked on where I left. They weren't big, but they were there. This dragon had some muscles on him in a fashion I more than just admired. “Taking over the world is boring anyway. Too much work.”

Spike chuckled, nodding while he did so, though his large eyes still welled with his sadness. Enough joking around. “But seriously. You and Rarity were supposed to come here?”

“Something like that,” he continued while gazing forward, but not looking at anything outright. “Could have been any place, really, if it was her and me. We'd go for walks and hold each other close. Sneak in kisses and talking about everything. Just being a... really happy couple together.”

He lifted his chin and blew out some air—steam accompanying it.

I guess dragons burned other kinds of fires as well.

“I dunno what I thought was going to come from it... but I always had this sense it was going to go somewhere. That... by being with her... my life would finally become something more.” He shook his head, in that special kind of way that only I knew, the fashion of trying to rid something that wouldn't go away. His frown still kept with him after. “That I wouldn't need to get roped in with the girls for my life to feel special. We wouldn't need to be fighting a villain for ponies to care for me... truly care for me...”

“But ponies do care for you!” I stepped in front of him, out of his warm embrace and right into his opposition. Standing before someone so sleek and tall hammered at my heart with a fear born of many facets. But I steeled myself, abiding by the wounds in my spirit. “Do you seriously doubt the girls wouldn't have your back during the off-seasons? That none of us think for you, care for you?”

Spike bowed his head. “Of course you girls do.”

“Then why are you talking like you don't know that?”

“Because I don't always feel that.” His head may not have raised, but his eyes certainly did, their green intensity painful on the heart. Strong and piercing. Able to burn through anything with their sincerity. How could such a normally passive creature go so extreme? “I don't blame you girls for it, either. Everyone has lives. We all hang out. Sometimes we do things. But I... I never feel like I belong. Only that I'm there.”

“Spike...”

“Twilight thinks about me, maybe, but she also has a kingdom to maintain.” Spike sighed upon returning to his full height, the shadow casting over me thicker than before. I stepped back only to regret it. “And you're learning to return to this world as a normal mare, carrying on like Twilight is. You're both smart and beautiful mares that deserve to live your lives to your fullest.”

He then turned his head and looked to a distant hill, the light breeze pushing on the sides of his spines. “But I thought that, one day, I would find a mare that we could share the same life with. That I could feel important to her, that she could feel important to me, the two of us... I dunno. Complete?”

My eyes dropped to my hooves. I laughed dryly. When did my forelegs look so small? “Is that what love is, then? When everyone is too busy with their own lives... to find somepony to share the same one with?” I also gazed out into the distance. My body felt calmly hollow. “I supposed that would make midnight walks less lonely.”

“You go on those too?”

“That I do... but never around here.”

Spike chuckled. Both us stood next to each other, but not yet together, that distance between us feeling... needed. Something wasn't right. When had all of this become so real? My plan was to woo the dragon. But I... I never knew he was expecting so much more.

And that... I wanted more as well.

Dragons were greedy creatures.

But maybe mares were too.

“Hey,” I started with a dry throat, breaking through it with faint courage. “Spike? How about... you and I make this midnight different?” I turned my head up to face the side of his, admiring how lost he looked. So young and boyish. Genuine and earnest. Grown so old without a wrinkle in his scales. “Call it a scheme if you like. But I would really like to spend this midnight with you.”

Spike chuckled. Lifting a foot from the paved path and onto the patch of grass, the other one followed, joined by a long inhale, a quick exhale, and soon his bottom meeting the ground. He crossed his legs, content to enjoy the sunlight and the occasional breeze, something about him now changed.

“Not like I have anything better going on tonight.” He caught himself at once, sputtering when he spoke next. “T-That didn't come out right. I mean, spending the night out with you sounds like it would be fun.” He smiled as he glanced over at me. “Even if you're only a pretend date.”

Such a dense little boy. Though I suppose his luck with mares has been rotten. Taking to his side, entering the same breeze and sunlight, I think the refreshing of my mind spoke of this not being only his fault. I'd been leading him on. Never able to outright say what I wanted.

The heart can only crack so many times.

And sometimes we tease in the hopes of it leading to certainty.

“So you wanting to be with a mare... you hope more of a life will come from it?” I sat next to him on the hillside, one of the few times we felt equal to each other. He sat all the way back while leaning onto his claws while I sat slightly hunched. “But you don't need a mare for that, y'know. What's wrong with entering the world alone?”

“Got me there.” Spike's muzzle was below mine now, which I met with a giggle, the first time in a while I had to look down to see him. There was something peaceful about him. Though I loved to see him squirm. Having him not in my control, outside of my certainty... I... I don't know. It was pleasant in a wholesome way that I couldn't explain. That despite being freed from my plans, he still sat down next to me, out of his own choice rather than from underneath one of my ploys. “Supposed I'm scared. I don't know where to go. If the world were up to me, I'd probably spend it in my room.”

I laughed and, without thinking, nudged my hoof over his claw. “No wonder why you need a mare in your life. Hopeless by yourself, aren't you?”

“Always had a mare there,” he replied with a laugh as well. “Guess I can't take care of myself.” He sat up properly for his claw to hold my hoof, squeezing it. A stroke of love, making me feel whole. “Suppose that's a lesson I'll have to learn and write to the princess, huh? Twilight will enjoy reading that.”

“If... she knew what you and I were going to do tonight—you may wanna blot out some words in black ink.” I looked over to the hopeless boy with a sultry expression born of bravado, but one done to better serve him. “You want to experience the highs of life? Actually living as it were?”

With a confused expression the boy nodded his head anyway.

“That's good,” I replied with a thundering in my belly, knowing I was about to take the kid to a place where he shouldn't go—but maybe if he did, we could both properly live, like all the other mares and stallions, the normal life had at night. “Because where we're going, there will be plenty of music and partying, drinks and dancing, and plenty of mares looking to flick their tail all over yours.”

I laughed after the slur of my words. Little thumps broke into the air. The sounds caught him by surprise as they did me. Both of us looked over the dragon's back to find his long tail beating all over the ground like a happy little dog.

“So that's your trick, is it?” Even though he already held my hoof, I broke out of it, flinching when I did, but stroking up and down his arm all the same. “Just mares flicking their tails is enough to get you excited?”

He glanced away with a blush and a gulp.

I now had something new to use on the boy.

And had gained another point over Twilight Sparkle.

Author's Note

Smoking. Drinking. Drugs.

Dangerous sports. Risks made at fast speeds. Adrenaline and endorphins clearing the mind upon merging into a kind of euphoria. This is what addicts strive to have from many ill means.

And I am one of them.

I just never expected it to be Monsters. The energy drink. Two a day at the very least to many more that I don't dare to speak of. My heart is upset with me as it is. Yesterday I had quit them. Then I went to the store only for a four-pack to be on sale.

I've already had two.

Quitting is hard, folks, but writing and reading make it easier on the soul—at least to me. Hopefully, Chapter II of our adventure with the clueless dragon and the scheming mare allows us to indulge in the bliss of their relationship without having to endure its dreadful side-effects.
~ Yr. Pal, B

III - You Don't Need to Scheme for Me to Like You

~ III ~

You Don't Need to Scheme for Me to Like You

I wasn't quite sure we became like this, the towering dragon hunched over me, panting his drunken, humid breaths. The glow of his eyes dimmed compared to flashing lights of the crystal club, the light of glow stick keeping lit through the moments of darkness. His tongue hung over his lips while he stared at me.

Thirsty.

His muzzle dipped underneath my jaw and pressed itself against my throat. He inhaled my scent. No perfume. It was all me—and he couldn't get enough of it. Then he nipped. Softly. Licking over my fur, tasting my skin, collecting the salt I'd sprinkled there.

And then his claws settled against my haunches, tightly but without any sharpness. Spike ensured I wouldn't be moving around at all. Not knocking my rump all over the wooden table. How he gained the courage to lay me down on it, I wasn't sure. The boy could be a party when the booze let him go.

Or maybe I saw more of a side to the dragon that he repressed.

The one hungry for the highs of life.

The kind I didn't mind to provide.

I must admit there's something sexy about having a dragon standing between my legs, forcing the very things wide apart, barely allowing my tail to cover a place I wouldn't give him access to just yet. Rolling my head right showed me the line of ponies cheering us own. Cups raised, liquid spilled, necklaces glowing, wrists illuminating.

Afar came the thundering of hooves. The flashing dance floor of many squares of different colours all changing to the rhythm of the beat. One of the new clubs to arrive within Ponyville. A more underground deal.

Not at all Twilight Sparkle's kind of place.

I gazed down my body to see the dragon working down it. With the daze he was in, I'm sure him nearly grabbing my flanks hadn't clicked in his mind. Such broad claws keeping down my hips. For such an evil mare, there was too much pleasure found then in being pinned down.

But the way he worshiped me giggle on my drunkenness. Such a good little boy, submerging his face in my chest fluff, inhaling the thicker strands, tickling me with his snout. Those kisses and nips, inexperience and ill-placed, still kicking out my legs in need.

And then he found it. His claws rose across the sides of my frame, now locking my lower back to the table to keep me from wiggling. Joy flushed my muzzle while disappointment froze my heart as his lips left to take to the rim of the drink. The shot delicately laid on my belly.

Taking it with the strength of his lips alone, he rose up and leaned back, downing the drink then turning to his side, spitting the plastic out. It clattered on the ground to the cheering of many. My cheeks blushed as his claws were made into fists shooting into the air.

Don't you get it, silly boy? I sat up on the table as I felt my smile. All the fun you can have when you let everything go?

But then his eyes settled on me again and, although there wasn't anymore more salt there, he lunged for my throat. He let my body be free as his muzzled buried itself against him. More sniffing, more licking and kissing, little lips and tiny sucks. The boy was getting himself drunk upon me.

The animal I've unleashed.

“Nuh-uh-ah!” I sang with a haughty expression upon placing my hoof on his snout, pushing the dragon inches away. His eyes locked onto mine. “Who's the girl that made your dreams come true? To do a shot off a mare's belly?”

Spike dropped his muzzle, chuckling. “Wanna do one-off mine then?”

“Don't tempt me, big guy.” Pushing myself up onto my forelegs, I tossed a glance at the booming crowd of dancing ponies. This excitement left me with tingly veins pumping with energy. “But you promise this lady a dance.” I then waved a hoof in the air. “And don't think of skipping me one! I've seen all the moves you've done in the bathroom.”

Spike raised his muzzle with narrowed eyes, faint glows of blue and white casting on the side of his face, the light above cutting and coming back, our world put into a dreamlike state. Perfect. Unlikely things happen during times like these. “Don't tell you've swapped a one-way mirror there!”

“Not at all!” I laughed. “Front roll seat from the crack of the door. Don't huff at me! Let's enjoy our night, alright?”

Spike only chuckled. He rose out from between my legs but offering a claw while he did so. With a smile, I took it, allowing him to hoist me up. There were a few wobbles once my hooves touched the floor.

But, thankfully, I had a big, strong dragon to lean against.

I had him. Everything told me he was mine. The planning, the books on psychology, every little effort now confirming I had made the male my own. It was tough to dance with the boy on only two legs, but we cut it our own pace.

And every time we separated... I got to see the goof for who he was. His dance moves were over the place, hard to match but fun to follow, the steady rise and drops of the beats always throwing us together. Sometimes I hopped in place like a filly. Being with the boy reminded me of being a kid.

Heart pumping, skin tingling, mind ecstatic.

But during our dance I made sure to follow the guide. Despite the joy of simply jumping around, it didn't accentuate any of my curves... didn't give the guy something to enjoy with his eyes. I wasn't a filly but a mare. And I needed to act more like one to be his mare.

The change of the song brought a slower rhythm it, a steadily rising high that would ruin the dance floor with stomping hooves once more. I needed to act quickly. While the dragon swam through the air with his claws, his eyes flickered over to me and, with my plan set—I engaged.

Few platforms were scattered across the dance floor, round with a curved them around them, allowing any mare, one that didn't immediately get knocked off could then climb up. The scaly boy was following me with his eyes. I did him a favour and swung my tail over the plumpness of my rump.

It drew him, without a doubt, but there was disappointment about his expression, that twitch of something done wrong. My heart stopped while I carried on. Did I swing too much and make it too easy to see? Or did the act make me appear a little too wanting? Did another guy see?

Doubts never helped a mare to succeed.

In the path my lithe body cleared, the flicking of my tail drew the boy forward and, although he did so slowly he still came. All the dancing ponies granted him the space, knowing of my intent, not minding the giving of the room so long as they could also enjoy the show.

Being enjoyed was another drug. My little body climbing onto the platform, flashes of lights streaming high from around my hooves, blues and greens and yellows, marking the sky, parts blocked by my frame, a shadow made the star of a ceiling.

And the eyes. How my neck rolled at the pleasure then endured. Of all the dancing ponies ceasing their moves all to gaze upon me. To look at my figure, to delight in my curves, drinking the suppleness of my flanks, everypony hoping for a peek at my privates.

My body was bound to the pole while the crashing melody swung my barrel and shook my flanks, everything jiggling and fuzz then puffing, that drunken and crazy look of a thirsty, hungry mare another selling point. I was a monster, a sexy one that that, here to show to all exactly how vulnerable I was.

I rose onto my hind legs with a stutter in my step, my view of the world twirling around and around, seeing all the masses, the shadowy faces feasting upon me. Their details blackened despite the glow of the sticks and necklaces. Who they were, what they were: irrelevant.

I had their attention; I had their desire.

All of them wanted me. Even though I knew nothing about them, what they were or who they, they all bore something the same, something connecting: the desire for me. It beat importance even while the warmth of my body pressed against the coolness of the poke. It was hard and chilly on the skin, frosting the fluff set upon my chest—not at all broad to hold me properly.

But that was the point, was it not, a pole wasn't meant to hold but to support, to allow me to flex and do more, to show and expose and do a little dance. It wasn't something to fall upon but dance upon. The striking of my moves earning me the cheers of the crowd, the riding of hooves, the slamming of drinks and the rising arousal scenting the air.

Even though the room was on me, and my hollow body was taken with life, the chill of the pole kept me from feeling warm, the aching in my legs, overdone by incessant dancing set nearly to collapse. The enjoyment of the act soon became work, the rolls of my rump outward no longer as smooth—my grip on the pole slipping.

And the ponies around me, those faceless faces, walking away, turning and leaving, all because I couldn't meet perfection. Pushing myself harder only to hate myself longer. To have something only for it to be drained away by my ineptitude. Why couldn't I be better?

Worst was when I looked back. The gap created by the swiping of my tail so the date I wanted to impress would be amazed by the drops of my ass. But even then... it wasn't good enough. Where his tall body was supposed to be standing was merely the floating darkness that came in-between the flashes of light.

My body gave. Vision blurring and my breathing deprived of any kind of oxygen. My belly sloshed with tainted and burning booze and drinks making my perfect body then feel unwell. Shaking my head had its weight nearly leading me off stage. If I couldn't win the boy over with my moves and my body... then what chance did I stand in getting him to love the unlovable mare beneath?

If I couldn't compensate for that... to make it worth his while, somehow... then how was I...

“What's this? The drop of the beat is starting to change?” the voice from the stage then called over the floor, the beating tempo to a sultry dance changing, slowing down to something more fun. “Let me see all of your hooves on the floor! Get yourself a partner for the coming shake.”

I blinked. I slumped. I died on the inside. The pull of the room gone from me back onto others. I mattered and did not. My chance in the light gone as the flooring below went dark. At least, when you're invisible to the world again—you can cry freely.

“Excuse me, miss,” came that dorky voice that always tried a little too hard with its impressions, “this floor is made for dancing and not sitting. Would you kindly rise and do a little shake with me?”

I gazed up at the dork. He was tall enough for me to lean back to look properly in his eyes. Even though the world around us was bright, ponies dancing in unison and illuminated by the light, we stood in the dark, elevated but also separated from the rest, our bodies here but undefined—both to ourselves and each other.

Despite this, however, the glow of green shone brilliant, two orbs to become lost within, intelligent and kind and fixated upon me. My mouth opened but only a breath escaped me. The boy couldn't see my body. The cuteness of my face or the curves of my form.

“I thought you left.”

“Only to talk with the DJ—she owed me a song.” The dragon sent down his claw, further than he normally would all to offer it to me. It opened. So long and so narrow. Polished with long digits. Sharp in every sense but dangerous. “Hope you don't mind that. I don't dance so well when the beat is faster than my heart. Though, being with you, guess I'll be sloppy regardless—hey?”

I dipped my muzzle, wanting to cry, but laughing instead. “Tease.”

“Only because you started it.”

“But at least I meant it.” Even if you don't think so.

“And who said I didn't?”

I gazed back up at him, his eyes and claw still there, waiting for me despite my hesitance. “But you left.”

“Only because there are so many moves you can force on a guy before he's going to need to use the washroom.” He chuckled and squatted in place, his eyes level with my own, claw still out. “Besides. It looked like you were having more fun impersonating Twilight's moves than anything else.”

I blushed, blinking, the name of my rival bringing me to hate. “They're not very good. I-I can do better than that!”

“I don't doubt you can... but we're not here to show off, right?” Spike wiggled his digits and smiled a toothy grin. “We're here to have some fun! I don't care if you swing around a pole or throw your hoof in every opposite direction from the other. So long as you're having fun, then I'm having fun.”

I exhaled. “You're not just saying that?”

“Look. I don't know what kind of game we're playing right now—you've actually got me a bit frizzled on everything as of late.” Spike lowered his head but kept his eyes mostly raised. “And while I enjoy our flirting and our teasing and our banter, that's just the icing on the cake, ya know? That's the stuff you do to impress everyone else. I already know what you're like beneath everything. But, for whatever reason... you've stopped being the Starlight that I know.”

“B-Because... because she isn't good enough...”

The words came suddenly out of me. I didn't mean to say them and I didn't want to feel the tears of something burning then coursing down my cheeks. Before I could sniffle and shuffle away, those claws grabbed my hooves, pulling them up, lightly, while another crossed around my lower back.

“Sorry, Starlight, but this isn't a debate you're going to win.” The dragon swept me close to his body, holding me up, my full weight despite my legs lagging behind. My head rested beneath his chest, its broad, curved surface creating the perfect crook to nuzzle myself upon. “We both get to decide who we're good and not good enough for and then the other way around. You'll always be worth it to me, Starlight... although I can't say the same in the reverse.”

“...Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“You know we're slow dancing to techno, right?”

“You enjoying yourself?”

“...y-yes.”

“Then so am I.” Spike laughed as he continued stepping forth and back, guiding my movements and holding me close. He hugged me. Unable to get enough of my softness. Like a warm contact he never knew he craved. “We're both invisible to the world, right? If that's the case, then why not do things our own way?”

It wasn't well composed but it was the heart behind it that mattered. Even though our steps, hugs and shifts didn't match the beat, we danced to the tune brewed within the heart of our moves. I giggled while snuggling deeper against him. Shifting sideways, shaking my hips, not because of how they wobbled my flanks, but rather, from the elation that came from the movement.

“You know I'm in love with you, right?” the words escaped me as my eyes closed, my body snug within his warmth and strength, feeling protected from even my own fears, my insecurities—even though he was behind some of them. “All that playing, those little games, all those were done so you wouldn't know what I feel. But I want to be closer to you, Spike.”

Spike's muzzle had dipped to nuzzle against the top of my head but, upon hearing my words, slowly drew away. Even though I laughed, taking a second to look up—the confusion of his face was beyond sweet.

“I want to be closer to you as a girl.”

~ Twilight ~

I was better than this, and yet, I did it anyway.

From the moment she took off with Spike... I knew that leaving those two alone wasn't an option. Spike wasn't the kind of dragon to leap onto any mare. But if it was Starlight. If she continued to make herself available, to open herself to him... she might have scored him another way.

I was thankful for the jacket and the glasses able to hide my wings and obscure my face, a princess returned into a nerd, one that could pass through easily enough. There were still eyes upon me. I suppose that should make me happy that I still wasn't invisible even without the wings.

But stalking those two depleted me of any good feelings.

I could hardly enter the club on my own. It simply wasn't me. Spike used to tell me stories from other girls at the time that entered such places. We both were too scared to come here alone. Maybe if Rainbow or Rarity led the way that we could give such a location a try.

But we always found more solace in front of a crackling fire, together, reading a book we both admired.

My heart clenched at the sudden pain. Eyes watering at what had been lost. Our childhood together, an intensity of closeness slowly dying, our bodies becoming further apart... our roles in the world located in opposite directions.

I didn't want that... I couldn't have that... but even as I changed... he kept the same. Always my assistant, always positive with bits of cynicism. Even though we weren't connected, we were still the greatest of friends. Though I miss when we were one, us being two was bearable at the very least.

Until I wouldn't even have that anymore.

I know becoming a princess put a wedge between us. Even as I tried walking through the floor, feeling the bodies of ponies crash into me... that how the world reacted to me, the very essence that I now gave could never be the same.

Except when I'm with Spike. In the nights where my crown is off and the wings cease to matter, where all the asking ponies and the towering paperwork has disappeared... once more we find ourselves in front of a fire, basking in the other, a dragon and a mare, Spike and Twilight.

Nothing more and nothing less.

I didn't know how desperately I needed that again. That I never required a stallion in my life for the perfect dragon already fulfilled me. I couldn't lose him. Not to a mare that considered it all some sort of game. She was slender and firm where I was plump and round. She strode while I walked.

She could use her body to get what she wanted.

And I was unsure of even my own attraction.

“I want to be close to you as a girl.”

I stopped. Her voice. Somewhere above. I stopped as an explosion of light blew across the platform. So appeared my dragon, hunched forward, holding a mare close to his form, all while she snuggled deeper into him.

And how I watched from the dancing crowd, deadly still, unable to look away.

“No foolin'?”

“Spike... I... I may be the kind of mare to scheme and force an entire town into submissions, b-but...” Starlight drew a deep inhale upon pulling away from him. She gazed into his eyes, the ones so brilliant and kind, ones I thought were only meant for me. “If you say you got to know me, t-the r-r-real me after a-all this time... do... d-do you think...”

“I'm... sorry.” Spike placed a thumb over her lips and pressed gently upon them. Seconds later, he smiled, raising to wipe beneath her eyes. “It's just. You're not the easiest mare to figure out. I can never know what's real or what's pretend with you.”

Starlight laughed and cried at the same time. “S-Sometimes, a mare has to play pretend.”

“Even for things that are real?”

“Better to be hurt in jest.”

“You know I wouldn't hurt you in either way.” Spike turned his muzzle aside and, for a second I thought he spotted me. My heart cracked more. To be looked at but not seen. At the very moment he would reject me for real. “Dunno what you'd see in a dragon like me anyway. After Rarity...”

“There's nothing wrong with you falling in love, Spike,” Starlight said upon lifting her muzzle, keeping it there through force of will. “Just expressed it to the wrong mare. B-But, n-now that you know all of this wasn't, well, p-pretend.”

“You want to know if I like you?”

“I... was hoping for better wording than that.”

“Now you're starting to see why Rarity didn't go for me.” Spike chuckled but, within a second, stepped back and took a breath. He looked down his side, his expression lost in thought. Why would it be? Starlight was the perfect mare for him. Able to show him things that were new, flirting in a way I never could, allowing him to enjoy... the things that made a mare a mare.

Nothing should be holding him back now.

Nothing but the cracking of my own heart.

“Of course I like you, Starlight.” Spike closed his eyes and tilted back his head, breathing through his mouth. “I feel more of a dragon around you. This flirting stuff, I... I don't do it well with anyone else. Going to places like this? Doing dates? You... you give me more of a life.”

How could such sweet words to another be so sinister to me?

“And I love the mare underneath it.” Spike continued as his head fell forward, his eyes opening, their glow concentrated, determined. “How fuzzy your coat is and everything that you have rocking. Seeing you dance like a filly back there took me back to being a kid again. There's just... so much to love about you that I would need to start composing a list.”

Starlight blinked and lost her breath, “D-Does that mean—”

Both of us were surprised when he lifted up a claw. “But I'm not saying yes.”

My eyes widened. Blood rushed to my heart again. One beat. Then two. Three and four. Warmth coursed through my frame. My hooves twitched against the floor. Steam escaped with my exhale. Life returned to me once more.

“And I'm not saying no either.” Spike dropped his claw to his side. It was hard to see but easy for me to pick up on. The shiver twitching at his sides, the weakening of his legs. His body dying outward from the inside from a sudden mortal dread. “I like you. And I like the idea of being with you even more.”

Starlight shook her head upon pulling back onto her own hooves. The warmth, the assurance she bore—all of it gone. Without calm she had found was now lost. Whatever she was before surfacing once more. Eyes beating with callous curiosity. “And what's keeping us from being together? Or did you not actually mean anything you said.”

Spike fell onto his knee, smiling at her, despite the air of anger rushing toward him. If I wasn't so frozen in place—I would have laughed. Bearing me at my worst of times had equipped him to take on a dangerous mare's rage. The only one to stick with me after seeing all of me.

“Of course I mean it.” Spike dropped his eyes not because he was lying... but because whatever he was going to say next was heavy—heavy enough to hurt him. My hoof rose despite my daze wanting to be placed upon his shoulder. “I love you, Starlight. From your face to your mane to your rump to your wit to your charm. The fact I can be with you, to experience more of you... I can't put it into words.”

But Starlight already shook her head. Too set off to see Spike being genuine. Poor boy. “But?”

“I... I just have to make sure of one last thing.” Spike nodded his head as if steeling himself, staring back into Starlight's eyes without fear. Even I would have shivered. How could a near shut-in bear so much will? My heart fluttered at wanting to throw myself at him here and now. “I don't want to risk what happened between Rarity and me again. And... as selfish as it may sound... I-I... I think there may be another who likes me as well.”

“So what!?” Starlight shouted at the drop of a beat and rise of the lights; any traces of their fight overshadowed by the night. “You're just going to see if she's available first before you go with me? Is that how you view me? How all guys view me? Second pick?”

But Spike shook his head while keeping himself composed. Although his chest hyperventilated, his face kept stern. None in the case for himself but for her. Did he do this with me too? Hurt himself, so I would be less in pain whenever I lashed out?

“I've never viewed mares or friends or anyone like that.” Spike exhaled, although this time, its shaky effects were seen even by me. “You're not better or worse than this other mare—just different. It's a cop-out just to say you're both great. But it's true. There's so much about the two of you that I love that I... I just can't pick one over the other.”

Starlight lost some of her rage, gazing down at their stage, looking afraid. “So why do you have to go after her then? Especially when you know it's going to hurt me?”

“Because I have to know if there's the faintest chance that she does love me back.” Spike placed a claw on her chin, lifting it up all so she could see his smile. “What if it was the other way around? You liked me and I suddenly went with another mare? I couldn't leave her feeling like that. Not if there was a chance she does feel something more for me.”

I blinked and stepped back. My heart raced, but my mind tried to keep it in check. But even as it went, the mares and friends Spike had gotten close with over the years... never matched the closeness he talked about.

Except for one.

Me.

“If she doesn't feel anything for me then I won't have to bear any guilt,” Spike said a final time as he lifted to his feet, looking over the crowd, over me, toward where he thought I would currently be. “But I have to make sure that's the case before we do anything, okay?”

That... that was it! Even as I stepped back with a mechanical smile on my lips... my dragon still loved me! More than as a friend or a best friend but of a lover wanting to become something more. To hold me close before the fire and to read and to kiss and to be so close as to make life horrible no more.

I still had a chance.

My dragon still loved me.

Enough to reject the mare that had everything I didn't.

All to ensure I wouldn't be left alone.

I still had a chance.

But now I needed to prepare to make it count. But before I went to leave, I glanced a final time at the stage, seeing Starlight still sitting there, scheming, no doubt taking none of what he said to heart. Our eyes locked without her knowing. Her point up in the game had just been removed.

And I hadn't yet played my turn.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay in-between chapters. Decided I needed to go back and read some old Spilight stories. It was that ship that got me in the first place ya know. Best way to ignite passion to its highest intensity is to go back to what caused it in the first place.

Now that I've cracked the dust off my fingers—here's hoping the story has that extra edge to it! If not, well... at least the shipping is cute, right?

Hope all is well and going well, gang.
~ Yr. Pal, B

IV - Princess and Hero

~ IV ~

Princess and Hero

Spike would be mine. We’d been together too long for me to lose him now. When it came to the social interactions between a male and a mare, I knew I was inexperienced—an art learned by awkward teenagers and early adults. If I truly understood what I would be missing when I opted out...

But, thankfully, that didn’t matter as much when it came to Spikey. Starlight was still after him. Trying to touch him, bring him back to her own room. She became less shameful about it. But now that he knew... he barely met any of her advances.

And the time we spent together grew.

I found every excuse I could to bring him closer. Inviting him to my room to help with dresses—your experience will Rarity must have paid off in more ways than one, right?—and discuss prospects. More often than not, we found ourselves sitting together, seconds away from midnight, me leaning against him, talking about nothing.

It was always matters of being a princess. What tore us away. I felt shameful in using that card, but... but I didn’t have any other reason to be so close to him other than that. Ever time we talked about my social changes... he would twitch. I hated it. But there wasn’t anything I could do.

Or anything I was willing to do, yet.

But over the course of the week, we became closer, our mornings meeting before the coffee machine, talking about anything, merely being close. It was hard to look at him now. Even when I stood up and leaned against the counter, I only came to his shoulders. My face always covered by a tilted mug.

I tried to do everything I could to let him know I was available. Pressing my body against his. Sliding our slides together. Things we’ve done before now done again for a different reason. But each time I lost myself in the contact. The purpose fading as his warmth invaded my mind.

And then it came time for all us to Canterlot. I’d stayed up late before the journey so that, when we reached the carriage that would fly us away, that I could be excused to lay my body against his. His sharp claw swept over me at once. Rubbing down my back. Allowing my head to rest on his chest as the mighty beatings of his heart lulled me to sleep.

“Would you get a load of this, hey?” Spike walked in front of me as he passed the archway from castle to garden, the sky dark though its stars bright, a beautiful sight we hadn’t seen for a time. His claws held out from his thighs as if to bask in it all. “It’s been long. Far too long.”

“Y-You’re telling me, Spikey.” I glanced over my shoulder to the long hall we’d come from, the giant windows on either side illuminating the carpet with a thin moonlight. The door afar kept open, another mare trying to stalk us but, with a cause of my nod—two guards stepped in her way. “Certainly takes you back, doesn’t it?”

I watched with a bigger smile than I should of at seeing Starlight being escorted down the hall. Whatever scheme she had, no matter its brilliance—it had no power over a princess. But it was hard to explain my smile when I turned back to the dragon staring at me.

“Doesn’t mean anything unless I’m back here with you.” Spike lowered onto his knee so his eyes could meet mine. How sharp they were despite their roundness. That serious and goofy expression he always seemed to have. “But why are we back here, Twilight? The castle is here to celebrate you tonight.”

That one was going to be harder to answer. “The party doesn’t start for another hour or so... s-so... I figured we could, y-you know, hang around and... stuff.”

Spike blinked. “Is that the same eloquence you’re going to use in your speech?”

“K-Knock it off!” I growled with my muzzle, although feeling the hot blushes on either side. “I’m just nervous, alright? Never done something like this before.”

“Done what?”

O-Oh, dear Celestia.

“Geeze, Spike, I don’t know.” I huffed and turned. My eyes clenched. No! Don’t throw a fit! “Maybe the fact that hundreds of ponies are gathered inside the castle and a thousand outside of it all to celebrate the fact that I have some wings? To mark my progress from student to princess? That I have to show I truly went from being some sort of egghead to a composed ruler like Celestia and show that her faith wasn’t misplaced? Should I drum up another thousand reasons for you?”

“...if I tell you that you overthink, will I get a kick to the head?”

I snorted, exhaling steam. Such a terrible joke, most of his were, that still lifted something out of me, anger and rage all the same. I didn’t want to laugh, but I did. A harsh chuckle half-real and half-not. “Maybe we can negotiate a blast to the chest.”

“Will it be a soft blast?”

“Have you ever experience a soft blast before?”

“There’s a first time for everything?”

“Wanna chance that now?”

“Think I’ll withhold my comment.” Spike nodded—but not before raising a digit as well. “And the relish. Also hold the relish.”

I shook my head. “I swear! You’re such a dork sometimes.”

“Twilight Sparkle is saying that to me? Our friends really are having a bad influence on you.” Spike shook his head and crossed his arms, turning away but keeping the side of his gaze set on me. “Remind me to talk to Rainbow Dash after this. I need to have a word with her.”

“Pretty sure she’s with the other ponies mingling in the ball.” I snickered and tapped a hoof against his cheek, enjoying the sensation, loving the situation. “Wanna confront her now?”

“So you two can attack me with the attitude at once?” Spike held up a palm and kept it raised. “Think I’d have better luck with having tea with Chrysalis at this point. Better my love sucked out.”

I smiled. Something overtook me. My hoof raised and pressed on this palm, keeping there, filling the space out. “But you love me, don’t you?”

“With how much love you take from me? I’d almost think you were Chrysalis in disguise.” But his digits wrapped over the curve of my hoof, clamping around my roundness, giving my softness a little squeeze. “But you know that I love you, Twi. Couldn’t stop myself at this point even if I tried.”

I smiled and beamed a little too higher.

“We’ve been together through thick and thin, right? You’ve... become nothing short of perfection as of late.” Spike laughed and coughed and his eyes becoming weighed down. “Always smart, always talented, always powerful. Things always seem to go your way.”

I don’t know why I suddenly hurt so much on hearing those words... but didn’t say anything in spite of it.

“But... the truth of the matter is that I hope ponies see you for the mare beneath it all.” Spike smiled at me—even though he was looking down. “The way your mane frizzes up in the morning is cuter than you could ever know. How tired and dead you look as you dip your muzzle into a cup a coffee.”

I laughed. “And here I thought you were trying to talk me up.”

“Because I am.” His gaze lifted as his determination returned. “Because a mare like you shouldn’t have to sweat what others are going to think. You already have so much right about you. I know you, Twilight. You’ve never given anypony cause to think you as being anything but the best. Anything said otherwise is just pure lies.”

“H-Heh. Thanks, Spike.”

“Just... don’t lose yourself like that again.” Spike leaned in close and threw an arm around me, hugging around my neck, resting his head against the back of my own. “You always have it in you, Twilight. Our bantering back there? The moment you stopped being so self-conscious you were back to normal. That’s all you need to show those ponies. Just don’t be self-conscious.”

“I... supposed you’re right on that one.” I threw my other hoof around his neck as we kept within the hug for a few seconds longer, not realizing how badly I needed the contact. After a few seconds, however, we broke the embrace. “Hey, Spike?”

“Yeah, Twilight?”

“Do you think we could play a game?”

“Play a game?” Spike blinked upon returning to his proper height. “Haven’t heard you say something like that in years. What do you mean by a game? Like when we were kids?”

“It was here that we always used to play, wasn’t it?”

Spike smiled and laughed as his eyes sparkled with light. “Suppose that was the case. We talking about hide and seek here?”

“Spiiike.” I giggled as my favorite way of saying his name passed through my lips. I took a step to his side, snuggling against his hip—loving the blanket of his arm rolling over my form. “Think deep than that.”

“It’s... been even longer since we’ve done something like that.” Even by the shiver in his body I could feel his mind being swept up in a memory. One warm to enter but cold to leave. Maybe if only because the dreams then only became true for one of us. “The princess and the hero. You remember how that started?”

“It’s something I could never forget.” I kept still and gaze to the twinkling sky. “You caught me reading books about princesses when I was supposed to be studying for an exam.”

“And you found me role-playing with a sword in the closest.”

“We decided not to shame the other for our little fantasies.”

“And when we agreed upon that, we figured we might as well play-pretend.” Spike glanced down at me and, despite his smile, his eyes seemed sad. “Though I suppose after all this time, one of us doesn’t need to play pretend anymore.”

“But, my dear hero!” I slipped out of his hold while arching a foreleg into the air, draping it over my forehead. Leaning to the left, I feigned a faint. “Your princess has spent so many years alone in her horrible castle! Mind stolen by books and body taken by nobles! How I wish to be free! Why can’t a fire breathing dragon come and save me?”

Spike chuckled and then struggled. The conflict in him was easy to see. I smiled as the poor boy wanted to desperately to break away into that role. I knew the one. Starlight may have pulled on the character he liked to play—but I knew what he truly wanted underneath it all.

Something sweeter than a sharp tongue.

“Of course I’ll save you!” Spike dashed forward in a concise step. He arched to the ground and picked up a stick, one left by the trees of the garden, tilting it toward our invisible foes. “There’s no way I’d ever let a mare live such a dull life! I don’t care if they call me a raging, fire breathing dragon—I’d set this whole castle on fire if it met you’d be free!”

I giggled as I fell forward, stumbling in my steps, leaning closer to him, but falling away with every sway of my legs. I threw my hoof out toward him. “But there are too many of them! Surely one dragon cannot take them all?”

“My sword burns with the hottest rage when I think of you!” Without even pausing to give thought to his character, the sprinted to me and, sweeping me off my legs with a stroke of his arm then took off running. “No matter the threat or the foe. I’ll always be there for you. None can withstand the passion of my blade!”

It was so dumb, so dorky, so forced and so out there. But as his arm cradled the entirety of my frame, I then found myself caring less and less. What did it matter how others saw us? That his fantasy of being a sword-wielding hero was anything but his current life? So long as he held me close, his broad chest, my new bed, the beating of his heart lulling me into a calm... I’d fall in love with a hero even if he was pretending.

And there was magic it to, the turns of his body, swinging his stick, beating the invisible forces away. Actually sliding back a leg as if taking a hit, jutting me around—but not once giving me cause to fall.

“I don’t care what I have to do, who I have to face, or how much stronger I have to become.” Spike shook his head before lifting it, gazing at his non-existent enemy with burning intensity. Even his body warmed. The heated scales pleasant against my furs. “Twilight gives me my will to live. To take on anything and to go anywhere. So like hell I’m just going to give her to anyone!”

He pointed his stick into the air with the tip pointed at the moon overhead. Like a call for more power and magic, he held his pose, keeping me close, making me feel protected. So foolish. But it was always his dream in his less cynical years to be a hero.

No sense in poking him around on something he rarely did anymore.

“And just because I can’t be with her,” Spike state in a growl, “just because a princess is too good for a mere dragon... doesn’t mean I won’t always be there for her anyway!” And with that, he turned and ran. Winds rushed over me... though I was far too gone to feel them. “Let’s go, Twilight!”

His words hurt me, and yet, I broke out of my daze. Lying back on the curve of his wrist, I looked up to his head so far away, the underside of his sharp muzzle. He looked around for a place to rest, but at least once, his eyes settled down on me.

“Hero oh hero! Carry me away to somewhere safe.” I leaned up out of his hold. I’d been worried my added height and weight of being a princess would have been too much for him to carry... but apparently, I wasn’t the only one to have grown. “Please protect me. I feel safer with you around.”

And then I kissed him on his cheek.

It took a few seconds for him to find a spot. His body slowed as we approached the great tree of the small field, the one with a base hollow of limbs, one that gazed over the golden railings to the moon beyond. Pressing his back against the bark, he slowly slid down, my body collecting into his lap.

“I think we’re safe,” Spike said in a hushed breath. He looked at me with a small smile. “And how are you feeling, my princess?”

“Like I was a filly instead of a mare.” I nuzzled my head against his chest, delighting when his claw draped over my mane. He rubbed the spot, brushing my hairs, the smoothness pleasant. “Life becomes rather complicated as you become older, doesn’t it?”

“Says the filly who apparently was doing calculus before she could walk.”

“That’s just an exaggeration from Shiny... slightly.”

“But yeah.” Spike’s head leaned back against the wood as he stared out to the sky. “We’ve always lived a bit different from the rest. But I always thought it would be you and I until the end of time. You’d become a teacher or somethin’, and I would be... well, whatever a number-one assistant does then.”

I giggled. “But then we moved to Ponyville and made some friends.”

“I already had friends before.”

“Spiiike.’

“Alright. So we both made some friends, beat some foes, and one of us got a crown.”

I waved my hoof in the air. “But you also got to fall in love. That counts for a point?”

“For a mare that said no? Point removed.”

“Better than finding no stallion... appealing.”

“How about a mare, then?”

“You still asking for that buck to the chest?”

“Wouldn’t judge you differently.”

I shook my head, sighing, boys. “Think... you’d ever fall in love again?”

Spike actually blinked at that. Even with my curled against him, I didn’t feel anything different about his body. We’re so close that we don’t have anything to fear from the other—even when it’s based on them.

I was lucky to have such a connection with another.

“I... dunno.” Spike exhaled heavily. “After what happened with Rarity and those other mares I... I just didn’t see anything working out.” He then shook his head. “Knew I probably fell in with just the wrong mares but, when that keeps being the trend... I guess it slowly evolves into a theme.”

“Don’t think a mare could ever love you back?”

“I don’t know, Twilight, I really don’t.” Spike tilted his head back. The corners of his eyes were glinting. Were those... tears? “Seems like I’m able to love them easily. There’s just... so much about some of them that are perfect.” He blew harsh winds through his lips. “But when I think of that reversing... I... I just don’t see what they could see in me.”

He lowered his head. “But loving them. That’s enough for me. To fall in love over and over. With their laughs and their words. It all sounds so silly and strange to say outright. But I’ve always thought like that. The girls I liked have always been fantastic.”

“A-And... me?”

“I’ve always loved you, Twilight.”

“N-N-Not that kind of love, Spike.”

“I’ve always loved you, Twilight.”

I stopped. Mind and body and soul. Everything shut down and turned off. My hooves were cold. Skin done the same. The only warmth coming from within, flushing out from my heart, an unstable thing itself. “I... h-how... w-w-when?”

“For such a smart mare—you should know what ‘always’ means.” Spike lifted his face and gazed outward... but his eyes didn’t look like they saw anything. “Ever since the first day we met, I’ve loved you. I-I mean, there was a reason why I wanted to be your assistant.”

I blinked. “But... that was Celestia?”

“That was Celestia after she told me we didn’t have a reason to be together.” Spike was supposed to take a breath, and yet, nothing came into his lungs. “It killed me. We barely even had a connection or a reason to stay together. But, for whatever reason, the idea of being away from you... how manly is it to say I bawled my eyes out?”

I was fighting to not be doing the same myself.

“So I invented the reason you needed an assistant to help you.” Spike smiled. An honest one. A real one. “I didn’t care what I became so long as I could become close to you. I’d be your cook, I’d be your maid, I’d be your anything. Just anything to keep close to you.”

“B-Because you loved me?”

“Because I loved you.” Spike looked down at me with those shiny eyes of his, glossy now, from a sheen of tears I both loved and hated to see. “And I always knew you were too good for me. Smart. Pretty. Never seems like I can never find the right word for you.”

I was touched... but why... why did it feel like there was something horrible behind it?

“A-And, one day... you... you would leave me behind.” His breaths were shaky and the tears streaming down hard to watch. My own were wobbly—same with the hoof that wiped his away instead. “My greatest fear is you not needing me anymore. And... and it wasn’t unfounded either. Not with how talented you were becoming... and all the nothing that I remained.”

“Spike.” The word cut the walls of my throat to say. “You know that I’ve never ranked anyone by their supposed worth. That’s never been the case with you.” And I shook my muzzle, worsening the stinging in my eyes. “And it will never be the case with you.”

“Is that so? You’re a princess now, aren’t you?” His shoulders dropped and his feet pushed out against the ground. Every tense muscles gone relaxed. Too relaxed. Like a body that’s lost its life. “Powerful in magic. High in status. Plenty in friends.” His jaw lowered and his mouth kept open. “All the roles I could have proved useful in your life... all of them have finally been taken up now, haven’t they?”

“Y-You’re not replaceable?”

“Not much of your life would change if I was gone.” Finally, his eyes flicked down at me and kept to an uncomfortable angle. “You have a friend for every purpose. Guards that are proper heroes. My biggest fear is being useless, but... for you, to you... that’s kinda become true, hasn’t it?”

I’d never wanted to hurt a crying dragon so much in my life. Furs set aflame and a heart enraged by the lies sold as truth. My eyes squeezed. How could he be so clueless? Here, I thought I wouldn’t be good enough, and now...

“I went on a date once.”

Spike blinked on hearing those words. But by the time his eyes settled on me... I was already looking away.

“You already knew who it was with.” I blew a hot breath. “Tried it more as an experiment than anything else. Figured... my status as a princess... I... that it would help in the... romantic... regards.” I wanted to bite my tongue—but that wouldn’t help my case. “This stallion was overjoyed to be with me. The idea of me at least. What ponies see. Their thoughts and feelings from what they see on the surface. The image of being a proper princess like Celestia, you know?”

Even though I couldn’t see it, I could feel him nod, his body expanding around me again.

“But as this stallion got to know me more, you know, the mare beneath the crown... well, let’s say I’m not exactly a hot market item.” I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to repress the images of the past. “Broke down once, and it broke his illusion of me. Realized then that most of the stallions that saw me... never quite actually saw me.”

I dipped my muzzle. “The girls are always there for me. Always willing to pick me up and keep me going. But when it comes to guys? Maybe there are a few good ones out there.” I sighed, but with a smile. “Count me at my lowest, with all the troubles I find myself in, topped with the pains of being a princess? There’s... only one good one that fits the test.”

I glanced back at Spike. “Speaking from experience, of course.”

I looked at him, and I looked at him. How life slowly returned to his limbs. Arms lifting and kicked moving. Head straightening and eyes glowing brighter. Such a sharp muzzle for such a goofy boy. “You say I could do better, Spike... yet no other stallion, no other mare, no one at all has the one thing that you have.”

I turned in his lab and weighed my body against his, arching into the air, feeling my forehooves rest upon his chest. I aimed for precisely what I wanted as my eyes became half-lidded. Him. Much like the greed he had succeeded in locking away.

I wanted him.

“There’s a deeper element you’ve failed to notice inside that analysis of yours.” I licked my lips with a giggle, going in. “Those other ponies may be there. Maybe they fill those small roles you were talking about.” And then I outright laughed as the heat in my chest then reached it apex. “But out everyone else, none of had the desire to become all those roles, to invent excuses to be closer to me.”

Finally. Hovering inches before his muzzle, my body propped up against his, our breaths clashed against the other. Both of us panting. Thirsty and tired. For one of the few times in my life, I decided now to listen to my ingenious mind and, instead, allowed the beating of my virgin heart to do the talking.

“Consistency, more than confidence, is intensely sexy.” Maybe I’d taken a line from Starlight after all, or maybe there were aspects of myself, buried, given cause to rise. “No one else has wanted to be with me that badly. To become so much only to become closer to me. And if you really knew went on inside of here.”

My hoof went for one of his fallen claws and lifted it to my heart. His palm slid over the bottom curve of my barrel, burying itself within the fluff, the touch divine, although having him feeling my beating heart only made me all the more sensitive.

“You’d know... my biggest fear was of you leaving me.”

I didn’t give him time to talk. No chance to fly away in words words of movement. I pressed my muzzle forward and caught the end of his, feeling the slim, scaley lips take against my own, a smoothness I moaned into. Sloppy. But, when those lips meshed against my own—moaning hungrily—I don’t think any of us cared for our mutual inexperience.

For what Starlight could give him in all that was sexual.

I could do the same in romance.

Where she made him feel more like a playboy.

But I could make him feel like the hero he actually was.

“Why... can’t you see much you matter?” The words came out before my breaths, each of them washing warmly over his cheek. He kept close. A closeness I didn’t know I crave. My desires of my body gone ignored to far too long. “I’d trade everything to be with you, Spike. You complete me.” I took a step back, parting from my lover, knowing my time was coming to an end. “Even if it may not feel like it to you—you’re my hero.”

Spike leaned forward and caught me quickly on the lips. “And... you’re my princess.”

“I love you, Spike.”

“I love you too, Twilight.”

It hurt to walk back—but it had to be done. The soft crushing of grass tickled the underside of my hooves as I continued to back away. More and more, I was leaving my perfect dragon behind. Laid back against the tree, our tree, waiting there for me.

No matter what happened to me next.

He would always be waiting for me.

And nothing could be more sexy or romantic in all the world.

~ Spike ~

I almost didn’t want to let those pair of lips go, so plush and soft against my own, tickles of fuzz against my scales, a warmth I wanted to devour. Just to be pressed against her body and our lips always locked. It wasn’t because I was hungry; it was because my hollowness slowly became filled by them.

But even as I stood to the evening breeze, I heard something close to a squeak. There wasn’t anyone around. Only the sky afar and the grass below. This was a closed-off area. Guards were condemned from birth to never make a sound. Something was off.

I followed the shuffling of noise across the field, stepping up on two steps to a pathway marked with two guards on either side. I didn’t want to leave the gardens behind, but... something about that sound. The pitch. Only I could hear it. Its cry ripping off my scales one by one.

This is a bad idea and you know it. The voice spoke and I couldn’t stop it. Just like how I couldn’t stop my legs from finding the source of the noise. Sometimes you have to give yourself trouble even if it won’t make a difference. Twilight’s going to be scared giving her first proper speech as a princess. She needs you there to support her. That, and when it comes to the ball... it’ll be your first dance with a mare.

My face prickled with needles as my nerves became shot. That... that had been my first kiss. And I’d given it to my best friend. Marefriend? Twilight and I had tried many firsts together. In a strangely beautiful way... it made sense the same would be true when it came to a relationship and romance.

But when I stumbled into the first wing of the side of the castle, a spire of a tower step across the small structure... I saw something I shouldn’t have. My feet stopped, and my thoughts of love dropped. Frozen in the night breeze, I saw the mare who sneezed while she silently screamed.

Starlight.

Starlight Glimmer.

In the box tower above, she sat, before the window with binoculars around her neck, muzzle buried between her crossed forelegs. Though no sounds came through the pitch of her tears seeped through the slits on the sides of the glass. She was too far gone to hear or see me. Something which my cowardice was thankful for.

I glanced back the way I came, the gardens visible only barely but, to one above, granted a clear sight. Closing my eyes and curling my claws, I bit my lips and waited for blood—drawing none. I should have gone up to comfort. To sit down and talk it all out.

But not to break up with her.

For even as I had gazed at her, I saw the mare from the club. The one that made me feel like a player. I asked my heart which mare I liked more and, despite the depth Twilight and I had, the searching for something new, together, rang true with Starlight and I.

Much like Twilight, I loved Starlight the same, unable to understand my own brain.

My damn greed coming out again.

Was this what I was fated to be? Even as I walked into the castle, away from my duty as a gentle drake and into the damning freedom of the long hallway... I hated how I couldn’t be satisfied with just one mare. It wasn’t that I didn’t love them. Both of them owned parts of me. I wanted to give them both everything. They both were perfect in their own way.

I walked like I was drunk across the carpet. Ponies appeared on either side of me. Nobles and those notable. Some glancing at me with concern and some not looking at me at all. Everyone here gathered for Twilight’s sake. Twilight. Twilight. She would be better off with any of these stallions here.

I gazed to some as I kept stumbling forward. Dressed dudes with polished tongues. Accomplishment in some way in order to be here. Not simply because they were born as a dragon but because they did something worthwhile of their own will to net themselves a spot here.

What did any mare see in me at all?

Sickness. The swirling of awfulness splashing around my belly. Height of love gone within into something sour. Something that filled me now drained me completely. How could something pure and rich and the essence of life cause me nothing but sickness into death instead?

The blow knocked me right and through a pair of doors. The guards in gold made a move to catch me—but I barreled through them instead. Hunched forward onto a sudden round railing, I looked at my feet, finding myself on a small balcony high above the chamber.

The chamber filled to the brim with ponies of all sorts, gathered everywhere, all set around the small platform near the back of it all. Twilight was standing and talking with Princess Celestia and Luna smiling behind her. Everything looked so merry.

And I felt so apart from it all.

Despite her previous words... none of them seemed true now. But mine did. Twilight smiled and broke into a speech that, even though I couldn’t hear the words, the passion came through. The fluff on her chest brushing out, and her ears cutely perked. How I wished I could have her all.

When I then realized my own greed. Supporting my elbow onto the railing, I pressed my palm into my face, trying to repress the pounding of my brain. This was all too good for me. Twilight was too good for me. Especially when I was a dragon who’s greed only wanted more.

I nearly vomited as I fell back. Through those doors and away from the show I wanted to watch. Seeing Twilight happy, even if it killed me, was worth any pains. But I could do it only as another faceless stranger. Being there as someone that mattered to her... I wasn’t good enough to hold such a role.

And even though I promised to be there for her, always, no matter what.

I turned to leave, limping through the hallway clearing for me, knowing the path opening would take me away from here. It was as if the unconscious world agreed. That I needed to go. Not to be a part of here. That I didn’t belong and it was allowing me to be spat back out.

A choice was needing to be made.

And I wasn’t in the right mind to make a call.

It started to rain as I left the castle. The sky was dark, black clouds and no moon, the rain cold, chilling, freezing my scales. The pain felt rewarding. I shambled out, the two guards stalked out front pulling the gold of the gate out of the way. The squeak of metal scratching my ears.

I walked even though I had no place to go.

That was a lie.

There was only one mare in all of this city that could help me with the matters of mares.

Ironic, all things considering.

Author's Note

The stage has been set and the mares have enacted their plots, all acts strung from feelings of love, leaving one to make a call. To be the more caring hero beneath the scales or the playboy on the surface? Both aspects composed of his real being.

But he must choose one to be with.

So goes his thinking.

I hope you lot have enjoyed the story so far. We're reaching endgame levels by now. This story should be wrapped in a chapter or two. There's not much for me to comment on. Sometimes a writer is left with no words to say.

Except for a singular phrase.

Thanks for reading.
~ Yr. Pal, B

V - Old Love on New Matters

~ V ~

An Old Love on New Lovely Matters

Strikes of thunder across the darkened clouds were the only illumination to the narrow lane before me. Ponies I passed gazed up from my hip. Some knew I was sick. Others worried why I was ill. I'd be an attraction if this kept up... or a case for someone to call the guards.

So I slipped into the alleys nestled between the towering buildings, alone and suffocating in the tightness, shambling with my shakey claws spreading across the slick walls for support. Of course the downpour had to be cold. Everyone with an umbrella except me. The sickness felt good. Punishment for guilt.

Going through pain, even self-imposed, makes previous crimes hurt less.

But all of that stopped as my body kept smacking right into the building. Something was familiar about it. Even though no light came from the grey clouds, something about the structure still stood out. My rumbles against its side must have roused the pony inside.

At least when they came out... it was a pony who, anytime before this, would have made me frown.

“Now who is going out in the middle of the night and... S-Spike?” Having been gazing at my feet against the stone ground below, I barely lifted my head against the swirling weight of drowsiness. A perfect mare of white stood on the exit of the alley. “Darling, is that you? So it is so! Come, dear. Inside now.”

I smiled tiredly. “T-Thank you, Rarity.”

“That is something you can do after you've explained yourself.” Rarity could have stepped to the side and let me through. But that wasn't like her—at least not anymore. She came forward, bearing an umbrella. Her magic held it above my head. “And where is your jacket or other kinds of an article? Don't you dare lie to me with excuses.”

It was terrible of me to feel comforted when the chilling droplets of rain stopped pelting against my scales. The cool slickness stuck to my scales, reminding me of their feel. I could have taken more. My life could be composed of feeling that horribly. But I felt so much better, refreshed, when the rain finally stopped.

Not because out of my own will, of which I would have used to endure the night.

But because it was the kindness of a friend that deemed I should be saved. I couldn't reject her offer. It was the only way I would allow myself to be helped. It... was all so funny. Funny, all things considering.

“And before we go inside, dear? I must ask of single favour.”

“Anything.”

“Please shake yourself dry before entering the door.”

“You'll never let that down.”

“I hang that mucked frame for a reason, darling.”

And so we passed into the home of my former love, suddenly and so late, any other context I would have felt lucky. Actually, I shook my head. I was now fortunate to have her, here and now, despite everything that came before.

I was already spilling my guts before I entered the door. My sickness was much like vomit: it came out, on its own, violently and ongoing. Only by getting it out of my mouth could my body become healthy again.

I just hoped the same would be true of my mind... and my heart.

~ Twilight ~

The dance was meant for me... and... yet... I didn't belong.

Ponies were dancing. Couples and the kind. Happy faces and talking muzzles. Everypony seemed to get along. There was a purpose to them being here. Even though all of this was devised to me, I sat at the table away from it all, alone with my cheek on a hoof, wanting to go home.

Spike...

He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to meet me after the speech and whisper nothing but good things into my ear. But he wasn't on the stage and he wasn't off it either. For all the ponies that came here for me... why did I feel so terribly alone?

Was this what he thought? That having all these other ponies here changed me into something different? Why couldn't he see I was still the same mare beneath it all? My friends got me. But never as much as him. He was my best friend. He was supposed to be my...

“I see your date went well.”

I whipped my head behind me. Starlight stood to the right of my seat, smiling. Black streaks coursed from her eyes. Ruined eyeliner? But the mare hardly touched make-up. Why would she be like this now? “Starlight? Why are you here... and were you crying?”

“Crying? Please.” Starlight wiped the black cover with a foreleg, leaving no trace of her sadness. “Superior mares never cry. But shedding a few tears to get what they want...”

“Get what you want? Spike?” I blinked as everything clicked. “T-The date. Y-You saw?”

“Saw and wept.” Starlight smirked as she strode to the front of the table. “Wept as he saw me.” Starlight shook her head while clicking her teeth. “The poor boy looked so happy once he left you. Made me worry for a second that I'd truly lost. To be honest with you, I think it was quickly putting the stuff on near my eyes that made me cry.”

I blinked. I exhaled. I subtly raged within. “Y-You... you manipulated him?”

“Like I was left with many choices!” Starlight swung around at once without a sway to her rump. Noticing those details drove me with hate. Her taut little body beating my pudge. Why did I see those things through the eyes of a boy? “Spike and I had decent chemistry and you know it. But when you pull the lifetime experience card—“

“It's not some card!” I barely kept the shout down as I rose from my chair, a hoof slammed into the table, using it to lift me into the air. “I wasn't out there to win! Unlike you, all the things we did, all the things we said... all of them were true!”

“And what makes you think the same isn't true with me?” Starlight shot back upon stepping closer to the table. My heart burned with boiling lava intensifying my rage. I'd never been so close to hitting a mare before. “Do you think I don't love him? That I don't hate what you have? I would have loved to know him when I was younger—because the boy I grew up with was so great!”

I narrowed my gaze. “What are you saying?”

“That all you got is having grown up with him,” Starlight said with painful sincerity. “From what I hear... you weren't the best friend to have around. Orders and overwork. Barking commands but never whispering compliments into his ear?”

I gritted my teeth to keep my horn from glowing.

“If we had been the ones to grow up together,” Starlight said with an expression both smug and hiding pain. It killed me to know the show she was putting on. But... empathy wasn't my friend today. “He wouldn't have grown up feeling so useless in the world... and I wouldn't have become what I did.” She shook her head. “We would have saved each other. I can still save him. But the undermare sometimes has to play tricks—but don't think the intent isn't honest.”

Starlight stood proud... despite the trembling in her legs... the same true of my own... both of us standing before the other. “So, Twilight. What do you say to all of that? Your dragon left you. And if he gets enough time to think. He's going to leave you for good—leave you for the mare that'll open his world rather than limit it to home.”

And suddenly, I became aware of the weight and power of the tiara resting on my head.

~ Spike ~

“That's the whole story.” I laid back on her couch despite my legs trailing off its end—but at least my feet pressed firmly into the ground. An arm rested over my eyes, allowing the world to be vague with my eyes still open. “Can't say I was expecting it. Or deserving of it. After... us, I expected nothing at all.”

“My...” Rarity kept quiet during my rambles. Did zone out part ways through? I wouldn't blame her for it. “Now isn't this an interesting revelation. My Spikey-Wikey is now a hot commodity on the mare market.” She giggled into her hoof. “Oh, do excuse me on that. It's rather comical, in a way.”

“Story of my life.”

“Not quite in that way, Spikey.” Rarity blew a heavy breath strained by laughter. “It's always been a joke of yours to be a sellout in terms of romance. Though that's never quite been what you're about, correct?”

I shook my head underneath the weight of my claw, feeling the velvet of the cushion rubbing against the back of my head. “The idea always seemed neat... but you're right. That's never been quite me. Just a thing a guys says and jokes about, ya know?”

“Perhaps I know that better than any other mare, darling.” Rarity cleared her through with a trio of beautiful hums. “Though you've finally arrived in the state that most stallions would admire... you have no taste for it whatsoever.”

“I like pineapple on pizza,” I said, chuckling. “Don't think my taste amounts for much.”

“Do you mind playing the fool another time, Spikey?” Rarity said with a huff. She shifted in place, causing me to dial it down. “You nearly fainted on my door out of love-sickness. Do you realize how much it hurts a friend's heart to see such a sight?”

I blinked. “G-Guess I've been a little too focused on myself. Sorry about that, Rares.”

“Thank goodness for that.” The swishing of her hoof cut through the air. “And here I was worried you'd be sorry for yourself the rest of the evening.”

“You're not holding back any punches.”

“A lady confesses the truth when it is proper to do so,” the pitch of her voice implied her chin was lifted up. The things you noticed after a decade together. “And tells a lie the same. I could tell you the latter to make you feel better.”

“But?”

“The former would actually make you better.”

My claw finally slid from my face. The distant ceiling swam back into focus. Turning my head, I gazed from the couch, seeing the table and then the chair on the other side. The white mare sat upon it, a glass of wine floating by her side, the blue of her eyes... calming.

Her beauty saving me rather than entrancing me.

“You do know that I love you, darling, even if it's not the way you've always desired?”

I lazily smiled at her. “Of course I do.” Then nodded. “And I love you too. You've kinda become my best friend as of late. At least, in the way Twilight used to be.” I chuckled. “Can't exactly go back to being that way with her now. At least, not considering what happened tonight.”

“And you do the same to me, darling.” Rarity's eyes glanced over the rim of her glass, narrowing. “I can't pretend to be an expert on the matters of love, my darling. But there is a theme here I couldn't help but notice.”

“What's that?” I said while rolling my head back. “That I'm the greatest jerk to have ever lived? That I so greedy as to want to be with two separate mares? How I can't choose one over the other?”

“You assume this to be the workings of your greed?”

“Pretty in character if you ask me.”

Rarity went to say something but stopped to blow some air. Something had affected her. Did I say something wrong? I glanced over to see her drinking from her glass. Within a few sips, the emptiness shone within the dim lighting.

“Darling? Listen to me.” Rarity set her glass on the table, looking at me, right in the eyes from over the rim. Fixated and concentrated. Determined in something fierce. Losing myself to her gaze, all my jokes and bluffs burned from her craze. “And listen close. If you so wished it, I could go and compose a series of reasons for why you are so wonderfully wonderful.”

I gulped.

“But the truth of the matter, darling, is that lifting you up will only make you feel worse.” Rarity exhaled without taking her eyes off from me. “I can't say much on the matter of loving more than one pony at once. But do not dare delude yourself into thinking it has anything to do with greed.”

I squinted my eyes. “But... a-all of this is because of my greed.”

“You boy.” Rarity smiled. Eyes sad and lips wobbly, though, despite this, the rest of her body seemed happy. “You silly little boy. In all that you have spoken of these mares, of what you love so much about them both, of all that you wish to make them feel, all that which you crave to do with them... not once have you spoken once of yourself.”

I blinked. “I... don't follow.”

“Of course you wouldn't. Love makes us all into filly colts and mares—and the same would appear true for dragons as well.” Rarity leaned back into her seat, smiling fully now, rubbing her forearm with another hoof. “If you were truly the greedy creature you claim to be, does it not make sense for you to be speaking the vices of all this instead?”

I coughed. “Of myself?”

“Exactly that.” Rarity nodded. “You have barely spoken of what these mares do for you. Of how they make you feel. They aren't bloating your ego or serving any other purpose that is ill. Despite the.... strangeness of your situation, all of your talks have been about love, of completing each other, of all that you love of them—and nearly nothing about yourself.”

I chuckled with an empty chest. “And so that keeps me from not being a jerk?”

“That's never been the case of my point, Spikey.” Rarity waggled her hoof in the air. “And you would do well to pay better attention! A greedy creature would only desire to be loved.” She lowered the hoof to the seat. “But you? Your problem hasn't been getting more love, but rather, giving more it.”

She giggled at the end of her words. “So darling. If you must consider yourself greedy—at least do so in the proper terms.” She sighed long and hard as if wistfully taken away. “With a heart so big and neglected for so long, is it truly such a surprise you are simply brimming with love to share?”

I blinked. Slowly, I sat up, easily and quickly, despite being on the verge of vomit moments earlier. My mental fog cleared away; the queasiness sloshing beneath my scales replaced with the freshness that comes after a long shower.

Clean.

I felt clean.

“And... what do you think I should do we these two mares?”

“That's not an answer for me to give, darling.” Rarity looked over her shoulder and out the window. She wasn't looking at anything, but gazing away, happily. “The words of a friend can only take you so far. Hopefully, though, you're feeling better about all of this than before you came in.”

I smiled at her—even if it was only caught in the corner of her eyes. “You have magic not even Twilight possess.”

Rarity smiled. And she did so while turning back to look at me. “You're a good dragon, my Spikey, who just so happened to get a little lost.” She stepped down from the chair and approached the side of the table. “But you've always had a good head on you as it t'were. You're more than wise enough to learn from your mistakes.”

I chuckled while standing up. “Wise enough to make the right choice here?”

“Another answer that this mare cannot say.” Rarity craned her head back as I came stepped before her. Lowering onto my knee, I brought my muzzle inches away from hers. “But I have faith in my dragon. And that... I'm sorry to have kept you away from so many mares for such a long time.”

I shook my head before throwing my arms around her, pulling her against my chest, the form of the mare, the shape of a friend, a different kind of comfort to my confused heart. Even though nothing made sense... being close to her caused me to feel okay despite it all.

“You allowed me to love you even though you didn't feel the same way...” I laughed into her neck, which I nuzzled for a second. “No wonder why I started going crazy when we saw each other less and less. I guess, in the end, I need others to latch onto.”

She laughed and nuzzled me back. “Don't you worry about that, Spike, for most of us are the same in that.”

~ Twilight ~

The door was thrown open before my mouth could do much of the same. Our muzzle had been pressing and our eyes blazing while our hearts were cut beneath our coats. It took everything to not cry.

The building of tears burned to keep back. I hated how I couldn't be weak. That I would like to keep strong a little longer all to not give Starlight the satisfaction. Where was Spike? Why wasn't he here? Why wasn't I swept up in his arms, protected and hidden, crying into his chest?

I was so weak.

And I made even weaker the stronger I had to pretend to be.

“T-There!” Starlight and I slowly drew our eyes right, keeping our muzzles pressed, gazing at the intruder. Spike had burst in through the doors, hunched forward, panting. He tried lifting his head to see us, struggling, and doing that even more to give us a smile. “There you girls are! I... I've been... r-running through this castle and—oh I forget how big this place is.”

My eye twitched. Banishing Spike the moon became a sudden idea.

“T-Twilight, I... I'm so, so so so sorry for missing your speech.” Spike leaned back, further than he should, fighting to keep himself outright. Even in important times he was beyond comical. I hated the fact I wanted to laugh so hard. He tickled me in special ways when I should have felt nothing but anger. I hated how much I loved him. “I got messed up. Really messed up. The kind where I do things that I normally could.”

He stepped forward but swayed to the left on doing so—slamming himself into the side of the open door. Both of his claws gripped it as he leaned into it totally for support. His legs wobbled like never before. “But still. I-I broke my promise.”

I also hated the shine of his eyes. “I'm sorry, Twilight.”

I opened my mouth to speak—only for another mare to do so for me. “Don't you go worrying about that, Spike.” Both of us glanced at the voice, Starlight having pulled away, standing proudly before us. Each covering a point in a triangle. My mind always noticing trivial things. “We both owe you saying the same.”

Starlight smirked at me. “Isn't that right, Twilight?”

I tugged my bottom lip into my maw, biting gently upon it.

Spike only gazed at us both in confusion.

“It would appear you found out that both of us have fallen in love with you over the years... though one of us was more scared to act on it than the other.” Starlight smiled as she strode toward him—but only a few steps. “We both very well knew we couldn't just take you from the other. None of us were going to give up. So we devised a little game.”

Spike then blinked. “G-Game? Y-You mean... all of this was a game to you?”

“Only one to see who would be the better mare for you.” Starlight turned sideways to us both. “The best way for us to settle our differences on the matter. You've got to experience what life would be like with one of us on your side.” She cleared her throat—a scratchiness barely audible. “There's only one way to select a winner.”

My chest vacuumed into hollowness while a burning spear pressed across the bottom of my belly. I'd never felt so weak, so sick, ready to puke and faint and never wake back up. To be so close to love only to have it turned killed my little by little.

My crown shifted as I stepped forward next to my rival, the weight of my princesshood making me feel real, something else than the vulnerable mare waiting to be chosen by the dragon she loved most. Spike gazed at us with those bright and confused green eyes of his. He seemed as hopeless as me.

And looking to my left, I saw easily through the mask of my friend, of Starlight eyes being slightly watery. All of us inhaled deeply, attempting strength. But it was all down to what my dragon, our dragon, the dragon would say.

“I... want you both.”

What... did he just say? I was already blinking when I snapped back to the room. Did he really just say that? Heat billowed beneath my coat as steam escaped with my exhale. Spike. My dragon. The one I had something special with. The only guy I wanted to spend my life with...

He wasn't satisfied with me alone.

“E-Excuse me?” I turned to my left to see Starlight equally aghast. “What did you just say?”

“That I want to be with you both,” Spike said while taking a step forward, coming to hold out his arms, opening himself up. It was a desperate move that I stepped away from, the burning touch of tears licking the corners of my eyes. “This isn't some game to me! I've been trying to figure out for these last few weeks which mare I loved more... and I can't answer it.”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “You mean you can't decide?”

“It's because it's a question that shouldn't have been asked in the first place!” Spike swiped a claw through the air and took a stand out of response. “How do you think it feels to be so totally in love with you both? Trying to pit those loves against the other to see which one is more real, which one means more... do you know how much I hated myself during that? All that thinking. All that feeling. Being unable to stop loving one of you.”

Starlight chortled. “You should know better by now that some things aren't equal. Didn't I already teach you all that lesson?”

“In this case... it's true.” Spike's breathing was packed with his tension, heard in the strain of the air. He placed a claw on his chest, keeping it there, dipping his head. “I feel different things toward you two. Great and wonderful things. They're not better or worse... the loves are just different.”

Tears raced from his eyes and down his cheeks, but he kept still, bearing them the best he could. My chest puffed and my fluff did the same as a splatter of droplets followed in suit. But my head was shaking. I simply couldn't see his words through the welling of my tears.

“I can't make a choice between you two.” Spike's arms dropped to his sides. His eyes closed, head lowering all the way. “And if I have to make a choice—then I'd rather not decide. W-Whatever you mares do... you do.”

I couldn't handle it.

I simply couldn't handle it.

Everything was made and then broken in a night. It only a few hours Spike had finally been mine. We'd kissed and snuggled and promised to always be together. The horrible isolation I felt at home, living with others but still feeling alone, we'd spoken of that being no more.

To have that future come into being.

Only to be crushed by Spike's absence.

Stomped by Starlight's acts.

And corrupted by his sudden greed.

I couldn't take it anymore.

I simply couldn't take it.

“G-Guards!” My shaky hoof rose to the top of my head, pushing back on the tiara moved out of place. When the stallions in gold arrived, it sat perfectly on my head. “B-By order of Princess Twilight Sparkle... I-I demand these two be taken out of the castle at once.”

Spike blinked open. His face raised and, with one glance at me, went from lost to horrified. He saw it. My anger and disappointment at him. He saw nothing beyond my face beyond that which terrified him the most. That of a mare turned into a princess.

“N-No... p-please...” Spike's head slowly swayed as his voice crackled in pain. “...T-Twilight... p-please... don't do this.” His tears coursed freely, salty, the hurt causing me to be happy—in the worst way possible. What he'd inflicted on me now done to him. All because he confessed what would hurt him the most. “Please don't send me away. I'll do anything. But please... please don't send me away...”

“Ensure they are taken to the front of the castle and inform the rest of the staff they are not to be allowed back in.” I turned around to avoid looking at my friends, my wings flaring out, my back struck out, assuming a posture of power to hide beneath. “The matters are private. Princess Celestia and Luna will be notified of them. Dismissed.”

I didn't hear a fight or a cry or anything of the kind. Stomping hooves of metal clattered across the floor, those made to answer my calls doing as I commanded. Though it took a few seconds, my ears flicked, waiting for it... hearing the bare steps of my dragon.

The steps turning, a power flooding through me, something strong and solid and flowing, allowing me confidence. But upon hearing those steps grow distant and softer, further and quieter... the power slowly faded.

I'd escorted the one who didn't answer my call, who had a choice in the matter, who was my greatest friend of all. But I simply couldn't do it. Even as the door closed behind me and the trees came freely once again... my body collapsed onto the floor, curling into itself, the crown slipping from my head, clattering against the storey.

I took it against my chest, holding it there, caressing the cold metal softly, weeping, knowing it was now all that I had. Where friends could be there and not there. When loves were not met to be. The act of being a princess, the power and the work would be enough to sustain the hollow mare beneath the crown.

But, for now, I cried freely.

The princess without her hero.

Author's Note

Twilight and Spike got me into this fandom, the years they spent together, the depth of their friendship, all the interesting ways it could turn. That web caught me nearly a decade ago. And despite my prolific following of it... I haven't unravelled a fraction of it.

May the length of my life placed upon these fictional duos.

They represent not only perfect characters—but my ideal perfect relationship. There's something about the girl next door, the one you grew up with, that kind of close bond filling substance into my empty soul. It's worthwhile to contemplate the trope always.

And the relationship behind it? The kind of a new girl pulling you into a new world?

Just the same reasons to love Starlight Glimmer.

The hardest thing about ships is having to choose one over the other. But we all gotta pick one... right?

Let's see what Chapter V has to say about this!
~ Yr. Pal, B

VI - Just Enough Love

~ VI ~

Just Enough Love

I stood in the streets and, although the rain stopped, it didn't feel like it.

“Now that's a mare able to make a mountain out of a molehill.” The voice floated from my left, but I was too gone to look down, gazing up into the night sky. Space swallowed me. Only a vessel left on those streets. “And it appears my plan worked after all. Now you don't have to pick!”

I blinked without moving my head. “Plan?”

“Well... this mare might have played dirty to win your affection.” Starlight brushed against my side. The softness of her fur and the warmth of her coat... they were lost to me. “Saw your little date with Twilight. Thought for a moment I'd lost for good.”

I blinked. This time, however, differently. “I saw you crying.”

“That you did. Don't you love how much I went through to win you over?” Her voice seemed sweet in a horrible way. I'd never felt so repulsed in my life. “One last little game for you and I to play. Now with Twilight out of the way, we can be together!”

I head fell left but kept upright, my eyes sliding to Starlight, tired malice about me. “So... all of this was one of your schemes?”

“O-Only because I didn't want to lose you!” Starlight cried, but took a step away, feeling the hate pulsating from me. I couldn't will myself to care for her growing look of terror. Her desperate need for comfort. “You'd just left me for her! What else was I supposed to do? I wasn't just going to give up!”

“So, you concocted all that?” I spoke with subtle venom. “Before I'd even talk to you? Not even a chance to work it out? Even... even after I said... that the only thing I loved more than your games... was you?”

“A-After you k-kissed her—what was I supposed to do? Believe you truly loved me that deeply after what you did with her? Were you not coming to end things then and there?”

I shook my head. “No. I wouldn't have done you like that.”

“How could you be so sure what you would have done!”

“I'm not sure what I would have done,” I said as my eyes lifted back to the sky. The last iota of hope within my soul was gone. Nothing but a husk, a dead dragon walking, was what remained of me. “But I know what I wouldn't have done. Something like that isn't it. If I... if I became so sick with myself after seeing you... crying or fake crying... if I went through so much turmoil in not wanting to hurt you... how... how could you ever think I'd leave you like that.”

Starlight was silent. I doubted my words phased through the dense barrier she'd risen—but I couldn't care anymore. Only a ghost was here now. Speaking for the dragon that was here before. Experiencing these last few seconds of life before fading.

“Then you can be with me now!” Starlight said in a desperate voice, the kind that laughed after every other word, exposing how close they were to being screams. What little soul lingered pained for her hurt. But I couldn't will myself to do a thing. “Twilight's gone. It doesn't matter where we go. So long as we can be together.”

“We'll never be together.” I shook my head. “Don't you get it? My greatest fear in all the world was being sent away from her.” Slowly I stopped. “Of becoming useless. Not wanted around anymore. All of this... I... can't take it anymore.” Tears came from my eyes once more but, unlike before, they didn't burn. “So I'm gone. Done tomorrow.”

I looked down at Starlight for the last time. Her eyes shined and reflected the wobbly world around her. Everything compelled me to hug the tearful mare, caresses the back of her head and soothe her woes away.

But I couldn't will myself to do it. “I wish you well, Starlight, but I'm done with ponies. If I can't even get love right here... then maybe I don't belong after all.” I cast my gaze away to the distance, tracks sprawling out to distant lands, the fields becoming untamed the further it went across. “Greedy dragons should live with greedy dragons. You and Twilight are fantastic mares. The right stallion will show up eventually.”

I heard a voice come through her sob. “And what if the right stallion left me too?”

“Then you were a fool to expect anything more from a dragon.”

And then I went on my way.

Rarity had let me stay at her place. She heard my story once more but, this time, seeing from my expression... she knew her words became powerless. Of course, she told me Twilight would come around. That Starlight was only foul because of a horrible time once before. But all that understanding I once had.

I didn't care for it anymore.

The next day came, and when it did, I slept through the morning. Rarity continued work despite the dragon passed out on her couch. But the growing hum of her sewing machine drove my eyelids apart over time. Despite the bonus sleep, I didn't feel any more awake.

It took an hour of enduring the white mare's pleas for me to be with her for at least a few days. I'd kept one more. But knew nothing would change after two. Here was the mare of my dreams allowing me to stay at her home for an extended period of time... and I was turning her down.

How we slowly change.

But then came the evening where I found myself standing on the platform, waiting for the Canterlot train, thinking of how it would take me east. As far that way as it could. It'd take another day to reach the Badlands.

From there, I'd be free.

Rarity knew I would write. Soon the rest of the girls would get some letters explaining everything. But I could hardly think that far ahead. For now, I needed to be gone, from here and myself, no more guessing or feeling, only working and moving.

It was the best kind of life a dragon like me could ask for.

“Don't suppose you're taking the same train as me?” The voice floated from behind, softly. Like fragile glass attempting to speak. “The one going home?”

“Home? Don't think I have a place like that.” I shook my head. The drop to the tracks filled my gaze, the metal bars atop wood, spreading off into the distance. “At least, not anymore.”

“You really think Twilight is going to kick you out like that? For good?”

“Even if she doesn't... I don't want to be there in either case.”

Starlight appeared to the side of me, but, this time, she didn't press her body against mine. Her perfect form a few feet away. Even now I still wanted to be with it. Hold it against my chest, her softness weighing down all around me, the perfect feeling, the perfect sensation of being close with another.

“Spike... before you go, there's something I have to say.” She looked forward as well, staring at the face of the cliff in the distance. Both of us were lost to the splendour. Trying to escape our current bodies. “You don't have to say anything. Don't listen if you don't want to. But please let me speak.”

I didn't say or do anything; she could do whatever she liked with that.

“I'm... sorry for what I did.” Starlight breathed out hard. “All those little games we played. Some of them were fun; some of them were for real. But all of them were done... simply because I wanted to be with you.” She swallowed. “You're the first real guy I've been around in my life. Besides Sunburst. And... you already know what happened with that.”

I breathed out as well. “Having your best friend leave you for good... I know the feeling.”

“How empty it makes you feel? I know, but I never felt that way around you.” Starlight cleared her throat, failing once but succeeding on the second try. It was cute in a fragile way. My heart tore upon hearing its sound. “You were always there for me even when all I did was play games. All the pettiness you went through... just to make sure I wasn't alone.”

Finally, she turned to me, gazing up at the side of my face. “You're a good guy, Spike. Much more than you could ever realize. Life always seems more full with you around. And from your cute frills to sharp little muzzle... I've always truly loved you.”

Starlight's eyes dropped to the ground. “But the last stallion I felt that way for, well, I wasn't good enough for. Ponies didn't seem to like me for me. I always needed to play something, anything, to keep others around.” She fiddled with her hooves. “Except for you. You were okay no matter what I was. Playing games with you was always a choice rather than a condition. But I was too scared of getting hurt to see it that way.”

She then laughed at herself. “Hard to trust in something too good to be true... and because that, because I didn't believe in you, everything did turn out that way in the end.” Her foreleg raised and fell onto her snout, genuine laughter filled with substantial pain. “What a silly mare I've been all this time.”

I closed my eyes, tucked my lips inward, and allowed myself to be. “You're not the one at fault here, Starlight. Everyone messed up along the way.” I opened my eyes. “Makes sense since we've never done this before.” I laughed as well. “I guess we all have to be inexperienced at something.”

“Spike... I know we can't go back to what we were.” Starlight stepped to my side, only a foot away. She kept that way. “But do you think we can still be friends? Twilight and the rest of the girls... I love them like sisters. Though if I lost you, then I'm not sure what I'd do.”

I turned my head, not knowing it, but feeling my lips pull into a smile. “We never stopped being friends, even if it felt that way. But I'm off to the Badlands—“

“I know,” Starlight said. It only took a second to realize how. I didn't bother to give a fuss. It didn't matter anymore. “But I would much rather follow you into the land of dragons than to live peacefully back in Ponyville. Not that I don't love it here, but... I love you a little more.”

I smiled even harder, loving and hating it, something just so perfect about it all. “Love me a little more? Now isn't that funny.”

Starlight didn't follow after my joke. “And what about you? When you said you loved us both equally?”

“I was telling the truth.” That fact fueled my continued smile. “I loved the both of you for different reasons. I could never think of one better than the other. The loves were just different. True and genuine and overflowing. Just different directions.”

Starlight laughed no doubt at my wording—but the blush on her cheeks showed she must have been touched by something. “Just so full of love, aren't you? Seeing why everypony else is so perfect.”

“But leaving little for myself? It's less-deserved.”

“That's what you think.” Starlight dared a step closer, the brush of her coat against my scales, but not pressing hardly about it. Touching but not pressing. The kind of connection I've always wanted with her. “And that's why you need a nice mare to love you back. Make sure you don't dry out underneath those polished scales.”

“Once upon a time, maybe.”

“Hmm.” Starlight's body warmed while a droplet of sweat raced across her face. Her blush crossed over her snout. Those eyes flicking around. “S-Spike? I know after everything you've been through... you've given up on everything.”

I exhaled. Even I knew I wasn't speaking the truth when I'd said that. “Something like that.”

“Do you think you could indulge this mare just this once?” Starlight gazed up at me with glossy eyes, doing her best to smile. An incredible weight was on her shoulder, emotional turmoil my acts tacked on. She bore through it all to look up to me. “A final scheme to try and make everything right?”

“This a good kind of scheme?”

“Even if it's not... it's my final one.” She smiled with quivering lips. “Please?”

I sighed. Distance cracks of a pipe roared in the distance. The train was coming, the one I planned on riding no matter what—but where I got off would be the ultimate question. Lowering to my knee, I came face to face with Starlight, her breath on my snout. “I can't give you an answer now. But I can promise to think about it.”

“That's all I needed to hear.” Starlight nodded with the drop allowing her to come back up with lost confidence. Our snouts brushed together, then keeping that way, spreading warmth across them from within. “Go back home one final time. The last plan will be there.”

And before either of us could think better of it—she leaned in. Starlight's eyes went close as passion stole her body. The first slow, genuine movement I'd seen of her. Her lips pressed against mine. Softness mounting upon them. In her kiss, her strands of fur brushed my scales, drawing me to kiss back.

My arm dropped around her neck to keep her close, to have her touched, ensuring our closeness. Subtle warmth blossomed from lips as I sought to claim more of them. Their delicious flavour and delicate form urging me to collect them more and more.

“Mmhmmm...” Starlight drew back from the kiss with a little giggle. “That settles it then, Spikey. You truly weren't lying after all.” She covered her face with a hoof, keeping only inches away. “An inexperienced kisser can't do something like that twice. Unless you truly loved the mare on the other side.”

I was still speechless.

“But... it's time for me to let you go now.” The tip of Starlight's horn glowed as her eyes closed once more. She smiled. Widely and proudly. The first time I'd seen her genuinely elated in a while. And without a doubt—I'd felt the same way as well. “I'll always be there for you, Spike. No matter what you may do.”

And in the seconds before a flash consumed me, Starlight decided to be selfish one last time—selfish to have more of me around. “But please... come home to us, Spike.” Even though she sizzled out of existence in those next few seconds, I kept there, down on my knee, wondering if wanting someone else around made you selfish at all.

The train ride was long despite the short distance. Even longer was the walk through Ponyville. It was night when I arrived without a store open. So much for killing time before the climax. I didn't want to go home too quickly.

A part of me didn't want to go home at all.

I suppose that was something to be thankful for. Even as I came to a pause before the towering castle of crystal, I breathed in deeply, feeling as if I'd been gone for a year. What had once been normal became new again. At least there was a weight to the place.

I laughed. How'd did a dragon like me go from lonely, passing days to being surrounded by two lovely mares, unable to count how much had now been stuffed within twenty-four hours. But as I laid my claw on the door—my forehead did the same.

I closed my eyes. This was it. The fate of everything was behind these doors. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. My stomach swore with the beatings of my heart. I'd rather be on the end of a sword than to face what came next.

But I pushed open the door anyway.

And the castle had been empty.

The lights were off, and there were zero signs of life. Closing the door behind me, it took a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, not seeing anything being used. Was I alone? No, Starlight wouldn't lie. She had to be here at the very least.

“Or maybe I'll escape dealing with this for another day.” I came to the end of the hall and placed my claw on the handle to my door. I pulled it back to see the lights left on from the other side. That, and two mares standing at the foot of my bed, waiting for me. “Or maybe that's not the case at all.”

I blinked as I stopped in the archway, slowly darting my gaze between the two, not sure what to say. My heart thumped in my best while my mouth dried. It was hard to speak. The two only looked at me, hopefully. “W-What is this?”

“My last con.” Starlight stepped forward with a trace of a smile. “Didn't feel right to end them on a bad note.” She glanced over at Twilight, who, still wearing her crown, stood slumped in place. We made eye contact for a second—before we both turned to look away.

Starlight must have noticed something, for she laughed when we shyly kept that way. “Though I wouldn't quite call Twilight a victim in her. Getting through her guards was easily enough. Easier than getting through to her at least.” When I turned my head back—she was shaking hers. “But I think I'd better leave this to you two.”

I looked to Twilight, and she did the same to me. Our faces blushed and are eyes struggled to keep on the other. Her gaze quickened my heart. I was worried about spilling my guts. What was I supposed to do?

“Spike... I'm... sorry for everything that happened.” Twilight exhaled sharply. “I am so, so so sorry I sent you away like that. I swore to never do something like that to you but, w-when everything was happening... I.... I...”

“You were in so much pain when I left you,” the words left my mouth before I thought them through, “that you wanted me to feel the same? D-Don't worry about it. Had our roles been reversed... I might have done the same.”

Twilight shook her head with intensity. “I'm still sorry even after that. Even if I wanted you to feel what I did... I should have been better than that. You're my best friend, Spike.” Her head stilled, eyes settling up on me. “And that's something I can't lose, ever. I wasn't lying to you that night.”

I lowered onto my knee. “And neither did I, Twilight.”

Twilight smiled with a laugh. She charged at me at once, barrelling into my chest with wide forelegs, crossing them over my shoulders and against my back. I hugged her back. Holding her close, pressing my face against the side of her neck, I felt my soul, my life, filling the space beneath my scales.

“I love you, Twilight.” I caressed the back of her head, stroking the streaks of mane collected between my digits. The sensation I relished the most. “Even if it can't be that way. I love you, Twilight. Forever and always.”

“You too, Spike,” tears choked Twilight's voice. “I love you more than you will ever know.”

We would have fallen in that moment longer, that was if it weren't for the clopping of hooves next to us. Our heads slowly raised out from the embrace, quickly missing resting upon the other. Twilight's thick body draped over mine, a kind of blanket I'd missed.

“Now if this isn't a cute sight?” Both of us kept inches apart, loving our closeness once more, but drawn to look to our side. Starlight stood there, looking amused. Some of her old character fading back in. “Best friends together again. Not going to lie. There's something cute about you two that I can't deny.”

Her next step toward us was slow and deliberate. “But let us not forget the reason why we're all here.”

I backed away from Twilight. Returning to my feet, I stepped back, shaking my head. “I already told you girls that I can't choose. And I won't. No matter what happens.” I glanced at hem both. “I'm sorry. But it has to be that way. Doing anything else would hurt more than it does now.”

“...except... for once option.”

I was surprised to find Twilight had said that. “How... do you mean?”

“W-Well, if I'm not mistaken... you said that you loved us both equally, right?” Twilight glanced over at the other mare, each of them sharing a lock. Fires rose between them, but as the seconds passed, the flame diminished. The two nodded in a strange agreement. “I-I suppose if that were true... if you really did love us both the same... then maybe...”

“Then maybe we wouldn't mind sharing you between us,” Starlight added in. “Obviously there's more than enough of you to go around. And you do more than enough to make me feel loved before we were even dating. In a way, we're only going to get more, right?”

I blinked. This wasn't leading to where I thought it was, right? But Twilight gazing down told me everything. Her hot blush wasn't there without reason. I

“Getting the best of both worlds, aren't you?” Starlight continued upon coming to Twilight's side, throwing a foreleg over her shoulders. Hugging her side, her muzzle went and lifted her chin. “Twilight here is thick and pudgy and romantic; I'm firm and taut and sexy.”

Starlight licked her lips. “And you're everything both of us would ever need.”

I blinked. “I'm... not sure what to say.”

“D-Don't... think... it'll be that easy.” Twilight lifted her eyes from beneath the veil of her mane, barely able to look at me. The same was true in reverse. Everything had been so strange as of late. “I know everything you said that night was true. And I also know you love Starlight like how you love me. But... I need proof.” She stepped forward and out from Starlight's hold. “Something I can latch onto for sure.”

Starlight winked at me. “And I'm sure you know the kind of proof we're asking for, don't you, Spike?”

I understood. It was hard to enact on such a thing—but it had to be done. Stepping toward the mares, I dropped onto a knew, my face drawing close to theirs. I'd never expected to be so intimate with a mare. Much less two at the same time. Something felt wrong about it.

And something so right that felt far too good for a dragon like me.

Without another prompt, I leaned in close, placing a claw on each of their cheeks, taking Twilight's lips against my own. Plush and broad giving me something more to fight upon. I lost myself within seconds. Our kiss filling me, filling her, causing us to moan.

When we broke away, a bridge of saliva connecting us both, we panted harder than we should of. Both of us were still so inexperienced. But we craved the embrace we at the cost of slight shame. But in gazing into her turned away eyes, in which only their corners captured me... the same love of the night sparked through once more.

I truly loved this mare.

Then a hoof came and turned my face, right into the lips slender and small, making it easier to claim them. Where the previous ones were passive, these were more active, working against me, making me work against it, losing ourselves to the battle of passion where both sides always won.

And when we broke away, it was to her giggling, my chuckling, and the growing heat of our bodies. The entire room was getting hot. Starlight's scent strong in my snout. Driving my nose to be buried into her neck.

I truly loved this mare.

“Looks like we have an answer to our problem, don't we, Twilight?” Starlight said.

“I suppose we do,” Twilight replied with a smile.

“But... there is one last thing all three have to do,” Starlight continued.

I leaned my head back to gaze at them both, well aware of my luck, having the two greatest mares before me, wanting to be with me. Two lovely creatures accepting of my overflowing love—something that repressed me for the majority of my life.

“What's the matter?” I said with a nervous cough. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Twilight said before she blinked. Something caused her eyes to exploded as she looked down—but not at the ground. The blush on her snout reached underneath her eyes. “B-But I suppose it's something we did right?”

The tension in my stomach released. Only it did so through my crotch, a sensation I wasn't sure was really there. Starlight was already looking down as well. Both mares looking at the same place in my body.

“So we managed to get them both up, huh?” Starlight said with a giggle as Twilight then joined her. Both mares looking at my pride and joy, two things I'd never shown anyone else, much less expecting to use them so soon. “You know, I was jealous of Twilight stealing your first kiss.”

Twilight then laughed. “B-But this way... it looks like we can share his first time.”

I sighed and glanced at the bed in fear.

I supposed I was able to share them in equal love after all.

Author's Note

And here we reach the end of our little tale. Strange but an amusing one. Each mare resembles a different kind of life Spike could lead but, for a dragon who care more for loving than being loved, had more than enough to share with them both.

Will it be easy for the three lovers?

Of course, it won't. And it shouldn't. It's through the troubles we gain better stories. Spike learning to love both mares; Twilight to not rely so heavily upon being a princess; Starlight to not need to play anymore games.

Not only that. But the mares will need to learn to love each other.

For the things we are jealous in others.

Are the same things we can easily come to love.

~ Yr. Pal, B ~

I - Breakfast at Starlight's

~ I ~

Breakfast at Starlight's

Sometimes I wondered how much of a villain was still left inside me.

The morning after had been enjoyable. The little glares I'd catch from Twilight only made all that I did feel that much better. Spike had been standing before the stove, shifting the pan atop the fire, so tall and concertinaing.

All it took was a brush against his thigh to snap him out of it. Twilight had been sitting at the table waiting for breakfast, that delicious glare coming from her again—but it wasn't like she could do anything. She'd been the more romantic of the two of us. Her inability to be a little more sexual lost her some points in this game of ours.

And how I licked my lips when I rose onto my hind legs, pressing my chest and belly against the side of his frame, feeling his hardness impress so deliciously into my softness. I wanted to be pushed down all over. There was something slender about his hardness stroking flames over my curves.

“Looking delicious there, Spike.” My forelegs slid over his back and chest, finding my hoof already drawing circles on his pecs. The flexed subtly beneath the dense layer of scales, the protrusion quivering on the legs. “When do you think breakfast will be made?”

“Try giving it a few minutes,” he replied with stiffness to his body, something which he all so desperately tried to play off. Clearly he'd never gotten this way with a mare before. It was too easy to make him nervous. Always delicious too. “Heater on the stove has been acting up.”

He then glanced down at me. There was something about his muzzle that I couldn't get enough of. Smaller than a pony but also a lot sharper than one too. His brilliant eyes always casting a subtle glow. He was more charming than he ever dared to realize. “Though if you act like this to the stove, I don't think it'll struggle with heat anymore.”

There were little scales of green sporting around his jaw, the first set of facial scales coming about him, small but still caught within the eye. They accentuated him in an adolescent way. The boy was a drink I couldn't get drunk enough on. “But it's probably best if you take the seat. Wouldn't want the stove to get jealous now.”

Because someone else is already doing that.

Twilight sat at the table with her eyes narrowed and mouth open. She didn't speak but was close to whimpering. Never in a thousand years could she mount dragon like I did, becoming so close to his body so casually, feeling his curves against my own.

Sometimes, it was hard not to invite him to my bed right away.

But getting to tease Twilight on all the things she couldn't do was delectable at the least. Even as I stepped down from the dragon to take a seat next to her that a shiver struck my hoof. Truth of the matter was that I had a lot to fear from her.

Spike's oldest and closest friend didn't make things impossible—but her being a princess made it close. She wasn't in her prime yet due to inexperience. But if I didn't take the lead before she mared up... I could kiss Spike's wonderfully tight behind goodbye.

It didn't take all that long for food to be done. Twilight kept glaring at me from across the table, and I responded by leaning my cheek on a raised hoof, sticking my tongue out at her. She recoiled back, looking down and recoiling beneath her mane... before sticking her tongue out at me.

This mare was already catching on.

I needed to be careful.

By the time the dragon sat down, however, the two of us were already smiling a little too eagerly at each other. Spike set the dishes on the table while narrowing an eye on us, wise to something not quite being right. But with a shrug and an exhale, he dropped the matter and lifted a fork to a stack of pancakes.

“So... Spike,” Twilight started to the left of me, delicately pulling a plate of eggs and lettuce toward her. I stared at her with a mouth stuffed with waffles, chewing them slowly, unable to speak up if everything went south. “Do you have any plans today?”

Spike leaned back in his seat, glancing at the ceiling, tapping a claw against his chin. “...not that I can recall. Have a few things I need to take care of. But not much more than that.”

Twilight beamed at that. I already started to swallow. Time was running out.

“W-Well, if that's the case, then maybe you and I can—“

“Actually!” I caught the attention of the room with the voice muffled by a mesh of waffles, swallowing the whole down, despite creating a lump in my throat, to ensure I wouldn't lose. “Spike already promised he would take me out today!”

“He did?” Twilight said with surprise before glaring at the dragon.

“I did?” Spike said before closing an eye and staring at me.

“But of course! Or don't you remember?” I gave a little pout that made him flinch on the spot. Got him. For such a cynical dragon he could be so gullible when it came to the matters of another heart. Just didn't have it in him to suspect foul. “You promised me a date around town! Ever since that one stallion ended up standing me up.”

Spike's face broke into confusion. “Which one?”

“Spike!”

“W-Wha? Y-Y-You know I didn't mean it like that!”

“So you're bailing on me too, then?”

“What? Of course not! When are we going?”

“After breakfast! So eat up.”

Spike didn't dare to say anything else as he fixated on his plate, shrugging his shoulders and digging in, the matter already dropping from his mind. With his eyes down, I turned to Twilight, drawing a 'one' in the air with my hoof.

I could see her teeth grinding.

If only she knew the kind of club I would be taking our not-so-little dragon to.

Author's Note

Forgive me lack of an A/N in the previous entry for the corners of my blanket had wrapped around my every limb and dragged me back to bed. Here you will find the proper introduction to this story.

Midnight and I go back. Way back. I claim myself the biggest shipper of Spike there is but, if there was another man that came close to how much love I have for that little scaley bastard—Midnight is ready to steal that silver.

This story will return to my old form in not only using the first person but in being a daily as well. Not even that, but this is one of the few stories that I have outlined from the start. Sorry if the pacing doesn't feel quite there. But first we must stroll across the port before sailing into the storm.

You'll find me at the end of most chapters either rambling about the story or anything in general. I hope to keep within the vein of Oda of One Piece in making these short, whacky and whimsical.

Of course, should you have any questions then feel free to comment then below. I'm down to write or talk about nearly everything. With that out of the way, let's continue on with chapter I!
~ Yr. Pal, B