~ 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!