The Kiss of Immortal Love

~ 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.