Spike The Brony Dragon

I hurried down the road to Fluttershy’s cottage. Once I arrived, I rapidly tapped the front door, and Fluttershy answered.

“Good morning, Fluttershy,” I greeted. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, I am,” Fluttershy replied. “You didn’t need to travel all this way to ask me.”

“I just wanted to make sure. Looks like you’re back to your pony form.”

“I know. I must’ve changed back while I was sleeping.” Fluttershy pulled out a mirror. “I’m glad to be a pony again, but I’m going to miss having fangs. They looked rather cute on me.”

“Hang on, how could you have a reflection as a vampire? In the novels, vampires don’t have reflections.”

“Well, in a way, I wasn’t a real vampire. I was more of a vampire fruit bat, and I'm pretty sure they have reflections.”

That would explain Twilight's mirror idea in the show.

I stayed with Fluttershy for the rest of the morning to help feed her animal friends. They were significantly less tense than last night, even though they already knew she was in control of her Flutterbat form then.

I left Fluttershy’s cottage around noon, and I took a stroll down Ponyville until I got to the Golden Oaks Library.

I wonder what Tyke and Moondancer are up to. I’ve seen them so often I’ve lost count.

I opened the front door. “Hey Moon—”

“LOOK OUT!!”

Whoosh!

I jerked to the side just as a flying triangle zoomed past me. Moondancer galloped up to me.

“Spike! Are you alright?” She asked panically.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I picked up the triangle and discovered it was a paper airplane. I didn’t remember seeing one in the show outside of Equestria Girls. “Did you throw this?”

“No, Tyke did. Heh, he’s been making paper gliders all morning. I’m glad I had the foresight to buy extra paper.”

Moondancer and I entered the library. Tyke was at the top of the stairs folding another glider while a book sat on his lap.

“Make sure you unfold the clean ones when you’re done, Tyke,” Moondancer said.

“I will. Don’t worry,” replied Tyke. “Hey, Spike.”

“Hello, Tyke. What are you up to?” I asked.

“So you know how I wanted to fly?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I had the idea of making something that ponies and non-ponies could ride on, like those airships but faster.”

“Aren’t there already non-airship machines like pedal-copters?”

“Yeah, but I want to design a machine that doesn’t require the user to pedal constantly to stay in the air or use balloons. In fact, I want to make a flying machine that doesn’t require magic.”

“No magic?!” Moondancer and I exclaimed.

“Why wouldn’t you use magic?” I asked.

“Well, only a fraction of Diamond Dogs are involved with magic in some way, so having something that doesn’t require magic could be useful to Diamond Dogs and others who don’t rely on magic. I mean, what if one day all the magic disappears from Equestria?”

“Oh, Tyke, that will never happen,” Moondancer said. “While there are times magic is suppressed or taken away, it doesn’t disappear completely.”

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make a magic-less machine that can fly.” Tyke looked at his new glider. “The only problem is a good source of thrust to counteract the drag.”

“How are you so knowledgeable about flying machines?” I asked.

“This book helped me understand how flight works.” Tyke showed me the book on his lap. “I had thoughts about using a slingshot, but that would just make the machine a fancy glider. I would need a way to continually provide thrust, and to do that the source would have to be on the machine itself.”

“Well, propellers have been known to be good thrusters to airships and pedal-copters. Maybe you can implement them into your machine.”

“That could work. But the only problem is how I can turn…” Tyke noticed Moondancer tying her hair up with an elastic hairband. “Hmm…I think I’ve got an idea.”

Tyke unfolded his glider and headed to the other room. I scratched my chin.

I wonder if I could invite Tyke over to the human world. Maybe he could learn about how human airplanes operate.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I returned to the castle after the library and read some of my comic books in my room. That’s when I heard the front doors open. It didn’t take long to hear two ponies talking, and who they were.

“Come with me to the dining room,” Twilight’s voice said. “We’ll talk there.”

“Lead the way,” Applejack’s voice replied.

I wonder what’s going on?

I left my room and knocked on the dining room doors. After being given verbal confirmation from Twilight and Applejack, I entered.

“What did you want to talk about, Applejack?” Twilight asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.” Applejack removed her hat. “Applebloom, Big Mac, ‘n’ I just learned our folks were more…diverse than I thought. To be specific, we recently learned Ma used to be part of the Pear Family.”

“You mean your mother?” Twilight gasped. “I didn’t know about that!”

“Neither did any of us besides Granny Smith. We asked some folks who knew our parents about what happened, and they told us how despite the Pears and Apples goin’ at each other like cats and dogs, our ma and pa were like two peas in a pod.”

“The Perfect Pear” episode, a.k.a. My Little Pony’s version of Romeo and Juliet.

“We learned a lot about our folks’ past,” Applejack said. “How they sent messages, got a private wedding, and planted two trees that ended up interlocking with each other.”

“Sounds like quite a story,” Twilight said. “You know, I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about your parents.”

“Me neither,” I added. “Why is that?”

“Well, the truth is I was as young as an apple blossom when they…” Applejack looked away. “...they had to unfortunately leave for good. I never asked about their past, so I didn’t know much about it until today.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your parents?”

Applejack put her hat back on.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” I shivered my hands.

“Oh, no, yer fine, Spike,” Applejack reassured me. “I just needed to remember the exact details.” She cleared her throat. “It all started when Applebloom was only two years old. One night, everypony woke up to the stench of smoke. It was then we saw our barn got caught in a ragin’ inferno, and what’s worse was we had some livestock still in there. That’s when Pa sprung into action; he doused himself in water and hurried inside to save every chicken and pig he could get his hooves on. All it took was one trip to rescue all the farm animals with only minor burn marks to them and Pa. The barn burnt to the ground that night, but everypony and non-pony was alive and well.”

“Wow! Your father was so brave!” Twilight exclaimed.

“We’d all thought so. However, problems snuck up on us like a snake in a wheatfield. About a week after the barn was rebuilt, Pa started gettin’ some coughin’ fits, but he told us it was nothin’. But as the days went by, his fits grew longer ‘n’ louder. We tried to get him to take it easy, but he refused and assured us it was just allergies. Then one day, he collapsed to the ground after one cough too many. We rushed him to the hospital, and the doctor told us Pa inhaled so much ash from the barn fire that it triggered a massive reaction in his lungs, similar to asthma but worse. We urged them to treat our pa, and even Granny Smith was willin’ to use modern medicine, but the doctor told us Pa’s condition was too severe and the only thing to do was to have him take it easy.

“Pa laid bedridden back home. We’d always take care of him and find different ways to cheer him up, like tellin’ him funny stories, showin’ him our accomplishments, singin’ a few songs. We even had frequent doctor visits to help keep Pa’s condition down so he wouldn’t feel so much pain. Sadly, about a moon after I got my cutie mark, I discovered my baby sister cryin’ non-stop when I got home from school. I put two and two together and Granny, Ma, and Big Mac confirmed it: we’d just lost an Apple.

“It wasn’t a pleasant time for any of us, especially my ma. After Pa’s passing, Granny Smith interacted with Ma more often. They were on neutral grounds prior to the barn incident, and after learnin’ today how my ma was a Pear, it kinda made sense. But those two bonded together a lot more, with Granny even treating her kindly like Ma was her own daughter. I never thought about it at the time, but since Pa’s departure, Ma kept holding her chest pretty often. I assumed it was normal since ponies do it when they’re heartbroken. However, I didn’t know it was something way worse.

“Two months after Pa’s departure, the family noticed how Ma would slow down on her chores, or at worst never do them at all. When we asked her, she was more open about her problem than Pa. She told us she was havin’ heart issues, and in a way I didn’t blame her. Bein’ disowned by her father and losin’ Pa put a lot of stress on her, even with us tryin’ to brighten her day. But even she didn’t realize how severe her heart problems were. One day she had a heart attack, and we took her to the hospital. The staff had to put her on life support, and they told us, like Pa, she may not have long.

“We weren’t ready to lose another Apple so soon, but it was an unfortunate reality. I didn’t want to believe it, and I was worried who was gonna be next. But Granny comforted us, and she let us know that while it would be hard losin’ our folks, we should never forget the memories we had with them, and that they’ll always be watchin’ us. Our ma passed a week after Applebuck season that year, and losin’ her was as painful as losin’ our pa. But I took Granny’s word to heart and was grateful for the time I spent with Ma and Pa.”

“Oh, Applejack, I’m so sorry!” Twilight cried. “To lose your parents at such a young age, it must be so heart-wrenching!”

“It was. For all of us. I lost count how many times Applebloom and Big Mac cried that week. But we supported each other over the hard times, and we learned how to cope with the grief in our own ways. Eventually, we all made peace with our parents’ departure. Even Applebloom accepted the loss and she was still a tot.”

I didn’t expect this day to take a sobering turn. As much as I wanted to learn what happened to Applejack’s parents, I’d never thought they’d go in the way Applejack described.

Applejack cleared her throat. “So, ya both fancy makin’ some flapjacks?” She took out a jar. “I was told pear jam was a perfect topper.”

“Uh, isn’t it too late for flapjacks?” Twilight asked.

“It’s never too late for flapjacks!” I replied.