The Kiss of Immortal Love

Chapters

ACT I | Prologue | The Phantom Pain
I | The Princess Beloved
II | The Princess in Her Spire
III | Refusal of Departure
V | Saved or Spared
VI | Into the Lair without Flair
VII | Spider of a Lady
VIII | Princess of a Mare
IX | Death of Spike
ACT II | I | Hido the Beloved
II | Rebirth with Her
III | Together
V | Rarity Joins the Merry Party
VI | The Dragon of the Great Bridge
VII | Love Swallowed
VIII | Demons and Dragons
IX | In the Belly of the Beast
X | Arm and Will and Loss
XI | Far Away
XII | Coming Back
XIII | Back to Him
XIV | Party Reunited
IV | The Bridge Betwixt Serenity and Apathy
IV | False Harmony

ACT I | Prologue | The Phantom Pain

Kiss of Immortal Love
B_25

The towering doors were not pulled open for him, instead requiring his claw on their middle, the force of an arm forced to make up for two. He didn't groan underneath the strain. To do so would be to fail in his duty. In the current and tortured ideal the world needed him to be.

Spike the Dragon pushed the doors apart to the immensity of the throne room. Immediate to his sides were the array of guards erect, filed in a line, side by side, spanning across the length of the red carpet. It sprawled forward and toward the throne, ascending the sporadic set of steps, ceasing before the final case.

None bowed. None talked. None coughed.

The dragon strode across the path the same. Behind him stepped two guards, coming to the doors and pushing them closed. He continued up the steps of the dull sounds of movements filled the silence of the court. Far to the sides rose the wooden boxes, its benches raising in elevation. Countless ponies were looking down at him.

They didn't like what they saw.

And they didn't have to.

Spike didn't dare a fresh breath from underneath his mask. His coat was long and frail and faded orange. Trousers as neglected puffed around his legs and his feet were without shoes. Only a faintly green sash was around his hip—and a curved sheathe a foot from the floor.

It was not often one dressed as he was accepted into the court—much less a dragon. And never to such a crowd. But the times were different and the ponies were desperate. Desperate enough to seek aid in that which they detested the most.

Spike strolled to the end of the carpet, falling onto a knee in perfect formation, head bowed already. He kept like that and didn't dare to speak. Even in hearing the clacks of golden-glad hooves, he did not twitch. Rather he waited. Waiting for the first word.

"Rise."

The dragon did as told. Upon lifting to his feet, he stood tall but not proud, keeping still. He gazed up and across the steps to the throne, coming to see it looming high in his vision. Princess Celestia had stepped out from the chambers to the side. She took her seat and did not bid for anyone else to do the same.

"Spike the Dragon, draconic knight of Canterlot, you have been summoned to the court in need of Equestrian's subjects." Princess Celestia leaned back her head, an eye covered underneath the billowing of her mane—beautiful and ethereal. "You were suspected of plotting against the state to aid your kind."

It wasn't a question. The words spoken were a statement. True or false didn't matter in the politics of ponies. Their perception, the whole of their social construct, that was their current basis for truth. What they perceived became what they believed. The face of a dragon cannot be changed.

Merely hidden.

"Your trial in this crime has been postponed due to the changing tides in the lands of Drangleic. Do not be lost to our formal speech." Princess Celestia tore away his scales with a glare, her single eye an intense sun, breathing in burns to what lay beneath him. The spread of flames, harmful somehow to a dragon, warmed the court in its range. "Committing you into anything will summon an earlier rage to the dragons. War looms in the coming months. Your presence here is a threat to all."

He didn't dare speak. Not even his breathe was to be heard. All he wanted to ask, his sole intent to all involved... was to offer his life. Lowered onto his knees, to be allowed in taking his blade to the throat—and slicing.

Even the offer of his suicide was too disrespectful to merit a syllable from a snaked tongue.

"Your king sits dying upon his throne, but as you best know, death comes ever so slow to a dragon." Princes Celestia lowered her muzzle, not in a bow or a great dip, but as if a weight was suddenly upon her. "No longer is your presence deemed to bring peace between us all. In your failure... there has risen another."

Spike blinked through the cut holes in the metal. Rest of his expression, however, was lost beneath metal. There'd been a slot for his nose and mouth, his frills sprouting from his sides, spines running backward. But his face had been damned from the world.

"In the failures to engage peace between our kingdoms, an arrangement has been strung from your king." Princess Celestia nodded. "In coming to learn about the divine gift of your princess, he has bargained peace for her enteral kiss. But he does not accept nor accept a pony to deliver her on such an arduous journey."

Stale eyes were dull through the holes of the dragon's mask. Expression or surprise or anything of the kind was hidden away. Be this a lack of the dragon to control himself, or his look the same beneath, none knew.

Not himself either.

"You have been chosen to complete this assignment." Princess Celestia rose from her throne and beckoned the dragon into bowing once more. Only he looked up, silently, as the great princess strode down the steps. "Do not be mistaken in feeling special. There are many better suited for this journey. I'd much rather send an army than task this to a lone, one-armed dragon."

Her gazed flicked—noticed by him alone—to the left sleeve of his coat. Limp against his side, its filling was space and air, draped into the side of his body. It stung from her look. The phantom pain. The itch to scratch at a limb no longer there.

"Your heritage. Your competency of a sword. Your loyalty to duty." Something swirled within the limb no longer there. In the abstract arm came the swelling of obscure pains. Claiming loyalty to a perceived traitorous dragon? His arm endured the burn of a new cut. "These qualities assure you'll see your objective through. You'll be able to make it halfway, at least, until handing the princess off to their contact."

His arm tingled at those words, despite the lack of cause, aching anyway.

"Once your mission is done," Princess Celestia said upon reaching ground on which he kneeled. Her long dressed brushed across the ground, the back of her mane tied into a knot, several ones in fact. "You will return and report to Canterlot at once. There you will be housed in a cell. Your fate will be decided from this very court."

Her figure loomed high above his kneeling state, a contrast felt to the faces above, countless and without expression. Their stares and subtle hatreds spoke of his destiny. Though no upraise came from any, the room bordered on the edge of it.

Everything repressed due to the presence of the princess.

"Dismissed."

I | The Princess Beloved

~ I ~

The Princess Beloved

Spike sat on the field of grass and leaned back, as much as he could, faintly shaded by the lone cherry-tree to the right of him. He gazed over the golden railing to the view beyond. It glimpsed the sides of the castle before revealing the sweeping landscapes of the distant country.

His arm hugged his chest, a claw set on his stump, clasping it. Flames billowed beneath his touch as scales had yet to return to the patch—and never would. Scaleless. That was the name of dead or dying dragons.

And neither of those two failed to describe him.

Shuffling in the grass.

Something behind.

Spike pushed his palm to the grass and raised into a turn to face the approaching force. Only two were toward him. Princess Celestia and the purple mare next to her. They'd step out from the opening of the distant building; its golden glow still cast upon them.

Moonlight greeted them next, and so did he.

"This will be your guide to Drangleic," Princess Celestia said upon striding next to the mare. They were close, a foot so. Yet neither seemed uncomfortable. Their bodies pressed and their coats caressed the other. Sadness stole his weight. "He will ensure no harm comes during your journey into the entry of the lands. You'll meet another like him from there."

The mare was hard to be seen from the side of the tall princess, who stood a few inches below the dragon had full height. The curve of her white body unrolled from the other, slowly revealing the mare. Spike lost a breath—an uncommon occurrence.

She'd been beautiful.

Spike hadn't prepared himself for the sight, unable to say or do a thing, instead stunned into stillness expected of a guard. His eyes sparkled at the look of her. She was a smaller mare reaching the barrel of Celestia. She was more compressed, cute even, a face only entering adulthood.

Much like he.

"This is Princess Twilight Sparkle of the Divine Gift," Princess Celestia said upon inflicting authority into her voice again, her eye cast back on the dragon, an eyebrow arched. He was on his knee the second next, head bowed, eyes closed. "You will be seeing her safely across these lands. Do not fail. Nothing else can be said."

Princess Celestia then lowered her muzzle to the mare. "Now go. Collect your things. We'll have a proper farewell before seeing you off."

Even though the mare had nodded her head, it was her eyes set on the dragon, neck craned and muzzle raised. She gazed at him with a twinkle in her violet iris. Spellbound. The look of the intelligent stolen by curiosity. Something was different about this stare. A read not even the dragon could tell.

Twilight Sparkle had turned away, walking. Now and again, she glanced back, spotting him. Their eyes met and, as quickly, she faced forward. Until she entered the glow outside of the building... entering that too seconds later.

Spike then turned to his side. To the foot to his right, Princess Celestia stood on the other side of the tree. Its bark was white and its leaves were pink. The princess then started to speak. "Tell me, dragon, if you even can—do you know why a single tree stands in this land."

The dragon shook his head.

"The changing of seasons matters not to an immortal... and yet we chose to keep this tree." Princess Celestia gazed up into its branches as the blossoms filtered downward, one landing on her snout. "Open your claw to its offering. The time of our formalities has passed."

Spike wasn't sure this to be a trick or not, a test of a noble to his diligence as a knight. Yet there was something about the way the snowy princess gazed at him. Her eyes still burned with the intensity of the sun. But where they had burned for anger, that same heat, was now apply, to a spreading sadness drying the grass beneath them.

And then he saw it. His vision portrayed his other arm, raising while his claw was opening, holding in a serene pose. It was one he slowly took, hesitation and clumsily, nervous, jittering at feeling the blossom touch onto his palm.

"Cherry blossoms are a symbol of rebirth, to itself and its lands, and perhaps greater than that. This tree detected the natural rhythm of destiny, keeping to it, the few expressions given to the coming of fate."

Spike lowered his palm and gazed into it, seeing the single pink leaf. Without knowing why his digits curled around it. Safe as it was in his claw, there was an urge to protect. Keeping it safe from the uncaring world around. Yet there was another urge. Sudden and animistic.

He desired to clenched his claw and crunched the leaf.

"Though how brilliant your eyes seem to appear, they have dulled from countless years of pain, left in a misery of which you cannot explain." Princess Celesta gazed up into the branches of the tree, and he did the same. They watched the pink delights fly and fade away in the breeze. "I have seen more life in corpses than I do in seeing you. I won't make you swear to keep the mare from harm. So few ponies know better."

The soft whippings of the breeze filled their silence.

"I do not speak of you like a princess, but rather... whatever is close to that of a mother." Her muzzle lowered, but it didn't to him. Instead it settled on the grass, on her hooves. She seemed dejected on the gold surrounding them. "That mare... my Twilight... she... she knows not of the half of my care for her. In truth—a fool is a part I've played this last little while."

She chuckled. Princess Celestia chuckled. Spike actually looked over at her, unable to display confusion. Only his eyes were settling on her. She glanced back at him and laughed. "Your eyes! I think this is the first moment I've seen an iota of emotion on them." She shook her head and looked up again, this time, fixating on the splendour of the stars above. "But I suppose such is a terrible fate for you, isn't it?"

He wordlessly looked at her.

"I... I must confess... I do not know my explanation of all of this to a dragon." Princess Celestia laughed to herself, less in mirth. "Perhaps we're both bound to our roles to do what must be done. Whatever we are, whatever we desire... it mustn't get in the way of what must be done. That is the greatest truth of all." She exhaled heavily. "Lest our whims destroy us."

Spike lowered his claw into the interior-pocket of his jacket, where the blossom would be kept safe. Returning his attention to the princess, she still seemed set on the stars. But her face gazed at the moon most of all. "To the only other my heart has ever loved, this crown has prevented me from showing what I feel. Oh, Twilight. If only she knew. Those nights of her crying that I was outside her door, crying too."

Her muzzle fell. Not lowered or dipped, but declined.

Fell from the weight of guilt.

"And to the dragon set to bring her safely to her doom, I've been horrendous to, all for the sake of appearance." Her eyes closed and their greatness was lost behind those lids. She looked tired, exhausted, a sun starting to dim. "Being awful to the ones that matter is the most important matter of this crown. Be thankful your only binding is that sword. I'd lose all my legs to kiss that mare farewell."

Spike didn't know what he was doing as the force beckoned him forward. The rage within him was suddenly gone. No pain in vain. The intensity of anger mellowed into nothing within his missing arm. It relaxed... before reaching forward.

He watched the vison of it reach for the downtrodden princess's crown. Worry arose in fearing a strike to her neck followed by something worse. Rather, it took her crown. Lifted it from her head with the courage buried with its translucent shape.

Spike approached the princess, who did not stir regardless of his movements, the same being the reverse only hours ago. In looking into his palm, nothing lingered within it. No hope or pain or aspiration. But the vision of the non-extent left him with a call.

And he fulfilled it in reaching for the princess's tiara. It lifted from her head, and her mane ceased in its power. Prismatic hair undulating through the lost its celestial power. Long strands dropped and draped down her body and neck. He pulled the ornament away as her eyes then opened.

"D-Dragon," Celestia sputtered the word and her eyes blinked twice. "What is it you think you are doing? Removing a crown from royalty is a great offence. Why should you..."

Spike didn't bother with the rest of her words, instead kneeling again, but not to bow. Setting tiara to the side, he brought his claw to her hoof, nudging the gold around it.

"D-Dragon... Spike..." He looked up at her face to see the mark of natural beauty. Her mane no longer billowed like the cosmos, but her muzzle caught him with her sincerity. Both eyes, pink and bright, settled on him with worried. No longer an impervious princess. Only a stunned mare. Something the former would never be allowed. "Y-You cannot mean... but this..."

Spike did bow if only to leave forward, claw around her ankle, lifting the leg. It ended up holding in the air as he let go. In it keeping this way, he lightly pulled on the horseshoe, freeing the hoof beneath. The gold was heavy in this claw—nearly enough to weigh it to the ground.

Celestia didn't have words for him. Seconds passing saw twitching of her lips. Some response, clever words, an assertion of higher status or wisdom. Anything to prove superiority even in losing the crown and the title it represented. An occupation habit. One that she lost in succeeding.

Much more to her benefit.

Once the golden attire had been stripped, the dragon rose again, face to face with the mare, seeing into her face again. Long and lazy mane covered most of her muzzle, but parts of her expression shone through. She was tired, so exhausted, and yet there was something incredibly happy about her.

The phantom arm patted his other shoulder.

"For the kind also stripping me of my happiness... you have also allowed me a final glimpse into it." Celestia tilted her head, smiling, so far as to display a few teeth. "I think a proper farewell will be enough to tide my heart until the changing times. Thank you for that."

Her smiled shrunk back into itself. "But I'm afraid this changes nothing between us. Once you return, I shall be the princess you saw before. And you know the fate this world think you deserve."

Spike didn't hesitate to nod.

And so Celestia smiled once more.

"I know now there wasn't another better than you for this journey," Celestia began a final time, "and I'm so terribly sorry it had to be this way. But keep to your duty and do what must be done. Trusting you on this... will allow me to greater indulge in her now."

Upon hearing the distant ruffling of grass and hoofsteps, the dragon backed away, tall again.

"Will you leave a m-m.... a m-mother and daughter alone for a few moments more?" Celestia then entered a bow, the first from a princess to a dragon. Or maybe it wasn't since her crown had been set in-between them. "None can see me like this. So please. Ensure no guards pass through here."

The dragon didn't smile or say a word, his eyes still a dull green, the mask hiding all.

All he expressed was that which he did, nodding and turning, set to accomplish his final order from Celestia.

II | The Princess in Her Spire

~ II ~

The World from Her Tower

Spike had seen the spire a thousand times throughout his years. It was always his beacon home was near, more than the castle or changing scenery. It wasn't a difference between creatures. Beat and ponies alike bore their teeth at him.

What had captured him about the spire was the telescope carved into its round ceiling, aimed at the heavens. It reflected something more of him. Peace and curiosity. It always betokened him, for one reason or another.

But now was the day he was able to visit it.

He lurked through the castle to the dismay of the guards. Upon reaching the swirling staircase upward, he was forced to open the door again, going up and up, the chamber tight and becoming tighter. Near the top, he had to squeeze himself through, a small wooden door now in his way.

And he opened it into a new world.

The offset was a face to space and splendour within the cavity of the spire—broad and around with curved walls towering above. Woodenness shelves were the walls and the colours spines of books were its bricks. There was a ladder on wheels raising to the narrow platform serving as a round pathway.

On the ceiling were the works of magic and mathematics. Ropes and wooden planks were serving as a way to explore what was above. The distinctions of stars and cosmos accentuated numbers and equations. The work of genuine curiosity about the natural beauty of the world.

And the middle of it all sat his curiosity. There was the chamber of the telescope greatly round as if to fit many inside. Below it was a chair and a lever, allowing the thing to swerve around. Looking up, he could barely see the night sky in the slit curved around the end of the scope.

Spike didn't know the feelings washing over him, shaking his head to push them away, never trusting in the fluttering of his heart. In seeing the strewn papers across the floor, one had stuck underneath his foot, which he lifted to his chest. In peeling the parchment, his eyes struggled to read the text. Elegant cursive in a language he barely understood.

The page slipped between his digits. Without knowing why, his claw went to his blade, feeling the handle—gripping it. All of this would be taken away from the one who lived here. Squeezing the sword, that would be the very thing to take the mare away from such a sacred place.

But nothing could be done about it.

For what must be done, must be done, or else.

The phantom arm ached again. It floated before him, shaking to the right, a lone digit pointing to the wall of books. Something felt wrong and he didn't know why. In walking over to it, the shelf was sectioned into volumes of purple.

One of them was light green.

He pulled the book out and his dull eyes remained the same through the slots on his mask. The cover was of a dragon tremendous and big, though anointment by little text to the parts of its body. Spike glanced to the top-right, seeing the light green spines there. He shuffled over, not needing the ladder, placing the book back in there.

Until something else caught him.

The text on the spine, regardless of the volumes, began with the same letter. C. The books around it, though the same shade, started with V. Panicking, he quickly pulled the book back and shuffled to the left. He struggled to push the book back in. The ones before were tightly pressed together and, lacking another claw to hold them apart. He raised his knee to hold the right one back.

It slid into place. He bowed and sighed, and the tension in his chest stopped expanding. That was until his gaze flicked to the book head back by his knee. In lowering that, she saw its letter, a fat D.

Spike whimpered.

He pulled back the first book and then that one, returning to the ones of violet and, drawing a digit on its top in a sharp pull—lowered his claw to catch its fall on the stack. Staring at the spines, he tried working out the puzzle. What was the secret to this organization?

"Can I help you with something?"

Spike never sputtered of filched or anything of the sort, but it became easier to do around her. His spine tittered upward and the charge surged out. The books flew from his claw, caught quickly by it again, another by his raised foot, the third by his phantom claw.

There was a dull thud seconds later from that third one.

"Relax! I didn't mean to surprise you." From off to the side was where the mare appeared, slowly and elegantly, around the gold of the telescope. Her mane was long though its back puffed into a ponytail. Bangs still shielded her eyes. What peeked from beneath their brim was brimming with magenta. "Probably shouldn't have scared you like that. My name is Twilight Sparkle. And you're Spike, right?"

The dragon kept with his leg raised into the air, claw out the same, fighting to maintain a constant balance to his body. He nodded, deep and slow, the thundering of his heart, creating harder breathes to breathe.

"Were you... were you trying to organize my books for me?" She strode to before and below him, the softness of her muzzle brushing his hip. His body warmed, concentrating in his face. Possibly a defect to the tightness of the mask. "That's sweet of you! But I don't think you'll find much luck in that regard."

Spike's only reply was to swallow, then lifting his leg and flicking the book into the air—catching it with his foot. From there, he slid the book back into place, cautiously, as if fearing for an explosion.

One that never came.

"For a knight of such regard... you're a bit goofy, aren't you?" Twilight covered a hoof over her muzzle, laughing, her eyes closing sweetly. The dragon swallowed again, chest constriction, all still without knowing why. "Oh! I hope that comment wasn't offensive! I really do think you're cool. There's so many stories I've heard about you!"

Spike wondered if his face was worried beneath the mask.

"But please." Her hoof fell from her muzzle with grace even for a minuscule movement. "Place that book wherever you please. I'm a little bit indecisive when it comes to personal changes. Not many ponies to debate the merits of different organization styles, you know?"

Her smile then dropped. "But do you think that one can go with the other violet ones? Since you placed the previous one with its shade, it makes sense to keep consistent with that, don't you think?"

Spike did as he was told, carefully, still fearful of an unknown.

"But wait." Twilight's muzzle glanced around the majestic mass of the room; his expression drowning into worry. "This place isn't going to be for me anymore, right? It'll be for the next student or whomever else decides to stay here. Or maybe the area will be opened to the public."

Spike wasn't sure of his expression beneath the mask anymore.

"Then it makes sense to go with the most common system known to ponies, which is either to go by the last name of the author." She nodded her head and closed her eyes in a look of total assurance. "Some ponies—foolish ones, at least—are convinced we should go, alphabetically, by the title of the story."

Not knowing what to do, but in feeling he should be doing something, the dragon plucked out more books. Lifting his foot, he pulled two onto its top—balancing them. From there, his claw swapped through the space, pulling the remainders into a stack atop his claw. He glanced at the spines on the ones on his feet. Top started with A.

"Couldn't you imagine the drastic contrast between authors and genres and countless titles starting with the?" Twilight shook her head while the dragon kicked up the book to the top of a stack. He then threw the whole thing up, the bottom book falling to his foot. B. "It's much better to go for the author's last name for the sake of having their books together. It'll look better and we search more for writers than we do stories."

Spike blinked. The top book started with an A, but the last name was a D. He slid it forward and caught it onto his foot again. The book beneath ended with an A. It was a struggle but, in leaning back and tilting right—the book slid onto the shelf.

"Only problem is writers don't always write in a field so, even if bunch their works together, you'll have romance next to science." Twilight opened her mouth and her tongue limped out. "Something about that feels yucky on my taste buds. So maybe pure apathetically isn't good for the masses. Perhaps keeping that way, but doing so within a section of a genre, is the way to do it?"

Spike kicked two books onto his stack, leaving on on his foot, a couple kissing, last name S. Top left shelf revealed a slot and, in the dimness of the space, the cover of the book behind was two mares kissing. The dragon liked the idea of that very much... as well as the last name being R.

Taking the book between his toes, his leg arched into the air, straining the muscles as kinks popped from within. At this apex, the bottom barely met the shelf as he sole pushed it into place.

"But doesn't it all look so ugly to you? Purple and green and lime side by side." Twilight wiggled a hoof into the air, nodding. "Colour assortment is the first impulsive to what grabs our eyes and completes the appearance of a place. It's the best looking structure and system, aesthetically speaking."

Her muzzle dipped, and her narrowed eyes searched across the floor, looking not for something external, but rather, the hope of discovering something within. She muttered to herself but, thanks to his excellent hearing from nights in the wild, sleeping alone, he picked up her voice. "If you could build a system around what looks nice, then you have the best of both worlds. Even if it's just for yourself."

But then everything stopped. Twilight's tail went limp in a curve across the floor, her hoof dropping and mumbles ceasing. Something terrible overtook her in sudden sadness. The spark of curiosity—regardless of its absurdity—was a bright light after all.

"But I suppose none of this matters now, does it, for the ponies that come next? I could never find a way to make this room into my home... but it feels like I came close to it a few times, y' know." Her eyes weren't set on him. Only gazing at the floor, inching up slowly, lost to another world. "I've seen the world and the universe itself from here. Not all of it. But enough to get a sense of everything."

Spike spotted the desk over to his side, walking over it and sliding the books onto it. He turned around to the sitting mare gazing at him, or rather, the sword strung to the side of his hip. She didn't seem scared by it. Merely a sombre fascination.

"All of these books have given me glimpses into times of the different parts of the world, its history and its stories, findings and inventions and discovering." Twilight's eyes had become shiny from the film of water washing across them. They lifted on his body. "I could tell you nearly any tidbit about the lands we are about to see. B-But unlike me, you've actually been there. You've experienced the things I've only heard about."

Twilight smiled with wobbly lips. "I-I s-suppose... in being informed of my duty... I... I was rather glad in finally being allowed to get away. To not be locked within this castle and visit all those places I wished to explore."

Any excitement in her face, the few iotas, died away. "Regardless of the journey, the beginning and the ending of the same, aren't they? One locked room to another." The edge of her hoof lifted from the floor, pressing, sinking into the plushness of her lips. "All because of the gift these bear. All this fighting. The threat of war. Never in history has one been started over the matter of a kiss."

Her shoulders slummed into her body and she looked like a mare needing to be hugged. "Or to whom it belonged to."

Twilight whipped her head from her dejected state, gazing into the dragon's eyes, their intensity infusing into his own. For even though his eyes were dull, they reflected the burning glow of her own. Embers scattering within his irises.

"I must grant the kind of dragons with the kiss of immortal love, giving his life cause to live one. It was destined that I would be with a dragon, and the turning of events is fate revealing itself. And she has chosen the king as my love to be."

And she kept staring at him, needing to prove something, in the existence of reality, witnessed by another. Things said and felt in the mind and body aren't true or real to the world. Not until acted and showed and proven to another.

"I won't let these lands fall and others die for the sake of a simple kiss and an eternal gift." Twilight nodded without lower her eyes. "No matter what happens, regardless of the feelings and thoughts and everything I've come to know—I will find a way to defeat the selfishness within me. There must be a way to fall in love with a dragon, so the gift of my kiss will be true, granting immortal life to the king ought to bring us all peace."

And to the intensity of expression of the unfortunate princess, she was met to the stoic expression of the dragon's mask. His eyes reflected their glow and nothing more. No greater spark or the sounding of a syllable. Only that bowed before turning to the door, pulling it open, gesturing a claw into it.

The mare stomped forward in her determination... stopping before the final step, closing her eyes and swallowing... fighting herself. Losing herself to weakness, she stole a last glance at the library. Nothing more could be mustered. Twilight fled down the steps at once.

Spike turned to follow her... but was beckoned by the books on the desk. There was another, smaller and bound in leather. An inkpot and a quill sat next to it. Feeling its importance, and seeking to learn how to read, the dragon slipped it into the pocket of his coat—next to the blossom of rebirth.

III | Refusal of Departure

~ III ~

Refusal of Departure

The pony and the dragon strode through the empty lanes of marble, lost to darkness and rentering light, prodigally, from the castings of the streetlamps. He strode forward and kept a step ahead, always behind him. The clit and the clat of her hooves was the rhythm he focused his mind. Something to occupy the space as his eyes kept its sweeping of the streets.

Twilight was garbed in a robe and hood belonging to a wander or a peasant, her muzzle covered underneath a veil of shadow. Only her snout poked through, those lips beneath it, firm, tender and sweet. Covered in fuzz and fluff. Looking incredibly soft.

Yet they held the greatest gift craved by life itself.

What worried him more, however, was her lowered head. Twilight didn't keep that way to avoid detection. She was walking through the streets where she was once paraded. Ponies and the like glad for her to be in their shops. Now she was leaving, without a word, never to see her loved ones ever again.

Spike glanced over his shoulder and up to the castle behind, seeing that spire once more, the gold of the telescope glinting... despite the lack of light. This would be his final time seeing it too. Yet it did not hurt him as much as it did her.

It wasn't until outside the gates of Canterlot something was wrong. The breeze ceased and the coming dawn loomed on the horizon. Spike had been the first to walk through the long and winding path downward... spotting the ruffling in the bushes around.

He stopped and held his claw out to the side, catching the mare's chest as she walked into it. The fabric accentuated the fluff and the shape of softness beneath it and, though his mind registered the stimuli—it was focused on the figures appearing out from the range.

They walked without sound and move swiftly in unison. Great trees were scattered across the grounds left of the gate, shadows on branches, tall and still. Everything was fixated on him. None paid a glance to the mare.

They were not armour but colt. Robes and other wears. Faces covered and forehooves dressed the same. Sacks around their barrels jutted as they walked. Daggers and swords and spears on some. They seemed too uniform to be bandits.

Yet that's what they presented themselves as.

"You are nothing more than a wasted sell-sword." Three ponies strode onto the path as their hooves sank inches into the dirt. The tallest of them all, covered in puffy, black robes was the one to speak. Coat white and mane a sleek blue. "Gives us the mare. Return to your dragon lands alone. We'll keep her somewhere safe."

Spike dipped his head and his eyes narrowed through the slots of the mask. Despite their dimness, there was a glimmer of emerald splashing through. Inches of his expression was visibly—and the fullness of his hostility could be felt.

Sometimes you don't need to see a face of anger.

Sometimes you can just feel the heat.

"W-Wait! D-Don't do this! Please... hear me out!" Something was pushing into his palm and, though he held the force back—the plushness of the chest was an unexpected comfort mitigating his rage. "I know as a princess that I am worth something... but these lands are at risk if I'm not delivered."

Keeping behind his claw, the mare dug a hoof into the interior of her robe, searching around. Knowing she wouldn't move, the dragon pulled his arm away. There was more than one reason for this. "Perhaps some royal gems will be enough for an early ransom? What you would get—"

"We're not in it for the bits, you're majesty." The bandit gave a bow only a few could. "It's you we seek to protect. Keeping at the castle endangers you in being sent off. And if you were to reach those bastard lands..."

The leader shook his head. "I'd never allow you to travel on the path there."

Twilight was stunned into silence as she retreated inside her hood. Eyes glossy and a muzzle scrunched unable to understand the danger playing before her... she stepped back. Swallowing, she tried to speak. Nothing came out. The poor mare was scared.

But Spike had stepped in front of her, holding his claw behind his back, waist-height, allowing to see into his palm. Her head tilted back as her eyes ascended his height—hood falling—until seeing the back of his head. Without words, her foreleg lifted, reaching forward in jerks. It fell into limp onto his palm.

The digits were firm and sharp and precise. Hugging around her shape like nothing else, the squeeze comforted her. Enough to stifle the racing of her heart. She backed with an exhale, giving to a bow before stepping back.

"Move aside, dragon," the leader said as he stepped forward, slipping a foreleg over the side of his barrel. There was a sword clung to his hip, a round clasp around its handle, easily fixed onto the stallion's wrist. "Seeing the princess safe is your duty, is it not? There's a hideout, far away, composed of countless stallions and mares, talented in different fields, chancing their everything to save the princess."

Spike's claw went to the handle of his sword—the side of his claw bumping onto its top, correcting itself quickly by grasping it—and slowly withdrew. Clunky and obtuse and barely any smoothness to the movements. Yet he still drew his blade.

"You draw your sword still... regardless of my words? I know you are mute, dragon—but you are not deaf!" The black stallion tightened the latch around his wrist and yanked it forward, pointing the tip of the blade straight. "This is not her fight nor her war! She should avoid the coming tides of fire... not be sacrificed to them. Allow her to flee lands before they are charred. Are you not a true subject and protector of the princesses?"

The ground crunched underneath the weight of the dragon's foot, the earth smushing around his digits. Dirt splatted onto the legs of his trousers. Above his arm swayed over his head, the blade coming down before his face. Its metal reflected the glow of his eyes.

"Hmm... you're not at all what I expected you to be, dragon." The stallion chuckled as he glanced sideways. The rest clicked their wrists into the latches on their hips, fastening blades to their forearms—which they all drew forward. "Truth of the matter is you'll follow every order to the letter, won't you? Don't want to be caught acting out like a dragon? What is your oath to duty? To appear as the loyal dragon or to be a dragon loyal to his duty?"

Spike didn't move.

"At least you're consistent."

Twilight watched as the dragon lunged forward.

The slits in the dragon's eyes narrowed as he moved forward. Wood creaked from pressure on branches to the shaking of a few leaves. In the shadows of the trees came glints of silver. Arrows taking few seconds to be loaded and another to be fired and another to reach its target.

The brown stallion on the right was the first to lunge, prematurely, most likely scared of facing against a dragon. Dense fabric clung around his barrel to the clattering of metals. He'd stumbled and fallen forward into the thrust of his sword—easily smacked upward by a flick of the dragon's fist.

Spike twirled around the stallion and wrapped his claw around his throat, lifting and choking him, hearing the shooting of winds and the impaling of arrows. Three struck across the ponies belly and lined up to his chest. They sunk in by inches. Hardly any blood drew as the unconscious foe was dropped to the grass.

"Is that how you win your fights? Any matter that you can?" The leader strode forward upon holding his arms to the side, those behind keeping exactly like that. The glint from the trees ceased. Only dragon and leader circling each other. "I had wondered why the princess would allow a dragon, as strong as they are, one with only a lone arm to escort the princess."

Spike returned to holding the blade over his head again, defending himself with the streak of metal. The leader bolted forward at once and leapt into the air, flying downward at the dragon, bringing his blade downward. Both struck, and the dragon's arm tensed on the impact. He blunted the blow backward without losing a step.

Dirt kicked in thin waves around the hooves sliding backward. The stallion slashed the air before him, laughing in mock, tightening his shoulders. "Now I see your purpose! Nothing but the obsolete model, aren't you?"

Twilight Sparkle stood behind and watched it all occur without words. Worryingly she looked over to the stallion left on the ground. Across the patch of grass, those on the branches of the trees were still. All of them could take the dragon yet didn't.

And they didn't seem focused on her either.

Chancing the risk to the body of the stallion, the mare laid down next to him, rolling him from side to back—pained groans from them both—to the bloodied robes around his barrel. Not daring her magic, her hooves dug through the wraps... mindful of the arrows sticking out.

Meanwhile. The stallion charged at the dragon again, swipes from left and right, parried to the sparks of metal. "Tell me, dragon, are you playing nice? You outmatch my strength and speed but not quite my skill. What were you entrusted to kill to protect your princess."

But Spike didn't feel anything. Nothing of his body was alive during the fight—only reactions to actions from a lifetime of training. Those behind the stallions stood with their spears and their javelins, robed silhouettes content to watch.

Rather as the pony continued his barrage of attacks on him, the dragon backed a step and then two and, on feeling the stallion cover a step—lunged his foot forward in a sweep. Knocking the stallion's legs, Spike flipped to the handle of the blade. He smashed it into the pony's muzzle while swiping his legs out from under him.

Just as quickly he was on top of the stallion. Spike thrust his weapon into the grass, it standing erect from the dirt. The leader's head bashed around—nearly slicing his scalp on the weapon—as the dragon's weight held him down. The one claw reached the fuzzy wrist, feeling the smoothness of metal to the clamp... crushing it with the clenching of his claw.

The blade clattered against the ground.

Spike drew the blade of the pony and pressed it against the soft flesh of the stallion's throat, pinning it there, allowing the stallion to feel its heat in every sway of his head. He stopped thrashing after a few seconds... his eyes settled upward.

It was the expression not of the scared but that of the sad. Face contorting in despair not for one's own fate. It was the look one had only when it was another. Spike couldn't see his reflection in those eyes. Rather he glanced up to the rest.

Still they stood... but not at him.

The dragon curled his tail forward as its end wrapped around the handle of the blade, keeping it against the stallion's throat as he rose. Standing a foot from the fallen foe, who maintained that way as the sword still pressed against him... he saw the mare feet away.

Twilight Sparkle had pushed back her hood and allowed her hooves to reveal the wounds of the stallion. Her eyes were closed, and she was lightly shushing the whimpers of the stallion. She was slow and angelic in the sounds of her voice.

Dipping her head, it was her horn that first became alight in the glows of lavender. Three similar spheres appeared around the arrows of the stallion. He laid on his back, arched and gazing at his wound. Crying and shutting his eyes and utterly terrified of the end.

But did not scream as the arrows were pulled out. No blood surged, nor did the slit across the skin widen. Rather a glowing of colours blinding to the eyes washed over the spots. Seconds later, her lips pressed into the area. Nothing changed until the glow surged.

The lips of the princess earned a glow of violet that wasn't violent to the eyes. Magical and ethereal, its power sprawled across the body of the stallion and poured into his wounds. Bright light consumed the scene. Spike shielded his eyes with a claw.

Until the light faded.

The stabbed stallion was the first to open his eyes. He was still breathing and seemed shocked by it. In blinking twice, his right eye opened, scared to the sight of the world. Slowly, however, in sensing no harm... gazed downward.

No wounds or cuts covered his body. No blows from before appeared across his coat. Bruises from earlier days became non-existent. His hooves touched around his body, groaning from soreness and nothing more.

"I'm alright... bloody thanks, I'm alright!"

Twilight stepped back from the scene to the amazed gazes of everyone presented. She did her best to smile at them, muzzle turned and cheeks pink, unable to keep her eyes away from the ground down next to her. How could such a miracle worker be so bashful?

"D-Dragon? Could you heed me a favour?" The voice floated from over Spike's shoulder, which he then looked over. Their fallen leader lifted his forehooves to his tail, resting. "Think I got all the information I needed out of all this." He whistled. The on the range lowered their arms. "Promise you my boys won't give you trouble. Think we all need a talking to after that."

Spike narrowed his eyes... until a voice relaxed them. "S-Sir Spike?"

Glancing forward revealed the mare striding toward him. Twilight was doing her best to smile despite the shiver at the edge of her lips. The very things healing fatal wounds. He did his best to focus on her eyes. "I know your duty is not to me... but to escort me. But do you think we could hear this stallion out? I d-don't think he means to truly harm us."

It went against everything in his code. Even in gazing over the ponies gathered off in the range, they were putting away their blades—weapons being set down. Shaking his head... the dragon went over to his sword in the ground. He drew it up and kept it out, releasing the one in his tail.

He stepped out of the way for Twilight Sparkle to walk toward the fallen leader. Lowering onto her knees, she nudged him upward. He chuckled a smile and slowly rose, resting forelegs against the grass. "So your gift hasn't changed, has it, princess?"

Twilight shook her head. "I had a feeling it was you..."

The two entered a hug composed of clinging forelegs pressing deeply into the backs of the other. Spike's heart faltered at the deepness of affection. He shook the shame from his head—settling it on the approaching forces.

The band of stallions came around him, equipped only with their hooves while he clutched his sword tightly.

Twilight pulled her muzzle out from the hug. "B-But why are you here? And dressed like that? Princess Celestia sent you months ago, and you... you..."

"We didn't return for a good reason... one barely good enough from keeping it from you for so long." The stallion rested his muzzle around her neck and held her tightly. "We were the first expedition sent to scout the lands for your safe transportation. So many... too many were lost on the way there... and we never made it across the Great Bridge."

Twilight's eyes widened and, despite her confusion, still found her hoof stroking the stallion's back. Bumps and scars tickled the edges of her furs. Her lips tucked inward.

"Princess Celestia... we may have had our disagreements... but she was right to keep you locked inside that castle for so long." The stallion rubbed his cheek into her mane, smelling the scent of strawberries. "The world is starting decay beyond these lands. So many charred fields and burnt corpses littered on the way beyond. Even the strong... aren't very strong there."

Finally his muzzle rose to glance around his at his approaching guard. The figures defined by blackness and covered in robes became exposed underneath the sunlight. They did not walk but limp. The arms they bore weighed them down. Those laying down their weapons before, did so, because they couldn't move beyond it.

"B-But Shining..." Twilight hiccuped. "There were so many more of you upon departure."

"This is all that remains." Shining finally out from the hug. Stroking his sister's hair a final time, he pulled himself onto his feet. He stumbled a step, a splash of blood striking beneath him. Nothing major as he kept on his hooves. "Half of us died and the other half came back half-alive. We can't win this war."

Shining then glared up at the dragon. "And his kind is coming soon."

Twilight shook her head upon rushing to the side of her brother, nudging her head underneath one of his forelegs. Holding his weight, she stumbled forward, legs shaking—and persisting in spite of them. "No, they won't! Princess Celestia was able to arrange my marriage to the king to ensure peace between our lands."

"You won't make it there... dragons aren't always submissive to their kings... nor traitors loyal tot their duty." Shining limped forward, hurt from even before the fight began. Leaning more of his weight and pain onto his sister evoked pain greens. Her mane slicked from smears of his blood like a sacrilege defiling of nature. "We couldn't even make it past the quarter point of the world. That was the best platoon of the Royal Guard. Y-Your friend here... h-he can't... can't..."

Spike watched the scene in confusion of what to do and, in even looking to his missing arm... no phantoms emerged. These stallions around him, the ones collapsed on the ground, laid on their sides and backs, panting and groaning... they were his foes.

Their intent was to take the princess from him. Whisking her to somewhere safe. His duty was to bring her to the place where she would be handed off to the king. The two of them could move quickly and silently throughout the land. Those who move alone go the fastest.

If these stallions were to get in the way, would he kill them? Walk over their already dead bodies and kill them? Spike's heart increased in beating in the feeling of his claws tapping around their throats—before slicing across them.

The warmth and thickness of blood gushing over his claws, purple-stained to red, a feeling of something to the beast within. Killing for the sake of duty was an act meant for the sword. Why had he jumped to using his claws so savage like? The dragon shook his head.

And sheathed his sword.

Shining Armor had felt his legs collapse beneath him, striving to fall away from his sister to keep her from anymore of his misery. Yet her faint scream ceased early as a force held up his weight. It raised his foreleg around the width of a waist, hugging it, allowing his body to lean against it.

"Don't think of this as me owing you anything, dragon." Shining turned his head and spat, a metallic taste mixing with the blood on his tongue. He limped forward in hate, holding the dragon firmly. "I don't hold you accountable for your kind... but I know your kind resides within you."

The dragon's head turned from above, gazing down at him, his eyes vacant. "You may not have shown it now... but if our plan had worked... if most of us returned better than just alive... some of us would have still endured your victory."

The dragon helped him over to a polished rock jutting from the ground, turning him and guiding him down. Shining wrapped his arm around the dragon's neck, not enough to choke—but to suggest it. "What we came back as is proof of the world your kind is making it out to be out there. If we came back... if we took you on... how far would you have gone for duty... and how much for enjoyment?"

"And what gives you the right to say that!?" The stallion looked right to his sister approaching, already shaking her head. "I understand you attacked because you don't think I have a right to be involved in this. Maybe you're right about me—but I'm hardly the only in this position!"

Both dragon and stallion gazed at the mare in anger.

"You—"Her hoof swirled to point at the guards amassed "—all of you planned this for my sake. Dressed yourself like bandits to prove a point and take me away. You all did this for your love of me." She shook her head as winds lifted back her mane. "But what happens if you take me away? Perhaps we'll all get to live together in some cave. Maybe even travel around, always on the run, never sure... which night will be the night."

Her muzzle dipped. "And while I'm safe, the world will be burning, all because I didn't decide to move or kiss a king." She cleared her throat. "I know it's far much more than that. But can't you see everything beyond me? The ponies and cities and homes that'll be burned because I decided to run."

One of the stallions stepped foward. "But if we fight! We'll—"

"You'll be hurt or killed and so much will be lost in-between victory and defeat." Shining lost his breath to the emotions of his sister's words, knowing she thought and felt that far, all by herself. No longer a filly... but a mare sold off to savage dragons. "It won't be great for me... but it's already terrible for others."

Shining lost his breath and his heart at his next words. "So if you have to choose between the world in pain or yourself—"

"That's not even a question." Twilight closed her eyes and smile but, from the bottom of those lids came the glints upon purple furs. "My worst is being in a place I hate with dragons that'll treat me awful. B-But that might not even be the case! The kind said so long as I perform my duty, I can have a place to myself, filled with books and telescopes... it's not like I left that castle so much... so why... why would it make a difference now?"

Shining choked. "B-Because it wasn't always meant to be that way."

"And sometimes we can't always get what we want... that was the lyrics to that song you liked so much, wasn't it?" Twilight's eyes opened and were clear of everything. The image of her grew fuzzy and her figure blurred into purple. "Life won't be so terrible for me there. Just more of what happens here. Better than what will happen to everyone else."

Shining couldn't see through the blurriness of his eyes, not knowing he was crying, nor his arms still around the dragon. He'd been holding him up this whole time, without words or sounds, lowering him only when the stallion started to fall back. He laid against the rock as blood flowed from his wounds.

He couldn't suppress them long enough to prove the point. How could he show all these dragons were alike, their rage if given a chance? Twilight couldn't be allowed to go to such hostile lands. Not when she would be killed on the way there, or drained of life upon arrival.

"I'll miss all of this so dearly, you and your guard, this castle and its lands, Princess Celestia and the rest of my family." Even though the blurs of purple swam before him, her sincerity could be felt. His limp hoof rose to bat her away, only to fall, collapsed against the grass. "They'll still be letters. Maybe visits if I'm lucky. None of that is anything to seeing you hurt like this."

"D-Don't... I... I deserve this..."

Shining tried to lift his hoof again to swat her face away. His foreleg rose but then kept that way. A claw clenched around his wrist, holding him there. He glanced up at the dragon holding him down. "N-No! Stop this! This isn't your duty. You're not bound to this."

The dragon continued to hold him back. Bringing his leg onto the forelegs to pin it, he used a claw to tear away the robes around his barrel. Bleeding cuts tainted alabaster fur. Such a fuzzy coat ruined by that which was meant to keep inside. "These are your marks! Wounds left by claws like yours. Do you think you can defeat it? It's nothing that I hold against you, dragon."

Shining didn't know what he was saying anymore, exerting all his strength into that fight. If only things had been a little different. "You'll change the moment you lose that sword. It's what holds you back, binding you to something better. But how do I know you won't harm my sister? Maybe you have the strength to make it to the half-point of the world... but can you do it without retreating within."

He didn't know what his sister was doing at the side. Defending that dragon seemed to be her goal, and yet, she kept silent. That dammed claw! It remained over his wounds. Tracing over swollen slits and inflaming places already burning across his barrel.

"Don't think of me as being too harsh on you." Shining laid back fully to gaze up at the dragon. Only thing to focus was the mask. It shape set upon him. What it hid, locked away. The beast waiting on the other side. "No dragon bears what you have without regression. Your treatment from the world has been unfair. It's not that I hold against you."

That mask was what was in the way. There couldn't be a read on it. No expression to see or words to hear or feelings to feel. He was truly neutral beyond his actions. They implicated nothing. But nothing was an unknown—the greatest fear of them all. "That sword is a tool. Those claws are for pleasure. You won't get off from the kill using a blade. But slicing and digging those claws into your foes... that'll wake you up inside."

The claw was searching over him now, playing with his body, passing over gnashes with the sharpness of his contours. Dying here would be okay if it would change the mind of the one he loved. "Try it. We stallions are nothing. Unable to beat away your kind or protect the ones we love. You'll take my Twilight away. We're deserters. No home waits for us in Canterlot."

Those talons slid before stopping over his head, the place where the blood pumped and surged throughout. It was the juiciest spot for a kill. Claw dropping inward to the splattering of dense reds. To pull the organ upward as he both gazed to it. It'd explode as the claw crushed in ease.

"Dip your claws in some blood. Give your talons reasons to feel alive. Cut me, tear me apart." Shining shook his head and bit his lips to repress the pain. "Do something! I'll kill you after this is done! Take your Twilight away from your duty. You'll be forced to deal with me then, no?"

The blow came.

In the feeling of lips upon the wound over his heart.

Once more, the glow covered the scene, blinding those nearby for seconds, vision returning after that. Shining blinked his eyes, the world swimming into focus again. In glancing down his body, no wounds remained. In glancing up, two muzzles hovered before his own.

"...why didn't you do it?" Shining tried sitting up to the aching of his back, forced to lay back. He gazed into the cold slots on the mask to the more arctic eyes behind it. "I'll be a threat to you. That blade of yours can't hold back the dragon within you for long. Your claws were searching over my body, drawing pain..."

"Pain because you refused to stay still!" Twilight was the other muzzle floating before him, face scrunched up. She smacked his shoulder to a crack above the winds. Crying, he rubbed the spot. "How bad have the last few months been for you to be like this? Letting yourself die before your sister to prove a point? Hoping my dragon would do something so, what, I wouldn't know to trust him."

Shining choked. "There was nothing else I could do! No other way I could convince you not to go." His eyes flicked to Spike. "I doubt he's chained to his duty and his sword. But out in that world... where only beasts roam. How long do you think he'll keep like this before he becomes like them? Maybe that'll clear you a path... but how do you know he'll come back from it."

Twilight's muzzle turned and she looked at the dragon as well. Much like he, she couldn't get a read. This had been the design of those who imposed Spike into this fate. Never able to express or enter emotion. Dragons were emotional creatures. His entering of anger meant more than it ever could to any stallion.

"That sword won't be enough to defeat all that we've seen... even if he is strong enough to defeat all that lurks out there in the lands... he'll need to use those claws and the beast within him." Shining groaned as burns of aching coursed through his system. "That sword won't hold him back for long. He'll become something more to get you through." He sighed. "The question is if he'll come back to you. In all that rage repressed through the years... not many could come back from it."

Would that be enough to do the trick? Shining couldn't care to think much about it anymore. Terrible waves of drowsiness washed over him, his overworked mind and sore muscles finally gaining their rest.

Spike rose from the body of the stallion and stepped away from the scene, turning away only to raise his claw. Blood coated it in a glossy sheen. Without knowing why, his digits rolled around in it. The texture was pleasant to play in. It was the essence of the defeat of another, the raising of his high of victory.

Even though it was the blood from helping stabilize the wounds so aid could be injected, it coated and evoked those elements within him the same. Lowering his claw, he wasn't sure what to do. Once more the phantom was invisible.

But the hoof on his claw wasn't.

"There isn't a lot I know about my knight...." Twilight's voice floated from below him and, on his looking, the mare was sitting on the ground. She couldn't use her innate gift to heal this wound, for, there was nothing there. "Maybe nothing more than a beast lurks underneath those scales. Or maybe he is the first kind dragon to have ever lived. You attacked us to either save me or see him how his reactions in being pushed to the limit. There's... nothing greater to go on about him."

Twilight allowed his claw to hold her hoof, coating her natural furs in blood—that from her brother. Yet she did not break the embrace even upon looking back. "But he is bound to his duty as much as I am to mine. Both of us must do what must be done. I don't doubt there is a beast within him. But I know it's one bound by that sacred adage."

And she exhaled a shaky breath. "And his blood is my own. He was the one to hold you still because of my desire to heal your wounds. None can blame him for playing his part all so I may do mine."

Shining coughed behind them. "So... you'll go?"

"It's something I have to do, big brother." Twilight looked forward and, once again, choose not to look back. "You have my word Princess Celestia and others still think you on your quest. Those in the mountains should be sent home as well. Go home, Shiny, please, for me."

It was Spike who decided to look back a final time, seeing the stallion laid back on the rock and lost to himself. Sadness flashed over him in understanding the defeated state of the foe. Shining wasn't even a foe. Just a stallion out of luck and failing to do the right thing.

Without reason, he nodded to him, equally without cause, the stallion nodded back.

Before the mare pulled his claw forward, and the two were off again, leaving the castle and family behind.

Author's Note

Stumbled around on this one, but from here on out, it feels like smooth sailing.

V | Saved or Spared

~ V ~

Saved or Spared

All he had to do was see Twilight Sparkle screaming as she was lifted into the air to push himself into danger. In a world slowing to the erratic beating of his heat, the dragon watched her body twirled, mane scattered in great volume in a giant spread through the air.

Her hoof reached toward him, and his phantom claw to her, the two touching and connecting. Nothing came from it in the millisecond after. Twilight's body slammed into the rope holding the bridge, its fatal snap echoing into everything.

Spike leapt into the air as his tail, undone from her dash forward, shooting its spade toward her. Her hooves barely hugged around it as she clung to the mass of his tail, fighting to climb over it. Winds held them vertical and pushed them sideways as his claw fetched the whipping remains of the rope. His chest and abdomen clenched upon the pleasure currently tearing into their middles.

For a brief passage, they held on, the mare rocked vertically while hugging further across his tail. Spike clenched his body while holding to the rope, grinding his fangs upon attempting to pull himself up to it—to zero chance and inevitable pain.

"S-Spike! Please! Don't let go!"

He glanced over his body to see her frame clung around his tail like a body pillow. All four limbs locked around it, entire body pressed into it, not caring for the spines that jutted across it. Looking at her mortified expression didn't help. It only killed him more on the inside.

But his eyes narrowed on something behind her. Rectangle carved into the spreading wall of the cliff. Countless were littered on both sides, and in the valley below... there must have been innumerable collections of fallen bridges.

Spike shook his head.

"W-What! You're going to let go! D-Don't do that!"

He shook his head.

"But we'll die!"

He shook his head.

"M-My gift doesn't work if we're both dead!"

He shook his head.

"We... w-we won't die?"

He nodded his head.

She gulped as tears streaked from the corners of her eyes. "Y-You promise?"

Her lips turned up into a pout that formed into an expression that broke his heart. But in choosing to nod again, the mare swallowed her sobs and coughed away her tears, shaking her head, but in a way that meant yes.

And then Spike let go of the rope.

The winds failed to carry their weighs as they fell through the air, slowed from the force of the currents—enough for their bodies to glide across the open slot. Spike's claws lengthen and sharped as they imaged into the rock, the bones within cracking to horrible pops, a travelling of fissures spouting from the spot to across the wall.

Spike groaned as his chest tensed to pull them in, the tension lighter but still significant, evoking a screaming cry from the husk of his form. Behind him, however, hooves searched across his body as pure fluff crawled vertically across it.

"J-Just hold on! The winds will keep for a few seconds longer!" Twilight screamed over the cuts of howling winds. She passed over his front, reaching a hoof to wall they hung outside from. After a few swats, her hoof brushed across it. Pulling herself close, the other hoof met it and, with a push—she threw herself into the frame. "Ah... ah! O-Okay! All is okay."

Spike gave another cry as the tearing of muscle warmed across his arm, compounding in his shoulder.

“All is n-not okay! That's what I meant to say!"

Twilight poked her head out from the black veil of the cavity, mane blown forward and whipping with the winds. Securing barrel against the wall, she pulled on his arm, with all her might as he did the same.

Harsh slices of dusty thunder quaked the air.

"There's no time! The storm will rip you off!" Twilight threw her head back and grit her teeth as she pulled and pulled with every fibre of her muscles. The harsh slap of the developing tornado surged toward him and, knowing the cost, the dragon gave his greatest pull most horrible popping sound. "Y-You're there! C'mon!"

Spike threw himself into the frame and entered a roll, his body crashing into hers as the two spun across the grounding while, behind them, the frame displayed the blowing steam of brown. It became nearly impossible to see outside as suction still pulled on them.

"D-Don't worry! I-I'm... not the greatest with magic, yet, but there's a spell that can help us!" Twilight had been splayed over him, pushing scattered hooves against his chest—much to his groans and aching spine—and bounded to the entrance. "Shield, pretty please, will you appear?"

Spike rolled onto his front and laid flatly on the ground, his arm twisted and limp behind and to his side, fighting to lift his chin on something like cement. He gazed up to the back of the alicorn, frame covered in the long robes, mane scattered beautifully across its back. Her horn, ever so high, ignited with a lavender glow of utter brightness.

The dragon turned his head, hissing in primal dismay, waiting for the brightness to go away. Upon turning his head back, a faint glimmer rippled across the entrance, keeping the streams tinged in orange outside. Its low roar whistled in their ears.

And nothing more.

The mare stood panting before her accomplishment, satisfied if the giggles between her breaths meant anything. As for the dragon, he rolled onto his side, sitting up, bruised back against the uneven wall of rocks.

"Did. You. See. That!" Twilight tittered in place before jumping in place, clapping her forehooves in the air, the pair stumbling upon barely returning to the ground at time. "We survived all that! Worked together to prove something of ourselves." She glanced over her shoulder but without really looking. "What do you think Princess Celestia would think of me now? Or even my brother? Me, covered in adventure clothes, dirtied from a tiresome journey, using my wits to appear powerful? All of this is so cooool!”

Spike laid limp against the wall, looking at his arm, its numbness faintly tingly to the mind. His phantom arm emerged, far more kind to himself, caressing digits over the broken shoulder. After a few seconds, its palm settled against the mass—beating into it.

"O-Oh my gosh... y-your shoulder! Augh!" Twilight turned around and beat toward him, the coat floating behind her, another 'coolness,' gone ignored due to her concern. She settled next to him. "I'm such a stupid filly; I'm such a stupid filly."

Her muzzle hovered before his mask and, for the first time, she tried peering into ti. Searching for a read or anything. Nothing was her reward. Her gaze flicked onto the wrist, tentatively running a hoof across it. It jerked and she as so backward—braving to caress it seconds later.

"It... it doesn't feel like a complete break." Twilight swallowed, blinking, not because of dust. "A-All that pressure was too much of a strain against it. Popped it out from its lock. I... I should be to fix it into place... b-but..."

Spike nodded with a heavy exhale.

"Heh... d-did you... did you sigh? Thinks it's the first time I've heard a verbal reaction from you." Her hooves reached down to his wrist, fixing it to the side and then straight, the other placed on his shoulder. She leaned over it, blowing dust from the wall behind, finding a flat section. "Okay. So you might more than sigh at this one. If you must—" she inhaled deeply "—feel free to scream."

Outside, the storm continued to flow, pebbles pelting and sliding across the shield, its existence seen by flickers. Nothing was heard beyond the storm. Whipping winds and raining rocks comprised the afternoon.

Inside... Spike slammed the back of his head into the wall, not caring for the pain, the horrible feeling divert from his arm. Allowing it to hang for a few seconds more, he panted, lifting the claw to his face. Every digit curled, and the hand even clenched. Soreness encompassed it. But that was one for the usual.

He started to push up.

"W-Wait now! We just survived all that! We're already on the other side!" Twilight attempted to tower before his standing form but, after his weak struggled to stand, shook her head and quickly took to his side. "H-Hey! Watch your claws! Don't try to bat me—I'm only trying to help."

Spike shook his head upon reaching his feet, stumbling forward and away from her aid, finding himself aching. Orange light shone across the ground ahead, dimming in every foot, darkening only a few steps in. They were lower and deeper within the cordillera... but being inside wasn't necessarily safer than outside.

The dragon stumbled into the darkness, narrowing the slits of his eyes, fighting for their focus. Wobbly vision caused darkness to blur in black streaks. Shaking his head cause the stripes to linger, like marks appearing upon staring into the light for too long.

A light appeared next to him.

"I'm not completely useless, y' know." Twilight Sparkle strode in confidence ahead of him, feeling proud in her coat, the glow of her horn illuminating the area. That jacket gave her a feeling of something more. Spike wanted to do something about it... but not when his own coat inflicted similar courage upon him. "We should be able to pass through the cordillera and reach the Great Bridge from there. We're probably in an abandoned mining expedition now." She looked gazed around the mined walls. "For how long... I have no clue."

Spike limped behind her, trusting more in his left leg than right, resting his claw on his hilt. In passing through the dark passages, coming sides of the walls were mined through, never really far, wooden beams strewed across everything.

An opening loomed ahead, one that Twilight slowed and then stopped before.

"I... thank you." Twilight held her head tall and proud, speaking with strength on words weakening her. She never glanced back at him during this dichotomy. No truthful expression found. "Freaked out back there. A princess like me shouldn't have. Been more of a... child than consort."

She nodded and began forward.

"And I hope to change that from here on out."

VI | Into the Lair without Flair

~ VI ~

Into the Lair without Flair

The passage opened into a voluminous cavity spanning the interior of a mountain, platforms of wood and stone, straight and sloped across the walls, levels going up and down, tunnels branching into endless possibilities. The two walked across a bridge crossing the center and middle of the area, leading downward.

Twilight led the way across the bridge, an odd shivering in her neck touching and twitching her head. Barely could she suppress it, but carried on anyway, feigning charge. The dragon kept behind two steps while scanning the air. Below loomed tracks and abandoned carts, seem from their glint within the sea of darkness, a shallow reflection to the mare's magic.

"None of this is right." Spike peered from the side of the bridge to the mare. Both of their reflection became gigantic across the dome of the wall and ceiling to their side. Twilight dipped her head in thought. "There's never been records of an operation like this before. It's too big to be hidden from Celestia. Did she commission it? But none of this matches the works of ponies."

Spike had travelled lands both known and unknown to ponies, meeting many kinds and types, their different ways of life and work and everything of the sort. But nothing about this place felt right. Something so massive and requiring the force of an army to suddenly be gone? Everything stripped?

"Perhaps it wasn't my kind here." Twilight shook her head. "Dragons would never work like this. They've changed since their king. But even those... like you wouldn't allow yourself like this." She coughed, speaking with hesitation. "Dragons would destroy this place. Whatever glimmered, they would take. But their intent wouldn't be preservation."

He'd been expecting the innocent mare to comment about it. Twilight didn't treat him like the rest did, but she thought differently of him for it. There was no... hostility in her voice. Only the speaker of facts, a by-product of searching for the truth.

"I don't know any kind daring to interfere in the mountains before ponies and dragons but, they're not here anymore, and there must be a reason for it." Twilight nudged to a left to a distant platform, below and across the wall, cart laid at its entrance... empty. "Something came in afterward. Killed everyone or stole everything? These many miners? Only an army would dare to invade."

Twilight threw her head back and groaned, walking forward the same and, were it not for the tense air... the dragon would have laughed. She was like a frustrated teenager on the cusp of an answer. Draped mane exposing her face, her eyes caught in annoyed—burning brighter for it.

"But what army would know about this, be sure it was worth the resources, attack, and simply clean the place out? This whole place is mined beneath the ground!" An explosion surged from her horn the multiplication of blue dots plastering downward, defining the shape of the interior... teasing to its depths.

Far... far below ground.

During this explosion of light, silver glints flickered above, vines of white, crafted in silk, all shone in sporadic tandem. Glint after glint appeared, its length improving and numbers increasing, twinkling stars across the rocky sky.

Spike endured the non-existent breeze chilling the scales on his phantom arm. Glancing down, its digits clung over his hilt. His real claw did the same as the bridge transitioned to the platform of rock leading into yet another passage.

"And can you get this?!"

Spike was too busy turning as he walked, gazing everywhere, seeing nothing, vines of white awash in dense blackness. Skittering twitch his frills. Heart-rate increasing. Snout twitching. His digits squeezed and released and squeeze the handle of his blade. He exhaled to calm himself, half-failing.

"I can understand stealing gems and tools and other minerals," Twilight started upon facing the wall that curved into the passage, two iron brackets arched from it, barren of anything within. "But there's no point in stealing all the torches! It would have been advantageous to leave them lit to guide the way out—the let the fires burnout! So much effort for no reason!"

Spike's eyes widened and horrible realization, one coming before the other, the second being the second glint over the princess. In dashing forward, he pulled out his blade, a cleaner sweep from before, aiming to for the beast hovering over the Twilight.

The greatness of the arachnid consumed the space over her body, its long, black legs whisking lower. Its back was covered in darkness, white eyes glinting, same of its strewn web. With a hiss, an inched up—lunging downward.

The dragon slammed into the mare upon drawing out his place, an upward slash across the creature's face—slicing deeper as the beast sunk into it. On following through the attack, the dragon stepped into the passage, coat floating over his ankle, blocking the mare on the ground behind him.

He rose his blade over his face at once... until his eyes scanned across the room.

Hundred of twinkling stars inches across the curve of the ceiling and walls, a hundred more sparkling from the ceiling, scattered in different places, an uninterrupted view of the night sky. Before his feet, the other rose, hairy legs touching over its face, stumbling.

Spike slashed the ropes of the bridge as the creature hugged the planks, falling down and away, disappearing on the swing into the abyss. Docking his blade, he spun on a step, helping the princess to her hooves.

But her amethyst gems locked on the hundreds toward them, lip quivering, a constant thumping to her legs. Without time, Spike's claw swept underneath her body, and he cradled her into his arm. Holding the princess bridal-style, his head glanced back to the spiders pouring into the passage.

Glancing to his right, a wooden beam stood and, with clenched eyes, he kicked it.

Great billowing of dust was accompanied by falling rocks and raining sands as the narrow corridor collapsed into itself. The dragon sped forward, the rushing collapse licking his heels, beams above causing him to duck low, rocks jutting from the ground catching on his feet.

He stumbled in a run ever forward, seeing the shafts blurring on the sides as they too collapsed throughout, one wrong kick gone bad. The entire section was coming down, and he heard it, hearing the mountain groan from the inside.

"I-I can't do it Spike!" Twilight clenched her eyes shut, crying, heaving breaths that puffed her chest. "The light... I can't... can't!"

The glowing ball of light dimmed at the tip of her horn.

Spike coughed a hurtful hack. Filth crept into his mask, perpetrated from the enclosed space, cycling into his snout and clouding his lungs with muck. Breathing to drink in dust in which continuously drowned his lungs.

But in that sound, her eyes opened, seeing the world closing around them. Despite her terror, the mare reclined in his embrace, gazing only into his face, his expression sad and terrified. She swallowed as her glow returned. So long as she did not focus on the despair chasing them, but fixated on the hope of him... her light kept glowing to illuminate their escape.

It came over them, the clouds of undulating dirt and dust and grime, the scratching of rocks and the cutting of gems. Protrusions on the wall stole their slices of blood and covered the wounds in the essence of aged smoothness. The sweeping current brushed them the carved rectangle that would be their exit.

Spike's foot travelling from ground to nothing as the cavern opened before him. It was another cavity that's first glimpse was barren. They fell while gravity churned in their stomachs, the dragon curling the mare into himself, and then he the same, wearing to bear anything.

The slam should have struck the life out of him. Instead, the ground sunk beneath the weight of his momentum, exercising it in little bounces. Sleek and stick and tightly interwoven with minuscule give. It rolled curved as it went along.

The dragon laid forward on the strange bedding, uncurling himself, warmth and softness now missing. Dim light illuminated the scene, the tides of webs that composed the flooring. In weakling looking to his right, Twilight laid on her side, desperately cradling toward him, holding out her hoof.

"S-Spike! Please... s-save me!"

The world was shaking, and his ears were ringing as he fought to bring life out from himself. There was a faint warmth within, the stings of embers still aflame, the bonfire needing reignited. Spike shook his head of the idea, standing of hollow legs while his claw waved at his side, one and two swipes—until feeling the handle of his sword.

"T-There's something on me!"

The cute mass of Twilight was blanketed by the stale fuzz of the enormous spider, consuming her from beneath its weight, creeping over in delicate inches. Spike dashed in a step forward—wobbling back as the world spun and grounding dived upon his influence. He fought to correct himself, also fighting the urge to vomit.

The head of the spider peeked over the mare's neck, dipping its mouth over the tender texture, bearing its fangs. Spike lunged his head forward, and the weight of his body followed, drawing a sweep of a slice over its neck as its head went limp over the princess.

She screamed in pain and agony, the repeated sort of one lit aflame, beating hooves around her body to put out the flames. Two spiders appeared at her sides, their legs and heads raising before the dive.

One they never made.

Spike slashed up on left as it came down and, in a twirl, cut down as the spider as it did the same. Its legs fell, and toxic spew splattered from the cuts, glowing neon, burning strands.

"I-I... I can't... hold it... anymore..."

Those weren't the words of a scared mare.

Holding the proper form again, the dragon backed to the mare, checking to see her state. He pushed the body of a spider off her, seeing her head laid to the side, eyes open, mouth the same, yet not a twitch to either. Exhaling, her light faded, slowly, until there was only darkness.

"... I'm...afraid...of...the...d-dar..."

VII | Spider of a Lady

~ VII ~

Spider of a Lady

There was nothing in the darkness, no hints of light or sight, the immersion of death upon losing his breath. Nothingness wasn't without sounds—abet the marching of despair. The steps of the approaching wave daring ever near.

But in that darkness, would come a light, a flame instead, one born from the sword. Despite being unable to see, the dragon took its hilt into his raised foot. His claw pulled the bottom of his mask up, the few inches it spared until tightening, exposing unseen lips.

Then. In taking the blade into his palm, the foot jerked left and sliced an incision, one cutting through scales and skin and then flesh. Blood poured freely in a coolness rendering the arm into numbness. The bloodied palm swept across the blade, coating it, the oil needed for one torch not yet hidden nor destroyed.

And then Spike blew his flames.

A rippling of flames, green and neon, billowed in a gigantic cloud washing over the ground, setting webs aflame and spiders the same, the many hissing and rolling, stumbling around, their legs swinging through the air.

Those descending from above endured the snapping of their webs, the fire burnt through the silk, their bodies pelting across the ground. Parts of the webbing beneath his feet caught flame, slowly, scattered in spots, places lit from alight foes crashing in sections.

Circles of spiders had formed around the dragon and the mare, not daring to close the gap anymore, inflated with the sword burning emerald. Bringing the sword back into his claw, the dragon brought his foot to the princess, lightly tapping her, internally praying for a response.

"I'm... I'm... I'm okay..." Twilight mumbled from beneath his foot, the ground impressing around it, proof of her trying to rise. Seconds ticked on as the stalemate continued. Every time a creature dared a step forward, Spike dared the same, swinging his blade to scare them away. "Just... sick. N-Never felt this weak and bloated before. Here, allow me to help."

Two hooves wrapped around the muscular thickness of his thighs, which the mare draped herself from, unable to even raise her head. Mane covering her face, magic swirled over her horn, the dense ball discharging.

Its spread covered the whole of the cavern, little blue dots settling around the walls of the dome, tilting precisely over its curves. Over the webbing was where the colours changed. Yellow over weak patches and red over holes. Red' X's littered over the frames of the spiders, lighter shades over their body, darker over their heads and limbs—weak spots.

"B-Been worried about being useless... as the... useless usually do..." Twilight coughed. Tightly and the air forced to be squeezed out. Dust in the lungs and inflaming muscles of the throat? Maybe... but not to this extent. "I can cast a spell defining spaces and illuminating weaknesses on creatures. My magic targets what I k-know about them. But... you certainly have... better experience than me."

Spike didn't bother to fight. Maybe if the night was long, and his flames could keep, dousing his blade in the blood of himself and the spiders, he could stand a chance. But Twilight struggled even to hold to his hips. They needed to escape. Slice a path and make their way through.

Looking around the walls at the slope of blue dots across it, there wasn't anything, no cracks or peeks, only the frozen foes with empty eyes that feasted upon them. In the middle across the chasm, there was an outline of a cocoon-like shape and, around its bottom... laid an opening in the wall.

The dragon limped toward it, swinging his sword like a torch, forcing those clouded in front to clear a path. The ones behind doubled on their trail, still keeping away. His feet travelled over yellow dots, best keeping to the ones of blue, going slowly as Twilight struggled to keep along.

"I-I'm sorry... maybe it's the day... or perhaps I'm really scared... but..." Her voice was on the verge of collapsed. So much trauma in such a short span. Tense nerves give into exhaustion after time. Was that it? "I'm actually not sure if I'm scared anymore... it all feels like a distant nightmare... that I'm soon to wake up from..."

They reached the cocoon-like object but, as the dragon lowered the flame, the spiders did not move. Despite their fear and shivering, they did not stray away. Fires brushed over them, and they hissed their squeals. Yet they did not move. Flipping the handle downward, Spike held the flaming blade over the head of the monster.

"Quite the manners you dragons have, don't you, murdering children before their weak mother." Spike tensed and drew his elbow backward and up, gazing around, coming to look up at the dim shape before him. "Slaughtered the ones here before. Return to kill us now without a good reason. Vanity should be shamed in its every definition!"

Through the faint illumination cast from the pointed sword, the giant raccoon turned around, it was lightly-green with a slit down its center. Inside the crevice branched out a dozen arms, long and strong and thick, slamming and indenting into the towering shape. Out from the divot, the colossal monster emerged, spreading the lips of the home.

Spike prepared his stance and lightly shook the mare from his side. Glancing around, all the spiders retreated, entering a bow. A severance to their queen. Glancing around the bottom of her recesses, multiple yellow dots covered it. Slash those, set flame to her home, and cut through her heart.

A spider was a spider, after all, weakened after becoming known.

"I can see from your eyes that all you dragons are alike, aren't you? Murder me and my children will flee?" The queen pushed out from the recesses, the massive body of a spider, though... at its head... something was different. "Let me say those other dragons were bigger than you are now. My silk can be burned but never snapped! Not even the strongest claws nor the greatest jaw can save that."

The queen hung from the side of the towering pillar, the normal body of a spider throughout, blown to gigantic size but, at its front... the shape of a mare jutted out. It connected to the beast in harmony at the belly. But it bore an alabaster chest, snowy hooves and eyes as blue as an arctic sky.

Twilight had collapsed beside him, but this time, his focus was less stolen by her. Action had developed that focus on the essential. One mind to one deed. Readying his feet, he prepared for the fight.

"Those dragons so surprised at their claws unable to slice through mere webbing, knowing their flames would burn through... only for their snouts to be wrapped shut." The queen laughed to the bounces of her curled mane. Violet. "You were smarter to douse that blade in fire. But darling? All fires run out eventually!"

Without a cue, something shot from her, three different webs glinting in arches from her back, each shooting toward him like tendrils. Seconds before contact, he swiped through each, striking flames across their length. The queen panicked and cut the stream before it reached her, the flaming strands falling into the ground. Flames doubled as it followed around the weak grounding around her cocoon.

"Those reflexes! Dragons are slow... but make up for that lack of agility with raw strength!" The queen shook her and stuck out a hoof. "Is this why you've kept small? To use a sword sharper than fangs?"

Spike tentatively turned his hips, dipping his blade to the webs around Twilight, setting them aflame. Those near backed further away. Knowing her to be safe, the dragon approached the giant, readying his sword.

"A one-armed dragon wielding the sharpest weapon to exist? What use do you have in a steel capable of slicing through scales? Forget it!" The giant descended down the pillar and onto the webbing. Despite the enormous size of her legs, their tips balanced perfectly on the webs. "Your darling corpse will be interesting to dissect! You will have your clash since that is the desire of your and her kind. But note this!"

Spike tilted his head to the side as the white mare leaned forward, not a sense of a trick about her. Her neck showed as her face turned to the side, one slash and it would be done, but found himself entranced with the mane before him. "See this hair? This is all I have going for me personally. I understand you brutes will do as needed to win. That blade of yours appeared to cut through the legs of my children easily. You may do the same to mine."

It wasn't often the dragon narrowed his eyebrows. In all his adventures, it was adversary and arrogance blocking his way. Never strangeness that caused him to act differently. Travelling with the mare, for whatever reason, evoked a weirdness in the world.

"Strike me how you please, sword or claw or fangs or whatever, but the mane is not to be touched." The queen nodded. "Setting me on fire is the exception because you must do what needs to be done. But I am in your debt if you can render me a corpse with her mane intact." She then backed and returned to her considerable height. "Do you have a desire in reverse? You are allowed one. Unless I may have another."

Spike shook his head and lifted his sword again, clearing his mind and readying his focus. Bait the queen out. Wait for the strikes of her legs and cut them on approach. Disable her. Once grounded, pierce her heart. Light it aflame and toss it to the children. Escape. Set the place on fire upon departure.

He was ready.

VIII | Princess of a Mare

~ VIII ~

Princess of a Mare

The queen lunged back her arms, and the dragon did the same with his elbow, her confidence in multiple arms in a single strike, his assurance in a deflection netting all severed limbs. Gazing into the other, each hissed, and their attack was sprung.

"W-Wait! Wait, wait, wait!"

Spike dared the step forward in his return to focusing, and the queen did the same, both promising the strike... ceasing in meeting in the middle. The mare weakly rose, chest laid on the hump of a spider.

The dragon hovered the blade over the princess's neck, consumed in a rage burning through him, the only reason his husk still stood. Coldness swept through him, due to the slash on the palm, caused by a different purpose than the surface.

The phantom claw returned in red flames, taking hold of the blade and unto its steel his rage. The strike downward expressed all the tension within him, tearing through mare and spider, the glorious eruption of blood blowing like a volcano.

Spike retreated a few steps back, breathing, fighting to get himself in check. Billowing flames surged beneath his scales and warmed his body from the inside, that heat offering him life, burning the toxins killing him. To burn alive with life was the life of a simple dragon. No thoughts or feelings, only intensity.

The true secret to why dragons lived so long.

"Of all the creatures that dare to speak to me now, you are the one to attempt it, mare?"

Twilight Sparkle could barely hold herself up from the sudden flushing of fear. It infected her system. Limbs shaking and body quivering and muzzle twitching. She fought against them all to lift herself high enough—to give a bow.

"I-I'm... sorry to have intruded upon your home." Twilight held the bow despite collapsing of her muscles. "My name is Twilight Sparkle from Canterlot. It was rude of me to not have asked for your name from the start."

The queen glared at her from above, her white forelegs rubbing over chin... followed by a rolling of her eyes. "I suppose bad manners can always be corrected and thus remedied. My name is Lady Rarity. Do not chuckle. I do not use lady in my name because I am insecure about that fact."

Twilight weakly shook her head. "Not at all. You fit the image of one well. From your mane to vernacular and aura... there are few I could think of that fit the word so well."

Rarity gazed down hard at her perch. Her eyes narrowed and peering, striving to detect an iota of sarcasm or plea in the voice. Spiders were the most accurate in their hearing. No tone of begging or flattering or joking was detected.

Only sincerity.

"Quite a surprise to meet a pony capable of proper manners... usually your lifespan ends before you can grasp it. Such a short-lived species you are. Barely coming to learn usefulness before you expire." Rarity shook her head as rage returned to her again. "Creating strife and conflict in the vain hopes of accomplishing much in little—for little is all you have. So much would be avoided if your kind didn't have so much to prove."

Twilight grinned up at the confused beast. "Perhaps we are flawed... and maybe it's taken us longer to learn... disadvantages and such. But would you say you bear a superiority over all of us? Even the dragon with me now?"

"Indeed I do! Harmony and peace existed in this shaft before you showed up." Rarity crossed her forelegs over the fuzz of her chest. "Zebras and spiders were even joined together. Poor ponies never understood the wisdom of those phenomenal striped creatures. In the slight years over you, the wisdom they attain... they are the proof of the defect found only in ponies."

"Is that something you truly believe in?'"

"Indeed I do! Trying to confuse me with words and mindful tactics, are you?" Rarity huffed and turned her head, raised her chin, closing her eyes. Her hoof smacked through the air to accentuate her words. "Unlike you ponies, these spiders are not forgetful, knowing the many you've slain and dismembered on your way here. Threatening to kill children wanting to protect their mother—how dare you!"

Twilight huffed as weakness stole more of her but, for whatever reason, the spider beneath bore more of her weight. Despite the flame and the foe and standing opposed to its queen, it aided the stranger.

There was a faint line around its neck.

"Ponies haven't been kind to zebras for no good or great reason... and dragons have terrorized for primal rage and pleasures... to see both together in your home... no wonder they attacked."

"As they should have."

"Do you think we came in here, the two of us, looking tot slaughter a nest of your kind?"

Rarity's eyes blinked open, thinking, caught in the scary tidal waves before cognitive dissonance. Creatures like saying no, at least once or twice, to defend themselves from traps or to prove—either to others or themselves—they can. "N-No. Maybe not at first. But that dragon of yours seemed intent on the kill."

Twilight entirely laid on the spider now, barely turning her head, keeping it focused on the looming queen. "Regardless of the creatures, seeing loved ones in danger summons a rage in us, one that... causes us to act on surface information. Your children became aggressive in their love for you. My dragon, fearing the same for me, did what he did."

Rarity opened her mouth and closed it, squeaking sounds, never words, wholly at a loss.

"That sill doesn't save those hurt or killed! Misunderstanding or not, regardless of jointed mistakes... those cannot change!"

"Have you not noticed the spider with me now? His head was cut off in trying to protect you... but I bear a g-gift." Twilight fought in her final surge of willpower, coming to stand on her hooves, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Toxic blood easily and quickly circulated. "In finding something to love about another, the emotion that surged bestow a power, one used to bring life back to that creature because of that aspect."

Rarity was tittering and shaking her head and striking her hoof. In the closing seconds, she sighed, allowing her body to relax. Her head dipped and eyes closed. The look of shame on a lady. "Y-You... an ignorant and arrogant pony... found genuine love for a spider?"

"I could only speaking with that level of understanding in connecting with this one here... but I won't lie to you." Twilight did her best to stand straight, but it was something she could never do, the world-shaking around her. "I still so scared of all of this. But that dragon taught me something. Look."

The queen leaned forward from her perch, coming to gaze at the foreleg presented, unable to stop shaking.

"I'd always thought that if you were scared, then you were unlike the brave, because your hooves were always shaking." Twilight closed her eyes and offered a hopeful smile. "But true brave is walking on shaking legs and fighting with quivering hooves. Despite this showing my fear of all of you, just like the dragon, I'll get over this too—finding a reason to love all of you!"

Rarity's widened in utter horror as the full extent of realization blossomed over her face. "D-Daring... that is not fear..."

Twilight lost balance and stumbled backward, falling, peace and hope, still in the air, calming the tension of the lair. From behind her shot the dragon, catching her in his arm, her body limp upon it. Curling his tail around his sword, he tapped digits into the plushness of the mare's cheek, it sinking delicately, the furs softly brushing over his tips.

"Neck! Check her neck!" The dragon gazed left and across the patch of webbing in-between, watching the queen crawl onto the flooring. She came close enough for a greater look—while keeping feet away. "Dots or incisions! This in not a trick! Trust me, you brute!"

Spike knew better than to trust, but nodded anyway, sweeping the mane. Brushing over his claw, his digits caressed over the smooth neck. Two bumps. Red with a tinge of neon. Answers became clear at once.

He lifted his mask and pressed his lips into the spots, not bearing her gift but an act close to it, sucking on the blood. Purple furs were soft across the firmness of his lips, a sensation he hardly recognized. His vision blurred into inky darkness as the flame within burned out.

"No, no, no! Do not persist! It's already infected her system." Rarity lowered herself beside the dragon, the flames around finally burned out—save for the light of the sword. "One of my children must have caught her; the one that took her over! No wonder his bravery for a coward!"

She shook her head and then offered her long legs. "You must give her to me for there still may be time to reverse this. Do you believe you can save her alone? Forget trust! The mare is dead, no matter what, in your arm!"

Spike pulled away from the tender neck, turning and spitting, a useless act. He gazed at her sleeping face, the shallow breaths faint on his scales, the peaceful face of the hope she tried to inflict on those around. Biting his lips together, he stood in a round stumble—thrusting the body into the legs.

Rarity took the body and returned to her cocoon at once, travelling upside-down on connecting webs. Tucking the body of the mare beneath the mass of her body, she rolled it around, covering it webbing that formed a cocoon. It dropped, hanging the princess from above, dangling in place.

Before feelings of being tricked could rush in, the dragon bore his sword again, stumbling in place, his time thin. The body of the spider travelled over the mare, curling herself close to it—hissing at the light.

"This is an act that must be done in darkness, dragon, which your kind loves and hers detest." Rarity didn't look down at him from above, focused on the deed, doing what must be done. "I was mistaken about her. You I am still unsure. But she had faith in you—blind as it might be."

Spike steadied himself a final time.

"The antidote for her illness is within the hump of my back," Rarity continued as she, too, gave herself to peace. "You must kill me to acquire it. Inject it into her blood for her life to be returned. But, if like her, you believe in blind trust... put out your fire. My kind and I will not harm you. That is if you can believe better in our nature."

Spike lowered his arm, peering at the flaming sword, watching it dim from lack of blood. Killing the queen now, bring Twilight back to life, using her kiss to revive the queen... it'd work. But the point would be forever lost no matter what.

The dragon knew full well he'd kill those guards from before if they got in the way.

And he would do the same to these spiders.

But the trust of the mare of him being different than that, it enabled the belief maybe he could be changed and, though it was wrong, the dragon twirled the blade—until the flame extinguished. In the complete darkness, a screaming echoed, and the marching of legs was nigh.

IX | Death of Spike

~ IX ~

Death of Spike

Spike had fallen to his knees while coughing, hacking out the contents of his lungs, close to breath and distant from oxygen. Skin bloated beneath his scales as the flesh beneath was swollen across. In the darkness thought to be eternal, the scream ceased and, at its end, flamed the torches on the wall.

They lit up one by one, all around, the lifting legs of spiders striking light to the torches strewn on the walls. Collection of them must have been piled together at the bottom of the pit. Great way to burn the queen; those ideas no longer meant anything to him.

"It would appear us spiders are more superficial than we care to admit." Spike head was bowed as he kneeled dead, barely jutting his chin upward, the sweeping scale of the ceiling looming above. The queen unfurled herself from the princess—who seemed peaceful and out of pain. "I placed my faith in her words. Sincerity like that seldom comes in the world. You I expected the trick. Do what must be done. It's not out of weakness you held yourself back... or was there anything to hold back in the first place?"

Rarity and the webbed cocoon of Twilight descend from above, slowly, awash in the orange glow. "What you believe your duty to be speaks through your actions, but your silence and lack of expression leaves the being underneath it a mystery. Perhaps that does not matter in the grand scheme. Do not lose this lesson: something can be great without being grand."

The giant legs of the queen sunk into the webbing, a few lifting in patience for the princess, coming to take her into their cradle. Rarity held the mare close to her chest, enamoured with the sleeping face. "Both are equally as important. It's what they're important to that's different. Failing to be important to yourself, your being can be important to another, like these spiders are to me, and I to them."

Her muzzle turned to his kneeling form. "And how you are important to her, in quest and being, in these feelings I can sense."

The dragon looked at her a final time, chin jerking to keep straight—before faltering downward. His eyes struggled to keep up, set on the underside of the queen's hump, a portion carved out. She clocked his gaze.

"I prefer the darkness so none can see my imperfections for, in the absence of light, I can hide and correct upon them... readying a perfection for the day I brave light again. In all who have ventured here, none have treated me with manners." Rarity shook her head and nuzzled the mare's cheek. "None would dare a conversation with a monster. Yet this one treated me like any other."

She cast her gaze on him again. "And from the loose sleeve on that jacket, you aren't a stranger to defects or imperfections, are you?"

There came a groaning, not from him or the queen, sounding instead from the mare, still cradled in those legs. Quickly as she heard it, a leg cut across the webbing, freeing forelegs attempting to stretch out. Those arms turned the capsule around, allowing those legs to swing around, purple hooves gracing across the strap.

"Mmmhmmm... morning...." Twilight stepped onto the ground as it lurched beneath her, eyes shut and maw yawning, a look of utter adorableness. Standing next to the mass of the queen, the scene was sweet, the air kind for the first time. "O-Oh... R-Rarity was it? Did I sleep in your home? I'm sorry—"

"It's quite alright." Rarity leaned back into her full stature, the pony side of her body looming several feet above. "None intend to pass out as it t' were. Do forgive the stiffness. I had to bind you tightly to ensure the antidote spread through you quickly."

"That explains why I feel so squeezed—felt kind nice to be held like that." Twilight shook her body like a wet dog. Tense joins and dense softness relaxed and spread out. "Wait. It would have been buried deep inside of you. That means—"

Rarity pressed a leg to her lips. "That sometimes we must endure a little pain for our mistakes—especially those harming others. Flesh will grow back, and the light... I do not mind. My fear was being seen, and yet, I rather enjoy being seen by you two."

Twilight smiled. "I'm happy to hear that!"

She was safe. That was all that mattered to the dragon. In anxiety for her, he made a foolish move, and now it was time to pay the price. They'd reach a decent way into their journey and, with the strength of a queen and spiders at her side—maybe the two soon to be friends could make it the meeting point without him.

Without words or sounds, the dragon fell backward, a faint bounce on the web, coming to rest on a soft incline. Both girls took notice of him at once, grown to his silence, rushing over. Twilight was in panic and Rarity was only concerned.

"Spike? Spike! What's wrong? Spike?" The ceiling loomed so high above, a sky never to be seen again beyond it. His life depicted in pictures across its shape, dragons and ponies and hooves and claws, words and swords and blood leaking down the stone. "Talk to me! Do something... say something? What's wrong? Spike." Something fuzzy and blurry and purple loomed above his face. "You have to tell me what's wrong, please!"

His body had gone numb, and his mind rendered into stillness. His exhales were cold and slow, death leaving him to join in the unknown. Something snuggled beneath his arm, the softness and warmth of the princess's barrel. Her form and shape against him. Feelings of wholeness before eternal nothingness.

"...d-darling...that...claw...."

Was this was how it all ended? Life of failure and suffering and rejection, endured for the sake of improvement, internal and external, the faint prayer of change? Doing what must be done. The right thing, always. The family back home, father and brother, disappointment and inferior.

"Our toxins don't work on dragons! Their scales... b-but that blade!... he slashed... o-oh dear..."

Seconds before death. Focus on past or present or future. The battle lost to a brother; the send away from a father? Travel in question looking for an answer. Not in mountains or cities. Promised within the duty of Canterlot. Repeated isolation. Kill until death; death kills you.

"...the wound for blood... it entered there... he didn't say anything... nothing suggested pain... if I knew..."

“...his...focus...was....on...me...”

Spike didn't have any words or thoughts or feelings for the end, dead on his back without his phantom claw present. Visions of the past were dismay, and the visuals of the present were glimpses of bliss. The future and past would become as one. Better now than beheaded before a crowd.

Or devoured in a jaw bearing fangs.

No family. No hope. No Friends.

"...antidote...please..."

"...too late...already...his...heart..."

"...please..."

Last words of life.

"...trust...me..."

ACT II | I | Hido the Beloved

~ I ~

Hido the Beloved

Their blades had clashed in the middle, contentiously onto the other, their steels burning orange upon flaring sparks. At the cross of their blades, the two heads butted in the space between, blue scales against purple, green eyes locked with those of gold.

"Cute to see you trying so hard, little brother!"

Hido pulled his head back and slammed it forward, just as the other pulled himself away, who set his foot on the coming legs, his claw smacking into the blue neck. He tripped forward, and the force pushed him onto the ground, his claws recovering as it sliced through the smooth rock—blade already lifted to deflect the strike of the other coming down.

He grinned. "Starting to play dirty, huh? Now you're learning! Dragons like us don't have what it takes to play fair!'

Hido pushed the blades to the lift, twirling on the spot, inflicting momentum in the sweep of his leg. Feeling the focus of the dragon upon it, he chuckled, joining his sword into the twirl. "You lack training! Absorb everything into a single focus!"

The dragon readied his blade for the twirl of the sword, but the veracity of the sweep plucked his legs left. Lost in a sideways fall, the dragon blinked at the coming swing of steel. He tensed, flicking his sword before his face—the weak hold, posture, and form rattling the force of the crashing metals to violently shake throughout his style.

Hido tensed his muscle seconds before the blow. Wind crashed backed from the strike blastingthe otter backward, who collapsed and tumbled and rolled across rock, all erupting volcanoes composed their score. Red sky and grey clouds and the rolling body of a dragon striking like a bowling ball into a pile of bones cleaned of meat.

"Now, tell me something." Hido recovered to his feet with ease, not a mark, no soot of ash on his polished scales. "Is there a better day to train?! The rage of the lands vibrating beneath our feet. Sky bloodied from the thirst of our fangs? How long will you continue to disappoint father?"

From the hill of skeletons emerged a blast forward, bones clattering from the sides as purple blurred forward. Hido didn't even bother with the display as his expression entered dismay. In seeing the force of the strike down upon him, he yawned, tilting his blade upward. Force pressed upon it, strong he must admit—nothing to a typical dragon.

He guided the force right, feeling the younger sibling into its direction and, with a turn of his own, delivered four knuckles into poor dragon's face. Nothing had to be done about it. Spike forced himself into the attack and the strike. The fist was merely there—he made it into a punch.

Hido watched the dragon fly back from his own attack, his own force and momentum used against him, such a shame. Spike slid on his back, his sword rolling and clattering beside him—grabbed before the ride was done. Just as he rose, however, Hido sheathed his sword.

"We are not like other dragons, brother," Hido said as he strolled toward the fallen dragon, offering his claw. "Everything comes to a balance when you think about it. We are a fraction of a full dragon's strength... but still easily stronger than most in these lands."

Spike cocked his head to the side but, in sensing the end of the session, slid the sword back into its slot. He took the claw as it hoisted him up, a pained expression as Hido dusted him off. "In the speed of our wit and agility is what makes us unique to all in these lands. Few are like us. Father bred us like this for a reason."

After being dusted off, Spike found an arm draped over his shoulder, the pair starting to walk. "He's changing. Too many years alive. He wants a change for our kind before he expires. You and I are supposed to be the jump start."

Hido withdrew his arms and crossed them over the back of his head. "We fight and we breed. We kill and we feed. Such simplicity is what keeps us alive. Bare functions of life and no wondering as to why."

Spike looked away.

"You need to rest and meditate on what you learn, Spike." Hido began again, this time, speaking to the sky instead. In being direct, it helped to do in a indirect way. "We're hybrids like no other. None else know this kind of existence but us. You need to figure things out for yourself, act on them."

Spike lowered his head as they passed over a cliff as a full scale of land spread beneath them. Dragons utterly enormous resting as pooling lava lazily washed over the area. Claws settled on his shoulders as he was then turned.

"Devour the scene to a single focus instead of jumping from item to item—you must take a fight into its whole, as it occurs, or you'll be distracted from a different part throughout." Hido nodded his head twice. It wasn't like him to do that. "Father made us like this a reason. We're the next generation of strength and wit joined together. Becoming the apex of this form to put father out misery and lead the throne into the next generation. In killing him, we prove new better than old, sparking the changed he craved while sane."

But then Hido's eyes narrowed. "And he made both of us to learn from the faults of the other. Only idealizations can lead for it beckons its subjects to become like it. We will kill our father together. But the battle after that will be for the throne."

Both of Spike's arms hung at his side, his left curling into a fist, covered in a sheen of red.

"That fight will be at the heights of what our beliefs allowed us to become." Hido gripped his brother's fist. "And I won't hesitate to cut this off if you fail in this duty. Rest and meditate on what you've learned."

Hido let go and turned around, strolling, casually waving the back of his claw—as if that conversation hadn't been that important. "And come fight me at dawn again! Wit and speed aided by great strength. Those are your keys. Chow-chow!"

Spike cast his gaze down and to the side, coming to focus on his claw, seeing it unfurl. He came to the cliff to the massive gathering of dragons, titans fighting and couples mating, a cesspool of tremendous power wasted on indulgence.

What did his duty mean? What did it mean to be a dragon? The sweeping field of beasts and monsters arched to the horizon, engaged in various activities, bore no self-awareness. Not a drop of thought on their minds. Hido said it was why they lived so long. Doing what must be done.

And that, to them, was fighting, fucking, and sleeping.

Something pained in Spike of that being what he must do.

Sitting down and crossing his legs, he took his brother's advice, meditating, allowing the focus on a single question.

What was duty?

II | Rebirth with Her

~ II ~

Rebirth with Her

Spike blinked his eyes open, forced into it again, a view of darkness with curved light, the glow of flames shaping his vision. Everything about him ached and his arms were sore. One was more than the other.

There was another feeling upon entering life. Weight draped over his own. Long and soft and covering his front like a blanket. Forehooves bound around his neck, and a muzzle resting on his chest. Gazing down from the ceiling so far away, his eyes set upon her, the mare sleeping on his body.

Soundly.

Spike tilted his head to the side on seeing the princess draped over his body, the plushness of her body sinking into his abdomen, the fluff of her chest brushing his midsection, the softness of her cheek nuzzling his pec. Mane partly veiled over her closed lids. Content expression of a cute mare asleep.

He didn't speak or twitch, not daring to wake the one asleep, doubly so on hearing her groan. Twilight noticed his shifting in her sleep, hugging around his neck tighter, a happy, adorable yawn past her lips afterward.

Her lips.

The Kiss of Immortal Love.

"Has the time come for the dead dragon to be woken up?" the voice echoed around the cavity, forcing the dragon to lurch upward. "Careful now! Please don't wake the damsel. She hasn't had much rest since your demise."

Spike flicked his head around, searching the surrounding webs for his equipment, jacket gone and sword missing, a body left bare. Glancing to the left glinted the blade into his eyes as its tip pressed into his throat. "Looking for this, darling? You don't have to worry now. Everything is already safe."

Rarity hung from a web feet away, pulling back the sword with a twirl, placing it on a vertical wall of webbing next to her. Spike's jacket and such rested upon it. "Our differences were settled long ago. Rest now. It's not often one is reborn."

Spike glared at her with an eye... before the tension was blinked away. In looking down to the mare on his body, her hind legs spread over his right thigh, hugging it, while she snuggled further again him. His phantom claw appeared, wrapped over her body, holding her tightly against him. Feeling every inch of her compression of softness.

"Dragons are an ironic species due to their hatred of light and love of darkness... quite the opposite with mares." Rarity slid down the vine as her legs spread to the approaching webbing. "You sliced your claw—with a sword doused with poison and toxins—and used your blood to rekindle fire, and thus, light."

Rarity smirked on coming onto the grounding. "You've gone against your greater nature, and not only that, how you'd normally handle things. All for the feelings of this mare. Do you wish to know an interesting tidbit about her? She did not sleep while you were dead."

Rarity crawled closer from the side, lowering herself while she did so, the ground impressing deeper from her weight. "It took the severing of my legs to pull a fraction of your mask off. Don't worry. It's safe with your jacket."

Spike blinked. Air touched scales left dry and dim for far too long. Digits traced the slice across the mask, an inch left of his lip and going across, the following of a scar from years passed, one ending over his right eye.

His left was still covered, but the bottom—and some of the right side—of his face was exposed.

"She kissed you and kissed you with no hesitation on the matter," Rarity continuing upon resting a spot next to his reclining form, coming to brush away Twilight's bangs with a leg. "Panic of the moment I could understand. But talked to me afterward. Rather demanded I leave the cave to fetch water and supplies—lucky that I like her so much."

Rarity seemed entranced with brushing the sleeping mare's hair, who smiled in her sleep, nothing caring it was from a hoof or a leg of a spider. "Talked herself to sleep about you. Your journey so far. You died multiple times to get our poison out. But she... she didn't seem to mind kissing you."

Her white body jutted from its slot, covering a hoof over her giggling mouth. "For the kiss to work, our dear princess must find something to love about its receiver. The power in that is what extends one's life. It took talking about my spiders and what they do, regaling our history, before her kisses could restore life and parts to those hurt by your sword."

Rarity pulled back her leg. "But in the second Twilight kissed you, life was restored, and she was intent on keeping close." She stood and stalked back a few steps. "My antidote didn't work as fast as it should. Her solution was to lie on you, her ear to your heart, to administer a kiss when its pulse fainted."

Spike didn't know when it happened. His claw reached over to the exposed violet ear, brushing locks of mane. One of his digits scratched at the spot, letting the ear twitch and perk up, a mumbled giggle washing over his chest. Twilight's body snuggled into him more, her forehooves tightening around his neck.

"It is you who I find most fascinating of them all, dragon, for you are unlike the rest, and yet, your duty is beyond the revelation of your actions." Rarity walked beneath the hanging wall of web, reaching a leg above, swiping through his coat. "Proof of your being is found in your actions and reactions. Yet all of this leads to the princess being delivered to a dragon that will devour her—and your head chopped off before a cheering crowd of ponies."

Spike didn't bother with a response. Goodness had lasted too long in the warmth of the mare draped over him. Curling his claw around her form, he cradled her, resting her on the ground next to him. He ducked out of her grip, and her forehooves searched for him, a sleepy expression now pained.

Standing tall and naked and free, the dragon walked toward the spider, coming to grip his shoulder, a phantom pain slicing across invisible tissues. It's a surprise he didn't limp upon coming to a stop before the queen's stature.

And then he held out his claw.

"But I suppose there is nothing else to be done about this, is there?" Rarity handed him his coat, leg to claw, the weight of equipment and duty returning. "Do what must be done. Not much else beyond that? Escaping death to a warm embrace... not lingering to enjoy it."

Spike placed the items on the ground—except for the coat. He threw it over his shoulders and slid his arm through it, coming to look at the sleeve, gaps and holes filled with white stitching. His tail picked up his sash while his claw helped tied it around his torso.

"I judged you wrong on many accounts." Those words cause the dragon to pause, stopping, slowly resuming the typing process as Rarity talked from above. "Your age was one of them. I assumed you to be like me, given the spans of our kind... but you are nothing more than a kid. Hardly any years over her but pretend otherwise."

Spike reached next to the mask, peering into its hollow interior, slowly raising it to his face.

"I know you can talk."

And then he stopped to glance at her.

"Only I was awake as you started to speak." Rarity lowered her head as the spider portion of her body then dropped. "Such a sweet and strong voice whimpering out the words Hido. That pained shoulders of yours twitched and twitched. Not the doing of my agony, I'm afraid."

Spike brought the mask to his face, the cracks being lined together, a snap to fit them in place.

"Twilight snuggled through the waves of your discomfort, and slowly, you started to smile in your sleep." Rarity lifted her head to the rolls of her mane blocking an eye, and she was smiling, all at him. "There is a growing purity between you two despite the lack of expressions nor words. Changing your trek is not my intent."

Spike clicked the mask into place... reminded of the palace.

"A slice from your left arm and over to your right eye," Rarity continued, "that was the sword that severing your arm. It cut across your face and tore off that section of your mask off before. Were it not for that, even the breaking of my legs wouldn't peel it from your face."

Spike stashed the sword into his sheathe, turning around to the sleeping mare, squatting before her. Slipping his claw beneath her frame, he hoisted her up, cradling her, bearing the weight of his duty again.

"That mask was cut off in the past," Rarity dared to crawl steps behind him, towering over his form... yet feeling miniature behind it. "And maybe someone else put it back on. But it was cut off again, and you put it back on. Denying yourself expression or speech with others despite being so clearly capable of it."

Spike ignored her upon seeing the torches on the wall coming to narrowed ahead, leading to an entrance caved in the wall. Finally, this would be their way out. In stepping toward it, the spider continued behind him.

"And good too!" Rarity echoed from behind him. "Tell me! What does a good dragon fear becoming from allowing himself mere expression?"

Spike stopped before the opening for her sake, turning to face the spider, showing the sleeping mare. His tail wrapped around the hilt of his blade, pulling it and, in a swing, aiming its tip at Twilight's throat. The torches around him flared, all of them, struck by an invisible force of sheer power.

Their flames billowed, growing and turning into a frenzy, their comforting orange shifting into a rageful emerald. Their light spilled across the ground like in a sea of green flames, consuming everything, raging and rasing, his standing figure all that loomed in the growing hell composed of his flames.

And how his dim eyes started to glint ever so brightly.

Then the flames went out, and the dragon sheathed his blade, turning, walking away.

Rarity was left with her answer.

But not with the satisfaction she craved from the hopeless soul.

Author's Note

Fun fact.

Spike almost talked in this part.

But I took it out.

Hahahahah!

III | Together

~ III ~

Together

Spike carried through the tunnels, alone, for the first time in a while. Every passage caused him to examine the mare in his cradle, sound asleep, wiggling, fighting to fill the gap between her and his body.

Until she groaned herself awake.

"Maaahaaaawwwww!" Twilight writhed her spine as her legs spread in unison, the popping of kinks audible. "Mmhmm... S-Spike?... S-Spike!" Her violet gems adjusted to the world, blinking through the haze to the sight of him. "Spike! You're okay! Spike!"

The dragon should have known better as forelegs crossed over his neck again, feeling the mare lurch over his body—causing him to stumble into a wall. From there he slid onto his rump, knowing no escape, cupping the back of her head with a claw.

"You're okay, oh, you're okay! I thought... that if I couldn't... oh, Spike!" Twilight dug into the space between his jaw and throat, snuggling her head tightly there. The soft and warm brushing of fur and mane across his scales. "I'm sorry I had to make you do that. Hurt and killed to compensate for my weaknesses. I wasn't sure if I could even bring you back."

Spike lifted his chin and stared at the ceiling, his claw stroking the back of her head, cherishing the smooth strands passing through his digits. Trembles rocked her spine, sudden and violent, diminished by the seconds and his strokes.

Until they were no more.

"But both of us are okay now," her voice mumbled from beneath his jaw. "Which means... we can continue with the journey." Her head pulled away and shook out from his hold. "Y-You never stopped, did you? Even in death, you're already back to it."

Spike nodded.

"Guess that... makes sense." Twilight bowed her head. "And, uh, s-sorry for sleeping on you like that. Had to make sure you were safe and... stuff. Your, um, scales are really smooth to sleep on. Nice body do. First rest I've got this whole trip. Sorry again."

Spike shook his head.

"H-Heh! Guess I was a pretty fluffy blanket to have, huh?"

Spike nodded.

"That's good, then."

The two sat like that for a time, unsure of what to say or do, not quite ready to move. Twilight sat on her haunches and gazed down the tunnel, torches lit from Rarity's previous trek. Left and looming afar, blinding of white shone inside, the faint breeze carrying through the shaft.

Twilight went to remark on it to her lips opening to no words. Instead she leaned back into the dragon again, without words or remarks, no need for either to see the other's expression. Mask or long mane couldn't prevent the happy air between them.

Spike didn't need his phantom claw to enact on what he couldn't, following through on a desire born of greed, one that saw his remaining claw wrap around her barrel. Feeling around its shape before tightening into a hug.

He fought the evil thoughts in his mind telling him to reach the bubbly shapes down lower.

But the two embraced in that tunnel, huddled tightly, tightly so, filled on the others embrace. The rest before was mandatory due to strain and recovery. This, however, was out of choice. The small mare bundled within the big dragon's hold. Her chin resting on his shoulder, rubbing across it, both for its shape and feeling and for merely being close to him.

And if it weren't for the mask.

Twilight would have probably kissed him again.

V | Rarity Joins the Merry Party

~ V ~

Rarity Joins the Merry Party

You feel it, don't you, the presence of another?

Spike was struck by the voice at the whip of the wind. He didn't bother looking over the edge of the cliff, not a sight to the sky—already knowing why. It's source was within and there wasn't a thing to be done. Listen and ignore; listen and ignore.

You won't be strong enough for him. Still so weak after so many years. Locked beneath a mask and behind the blunt side of your sword. Never learn, do you, where the power of a dragon resides? The one ahead will prove your fears to you.

The dragon dipped to a knee to the brandishing of his blade, the slick cling of metal resonating from its case. He gazed into the reflection of his sword, those green eyes, no longer dim, the fires within becoming untamed.

"You feel him, don't you?"

The words again, kinder, spoken from another.

Spike looked over his shoulder to see Rarity standing over it, the whole of her body parked on the incline reaching the range above. Looming to the right of her was where the princess sat, eyes set over the edge, a mare lost to her thoughts.

"Figures you dragons would bear a connection to each other—albeit a less than positive one." Rarity joined him on the side, leaning forward until her white forelegs touched the ground, the mare of her now side-by-side. "Always about the conflicts and the battles, you dragons, the lot of you. Sensed another to prepare yourself for the kill. Explains how your kind became so strong."

Rarity flicked her gaze onto his limp jacket-sleeve. "But I wonder if a kinder dragon is then weaker for it. Perhaps thoughts like those never help, yet they tempt the mind, despite their absurdity." She breathed in deeply. "Red... that's his name. Never a great modifier. Simpler titles are given to ferocious beats of them all—and perhaps the reverse is true."

Her muzzle tilted upward with an expression of determination to the bridge. "Born with scales of brown stained in countless ounces of blood that turned them red. Slaughtered this camp and blazed the forest of my home. Were it not hidden by magic... my kind would have perished like the griffons."

Spike lifted the hilt of his sword, holding the blade straight, the thinness of sharpness before his face. Turning it showed the dullness of the other side and caused his eyes to go down. But the phantom claw reached for it again, turning it around. His tail snaked around the blade, occupying the strength for another arm.

"Anyone else I would have batted astray—even the princess of them all, I would advise, not to go that way." Rarity shook her head as the breeze blew again, furnishing back her mane, leaving her peaceful expression on display. "Take the longer route or do not go there at all. But those words aren't the words I feel the need to offer you."

Her muzzle turned and gazed at him with herself exposed. "You appear weak to my eye but nothing quite to my mind. Despite your stature and sluggishness and missing arm, they feel mere symptoms of holding yourself back. And even if that is not the case, you must go this way, any way, for if you could not defeat the dragon here... you could never make it to the land filled with them."

Spike docked the blade into its place and rose to his feet. Glancing to the spider, he offered her a nod, the sole response he was capable of. Turning away evoked footsteps grinding against the rock as he went afar.

"Wait!"

He did, turning, because of her.

"I do not wish to stay in this place for the affair is becoming hopeless—lack of food and water and activity to boot." She pointed the leg of a spider and the hoof of a pony across the sweeping length of the bridge. "We're to perish in the cave and venturing beyond will see us the target of ponies. Our home lies on the other side and, if we are to die, I'd rather do so in your faith."

Spike's eyes narrowed and not in contempt.

"That princess believes in you," Rarity continued on rising to her eight legs, "for many reasons and none at all. Maybe the same is about me. There is an essence about you unable to be contained beneath silence and that mask." Her head bowed and she knelled. "I won't be much help in a fight. But there are other ways I can assist."

And she flicked her chin to Twilight. "And perhaps I can accompany her in ways you cannot during our short tenure together."

Spike's eyes dropped at that, and his head fell into a nod, one he didn't even think about.

"Good boy." Rarity smirked in that fashion only she could, eyes speaking in wisps of smoke and glimmer, the glint of knowing something better over another. "She could use a friend and another lady to boot. Putting in a good word for you should be easy to do."

Spike turned away at that as he stalked across the platform on the side of the cliff, approaching Twilight from behind. He laid a claw on her shoulder, mutual touching easy between them all, a quality she never expected to come into. Seconds delay until she lifted her head, gazing at him through swollen lids.

"We're going across the bridge to reach the other side, right?"

The horribleness of that statement was heard in her voice.

But Spike didn't have time for it.

A nod of the head.

Before turning away.

VI | The Dragon of the Great Bridge

~ VI ~

The Dragon of the Great Bridge

Spike was the first to carry up the incline of the slope to the range that was on the top, the two following behind him, starting out one behind the other, turning into Rarity and Twilight side by side. The spider kept an arm over the mare who fell and snuggled into the side-embrace, a reprieve from her current despair.

Lost yourself to a brood, huh? Ain't that rich.

He didn't shake the voice out of his head to avoid giving himself away.

Strangest of them all, weren't you? Doing what must be done allows one to do whatever they want. Anything that interferes with that duty must be cut. The sword was given to you for that. But that mask you put on yourself. Which will tell the greater truth, I wonder?

Laughter hardly controlled.

At the end of the world is where we shall meet, so never forget that, my Spike.

The voice faded beneath the surge of venom composed of fires within, those black flames dimming in droplets of sludge that coalesced within. Tension and pressure expanding outward. Thickness slathered on the wood of the bonfire within.

And it was across the range—a vast stretch of rock for which they were dots upon—the trio came before the end of it all. Coming to a slow of the great slab of stone weathered of storms and fires.

An act of harmony built from betrayal and slavery.

Spike had stopped walking as the two continued behind him, holding his claw out of his side, the digits of his claw long and sharp. They held and so did he, a claw furling into a fist, a change to the tempo of the scene.

No strike of wind or whistle of rolling rock. Two towering pillars erect into the sky a few feet across the bridge, the pony and griffon and zebra high above, feeling turned to stone rather made thereof. Something waited. Preyed. Counting on the chance.

Spike withdrew his blade in a smooth stroke not obstructed by jerks of the arm, the rust of bones forced into their prime, a dead dragon, within, coming back to life. Return to a power that was lost due to a cause. His eyes, brilliant now, raged too.

Without turning around to look, he slashed the ground behind him, a fine line through stone, deeper than should be possible. Clatter of hooves echoed behind him, followed by the sounds of a grab—the spider proving useful after all.

Spike walked toward the opening expanse of paved stone that composed the Great Bridge, the contrast of the monolithic pillars reducing him to a speck—something tiny not meant for something so large. Yet he walked without hesitation for it always bore defeat within it.

And the first step on stone brought the flapping of wings.

Shadows cast over the land.

Spike slowed to the passage of the pillars and the gate they formed, forced to stop and looked up, seeing the titan of red obscuring the blue of the sky. Its mass swallowed clouds and consumed the shape of the sun, from which dived, blocking all, hurdled toward him.

The one-armed dragon didn't bother putting up his guard as the winds returned, not from the earth but born of the beast, its distant roar a tingly frequency in the ear. Its monolithic stature zoomed in from above—unfurling its wings and discharging its momentum in a single flap.

The casting winds straightened and righted him into a hover, the discharged current slicing across the landscape, a tidal wave of sand blasted in sudden fury. Spike's coat whipped violently as he kept silently still. Shouts and screams and the scraping of hooves and legs sounded behind.

The focus of concern pushed from mind, given to another, no longer holding him back. Cutting loose without fear of another there... that was the failure of the last two battles. The keeping of his weakness. Kindness had risked and harm and killed them. Now it was time for him to take charge.

Nothing could be seen beyond the size of the red dragon, who hovered in the air without sound, his shadow and the winds the only other signs of his presence. Slowly he descended, the mass of his claws settling on the pillars.

Crushing the statues of the pony and the griffon. Stone groaned beneath his weight as more of it rested, a great creaking trawling throughout the concrete, the promise of a break. His claws scraped across the surface as he perched on the slab of a platform going across above.

Which slid down and collapsed underneath him.

The slab crashed into the bridge and spilled off its sides, thick and square and crushed into by giant digits, a beast perched on a twig. The long neck from above came and arched itself down, the side of the massive face turning, the pool of an eye casting before the miniature dragon.

"Y...o...u..." the letters came within the sounds of crackles in the faint moving of its jaws. "...o..n...e......o...f......u...s..." It coughed to a great hack, the tunnel of its throat, clearing. "....not often... so small...treat..."

Spike held its blade to its eye, twisting it, revealing its particular glint.

“...a...h...scale...be...trayer...”

The head of the dragon rose into the sky once more, glaring as rage shimmered beneath the scales, an exhale of crackling lasting for many seconds. In opening its jaw ever so slightly, its tongue flicked into the air—before the maw was cast upon him.

Twilight screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, the cavern of the dragon's maw over the spot where her guide had stood—nothing of him that remained to her view. Hooves threw around and legs kicked down in the horrible panic that consumed her.

Rarity was locked around her, preventing the struggle, catching her over the crossed line. She backed them away despite the throwing hooves that smacked her body. The blurs of her face—caused by Twilight's whipping head—appearing equally distraught.

But knowing what must be done.

On crossing back over the line, the once-giant spider huddled herself over the mare, both in a hug and to protect. Twilight fought through the view of the legs to witness the end of her hope and the beginning of her despair.

"Don't look, Twilight," Rarity hushed in whispers... yet turned to the view as well. "What is seen cannot be unseen, and there is no kindness to gleam."

Yet both girls watched as the looming head, blurred and haze covered by distance and size, lifted. Upon doing so, however, it jerked to a stop. Parting of its jaw and the opening of its maws. Something miniature erect on its tongue, a claw on the ceiling of it all.

Spike stood tall inside the mouth of the beast much bigger than he, the digits of his feet cut into the tongue, claw and shoulder pushing up on the immeasurable force. His tail slithered behind his head and pushed on the pommel of his handle—pushing the blade of his claw, and launching around him to catch it.

His tail flicked in miniature whips of the blade, all controlled, the first pellets of rain coming before a storm. From the back of the maw, he beat his way forward, step and set, beginning the frenzy of his tail. Cutting in a rain of slices for which only flashes and glints could be seen as it travelled in a speed not seen.

The beast of a creature flicked his head back at once, its jaw pushing out wide, the surprise of the strike shocking his mind. Blood-curdling roars crackled in its tingly frequency as gravity must have shifted behind its scaled cheeks. Twilight held a hoof over her mouth in her knight throw and swallowed back from the flick.

Until something blasted out from its lips.

Twilight within the center of the curled legs, fighting to gaze over their tops, watching the purple figure soar into the air. Jaws of the titan loomed inches below, as did the whipping of something pink and thin—the runway of the tongue he dashed across.

"The crazy fool..." came the whispers of Rarity from the side as she too stared in amazement... "Sliced its tongue into bits and dashed up as the dragon roared. Tricked it into relieving the pressure mounting on him. But what will he..."

The distant and titanic head of the dragon snapped, in jaws that clicked, upward to claim its prey. Seconds from its maw passing into the speck again, Spike twirled in the air and kicked the back of his blade, which pierced through the tongue—slicing across its center with the pull of his tail.

The dragon thundered and whimpered in agony.

Its muzzle flicked upward in an involuntary jerk, tapping the dragon into a boost upward, allowing his tail to pull the blade beneath his foot. The first touch was when gravity pulled him down, the speed gained to his downward thrust—the sword rode into the pond of the dragon's eye.

The dragon hollowed in low whimpers while its staggering form lurched to mitigate the pain. Spike was perched on the sword embedded within the pond bleeding red, rolling back through the air, yanking the sword and tail behind him. Before he landed, the blade slashed three slits on the crater of scales—right on the edge before it dived inward.

His feet and tail sunk and wiggled and pushed into the slits, as deeply as they could, unable to be broken from the flailing of the beast's head. Sword tossed back into his claw, he gripped it tightly, unfurling a barrage of strikes and slashes on the remainder of the eye.

Steel that sliced across white, lines that were fine across the pond, bleeding into the natural colour. Slash after strike after whip after thrust. Effects done the same in a sphere around the small dragon that caused him to appear to those who were dear.

Rarity covered her mouth with the legs of a spider. "My words... he listened to them... brown scales turned red from the blood of others... his eye, once white turned red... from his own blood..." Choked sniffles were next. "I... I don't know what you are, Spike, and it hurts me so wonderfully."

And after a few seconds, the finale of the scene climaxed.

Through masterwork of his a wrist phased through speed and time, the next hundred strikes were invisible to the eyes—pronounced exclusively from the moonlight gleaming from the sword. Spike twirled its tip back into its slit, the sheathe vibrating intensely from the still blade, accepting its return into home.

And at the click of its completion, a ball of slashes curved like the wind, the lines of shooting stars infused in them all. Will and power composed into a dense ball onto an expanse of an eye that, regardless of its size, didn't handle or have the current appear across it.

The mass of flesh exploding into the eruption of blood coursing freely.

Spike freed himself from his wedging and pushed and flipped—catching himself on a single claw—on the racing stream of blood. He slid down the cliff of red as, in the distance, the two giant claws crashed together over the newly formed cave.

Once an eye-socket.

Spike threw his shoulder and weight left, a pass over the sprawling curve of the gigantic chin—grabbing the bloodied tongue draped out the side of the month. He yanked it forward, flicking it up and whipping it down and into a fang, piercing the blanket into a snug fit onto it.

The girls watched as the purple dot fell from the head of the dragon but, in that one arm clenched, pulled the tongue and the dragon with it. Confusion crossed the stretching pastures of the dragon's face as he was yanked down from a sudden and pinpoint force.

Spike landed to the crunching inward of stone—the exact spot once stood before—as swirling dust consumed his figure. Seconds passed as it was blasted away from the slamming of the titanic jaw breaking against the slab of stone from before.

Shattering of teeth like glass breaking inside the dragon's maw.

In complete silence and soaked in blood, the purple dragon was turned red, the same cause as the one before him. In whipping the tongue still held upward, the force of the wave strung across the flesh lifted the fallen dragon's head.

And the pull of arm and shoulder and abdomen slamming the tongue down yanked the underside of the dragon's head through the slab, the crash breaking it through the stone... an explosion of clumps and bricks following through. Turning away was when the one-armed knight pulled on the tongue, tearing on its cut from the fang leg—ripping it off entirely.

The girls sat feet away on the range, their bodies huddled together, not shivers but twitches breaking through them. Twilight's heart was thundering in her chest that pushed her fluff out, a paradox of warmth and coldness over the skin, fear and hope summoning in her being.

She didn't know her feelings.

Only they worsened the more that dragon drew close.

Spike stopped on the last foot of the bridge and, ever so loosely, tossing the drape of the tongue over to them. It fell across the same curve of the border drawn with his sword before, and he glared at them.

His eyes burned brilliantly. One had to squint through their glow to even see them now. Impossibly full of sizzling power and their focused determination bearing an aura of sister.

An effect barely contained as the demon remained still.

Before he turned to face the dragon.

VII | Love Swallowed

~ VII ~

Love Swallowed

Spike came to the dragon in a slow walk, his sword held down by his waist, twisted to the side. Rage and anger and contempt surged in a shimmer beneath the mask. It could barely repress the expression breaking through him.

You get it now, don't you, on why the dragon became so powerful? The voice of the other, within, another quality unable to be suppressed. Dragons don't think. They feel! Have you not considered why dragons live so long? It due to that!

Spike didn't bear the voice heed as he didn't break in his stride. The head of the dragon rose to the pouring of blood and stone from its jaw and chin. A slow shake of the head and eye permanently closed. Pain repressed to allow it to rise again.

No thinking about the purpose of our lives, nor worries about not mattering in the grand scheme of things. Good and bad mean nothing to us. Ponies kill themselves by thinking. Existential fears and shackled by wisdom. Always reflecting to the point of the quickening of their deaths.

Spike's tail snaked around the hilt of his blade around, tightening in the curve, the substitute for an arm. Beneath the weight of his feet, stone crushed inward, weight gaining on the minuscule-appearing drake. Despite wings, winds blue from him, an intensity as imposing as the other.

Looking at him evoked the same fear as staring into the scale of the monolithic beast.

Dragons are instead simple creatures! We fight! Then amass a horde. We fight! Then we mate with who we please. We fight! Then we sleep for a hundred years. We fight! Fight! Never considering anything beyond this existence.

That is why we live so long, become so strong, because we are never burdened from thoughts, our experiences are full of feeling, and we exist as nature crafted us for! Our lifespans lengthen by removing existential dread. Our bodies are stronger for the sole act of fighting and living as we please.

What makes you think you are any different... or that any different could win against such a beast?

Spike didn't have time to react as the claw of red raised from the stone, arching into the air to eclipse the sun—before striking upon him. He guarded as his sword pressed against two digits like thick icicles draped over him.

He pushed up against the claw, enough to buy him a few seconds to twist himself backward, readying his sword. Shadow of the claw was cast over him as everything darken—winds blowing off the falling might. It fell on the dragon as he twisted into a spun, curved upward-slash, slicing through the two digits as they clattered to the ground.

But the dragon didn't scream nor shout or freak-out. It simply ceased in its attack and glanced at the limp digits slid behind the speck. It's claw raised to its face, turning around, gazing at the appendages missing.

Before chuckling.

It was a slow and hearty building of laughter, its head now arched into the air, holding out the palm. Sunlight shone upon it, the bloodied stumps that glistened in the beats, blood now warm. They were pushed and popped off by a physical force.

And in its place grew another two talons that contours glinted in the sun.

Red then opened his eye, the one slashed to pieces, returned, a series of fine lines of scarlet stroked through it. Far below, its mouth turned pulled into a smile as brown flames billowed within its irises.

And in a fatal swoop, Red swung that claw from the sky to the right, its palm crashing from the side. Spike ready the approaching, vertical plane of red, slashing at the palm to its retreat of inches. This recoil launched it back, harder, slamming into the drake.

Spike grunted as his feet broke into the stone, every stomp taken him deeper as he fought to keep the ground—pushed back from the impossible weight. The large and curled digits unravelled to grab him, which he prepared his shoulder for the swing that would cut them all.

Only for the palm, instead, to beat into him in a strike.

The force broke into his body and whipped it back, the digits a diversion, his body thrown into the pillar of stone. Massive claw curled into a giant fist and struck him again. Both broke through the pillar as it crumbled.

The strike then sliced him through the stone, now severed into two, it falling in chunks in the starting of its collapse. The drake flew back in the air, twirling his body to reclaim balance—kick and straightening of his legs righting himself in the air.

Rage broke through him from the sudden pain as purple scales as green flames melted over their surface. Spike whipped his body in the air, twirling in circles, charging the culminating force into the next stroke of his force.

He slashed the valley behind him. Single streak of a shooting start beginning at the cliff of the left range, diving and driving across the valley, before rising into the cliff of the right. The gigantic slice tore into land, cut the edges of the cliff—and the force blasted him forward into the crumbling pillar.

His foot cracked into the slab falling backward, crunching feet inside its shape, and redirecting its fall. Handing his sword from claw to tail, the former was free to grip the top corner of the pillar—angling it as he pleased.

To the lifting head of the dragon below.

With the pillar that had supported the statue of the pony, broken by one claw, used in action by a foot. Roars came from them both as the structure came down, brought, with extra force, onto the large forehead of the dragon.

Spike broke it through into an extra push down of his claw, whipping all his anger and rage into smashing the dragon's head in. The pillar shattered into a thousand cuts and broke into thousands of more chuckles, pebbles and bricks and slabs raining across the expanse of the beast.

He landed before the creature—on stumbling legs—which knocked him onto his knees. His blade drove into the ground to prevent a fall, on which he pushed himself back up, turning around to see the distant, extended length of a tail swinging in a curve toward him. Spike's tail barely plucked the sword from the stone to deflect the attack, slashing weakly—unable to cut through that of his foe as it slammed into him.

Spike's back was crunched into the opposite pillar of stone, the one of the griffons, his body sunk into solid chunks that clung around him. His shoulder and arm broke lazily through with a crunch—but he fell limply onto the bridge as the beast towered above him.

Dragon's fight to fight. Nothing more. This is the king of their strength. Everything that could hold them back is gone. Father won this world through such means and he's unsure of betting on this becoming a changing fact. What holds you back? Why the facade of appearing more than what a dragon is?

Spike stumbled in place as he gazed across to his foe, the belly of scales of a fainter red, flexing across the plateau. This was a beat operating on a level barely above instincts—reduced intelligence used exclusively for cruelty. It knew not to collapse upon him, for Spike would slash through its stomach or cut through its heart.

Swallowed whole in that maw also wouldn't do, as he would cut from the inside out, killing the beast. It would need to chew. The beast knew so far as to win the fight but nothing of the stakes of the fight. The battle in of itself and nothing more.

Would it win for those reasons alone?

Two claws arched into the sky and covered the span of clouds again, each blasting down on Spike, who slashed through the digits of both, seconds after the other, barely able to stand on his legs. One palm still wrapped around him and lifted, curling in a squeeze to make his body explode from the pressure.

Only Spike held his blade between his legs, slicing upward in the few inches of space provided, the lack of digits to constrain him. Mass of the claw opened in reflection of the sudden pain—not without whipping his body into the ground.

Spike coughed, and his body rendered weak on striking the rocky planes, sickening cracks echoing throughout the field louder than the harshest of winds. He rolled feet over the rugged landscape—cut and smacked by rocks and protrusions from the ground—until his body broke into a harsh stop—feet before the severed tongue.

That sword is your duty, a tool, becoming efficient enough to serve that purpose. Blades, however, are extensions of our expression. They become weaker when stifled. Cutting and slicing to the duty imposed upon them. But never will they become greater than that.

And what is repressed becomes weaker, accumulating in a tight density, held back in the namesake of duty and progress... until the uncontrollable is unleashed, and all that is gained is lost.

You are no different from another dragon if, in the end, if your progress is crumbed behind your rageful and bloodied form.

I've told you a lot of contradictions, Spike.

What will you believe in?

The coolness of rock washed over his face as consciousness returned to him again. Weakly he rose, his chest rising, finding no support from his arm. Glancing to his side, there it hung, limp and popped from the socket of his shoulder.

He looked forward to catching the glint of steel feet away from him.

The mask.

Spike crawled limply toward it on torso muscle alone, a wiggle taking him forward, that was, until his face hovered over the interior of the cover. Ironic. The thing hiding his face, now reflected it, on the sheet of its inside. His one eye fully exposed and, despite the weakness of the lid, the flame of green still caused it to glow.

And the blood lathered over his face didn't trigger anger.

He saw it too in the reflection of the mask, the claw poised just over him, centring itself until perfection. Despite the pain and the numbness and the blood, the drake felt no anger anymore, nothing to become rageful about. The husk of him returned as whatever happened to him never evoked deeper things within.

One that is nothing doesn't feel insulted by death.

The words of the other didn't come through, even as the mass of the palm broke upon him, snaps, sharp, crying from all over his back. But it didn't spark a frenzy. It wasn't a lack of hope. Dying dragons still went berserk in rage to all that was inflicted upon themselves.

Yet there wasn't anything about himself to go berserk upon.

For he was nothing and nothing done to him could evoke anything greater than emptiness.

In this death, he could accept, for nothing was left.

"S-Spike!" that voice... how could he... forget? "N-No! Spike! Don't you dare quit out on me!" Fighting and shaking of bodies to the clattering of racing hooves. "Let go of me! I'm not letting him die there! I'm not scared—I won't be scared!"

Was that his weakness? Spike's head popped through the gap of two broad digits, which broke easily through the stone. Slicing ever so easily inward and posing in the ground beneath Spike's fallen body. Insurance. Those talons would cut through it and him in a change of the pressure of the claw not squishing him completely.

"Get off of him! He's not like the rest of you lot! I don't care what I have to do—you won't take him!" Twilight? That was her name, the one billowing life into an empty frame, a jerk of something real flooding throughout him. "I'm not a useless princess anymore! My power is far beyond the gift of my lips."

Was that her plan? Free his body somehow with magic and restore his body with the love of her kiss? She'd found something to love about him. But he was nothing, empty, an abyss with legs. What cause did she find, in a divine power, strong enough to bring him alive?

He was nothing, but she had found something, about or within him, that evoked loved to bring him back from death. The reason why she wanted him to keep living. Power of her love was a testament of him being more than a husk. But what was he then? To himself and her?

Spike laid with his cheek on the mask with a portion of his face exposed, expression fading from life, the fire of his eyes dwindling. The purple mare stood tall as her horn glowed brightest of them all, the spider behind trying to pull her away—pushed off by the currents of the developing spell.

But Twilight's love had made him weak.

In his worries for Twilight happiness and safety, he held himself back, losing easily to pony-bandits and a spider, not wanting her to see the worst of the world—or maybe himself. Even though fate took the princess to the bloodiest lands of them all... he had craved to make the journey there as peaceful as possible.

Resulting in his own death.

Twilight reasserted herself on the ground as her hooves kept sliding back, the force of the spell pushing even her back, a fighting of legs to keep herself in place. Groans echoed from her muzzle and tears from pain rushed from her eyes. Every iota of her essence placed into this composition of magic.

Spike watched as her body transitioned into hazes and blurs and the same becoming true of the rest of the world. His vision wobbled, and he was too weak to shake it back into place. He'd allowed himself to neglect his duty to her happiness and destroyed the dragon in a building of burning haze.

But Twilight's mortified expression at seeing him victorious, burning in the glow and awash in blood, tossing them that tongue... the one she crossed now... it wounded him deeper than he knew. Being nothing was easy.

But being seen as a monster in her gaze, despite being a creature finally alive, killed him on the inside. It weakened him as the dragon behind grew stronger for it. And where had this restraint led? To Spike's defeat, and Twilight in harm, even more horrified at seeing him nearly dead.

There was no winning.

But being a monster came closest to it.

Just as the jaws of the monster descended from the sky, opening around the space of the mare, consuming the whole of the area—closing. Seconds later, the dense mass lifted, the length of her tail, draped from its lips, twitching around.

Spike's eyes widened on seeing the mare disappear within the maw of the beast, the giant head slithering around to his side, until it came straight before him. The creature gazed at his pinned form as its chin hovered inches from the ground.

And then its lips split.

The mouth opened ever so slowly, full of intent, revealing the damp and dark interior of within—the narrow cell of towering fangs serving as bars. Twilight's form loomed at the back, barely touched by light, hugging its tongue to ride its waves.

Her compact form that filled the back of the mouth, a tasty chunk of food that would pelt an empty body, a substance the dragon seemed to cherish as its open-lips grinned. Warm exhales sickened her mane as Twilight became deathly still.

Her muzzle jerked around in the depths. Seeing the interior webbing of cheeks and the rows of giant fangs and down the long-length of the tongue holding her. Her body shivered in horror, on the precipice of shutting from shock, a trauma that couldn't be undone. She gazed through the opening of the mouth to her protector, outside the confines, pinned to the ground.

Twilight held her hoof out to him.

"Spike... please..." She cried and her voice cracked. "...help...me..."

Those lips slammed into a lock, followed by the tilting back of the titan's head, the gulp was audible, the swallow perceptible. In the exposure of the throat pushed out to him, the pinned drake watched as a large lump passed through, the mare that he loved, travelling down a gullet and into a cavernous stomach.

The other massive claw appeared before it, digits regrown, pressing below the lump to slow its descent. It freaked out at once, thrashing into a more prominent bulge against the throat, tickling the dragon delightfully so.

The mare was in there, squeezed by the tightness of a gullet, dim and wet, hearing the unconscious bodily functions from inside of the dragon—played even in that terrifying and scary situation that would drive her to horrible insanity from the trauma.

Finally the dragon pressed down on the lump, following it down its chest, where it thinned before disappearing, thrown into the depths of its stomach. Horrible screaming and screeching came from the right, a spider unable to be seen anymore, all turning into an inky blackness within the dragon's vision.

No gift of eternal life to bring him back to life.

Duty lost inside the belly of a dragon.

His body was beaten into death.

The dragon grinned in satisfaction of its morsel, allowing itself moments of delight before another kill. The crushing of a claw and the impaling of talons into the one beneath its palm. Rarity could be changed with kindness and understanding.

But this dragon wouldn't bow to such words.

He wouldn't bow to words at all.

For dragons considered nothing outside of a fight.

When we meet again at the end of the world, spoke the voice of his brother once again, your beliefs will compose the being allowing you to reach there. They must be born of you. None others can do. We are the new definitions of strength—remember that.

Spike faded from existence seconds before death came to capture him.

What will you believe in, Spike?

VIII | Demons and Dragons

~ VIII ~

Demons and Dragons

His body streaked in flames and fires born from the depths of the land. His eyes devoid of white—a void coloured green. Nothing but glowing veils of emerald on opening again. Rage forced through his being. His scales melted into purple molten, waiting for the flames to grow.

The dragon above chuckled with its head to the shy, in anticipation of the crash and the crunch... hearing and feeling nothing like that. Its expression narrowed to the claw that was flat over the spread of land. No blood gushed from under its red scales.

Which all, ever so slowly, were pushed up.

Rarity had slumped into a collection of legs as her body went limp, devoid of hope and instilled despair, the two lights entering her life and, as quickly, leaving it. Through swollen eyelids, her chin tilted up, daring to see the change in scene.

From underneath the plane of the claw, rose something beneath it, ablaze purple burning on her eyes. Its sheer heat blanketed her coat and nearly lit her strands aflame. The dragon rose beneath the impossible weight, creak after crack, not from his back—but the ground beneath his feet.

"...b-but... h-h-how..." Rarity sniffled but did not raise her head, the weight of the invisible flames too great to break against. She shivered, not in hope but in fear, this new creature not at all seeming like how he appeared. "...your arm, darling... how did it..."

Closer inspection showed the claw was lifted on the dragon's shoulder, which creaked the weight up by inches, the wobbling of his legs starting to dissipate. His arm hung loosely from his side, broken still... but something was burning across the sleeve of the missing other.

The bottom-half of Spike's face was exposed but melted over in the purple sludge, his mouth barely visible, eyes rendered green suns. Rolling his head saw to a roaring of his mouth, intense strength in its decibel.

But its pitch was of pure agony.

The left sleeve of his jacket combusted in an explosion of flames, a tendril of fire, composed thickly, surged outward from his shoulder. Rarity's jaw lowered and her expression became hollow in the occurrence before her.

The manifestation of a phantom arm.

Crafted from a dragon's rage.

Born from agony.

Anger. Rage. Contempt.

Spike raged and howled and roared in the horrible mixture of the three, loosening and losing himself to their depths, parts of himself scattered into the streams of erupting volcanoes that utterly consumed him.

Out from the socket of his left shoulder was how the sensations compounded, aching out in a surge of thickness, that phantom arm gave shape in a fiery rage. It billowed and expanded and was constant with streaks of green bearing the sharpness of tips on its edges. Deepening in colour the longer he screamed.

Until a claw of fires manifested at its end.

The imposing weight on his shoulders became lighter and lighter the more Spike gave himself to the rising and rising of hate to the creature above him. In throwing his head to the right, the phantom claw broke into the palm holding him down—burning into the scales.

The pained howl of the beast came from above, lifting its claw the same, marks charred green on its scales. Without thinking, it thrust the palm down again, and Spike shot up the same—striking the colossal appendage to the sky.

He spun on the dirt to his feet scratching on rock, infusing the phantom with power, the pain at seeing the swallow and her face. The horrible energy evoked in watching the princess descending the throat—the illusion throbbed into twice its size.

Spike finished the turn and decked his claw into the expanse of the dragon's belly, covering a sizable spot upon it—the kinetic force vertically shoving Red back many feet. Its feet dug into the land as its talon surged with orange sparks, carving lanes into the rock.

Red didn't stop for a second as the slide ran out its course, its heavy mass pushing into the land, launching him into a sprint toward Spike. He only roared another horrible fit of agony as his phantom was held to the sky, billowing in size and density, fed in power by his repressions.

The charging jaw then parted to reveal the interior of the maw, one barren of her, that horribleness creeping over him again. Without having to do anything, his phantom flew forward, green flames raining from its size, spread across the land in pelts, raging upward in flames, upon touching the ground.

Tears streaked out the lids gone without eyes, the water sizzled, instantly, in the purple molten rose and thickened over his scales. His phantom claw wrapped around the charging beast's muzzle, flexing in the expansion of its length to swallow the acquired momentum—feeding only into Spike's power.

He cried upon yanking the dragon into the air, as high as he could though only several feet for it, coming to slam the dragon on the ground, again and again, screaming and crying and roaring to the loud clacking of the beast's body. Once it lay limp on the ground, he slid the beast around the landscape—through the chunks of the remaining pillars.

The glowing contours of green around the muzzle of the monster seemed only to grow, around the thing that swallowed her whole, surging another horrible shiver that thickened the molten once more.

The middle of the arm arched into the air in a curve, each second a pulsation to its size, one gathering into itself. After another pained roar, it flooded forward, the mass wrapping around the claw, bloating its form, tightening the grip, increasing the pressure, on the muzzle that started it all.

Harder and harder to its whimpers and whimpers to the treasure of cracks ending in a crunch.

"Spiiiike!"

That voice. Somewhere beyond the haze. Everything was so blurry to him now, a vision cast through flames, always billowing, heating his body. His phantom claw retracted to his size, its pain causing another scream out of him. He turned to the spider daring to stand behind him.

"You're still in there, aren't you?" Rarity asked in a voice one speaks to the reaper in. "She might be inside of him, Spike. Swallowed w-whole into a stomach... it doesn't mean death! Everything you've done, she's felt, always jostled inside of him."

The sheets of burning green wobbled in quivers that came in a wave across his lids, the mass of his arm shrinking, knees trembling again. He nearly fell, but the spider did not allow it. "She might not have gotten it—but I do. Do what must be done even if it means losing yourself to a demon. Don't hold back."

One of Rarity's legs dived for the sword next to her, three more joined to assist in lifting it, the rest of her body shaking due to her proximity to him. She tossed him the blade as it staked through the ground between his feet—awaiting his pull.

"It's okay to lose yourself, Spike," Rarity said upon stumbling away, fighting through her fear, much like how Twilight had done before, for she knew wasn't based on the full story. Lesson Twilight learned from Spike and, from the experience of the jouncy, added her own wisdom to it. "So long as you can figure out a way to come back to us."

Spike stood there in the silence of his roaring rage, the ember sludge returning to his scales, his shoulder undulating in crackles of flames. Lifting his phantom claw, he gazed into its palm, so dense with fires... he could hardly see through its transparency.

This had been the claw to guide him. Comforting Celestia and soothing Twilight. It acted beyond duty, coming to hug the princess despite the lack of need for it. Wrapped around her as they slept together. It didn't make a difference in that instance.

Now this guiding phantom, arm aflame, had crushed the muzzle of the beast.

Who slowly rose behind him, as the titanic sounds implied, soft and in echoes.

In consciousness effort, the embers of a dragon moved the claw to his arm, the one still there, its flames spreading down its length. Once consumed, the shape of fire tensed, still, cracking the arm back into place.

The claw of purple broke through the phantom as the talons twitched outward and spread, brought back to a life of his own will, feeling washing over the dull numbness previously consumed the nerves there. In the pain that followed, he ignored it, gripping the claw around the handle of the blade before him.

The tool only for duty.

Spike turned around and placed his back to Rarity, his movement slow yet brimming with power, raising his sword to the colossal form, the one picking itself up in the distance. Even wobbled a step until straightness, its jaw loosely hung left—unable to close.

Allowing light back inside.

Spike readied his blade, now far smaller in his claw, his size grown to twice his height. Focus came on a single desire—deadly to dragons. The summoning of his greed wanted for one thing. Twilight Sparkle. Nothing would interfere in the primal want of a dragon.

His phantom claw then clasped over his other, the blade billowing out in flames, surging within and then spreading out, the solid texture of the fire as real as steel. His claws were bigger now, and the green encasing of the hilt grew it too—letting it settle comfortably in his talons.

And its blade becomes streaks of green and neon.

A tool rendered into an extension of his expression.

Looks like you're able to learn a thing or two, after all, aren't you, brother?

IX | In the Belly of the Beast

~ XV ~

In the Belly of the Beast

Twilight was cast into darkness until she ignited her own light, the expanse of nothingness illuminating to precisely the same, a cavernous stomach of a beast—and equally as empty as a cave. No food or water or acids.

It's explained the spongy grounding dry beneath her hooves.

She shivered despite the lack of coldness. Her form retreated into herself the best she could. Forelegs wrapped from chest to around her back, the tightness of a hug used to usher her sleep countless nights ago.

Heartbeats echoed like thunder in the distance, a pulsating that rippled through the lining of the walls, everything tucked deeply within the mass of the beast. Unconscious functions felt and heard. Just like the experiences written about in the books.

Only their depiction of the horror couldn't match her current trauma.

Twilight whimpered as she was thrown about, ground to ceiling, wall to wall, rocked around to the movements of the beast. Was this what she was now? Prey to his movements and moments and without him knowing of his effect on her.

But those roars, horrible and terrible, did not thunder around her... it came muffled from beyond the thickness of the being and body that encased her. Spike? Or had another dragon appeared to fight for the remainder of the meal? Observation and deductions fainted power onto the princess who was powerless.

All she could do was curl into a ball, stroke her tail as her mind thought to her life, stroking her tail, chuckling, sadly laughing at her fate... the one it was meant to be. Swallowed by a dragon, strangler or king, it was always meant to be.

At least, inside of one, it would serve a purpose.

And maybe he'd swallow a book and a desk for her.

The irony helped her through the darkness, as the light from her horn faded, losing the will for life to power it. In the night of the stomach was where the mare wept, comforted by bodily functions and a violet heartbeat.

And the roars outside and the ones within, vibrating terribly around her, a reminder of the beast that swallowed her.

Spike thundered forward a step, composed and comprised of strength, everything flooding through him. The beast obscured the width of the bridge behind him, towering enough into the sky, at an inch, to block the great beyond of blues.

It bound its claws together over the sun, clasping, clenching the arms supporting it. It roared and whimpered on rocketing the two downward, its shadow consuming Spike, who did not cease in his step.

The strike came down on him.

His phantom claw held the blade over his right shoulder, swiping it in an upward curve to his left, slashing through the wrists as they came. He didn't miss a step as the blade sliced through scales and bones as if they were butter, severing them, the boulders of claws clattering on the ground behind him.

And blood splattering above at the beginning of rain.

More... more... more! That was what his body demanded of him! Dashing across those arms and sweeping behind in strikes, the greatness of the arm reduced to hundreds of layers, total destruction to sate the thirst of his rage.

Red must have sensed the end as the beast stumbled into a twist, no palms to press into the stone, attempting escape. Its wings flared and the density of its thighs launched into the air, a single stroke launching him airborne.

But the power of his wings did nothing.

Red turned its head in the air, gazing across its back, seeing the little speck poised before the spade of its tail. Sweeping currents blasted from his wings across the lands, shooting the dragon's coat into the air—caught fire from its burning arm.

His body burned ablaze. The spade of his tail ripped the coat off from the sleeves, tossing the thing backward, not for the jacket, but rather, the content of its pockets. Totally free from obligations, Spike whipped the colossal tail backward, easily yanking the dragon into a slide across the ground.

The flames of the phantom arm then bulged toward its elbow, compounding it in size, seconds before its strike. It came down upon the back of the dragon, cracks cracking like Spike's had, his own pushed into place from the pressure of the flames.

With the dragon knocked down and to its side, it had rolled enough to expose its stomach, which Spike approached. Not forgoing the phantom, the claw slid over the sprawling frame of the dragon's side—pinning against its neck for assurance.

Spike reached the sloped wall of scales, exhaling clouds of steam iotas away from becoming flames, laying his actual claw on the belly. No phantom to guide or tell him what to do. Instead it held the beast down, allowing him the chance, the ability to act on his own desires, to the method of his own will.

Everything was a reflection of him.

Spike moved his claw around, feeling, searching for her. Moving and running until stopping. Something billowed from the spot. Soft and warm and dense and something of substance across the distance. In taking the sword in his tail, he places the sharpness on the exact spot.

And began to strike.

Strike after strike of moonlight and the wisps of shooting stars as the blade cut and slashed and dug into the thickness of scales never meant to be penetrated. The dragon thought and wiggled and whimpered but couldn't move beneath the weight of flames pressing harder into its neck. Every struggle caused it to push down harder—the sudden force exploding through it, creating a crater beneath the dragon's head.

Seconds after Spike had cut through the veil of scales.

In tossing his blade to the left, the sword sunk into the ground, tilted to the right, wedged deeply enough. Spike withdrew the phantom arm as it whipped back like rubber, coming to cock in at his side, his knees bending, body lowering, his mind preparing for percussion.

Then the flaming fist broke forward, through the open wound and into the body, puncturing the sac insides its depths. Something soft and warm and fuzzy and thick composed itself against the palm of the phantom, which dimmed its own flames at the touch, unable to be extinguished or else its form would be lost—but rendering itself into its weakest embers.

Spike thrust the arm back from the depths of the dragon, pulling out the shape of purple and throwing it behind him, it flying over the rock and into the open legs that were eight in numbers. It'd been the heaviest weight the drake had bore all day and, in a swallow of lava, turned around to see if it was her.

Twilight Sparkle loomed in the distance of many feet away, caught and cuddled in the arms of the spider, safe and protected within that hold. Flames lessened from his arm and the molten of purple thinned from his scales. Slowly a form returned to his glowing lids, the resurfacing of the eyes buried beneath the veneer of rage.

And in the free exposure from the mask, relief swept across the dragon's expression, the darker purple flooded away from the shape of his head, slowly revealing the lighter scales beneath. He was smiling. That tired smile after a great weight is lifted. Hope reclaimed from the belly of despair.

He stepped toward Twilight, holding out his phantom claw, the one manifested in flames because of her.

And she screamed.

Twilight screamed and cowered and panicked within the hold of the spider, turning and rolling and fighting for escape—the legs forced to retrain her hysteria. The filly beyond horrified, crying freely, pleading with quivering lips to escape.

She turned her head and threw it into Rarity's chest, the spider holding her close to there, stroking her mane, hugging her close, everything friends and family and lovers did for each other. Even the long legs of black shivered, and Rarity's head twitched, something unable to be suppressed as she looked at him.

Looking at him, too, something she failed at.

Her muzzle dipped, and her eyes clenched, hoping to escape from it all.

Spike's claw inching toward them stopped, the soft crackling the only sounds amidst silence, a green wall of flames. In the seconds that followed, the openness of the claw curled into itself, as the two girls had done the same, only he bawled it into a closed and clenched fist.

The demon of a dragon turned around.

Prepared to do what must be done.

X | Arm and Will and Loss

~ X ~

Arm and Will and Loss

Spike was nothing beneath his rage, encasing his scales, purple sludge thick like lava, the burn of its sting barely a sensation. It occurred in the space around him. Never did it prick his being. It was like a jacket worn.

He walked across the monolithic landscape as the stone of the bridge loomed ahead, vast enough to sprawl beyond the sides of his vision, the dragon laid limp upon it. Where in the fight were they? It didn't matter as his rage sizzled away.

Intense anger reduced to hollowing sadness.

It wasn't him that was walking. It was the force pushing on his legs, casting them into a stride, one that he limped within. Sword in one claw, the phantom laid aflame, fire sweeping in currents beneath his feet—its spread, reduced, after each step.

Beast versus beast.

Monster versus monster.

Intent and the past not reflective on his burning hide.

No previous smiles to diminish the fear of blank eyes set ablaze.

The structure of Red slowly clattered onto its knees, a splash of blood from the hole in his stomach, pressed over by a wrist missing a claw. The towering beast waved in place, back and forth, panting, coughing blood.

Spike limped the same, pelts of fire from his eye, dropping like rain onto the ground, splashing up in tiny bursts. The crackling of his arm was the only sound remaining, still intense in its shape, condensed, but the fires no longer in a frenzy during their rises.

An arm of flames, without any tips, no active activity.

Dragon and demon staring each other down in their moments of death.

A powerful husk that lost its embers.

Great dragon losing its life.

Red rolled its head without rage, summoning and compounding its flame, glowing spread of red over its chest. The beam of light glinted at the back of its throat, brightening, until the spilling of fires came from within.

Spike fell to a knee—the downward thrust of his blade into stone granting him hold—as his arm grew at his side. Infusing with enough power from his torment to do what must be done. Nothing excessive nor personal.

Despite being the strength from which the fires drew upon.

The wave of red flames washed toward Spike.

The phantom claw blasted forward, like a river, curving, and it's surface rippling. It sliced in and out of the red flames, like a stream entering and leaving, manipulating the force pushing the attack. The sea of red cut into a pond washing over the kneeling demon.

Not rising during the cleanse.

But the neon river broke into the dragon, curving in and out, across its frame, every scale catching in flame. Its eyes widened from surprise, then utterly in horror, something not before felt. Worsened by the haze, that dreamy-state, an other-worldly sense we leave life in.

A dragon... lit on fire.

Spike still knees before his sword, having dropped to both knees, its blade entering deeper into the ground from the weight placed upon it. In his weakest moment beneath the pressure of immense strength, his blade, duty and work, could barely support him.

But it struggled to still do so, the one consistent friend, always, in his life.

He gazed over the hilt to watch Red rising onto both legs, stomping around, beating the flames spreading across his frame. The stumps of his wrist did nothing to pat out the fires as they grew. Scales burnt through like the curling of paper set aflame.

It screamed and roared, but not the kind, Spike heard before, that came from the blazing heat.

“...c...o...l...d...”

Droplets of flames dripped from Spike's eyes. He watched the beast walk toward, in stumbles, limping, like he'd done before. Drained of power and rage and will, the demon kept at bay, watching, prepared for the end if it was to be that way.

The beast tripped then tripped forward, the colossal spread of its body arching through the air, reaching closer with its shadow to him. Spike didn't bother to back a step, seeing the head descend above him, the chin, smacking, into the ground before him.

It bounced on the stone once, the raw impact discharging the gained momentum and, once the dragon laid still—it did not move again. The crackles of fires kept across its body. Flames gained and rose across its frame. Red burned from the scales, revealing the brown beneath.

Spike didn't have anything to do before the unconscious monster, except to inhale and exhale, the threat finally gone. But there was still a pulse. Heartbeat great enough to vibrate into the stone. What had to be done, was not yet so, and it was his duty to make it complete.

The miniature dragon rose to a backward stumble, none there to hold or catch or help, forcing the last of his fainted strength to move his legs forward. Soreness and aches came with flushing pains across his frame. Purple sludge dimmed into purple scales as the demon began its retreat.

Upon liming around the sword, the knight took its hilt with the phantom digits, stalking it across the ground, dragging a foot behind. Travelling across the jaw of the foe, the head rising like a cliff, Spike paused before the exposed neck—finality visible through the base of the flames.

Spike exhale. One foot in front of the other. Both claws on lifting the handle of the blade, it increasing dramatically in size, arm shrinking and sword glowing, big enough to sever through the tunnel of a neck.

Preparing himself for the execution, as he'd done countless times before, sword points to the sky, its tip reaching higher than the pillars before... coldness washed over him. That nothingness that froze the inner-walls of his husk. Losing the fire within allowed the cold to come in.

The flames travelled from the sword and surged and expanded back within the arm and, in a swing, the sword lodged itself into space beneath the phantom arm. Holding its sharpness against the flames, an arm, lost, given back from rage born of his will.

And that will, burning to freezing, cut it off again.

XI | Far Away

~ XI ~

Far Away

Rarity watched with an open mouth, the scene reflected in her blue eyes, ones glistened in a sheet. The veil over them like the fire had been in his. That sword snapped beneath his dimming arm and, in a strike upward that saw its tip pointed at the sky—the fiery-arm fell from his side.

It clashed and clattered on the ground, bursting upon contact, spreading and thinning and washing away. Fire and flames acting like water and the sea? It was a contradiction if viewed on the surface.

Spike stumbled backward from the loss of a limb, his body sent into a shock, the kind wobbling his knees and distributing his nervous system. Turning around required many shaky steps, more born as he strode toward them—gripping the side of the colossal dragon's jaw.

The front of a great ship, pulled across the stone, the cliff of brown set across in fire, growing, as it came closer. The sword had been dropped on the ground, not impaled but left on its side, reflecting the glint of the sun between the blotches of blood.

Spike didn't look at them as he walked closer, and Twilight buried herself deeper into Rarity's body, the place between her torso and where the spider portion of her began, not creeped out by the place usually scary or monstrous.

Or maybe it was. And the husk of a demon above proved worse than that. Maybe oh maybe.

The dragon seemed to be looking toward something, an object left on the ground and, when he came before it, stopped. The ship of a dragon burned next to him, still and, with a light shove—pushed it off the side of the bridge.

Crashing currents whistled from below, followed from the quaking thud shaking the valley, tension easing to peace. In the stillness for which not even winds interfered, nothing of the demon remained in Rarity's eyes.

He was different now. Distance rendered it harder to see. Even the queen had to crane her neck back to see up to the dragon's face. Wider frame and bigger arms and stronger muscles. Covered in blood and marks and internal remains. The creature that lurks on the edge of nightmares staring in.

It would have been a horrifying monster to see, only that, during his transformation back, something was exposed that normally wasn't. Despite the beast standing before them, its face, half-exposed, hadn't been blank.

Rarity couldn't articulate it. The words to describe it. Seeing that dragon transform into a fiery-demon that brutalized a battle-worn monster and beast. It's rage given flames, the intense roars of agony, a creature born of nightmares.

Spike looked sad.

Twilight had looked up as well, no mask or flaming veil, what he was, underneath it all, finally revealed. No words could summon the feeling or emotion on his face or expression. Nothing that could encompass the statement in her head.

Spike looked sad.

He leaned forward as a digit of his claw scooped the mask up, the part broken up from before, now too small to cover his face. Yet he pressed the small object against it, holding it there as he turned around, his body dwindling. Shrinking and shrinking after every step, away from them, becoming smaller, until the mast would fit again.

Limping away, having won, doing what must be done, being tucked inside his duty. His form became obscured by haze as he limped away into the horizon, set to the other side of the bridge alone, leaving behind his sword.

Something shifted against Rarity's chest. Glancing down to see a purple muzzle looking up. Twilight's violet gems swollen around the lids, her lips wobbly, whimpering, exhaling exhausting breaths—an emotional mess.

Both of them were.

For they did not know what to do.

As their dragon limped away.

Leaving another, burning, at the bottom of the valley.

XII | Coming Back

~ XII ~

Coming Back

His steps no longer broke into the cement, trembles breaking across the stone, lessened after every course. Leaning left and right, deeper and further, close to falling, saving himself in switching to extremes.

On reaching the other side of the bridge, a journey over nearly endless valley, the smooth mountaintop condensed forward. Narrowing into a swirling lane perhaps carved by nature, winding downward, an expanse teased over its edge.

And stumbling to it—fighting urges to throw himself over—the sweeping scale of the forest opened. It spanned across the vistas and its green merged and thinned with the horizon. Dullness of rock transitioning into the exotic life and colours of branches and leaves and trees and the dense foilages cast over them all.

An Enchanted Forest.

Spike stood at the edge before the sweeping scale of life, the mask pressed to his face sticking there. In dropping his arm, it swung loosely to his side. Seconds after that, however, it lifted to the stump of his shoulder. He gripped it, feeling the charred surface. With a set of groans, he collapsed onto the ground, sitting to the crossing of his legs, torn stomach tensing to the impact.

Out father struck a deal with the devil not expecting it to be of the fairer sex. Spike clenched his eyes in pain as its expression became hidden beneath the growing mask. Fighting it in twitches did nothing to repress the voice. To prolong his life, he granted us birth, one with her. We are the change so fate doesn't remain the same. We're not like other dragons for a reason, y'know.

Breathe. In and out. Count the numbers.

One.

Two.

Three.

Did you do the right thing... or what had to be done?

Reset.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Can you change from our past, or are we doomed to keep the same?

Again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Inhale and exhale. Tension compounded into weight pushed out through the lungs. Chest lighter than before.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Simplicity dies upon fighting for beyond the fight. Our scaled are aged and strained from untangling complexity. The effort and drain that comes from such a process is thought to render creatures weaker.

Exhale choking on the inhale. Relax and clear your mind. Open those eyes to the sight. Tops of great trees like a sea of green with the density of the foliage spanning across the expanse. Let the breeze ease your mind. Sweep away your haze. Release your staleness born from repetitive tension.

One.

Two.

Three.

In and out.

Feel the breeze tickling in the crevices between your scales.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Develop into the slow rhythm of peace.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Yet I've seen you win fight against beasts without giving into the one within. But our demons are not our foes. Look at everyone as a friend and they will become as such; look at every as a foe and that is what they'll become. Complexity allowed for informed veiws and understanding of each other.

Ten.

You still haven't found out what you believe in, Spike, for the world and those around you are always changing. But you keep the same, don't you? Or is that a lie and the reason you wear that mask? Everything shifting but yourself. Tranquility will give you clarity.

Spike's eyes blasted open in a controlled pace to the view of the world before him, a far-reaching expanse of the tops of trees with the faintest glimpses of the gaps between. Sunlight peeked out from grey clouds. Its natural warmth heated his scales in a way refreshing.

Rather then the molten that encased them.

The claw on the charred stump fell, collapsing onto his lap, centring the flow of energy through his circulation. He was returned into peaceful silence, normal size and without his coat, naked without even his sash.

Never had he felt more free and without weight of his sword or duty.

But from glancing forward to downward, he peered into his palm, the blood stained over purple scales.

XIII | Back to Him

~ XIII ~

Back to Him

Twilight Sparkle broke out from the embrace without words, the sounds composed of whispers from the breeze, the odd rolling of rock across the barren landscape. She'd given a nod to Rarity, who understood, doing the same in return.

They embarked on the stone to the clatter of hooves and tips of legs. While Rarity went ahead to the sword laid on its side, Twilight had ducked to the right, finding the coat with its sleeves torn. With a pout, she flipped it with a hoof, the article no longer wearable.

Why save it?

The edge of her hoof felt around the coarse lining of the jacket, the interior of the pockets brushing velvet across her furs. Nothing else but emptiness within. Opening the coat, her muzzle dived in... caught still by a smell.

His scent.

It horrified her into a freezing of stillness for a dragon exuded the same aroma. Staleness of asphalt compounded into something different. But there was a trace of something different. Strong and sweet making her feel complete. It was the powerful aroma of leaver after April showers in a grassy meadow.

Her hoof trembled at the airs inside the belly of the beast, the lack of oxygen and brewing of intense staleness. She nearly collapsed were it not for the tensing of her muscles. Learning to be strong during weak times. Lessons learned from him.

Her snout dug into the pocket within the inside of the coat, feeling around until the spine of a book touched. Pulling back, Twilight's horn glowed. Two objects flew from within. The blackness of a familiar journal.

And a cherry blossom.

“He did it all for you.”

The voice floated from over her shoulder, and Twilight turned and looked up to face it, the spider before her. Rarity lowered the tip of a leg to her purple cheek, stroking it. “I can't even begin to imagine your torment during it all. Darling it wouldn't be right to impose anything on such an experience. Only... he endured it too.”

Rarity gazed down the stretch of stone to the dragon sitting afar, alone, forced inside a mediation to drive away the beast within. Regaining control by any means. Doing what must be done to ensure the success of their trip.

“Dragons become attached only to themselves and that which reflect them.” Rarity flicked her mane. “Mates and hordes to expose their worth and express their strength. Such selfish creatures. Everything done for the sake of themselves.”

Twilight didn't know what part of her broke first. From the eyes that stung with tears to the shaking of her hooves. She flung herself around the other mare without warning, one who took her hold eagerly, soothing soft whispers, stroking her back.

“I-I was... was... I was so scared,” Twilight cried out the word in a whimper, a struggle to catch wind again. “I really thought that was it. S-Stuck in that c-c-cramped mouth of a monsters, r-riding the waves. Pushed back until I was... he was the last thing I saw.”

Rarity was hushing over her head.

“He was my everything... and I thought he was about to become nothing.” Twilight wiggled her muzzle deeper into the white and fuzzy landscape of chest. “I didn't know if he was going to save me! If I was going to be in that belly, t-trapped, if I...”

“Don't focus on it.” Smooth hooves running down the back of her head, again and again, attempting to quell the shudders breaking from there. “No good can come from dwelling on it. He did save you. H-Have you thought about him at all?”

“N-No... and I'm a terrible mare.”

“As am I, my darling, as am I.” Those legs wrapped tightly around her in a squeeze both of them needed. The pressure of softness relented given the seconds. “Or maybe I am only half terrible, all things considering. But hush now. That dragon could have easily slain me back in that cave. He held himself back for your sake. Until it was required of him to truly fulfill his duty.”

Twilight recalled the nightmare. The standing monster of scales composed of purple lava pooling down his body, the billowing flames of green erupting from his missing arm—the blank sheets cast like veils over his eyes.

“I-I didn't know something like that lurked within him.” Twilight shook her head into the chest again, escaping the world of concern into the fuzzy one of comfort. “Stories called him a d-demon. But ponies of history tend to be unkind to new revelations. Seeing him become that, I, I know I shouldn't be scared... and yet... my hooves are shaking.”

“And they were shaking when you met me, were they not?”

Twilight kept silent and ducked her head into her neck.

“That dragon became what he must to defeat the beast trying to devour us—only becoming that rageful thing on your being swallowed.” Rarity pressed her chin atop Twilight's head, stroking sideways. “Not even upon his closeness to death had such a thing been triggered. Only on your harm did the transformation occur.”

Twilight shuddered within the hold.

“Those roars of his, dreadful things, they were not a testament to strength... but the expression of agony unable to be contained. No mere fighting for the sake of winning—raw pain in seeing your demise. It gave him a strength against a monster who devoured the creators of this bridge.”

Twilight fought to inch her head upward.

“Spike is a dragon that doesn't express himself often, only in behaviours, actions and reactions do we see the character beneath. Everything held came pouring out of him then.” Rarity lifted her chin and raised a hoof to Twilight's—helping raise it. “Even in the utter state of agony and rage, upon told you still remained, he repressed a dam of emotions to save you. Consider that fiery claw saving your life.”

Twilight lifted her muzzle to the the looming one of her friend, flicking the tears from the corners of her eyes. Sniffles ran their course as the shivers remained in her limbs. “How do you mean, R-Rarity?”

“Whatever the case of the arm was, its temperature was enough to break through scales, lighting them aflame. It bore enough strength to puncture the depths of the dragon.” Rarity cocked her head to the side and, for the first time in a while, smiled. “Yet when you were pulled out, no heat was about you. Not a singe to your tail. Something monstrous not bringing you any harm.”

She flicked her snout to the distant figure. “I don't think even he realized that.”

Twilight chuckled horribly. “H-Hard too... when the mare you saved... screams at you...”

“Are you scared of him now?”

Twilight looked over to her protector. Sitting alone at the edge of the cliff. No movement and no sounds. Completely still and gone from them all. Her nerves were a paradox of stimulus upon staring at him. No concrete answer or feeling coming through to depend upon.

“I don't know.” Twilight's gaze remained on him as the wind pushed back the streaks in her mane. Gems of violet, glimmering, in capturing him. “I don't think he's a bad dragon. But I don't feel he's a good one either. Fighting to be one, maybe, but I... don't know. That's what killing me. I don't know who he is.”

Her head dipped and shook. “But I shouldn't have screamed at him like that.”

Rarity clicked with her teeth. “My-my! What's this? Tis' not often I find myself as the not the dramatic one.” White hoof lifted her muzzle again to stare across to the dragon. “You endured your first dangerous bout with the outside world. How greatly you've changed since this all began. Surviving being swallowed by a fiery claw pulling you out, the first view, on living, being a demon doing as Spike had.” She giggled. “And you're giving yourself trouble for losing it the tiniest bit?”

Twilight ended chuckling too, coming to dip her head, but this time, doing it cutely so. “I guess you're right. It always feels like I should be able to overcome everything. But I guess... to be strong, not only you must be emapthic to others... you must be the same to yourself.”

Rarity smiled. “Sounds like you have a letter to write to that princess of yours by the end of this trip, don't you?”

“That I do... omitting a part or two.”

The two shared a laugh until parting. Twilight examined the journal taken from her home, knowing it to be a gift to bring into her new one. The blossom, however, was a mystery. Yet in being drawn to it, her lips were done the same, delivery a soft kiss on its silky frame.

Infusing it with a love born of an unknown reason.

“I don't think I'll be able to get over my fear of what he is,” Twilight said to herself as the wind carried her word, taking the time to place the items back into the coat. “But I'm going to find out who he is underneath it all. And maybe that'll calm my heart. Or perhaps they'll be a way to change the parts I fear.”

“Or maybe you'll fall in love with those exact parts.”

Twilight's eyes exploded in glow and she hopped back on her own, wings unfurled and ears standing, puffy chest heaving on every breath. Her lavender body darkened in colour as heat steamed from her easily. “L-Love! I-I don't...”

“Hard to say the opposite now, is it?”

“B-Because he's my friend!”

“Despite not sharing a word together?”

“We kissed!”

“That you did.”

“T-To save his life!”

“Repeatedly?”

“I only slept with him—ON HIM—to keep with his heartbeat!”

“Was it whispering your name?”

“It was... r-reassuring to listen to.”

“This your first love?”

“It's not my first! Well, I mean it is—IT ISN'T!”

“Princess without suitors falling for the damaged hero... charming.”

“It's not like that... besides... he would never...”

“Never become a demon from the agony of losing you, repressing his primal nature to make you happy, becoming a beast only to save you?”

“It's his duty.”

“Why didn't he do that before you were in danger?”

“You... really think something might... oh hush!” Twilight struck her hoof against the ground. “You're getting me to forget about how I'm scared of him!”

“You'll never forget those kind of fears until they're resolved, my darling.” Rarity offered her a wink and then nudged forward. The sword still laid on the bridge. Waiting for them. “You've been through a trauma. I won't tease you any further. Only a hint of advice.”

Twilight listened.

“If there was ever a dragon to overcome your fears for,” Rarity offered while point a hoof to the distant one, “he would be the one most worthy of them all. But that's a matter that resides in yourself. And the end of your trip... results in the same conclusion.”

Rarity took the first step and word forward. “But because the ending cannot change does not mean we cannot enjoy ourselves on the way there. Some of the journey is still in your control. And this may be the last period of freedom of being afforded to you.”

Both girls bound forward after that, Twilight tying the coat around her body, it spacious form abusrudily covering her body. Its sides draped and spilled onto the ground, dragging along as they proceeded to the sword. Both of the bent to its handle, Twilight forced onto her hind legs, all grabbing it with thier forelegs.

They strained and lifted it upward, barely, it weighing into the ground.

From there, they beat on, step after step, the grinding of steel into stone. Grunts and groaned came from them both on carrying the weight of the dragon's duty. That was what he carried around all this time?

The two, a little more appreciative of this, began toward him.

XIV | Party Reunited

~ XIV ~

Party Reunited

Spike inhale and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled, doing so again, reaching a tempo, some cadence, that soothed his soul. The breeze was awash over his scales, brisk and refreshing, relieving the dense tension within.

The came the scraping of metal behind him.

Leaning to the side with a groan, he pushed a claw into the ground, lifting, slowly, on the burning of sore muscles. With a claw wrapped around his side, he turned, watching the girls near. Both of them struggled to drag the hilt of his blade.

His eyes glance at his feet as they approached.

“Spike dear... are you with us again?”

He lifted his head. The two stood before and beneath them. With a loose smirk, he nodded, all to Rarity's enjoyment. “Just as I knew you would return to us. We have something to return to you.” She leaned the handle toward him. “But I'm not certain this is something you wanted back. My apologies on the recovery.”

Spike went from holding his wound to taking the sword—heat lingering in the grip—and held it to the sky. Its thinness exposed no blood or any tear. Not even a glint of green. Holding it by his side, he nodded.

“A-And there was a-another thing.” Twilight spoke to the left. Her muzzle was turned away despite her eyes fighting to keep on him. His jacket was around her barrel and, biting at its collar, held it toward him. “Hwere.”

Spike endured the waterfall of freezing waters splashing over him as he took the jacket. He threw it over himself, no sleeves and charred all over, a familiar weight in its pocket. Ready, he turned away from them. He began to walk forward.

“So soon?” Rarity was quick to catch up to his side, forced to speed on her legs, a little faster than she would have liked. “That was a battle worthy of rest! Surely your wounds are aching? Maybe you need time to cool off?”

Her face froze when his head turned. Half of his mask was missing now. The whole of his eye was exposed. It burned a cool flame that chilled her core to see. With a swallow Rarity lagged behind. Spike kept forward across the range as the two kept behind. Hoofsteps cracking against stone were the only sounds of the world. That, and the whisper of a breeze.

There were no words in this period of silence. Spike walked forward to the demand of his body without knowing where to go. It wasn't progress he sought but motion. Moving and doing to keep his psyche afloat. His body was hollow and his mind was barren. The latter was always on the verge of thought, the damming sense of thinking about everything that came before—and what it meant.

But taking a lesson from his foe, he decided not to think, ceasing to care, keeping forward, as duty so demanded of him.

Twilight lagged behind the dragon and her heartbeat did the same. His towering frame had been lithe and attractive before, a comforting sense of bigness joined by a relaxed feel she could snuggle to. Without his jacket and his torso exposed, all those cuts and muscles... his size frightened her.

Adrenaline coursed her veins at the thought of the demon saving her. She'd understood anyone would have been scared but... it still felt wrong to be so. But strained nerves are strained nerves. What she couldn't get, however, was why she was scared now.

Being swallowed and sliced out was deadly terrifying... but she hadn't screamed. It'd only happened at seeing her dragon swallowed and stomped, then again, at seeing him transform. Those moments still tingled in her hooves. But now the whole of her body was tensed.

The answer revealed itself in the distance between them.

Twilight looked at the space of several feet keeping them apart. Something about their first meeting had established a connection between them. Without words of expressions, he endured her eccentric ways, helping re-stock the books. She never feared him or his thoughts. There was always that sense he was there for her.

On the bridge. When she was so scared and he proved to be the same. He held out his claw. Spike was always fighting way to connect with her, granting comfort, she never had to fear him judging her. It was always intent to save and protect her.

But had that changed now? He stalked feet ahead, keeping the lead, the twist of his broad back, despite scary to her now, brought a sense of comfort. It was still his duty to protect her. But the way he took that sword, not looking at her, no smile or a sense of comfort. Doing the bare minimum in terms of their contact.

Twilight's heart pricked at that.

Did that scare her more? Not seeing the demon of a dragon, but rather, that caring one no longer no more? She might have yelped if he inched close for a hug... yet it was exactly that she wanted. To be held and hugged and for these fears to be done away with.

Her mind was too cloudy to think more.

The expanse cleared to a edge of the mountain, opening to a clearing of the tops of trees spanning to the horizon, a dense forest, tinging with magic, reaching to distant mountains. Rarity was the first to be swept by the view. It removed her from the duo.

“That's... it.” All of her legs preformed in unison to take her forward, zooming past the dragon who turned to glance at her. She didn't care on nearing the ledge and losing her breath over it. “After all this time I never dared to think I'd see it again. Not even allowing the mind to remember how it looked.”

Footsteps came on either side of her, Spike to the right and Twilight to the left, him staring off, she gazing at her. Rarity's lips were wobbling in their attempt to form a smile. “It's been so long. So terribly long. Oh... how I've longed for this.”

Twilight's cleared her throat. “Is this... your home?”

“This was once my home,” Rarity corrected as if to still distance herself. “My first moments from the web are born in this forest. It's where my kind reside. Those lost in that cave all long to return here without knowing of its existence.”

Rarity glanced up at Spike, who was gazing around, stopping, of course, on seeing the pathway on the front of the mountain. He began toward it at once, a series of curved slopes leading downward. She rolled her eyes. “Not even allowing a lady to take a moment? How I already miss the dragon you once were.”

Then a glance over to Twilight—who'd been following him leave. “I'm terribly sorry to say this, dear, but this new spell of his.” Rarity shook her head to the clicking of her teeth. “It's not something he's going to break out of himself. That's the trouble with those sort. Can overcome any challenge beyond themselves. But when it comes to personal matters.” A shrug. “They're completely hopeless.”

Twilight glanced down at her hooves, which fiddled together, her expression saddening. “He's never been a sulk before. Before his fight with you—there was another with a guard of stallions. His issue isn't with the fight. It's with me.”

She shook her head. “And I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about that.”

“You'll come to an answer soon enough,” Rarity chimed. “The boy is certainly deserving of something. He's pushed to pull you out from yourself. Now he needs the same in return. I have every faith you'll overcome yourself soon enough.” She cast a foreleg over that purple neck, drawing the princess close, beginning to walk together. “And in what you discover for yourself will, in turn, help him as well.”

Rarity then gave a throw of her mane. “But enough talk! Our short time together is drawing to an end. My former home looms ahead. You are a mare of history, yes? Perhaps learning of my kind will ease your mind.”

IV | The Bridge Betwixt Serenity and Apathy

~ IV ~

The Bridge Betwixt Serenity and Apathy

The lands were a mixture of beauty and death, great oaks of silver rising tall, its leaves charred and branches chopped. Grassy fields blended with burned areas and leaving for smaller distinctions and distances between the two as the journey went on.

They travailed across the rolling hills of the east, underneath the gigantic trees and its dome of shade, white cherry blossoms rich in the air. Winds blew its cooling touch from the air levels above warm. They'd taken their first break beneath the tree. Spike lowered onto a knee, feeling his claw around the print of a deer.

"Would you have killed them?"

The question came from behind him. He didn't bother to stand as he turned around to glance at the mare. His digits played with the texture of the dirt—the impression fresh as moisture soaked its essence.

"If Shining Armour's planned had worked and he came back with his full force," Twilight continued in a fear to dare another step toward him. Had she finally recognized him for a dragon beneath the jacket and mask? "Would you have killed them? It'd be your duty to escort me."

Spike lifted to his feet and rested a claw on the blade, drawing it out, allowing the metal to glint.

"You would have fought back." Twilight nodded and finally dared that step forward. "But how far would you have gone? Merely wound them and go on? Sever something important, allowing them to live but never the same? What would you have done?"

Spike was clenching his claw, and yet, it was relaxed around the handle of the blade. Thinness of redness spreading into the construction of the arm. It hung in a flexed state by his size, the claw clenched, digits digging into his palm.

Why couldn't he open his mouth and say what he felt? There was something about Twilight Sparkle melting through scales and metal evoking feelings within him. Those emotions embodied his duty. Her natural grace drove his diligence to protect and escort her.

But she was in fear of him and what was to come, and he couldn't soothe her woes, offer nothing to her more than his services. In the arm that still remained, he answered her question by drawing his blade, slashing an 'X' through the air—twirling the steel into a swift docking into his sheath.

The click was the loudest sound to come from him.

"No thrust or stab or anything of the sort." Twilight actually came to smile at him, something pulling at the corners of her lips that was genuine. Shade rested on her face though the violet of her eyes burned softly through the dimness. Pools of magenta one could swim within. "Only what needs to be done. The usual way of the average soldier. Guess you're like the rest when it comes to matters of battle, huh?"

Her stomach growled. Twilight's ears flapped up, and her eyes widened in embarrassment. In giggling, her snout dove into her muzzle, and she lowered her blushing cheeks. "I, um, k-know we're to hunt 'game' during out travels to keep afloat. But there... may be another difference between us."

Spike tilted his head to the side.

"Ponies don't eat meat."

The sweeping lands had been blessed by nature and protected by the chance of circumstance. Hills of shining greens populated in white flowers kissing upon its every shade. It was a valley tucked within towering cliffs jutting around the spanning horizon. Miniature rivers curved through the hills with polished marble bridges crossing over them.

Which the duo walked over, the view to their side depicting the grandeur of an ancient building left to ruin. Towering arches of four had lifted it from the ground, one now removed, leaving it at a slant. Vines of violet were strewn over its shape.

Spike kept a claw on the handle of his blade, glancing back every now and again, watching the mare interested in her horn. Something was bothering her. Those eyes raising only to spot her horn then look down again. The face that was weary from the weight of sadness, it then bore.

The dragon stopped, and so did she.

Sweeping the surroundings of the abandoned lands of beauty, he turned around and dipped to a knee, asking her closer with the backward flicking of digits. Nervously, Twilight stepped closer. He then opened his palm. Without hesitation, she placed a hoof onto it.

Which he guided to his thigh.

He reached into his jacket and searched within a pocket, withdrawing a nut of creamy colour and texture. Bringing the sharpness of his bottom digit to its side, he slowly sliced through it, peeling its coating afterward. The spade of his tail curved to his side, which he hung the peel upon.

"What is this? You don't have to do anything." Twilight willed a smile. "I not in pain or anything. Just... a long day." She shook her head. "Not the kind I'm used to, but maybe you are. Always been a kind of all-nighter kind of girl, y' know." She weakly giggled to herself. "Okay. I've never referred to myself as a girl in the third person before.”

Spike dipped to his thigh and, using his snout, nudged the hoof to the side. Blackness tattered over the furs with patches of purple peeking through. Spots seemed a swollen red beneath the coat. He took the sleek shell and rubbed it into the tenderness.

"What is that! It's cold and slimy! It feels... nnngh! D-Don't stop!" Twilight's face switched from disgust to love as her ears perked again. Her barrel shivered in cute sways like a dog scratched behind the ear. "The soreness is going away! I-I've never heard of a natural remedy like this before!"

Once the slime had been worn off the shell, the claw tucked it back into the coat, it jostling from the weight. In taking the peel from his tail, he laid it over the hoof, rubbing his digits over to smooth it out. Pressing in places to feel its squishiness, the plushness of softness rising around his contours.

The mare shivered.

Spike choked.

"Y-You didn't cut anything! Just... never been touched like that before." Twilight lowered her muzzle completely as a warm blush spread over her snout, those heavy bangs blocking her eyes. "N-Not that I mean it... gah! Something is wrong with me today. Your first impression of me must be terrible at this point, huh?"

Spike had jerked his shoulder back but, in catching himself, his digits remained on the hoof. They traced its surface to ensure the film kissed the furs enough to cling. He felt around it, the warmth radiating beneath the skin. The silk of strands delicious in brushing his scales.

Pressing in spots to explore its depths and texture brought pleasure to them both.

It was to make sure the ointment was applied correctly, of course.

"You make me feel very strange... mister dragon." Twilight laughed from underneath her hair. "There's so many ponies that I've made an effort to appear 'worthy' too. Saying all the right things and acting in a way to imply a... a specialness about me." Her expression was hidden behind the veil of mane, the kind of emotion in her voice an unknown. "You need to prove that more the less you feel as such. You ever feel like that, or is even feeling to that degree a privilege allowed only to a few?"

The remedy had been applied, yet the claw held the hoof, feeling further across it.

"Ponies have to see me at my apparent best before they can witness me at my worst. Or else they'll always think of you like that. Everything coming after that... will always feel like an act to them." Spike's eyes glinted as they flicked downward at the foreleg. His claw felt across it, squeezing in places, feeling the softness of its form and the caresses of its furs. "But you haven't seen me at my better nor my best. You've only endured my lows and worsts. Your opinion of me must be lower than the rest who have seen differently of me."

Despite his awareness of holding the arm without reason, he couldn't let go, nor find the motivation to keep holding her.

"But the truth is... I've revealed that anyone but you—and maybe that's why." The mare sat before the arched railing of the bridge, trees and hills and rivers and structure looming behind her. Her tranquility bested the setting. Yet her face was a mystery for the moment. "Despite all those who praise and love me... it's that spire I return to, alone. Hugs and kisses I've shared with others and on the cheeks. Yet sometimes I run my hooves over the other, only to feel the sensation of being touched... caressed."

She shook her head.

"You claw exploring my hoof is the first time I've had another feel my body." Her weak chuckle came in bursts that barely procured the air to allow them. "And I have no clue what it is I feel beneath it all. I want your claw to search all over, defining every inch of me. It's a mutual passion I crave... or am I just insane."

Her chin dipped until brushing her chest. "Spend your whole life with books and pages and equations... appearing in conferences and discussing the orientations of the star with others... you never... I-I never speak about how their glimmer makes me feel. Didn't consider much about feelings until recently. Changed my life for the better... until... until... until a number of things..."

What... what was happening to him. Spike endured the surge of something sensitive yet reliable coursing through his body. Like the streams behind him, a condense one ran through him, mind to chest and spanning out. Utter sincerity spreading out from inside a husk.

If only she knew of his similar life and duty, the cold sweats of mornings and battles of afternoons and loneliness of evenings. Returning to a home not of his own with a kick mocking him even for showing. Never knowing the touch of another beyond flying hooves and charging shoulders.

Violence was his only contact.

It rendered embers to the husk for when the battles lasted but never after.

The sincerity coursing through him now, an inflection of weakness and strength, valued and cursed his weakness. Twilight's days spent behind covers of books while in bed; his beneath a mask while he laid against a tree in different lands. Both alone and matched with their ways to occupy the time.

All the things he wanted to express, despite the vulnerability they cast upon him, a battle nearly won by his next act. His hoof left the comfort of that hoof to reach that chin and gently tug it up. Its definition treated his scales and seeing those glowing eyes upon him calmed his heart.

Yet she couldn't see his smile from beneath the mask.

The beauty of the valley slapped into harsh winds during the ascent of the ranges of rock jutting ever upward. There'd been a path laid on its face, going at a slope to the sides and ever uphill. Upon reaching the top, the smoothness of faded brown rose and dipped into mounds.

"Gah! S-Spike! I-I'm being lifted from my hooves here!" Spike had arched forward with the lone claw shielding his eyes but, upon hearing her voice, perked up and turned around. Twilight was feet behind him, wings flared like a shield, her eyes peeking through in the slits between its tips. "Winds at this velocity may pick us if we're not careful. Is... is there no other way around?"

Spike immediately dashed back a few steps, braving the pelting of rocks and the washing of sand into his scales. Crouching by her side, he draped his coat over her, forcing her body against his leg.

Huddled together, he pointed across the range, the long bridge connecting the gap of the two ranges. It swayed and kept left from the winds, not breaking nor snapping, but its roped beams beyond stretched. “W-We're taking that?! It... I mean... if it's held this long during such conditions... m-maybe..."

Spike rolled his eyes and tapped a claw onto her wings.

"T-These! A-Ah! There's a funny story about these!" Twilight coughed either from shame or sand in the lungs. She brushed closer and pressed harder against his body. He fought the impulse to tuck his arm around her barrel—but his phantom arm did so anyway. "There more for display purpose than anything else." She shook her head. "B-But what I mean to say is what about you?! I can fly... but what about you?"

Spike shook his head.

"You've got me confused again!" Whips of winds and the siege of dirt and sands thundered a cacophony rendered Twilight's yells into whispers. The quaking of lighting boomed from the distance. The two kept close together as they dared tentative step across the plane. "Does that mean you don't care about yourself or that you'll find a way?" No response as his foot felt the area ahead before taking the step; the way how they continued forward. "Is it a mixture of the two?"

Spike nodded.

They'd reach the bridge through the haze of different shades browns as the fog cleared from over the bridge. It leaned to the left, and that caused the dragon to drop his shoulders. Looking at his missing left arm, the phantom didn't appear, leaving him without aid.

But he'd been given his hint.

"Ack! W-What is..." Spike winced an eye shut upon swirling the mass of his tail over the mare's barley, a loop from the fluff of her chest to the sinking softness of her belly, forced to squeeze them both for security. "O-Oh. I see now. Guess I can't complain about not being held anymore, right?"

Spike winced again. Was it uncomfortable this part of him? Smooth scales flexing as they shifted and perhaps the overall texture like a cold slime then slathered over her coat? There wasn't any choice in the matter. But for her to feel so pleasant, and him so much not so... guilt wrecked him for the act.

Then he turned around and, with still a smile only hopeful to calm her, one again not seen beneath the mask, his claw tugged down her hood as far as he could. Then in looking over his shoulder, he began backward, that claw resting on the strained rope shivering in constant vibration. His foot risked the first step onto the wooden planks.

It held with a groan and not much more. The pressure seeped into its center, not diving below that, holding, not threatening to breakthrough. Stepping back and doing so again, Spike would have done it a third time—had the length of his tail not run out.

Twilight was still ahead.

"I-I... I can't do this! Look at my legs! They're wobbling so much that I can't get them to stop!" Twilight shook her head and her face was hidden underneath the hood. She held out a foreleg to show the shivers jittering through it. "I'm not like you! I want to pass over... but I can't! I know I have to. That this is nothing to anything else. But I'm scared. The planks may break. I may fall. The winds may carry me." She flicked her head up and the winds pushed back her hood and mane, revealing the full extent of her face. "Do you know how many possibilities set to occur here? All the terrible ways this could go?"

Spike glanced over his shoulder to the other side of the bridge, the ropes still holding to the distant posts. Winds intensified tenfold, and the bridge lifted inches to the left. His feet slid across the planks.

Minutes were left before the bridge couldn't be crossed.

"I'm doing my best to be like you... to act like how you did in all those stories I heard... but I'm scared... too terrified to do the right thing! How can I be expected to do what must be done if my body refuses to move?!"

Her head shook violently as she hugged the post of the bridge, clinging to it as if never to let go. His tail was tight around her, the seconds passing, causing it to slip, their connection fading. "If we don't make it in time, more will die and suffer, so I have to cross this bridge and not be such a filly. B-But I can't! I'm scared! I'm not like you... I can't stop myself from being scared!"

She struck her foreleg out again. "How can anyone expect me to walk to my duty with legs shaking like this! You can't do what must be done if you're always so scared of everything! This was a bad idea. I'm not meant for this. Nothing and useless except for reading books and explain things. Why couldn't my life be like that? Why are we out here?!"

The creaking of wood turned to a sickening pitch.

Spike closed his eyes and dipped his head, thinking of her words, what to do to make things right. Despair blossomed from his heart in the same fears repeated, only different, from one once like him.

Though the difference between them wasn't that great, and in that, he found his answer.

Spike took the chance to let go of the rope and trusted in his center of gravity to keep him on the bridge. Holding out his arm, the mare lifted her crying face from the post, coming to see his claw. How it never kept in the same place.

"You're... you're shaking too?" Twilight blinked the tears from her eyes and willed herself forward for a better look. "Your claw can't keep still. Talons are twitching. Your arm is shivering." She gazed into his eyes. "You're absolutely scared right now too. That... doesn't go away?"

Spike shook his head.

Twilight gazed into his claw again. Despite his stoicism and will to press forward, his arm was utterly shaking like her own. He just wasn't expressing it. Suppression had become the dragon's lesson. But he didn't want it to be hers. To be hugged and consoled and helped was his desire.

But this wasn't the time.

And he wasn't the one to do it.

Her hoof landed in his claw. As the dust storm continued, the holding of claw and hoof became something new in the period of intensity. The world raged with movement around them, but as their shivers met, it quelled the other side, bringing stillness to both.

Twilight dared the first few steps forward, nearly crying at the creaking of wood, but keeping across it. After a final squeeze of her hoof, he drew his claw away, holding the rope of the bridge once more. Together they moved across it, step by step, enduring the winds, the pelting object caught by the air. It was slow, but they made it across, a valley looming beneath and spanning into the distance.

They reached the final few planks arching the highest into the air, hard land between two posts, the entrance to the next range. Both of them were a step away from the other, close to their final mark. Twilight blossomed in excitement in seeing the ending of her trauma.

"T-There it is! We're there! We did, we did it! Oh dear Celestia, are you seeing me right now? Your student braved danger! Real danger!" Twilight giddily galloped forward to the widening of the dragon's eyes. He gave a coughed scream muffled by everything. "You told me I could do it! And I proved it! I made to—ah!"

Twilight had lunged forward to the striking of another swirling current spawned from the rage of a tornado itself. Dust and filth stung her eyes into closing and, in great foolishness, her wings flares to rub them at once.

The storm carried her body into the air in seconds.

IV | False Harmony

~ IV ~

False Harmony

The couple had walked into the brightness to discover the dim sunlight, the paths of rock paved, up and down, leading to the surface or down to the valley, water rushing in a river below, accompanied by lands of stone.

And on the platform waiting for them was the huddled body of a giant spider.

"Rarity!" Twilight beamed once feeling the breeze and broke into a dash toward her. "I was worried I was never going to see you!" She leapt into the cradled legs of black, falling into the hold of the monster. "But you're outside! Don't you hate sunlight?"

"Now now! Just a second! Did you really think I'd let you out of my life so easily? Nice try, missy—but a spider is harder to shake off than that!" The white pony leaned out from the massive body, coming to their cheeks together. "And sunlight is good for the skin and body! Its how you get the coat to glow, y' know."

Twilight reclined into the cradle of legs as her eyes lowered on the spider's body. "Your wound hasn't healed from helping us. You sure that doesn't need to be healed?"

"Over time, it will, my darling, though now is not the time for it." The bundle of legs pressed to the ground, allowing Twilight to step out and back from it. Spike approached beside her as they stared at Rarity. "For now it'll serve as a reminder of our memory together. It's quite a good pain—like a healthy burn—that needs to be trained deeply into my psyche."

Spike dropped out from the chatter of the mares, the world losing colour and sound, his heartbeat increasing to feelings of sickness. Glancing around with his eyes, the underside of a bridge loomed to ahead on the next mountain. Towering pillars of stone in a gate, one paved across the land far below.

And there was the sense of being watched.

"You feel it too, don't you, darling?"

Spike glanced over at Rarity. The head of the spider pressed against the ground as the white pony leaned over it, coming to point a forehoof across the bridge. "The Great Bridge Between Lands. It marks the ending of this mountain range and itself spans over a ravine worthy of many valleys. You can hear it if silent."

Rarity paused and held her forelegs up. Far beyond the range of the next mountain, it could be heard, the faint crashing of waves. Particles of water permeated the air.

At least it was a nice change of pace.

Dirty and dust and dark, their appeals lost, even to a dragon.

"On the other side is where the rest of my kind thrive—others like me—perhaps where the true mothers of the children here rest." Rarity waved her hoof on seeing Twilight's mouth open. "Yes yes. Afraid there hasn't been another I've craved to create a hive with." Rarity grinned. "And your dragon friend is already taken, yes?"

Twilight blushed profusely at the statement.

"But enough of that." Rarity gave a fine sway of her foreleg to the bridge. "This very bridge saw use spanning hundreds of years, ponies and griffons and zebras, a kind of harmony growing outward. Ponies never dared to venture out so far. In the sacred forest from whence I came, zebras came to make their peace. They'd exchange trinkets composed of nature for a share of our wood."

Rarity lowered her head and sighed. "It was because of them that the special ones dared to venture out so far. Horrid ponies and dragons came. Perhaps there was a plan set about, for the whole of communications was slaughtered within that period."

Twilight sauntered over to the curved edge of the platform, the wind blowing in her mane, exposing her wide eyes to the might of the bridge. Looming atop the pillars was a pony reared on its hind legs and, on the other, a griffon matching the form. On the middle between them, a zebra was sculpted, seated, mediating.

"T-That's... not right." Twilight said with a shake of her head. "I've seen countless photos and drawing of the Great Bridge! Harmony! Three different species, working together, for a mutual desire!" Her head dropped to her chest, viewing all the waste looming below. "No matter our differences, we all wanted to make the world better, the same desire."

Twilight squeezed her eyes. "Exploring new lands and opening paths of travel! Working together to deepen our connect and evoke trade between our kinds! This bridge was the starting of so much goodness and greatness! It was noble."

"And yet you ponies... no." Rarity shook her head and placed a forehoof on her chest. "Yet ponies enslaved the zebras, due to this passivity, to excavate the interior of these mountains to build the path. Countless died in horrid conditions. Not even the surprise assistance from the spiders within changed the strain of such an order."

The breeze blew.

"Who gave the order?"

The breeze whispered.

"The only pony who could. Princess Celestia. You should know that."

The breeze whimpered.