A Prolonged Cry
B_25 for Grimm
There'd been the cry ever since he was young.
Spike remembered it vividly as he leaned back in his seat, unable to get any sleep, a common trend in recent days. He could remember it like it were a taste, a certain bliss awash over his frame at the coming of slumber. Snoozing into a dream as warm blankets and a soft pillow ushered him there.
But those days were naught anymore as the cry kept him awake. It was never a cause of thought in the entirety of his life. The sound. That pitch. It came to him at night. That wasn't right. It was a whispering screech heard in periods of isolation.
Where the rest of the world, his world, didn't exist at all.
Thoughts and feelings of the night rarely transitioned into the day. Despite their implied shape and weight, it was dark where they kept at bay. Waiting and festering until night arrived. One was compelled, in the minutes or hours before sleep came, to endure their torment all over again.
He'd heard the sound before he was born. It was always a question he meant to bring to Twilight... but always forgot to mention that constant absurdity. It'd occurred as he was inside the egg. Nothing but an unformed consciousness floating in darkness.
The first sounds of his life, as one would expect them to be, were not distance voices and the echo of hoofsteps. Not even his own breathing had graced his own ears. But it rather it was that cry. Slow and loud and ever consuming. It built into a screech whispering throughout his bones.
Twilight had remarked that he was born without tears. He wasn't a baby to cry often. Whine and complain, those were plenty, perhaps to compensate for the lack of howling nights. But in his life, he couldn't recall, a single time he had genuinely cried.
And then the sound came again.
Spike pressed his claws into his ears as the cry vibrated the room again. It didn't matter if all of his palms squeezed into his frills—the sound barrelled within and expanded throughout. His talons scratched after it, frills to his spines, scratching at his face.
Until the cry struck his spine
The dragon lurched out of the chair and smacked onto the floor, rolling in place, needing motion, moment, a form of expression to rid this evilness from his system. Over each bump, it bent a section in a new direction, a horrible stinging coming within.
Until it coalesced within his heart. Its touch chilled the flesh of the beating organ as it then slowed. The poor dragon pressed a claw against his chest, wondering if this would be it, if all would end, on this floor, horribly alone.
But it didn't. The screech tearing through the walls, quivering the floors, shaking the ceiling and shifting the furniture.... stopped. It did so at touching his heart. Spike was left curled on the floor, hyperventilating, his breathing increasing as its capture of oxygen decreased.
It took a few seconds for the dragon to dare to untangle himself. He looked across the floor to where he'd fallen, the chair done the same, now on its side. Hoofsteps echoed from down the hall. Seconds later the door of his room was opening.
"Spike? Spike!" There was the racing of hooves to the feeling of softness washing over him. His back was leaned onto a thigh, on which he then sunk, barely able to see up. Blurs of purple were currently speaking to him. "Are you okay? Say something! Did you hurt your head?"
Spike shook his head the best he could. Ever slowly was the hoof rolling across it, searching for marks or bump, praying not for a sudden twitch. It pulled away after that. The blur came together in the form of a mare. "No blood. Thank Celestia for that. Spike... what were you doing?"
"I... I couldn't sleep."
"I was just starting to get that impression." Soon the view of Twilight's face swam into focus. Her expression was of concern and was totally fixated on him. "Why didn't you say anything sooner? I could have helped. Just... was waiting for you to come to me."
"And I was going to, Twilight, but I..." The words trailed away. It wasn't due to the smack to the head. Rather the reason was unknown even him. He was acting off surely, something, a deeper sense of understanding he hoped. Yet he couldn't invent any logic to it. "Just figured I could work it out myself."
"And have you?"
Spike allowed his body to sink between her legs. The mass of his body was able to rest on her thigh as she sat down. It drew a chuckle from his lips. Not many could be like this with another. Intimate at least. Nothing beyond a sense of platonic. Sometimes he forgot his closeness with the mare.
Could he ever return the gesture?
"Twilight? Have you been hearing a sound at all?"
"A sound? What kind?"
"It's more like a cry." He swallowed before choking. "Like a prolonged cry. It starts off light—but keeps getting louder and louder." He shook his head to the sting of his sore skull. "Soon it's the only thing I can I heard. It's the loudest thing I've ever heard. Sometimes it's more in my head than I am."
Twilight blinked as the dragon feared she would. It made sense. This terrible sound had been recurrent, an otherworldly feeling to it like it implied a transition to a different reality. Why had the mare failed of such a noise?
"When exactly did you start to hear this cry?"
Only if Twilight hadn't heard it.
"Longer than I can remember," Spike said in a hopeless voice as his arms wrapped around his knees and pulled them close to his chest. The legs around him closed in response, those thighs acting as blanket and bed. "It's always been there. Not all the time. Just I can remember hearing it at places and dream. Every now and again."
Silence for a few seconds.
"Keep going."
There was a tired smile washing over the little dragon's face. Feeling like he wasn't going to be seen as crazy, he snuggled into the legs, almost to sleep, as if the fates would be kind. But he knew better than that. One simply couldn't fall asleep in a place and state like this.
The moment Twilight left, he would be thrown back into that cursed state again, the world returning to a nightmare. Knowing he couldn't keep her around forever, he indulged in the moment, in the recesses of peace brought on by the mare. "Every time I hear it, I'm reminded of all the times I heard it before. I completely forget about them. But the second the cry comes back, all those times and places I heard it before, they come back to me."
"And has there ever been someone else around when you hear this cry?"
"I... I can't be sure." Spike nodded slowly. "I like to think so. But it feels like it happens mostly in dreams. Like, dreams of that stuff that's happened. I don't remember much about my sixth birthday, but I remember my dream about it."
Even as the words became stranger and the listener should be more worried, Twilight didn't imply anything of the sort, instead offering the support he so desperately needed. Her hoof brushed over the side of his head, drawing soft and slow circles, mindful of previous pains. "Are you scared in these dreams?"
"Just alone." Spike blinked his eyes as he tried to recall the memory. Closing his eyes ensured the fog of sleep trapped him there. Rather his tried consciousness fought through the wisps to reaching the fuzzy memory most likely fictional. "It's the same setting as the party. Just... none else are there. Chairs are turned and bowls have been moved. It always feels like I'm living inside an empty screenshot."
Finally his chin rose to see the face of the mare above. Her eyes were squinted as she had entered a pondering state. His heart raced at the idea of their thoughts. Kind or unkind? It wasn't so much if she thought his words crazy. He could take that.
He couldn't handle Twilight seeing him like he was a stranger.
"Are you—"
"Shuuuush... quiet now... sorry." Twilight closed her eyes until breathing heavily. It was her way of resetting. That happened on losing her trance in a state of flow. When the height of her intelligence couldn't work out issues in logic. Or, rather, the lack thereof. "I was just thinking was all. I'm still listening. Please keep talking."
"You don't think I'm crazy?"
"You should know better than to think I would ever say that about you." Twilight's muzzle leaned down from above to gently nuzzle the start of his spines. Her warm coat stayed there for seconds more. "Something strange is going on. I won't lie to you about that. But we're passed immediately judging the other on weird things by now—aren't we?"
"I-I guess." Spike then twirled a digit around his head. "But I wouldn't blame you for thinking I'm not the littlest bit crazy."
"Or there's legitimate reasoning for what's happening to you." Twilight kissed the spot as she retreated above again. The shifting of her legs inched him toward the crook between her thigh and belly—allowing him to better snuggle into her. "You've followed me through a few nights of insanity myself. It wouldn't be right to not do the same in return."
Spike smiled to himself as his eyelids weighed ever heavier. A small part of him wanted to grab her tail to cast it over him as the final blanket to see him off to slumber. But he didn't dare; all he risked was the question scaring him most. "Do you have any idea what's happening to me?"
Twilight smiled the best she could before shaking her head. "Sorry Spike, but I'm afraid that I don't have much of a clue yet. I've had my fair share of strange and reoccurring dreams myself. Most ponies do. But not to the point of a possible, legitimate, physical manifestation."
She took him so much at his word that it hurt.
That it made him feel guilty.
Like a child lying about nightmares to be closer to mommy.
His eyes closed, and he felt terrible for it.
He'd been faintly aware of the world beyond the realm of sleep, movement and moving around, picked up and hugged close, the sways across the creaks of a hall. Even in this state of dreaming, he was aware, of her, her, her.
Which her? His mind fought to know there could only be one. It was the one who, often finding him asleep beyond his bed, would pick him up, hold him close, and carry him home. Home being his basket. But that had changed since the new room. His room.
A room no longer being a thing they shared together.
The bed was cold and hard compared to the warmth and softness of her coat. He searched for her in the darkness, reaching out all but physically. Unable to find her, his mind drifted to something else. Her hoofsteps trailed away.
"It's okay, Spike," her voice floated across the room and floated within the darkness of his head. "I'm just going to the washroom. I'll be back soon." The squeak of the door was followed by the click of the handle. The silence kept now, perhaps, because of the promise that lingered.
Spike wasn't sure of the time he spent asleep, only that, as he awoke, he didn't sleep long enough. He rolled in place, searching for her, wishing to collapse into her. But no matter the spread or the reach of the claw—none else were found in the bed.
It took him a few seconds to rise in the darkness of the room. Nothing could be seen—but the faint outlines of surrounding items. Part of him begged to close his eyes and fall asleep, knowing she would return to him. She'd made a promise after all.
But he couldn't sleep. It wasn't because of a sound but due to a lack of her. Knowing sleep would not come until this problem was resolved, the little dragon rolled out of bed, landing on his feet to a little bit of a sway. He never quite straightened himself. Only carried through the dark in his precarious state.
He reached the door and glared up at the handle obscured by the shadows. Hopping in place, he swung for it, claws batting its bottom. Each time his body knocked into the frame. Pain didn't flare. The third try clicked the lock and allowed the door to pull back.
Spike entered the hallway to the pronunciation of his footsteps. Cracking and clacking across and against the crystal. The length of the hall gained its illumination from the window at its end. Moonlight spilled through the glass. Faintly.
He continued down the hall despite the lack of light. His arms crossed over each other as he hurdled into himself. The impression of doors to his right towered over him. Each a monolithic object to his diminutive form. He stopped before the sixth one through. The bathroom.
Spike swallowed as he approached the frame and caught the handle the first try. It pushed open on the lightest of weight as he landed back on his feet. Daring a few steps into the darkroom, the fuzz of the mat was first to greet his feet. Hardly anything could be seen within. There was a soft glint to the toilet and shine to the tub consuming the back of the wall.
Above the tub was a little window above it, rectangle in form, only a glimmer of light passing through. Nothing was here but how the room appeared at night without light. Taking a swallow, he closed the door, the click followed by the cry.
The prolonged cry.
Spike screamed through clenched lips as his head wobbled about, the screech reverberating through the walls as it quivered through the floor. It bolted through him like a surge of electricity; a body reduced to a conduit. No use in covering his frills.
All the dragon could do was fall, cast to the ground once more, unable to do act. But as the seconds passed... there was a change in the sound. The cry transitioned into animation as the first sense of sadness could be felt its pitch. It changed, the sound the same, but its tempo switching.
It'd been the first time the sound had sounded like it came from another. Even in his weakened state, the dragon was able to stand, holding a claw to the side of his head, the other around his hip. Instead of fighting the sound, he listened for it, the pain of the screech, upon tuning it... softening into the essence of... what?
Pain? Sadness? Agony?
Spike took the claw from his hip and placed it against the wall, using it to carrying himself down, lowering his head to better listen for the tune. Once more it wailed. Crying for the sake of crying. It cause wasn't known.
The elements of what it felt, however, surged from beneath the surface of his scales. Spike wasn't sure exactly what was washing up. It was feelings never felt before. Blends of the familiar tested into something different. He didn't try to fight it, however, as the sound cast its power onto him.
As it beckoned him toward... somewhere.
Spike left the castle to the immediate regret of that fact. He entered the chilly air of the night and was at once assaulted by frigid winds spreading ice across his scales. Darkness took to a thickness in the surrounding area. Light sparked from the streetlamp ahead. The loose bulb sizzled with electricity.
The little dragon dared toward the first safe-haven of the outside world. As he reached the light, however, he glanced over his shoulder at the castle left behind, the one he could no longer see. Dense black fog consumed the landmark. Surely it still existed within the space he could no longer see.
But the thought of approaching caused him to feel ill.
Rather the dragon stood beneath the lamp and checked to his sides, having arrived at a split in the path, one leading left as the other went right, both series of lamps still not lit. He wasn't sure where he was to go. Or even if he was to go at all. Silently he waited for the sound. Hoping to hear the cry he'd dreaded for so long.
And it came again, but this time, didn't knock him to the ground. Rather he fell to his knees as there was still a weight to bear, but in having done so before, he was able to do so again. An influx of emotions coursed through his veins that made him feel things that were not okay. Despite the fullness that bloated his soul, it all caused him to feel terrible hollow.
Spike's eyes scrunched as his face narrowed into itself. Fighting to endure the next torrent, he persisted, knowing there was no other option if he were to falter. Twilight wouldn't find him out here as this other world had finally consumed him.
The place and state frequented only in dreams and nightmares.
As the dragon gasped and opened his eyes, his face lifted from the ground, staring down the lane of periodically lit lamps. His view reached out to the final and most distant one, which cracked and broke, darkness returning once more.
This trend continued toward him, the bulbs breaking, light fading, until no lamps remained. Staggering back to his feet, the little dragon turned around to the other path. The cry billowed in the darkness as its ripples felt seen. The path leading left was also the one leading out of town.
And Spike followed it until he had done exactly that.
Why was he walking? Why was he moving? Was it because of courage or because he had no other choice? The little dragon could wait. Endure the nightmare and allow it to end by hiding away. Sunlight and Twilight would arrive for him eventually. This whole affair would be forgotten about until the next time.
He could hold out, and no harm would come, and yet, what was different about this time to set out? On reaching the final lamp that oversaw the winding hills to the distant river, there wasn't a hint of light in the beyond. The moon hung in the sky, its shape hard to see, a dimness unexpected.
Glints of light came from the river itself. Currents splashing into rocks twinkled in their crashes downward. It was contained chaos, a rage now diminished, able to be crossed for minimal damage. But the path there was so very dark; Spike was so very alone.
In turning around, the lamps behind still casting their glow, a passage back to home. But he would still have to search through the darkness to find the castle again. He'd already left the safety of his room. One could only go deeper from here.
Spike dared the first step into darkness, and the second had been easier to fulfill. Third and fourth were at a distance apart. Five and six, seven and eight, those came and went, finding their own tempo. The rest was spent just the same. Lack of sight not affecting the mind as keeping with what felt right allowed Spike to feel alright.
The grass was cold beneath the weight of his feet, ice-crusted over the spades, chilling his soles evermore. Sometimes his legs would falter at the sudden ascent of the hill. Nothing could be seen but everything could be felt. In the distance, the crashing of water softly roared, the new sound to take toward.
He followed. Even the wind through the spades couldn't direct him away. It was hearing the cry keeping him straight across the nightmare state. It rippled in the water in a reflection of its changing pitch. It'd changed from screaming to a wailing of a heightened state. Just what was it he was searching for?
The little dragon had reached the river.
It was all he could see as it spanned like the see. Nothing could be seen through its surface as its reflection was the darkened sky. Dead stars and a dead moon were scattered across the current, an impression of stone and grass and land somewhere on the other side.
Spike leaned over the water to see his reflection. The view of an angry beast consumed his expression. White eyes to a pronounced muzzle. Fangs bared and blood drawn across its cheeks. The sudden image and transition would have scared him.
But the song of the stream had lulled him into a sense of calm rage. It wasn't malicious. Never was there an impression of the beast able to leap out from the water. Rather it seemed protective of something.
Or someone.
The cry was soft from across the river. Spike's head lifted to see the opening of a forest on the other side. There was an itch to inch his head up. Which he then did. Looking up and up to see a protrusion of mass touching the painted on sky. It'd been inside that structure where the cry sounded.
Spike gazed back to the water to see his reflection in the water. He was smiling. Nothing more to it. His foot raised over the river and stepped into it, the freezing lick of ice washing across his ankles. But he waddled through the current to each stride causing a splash. Splash splash until he was across.
The first step into the forest was sounded by the breaking of a stick. It crunched beneath his foot and resulted in the scurrying of distant feet. Once the bristling of leaves had ceased, the dragon carried on, guided through the dark, that screech crying out once more.
His shoulder brushed against the sides of trees as he walked in-between them, always a sense of their definition despite the darkness, allowing him to not outright bang into them. Spike could still hardly see. If he gazed far enough out, however, over the top of distant branches—he could see the sky in the horizon, a few, scattered dots, of dead lights.
The entrance of the cave pooled with blood. It splashed beneath the stomp of his foot as he wandered into the sudden opening. Everything was contained within a red hue. Its glow cast over the wall and deepening the scarlet of the warm substance. The blood had been warm.
It had been fresh.
Spike backed out of the cave as the low roar of screams teased at his frills, which kept twitching, lowering, unable to rest in peace. Backing out had awash him in calm. But something in the cave whispered for him to move on.
He glanced to the mouth of the cave and how the pillar reached to the sky. Yet instead of going up, its only entrance went down, ever lower, to an unknown depth. For this first time in the night, the dragon's tail swung over to his front. He gripped while standing in place.
Hearing the next burst of the cry.
But it was dying now. The closer he drew, the quieter it became, perhaps unheard if he hadn't been tuned for it. It whimpered in softness. Little screeches of complete pain. Sadness blanketed the bloody cave. It begged for him to come in.
And it was that which he then did.
The first step was another splash following by droplets falling from the ceiling. Pelting and pelting until it was pouring in red. Everything was warm, a steam raising like a fog, like fires recently exhausted. Masses bubbled from the rising level of blood. It kept levelled with the descent of the slope.
Bodies surfaced from the depths of the thin blood. Rising to float in the fashion in which they laid dying. Keeping down the slope as it led to the depths of the cave, the dragon glanced at the corpses, coming to see each were like he.
Dead dragons of various colours and sizes and wounds, all submerged, however, in the colour of red. Expressions of anger and fear and peace were the lingering pieces of their legacy. All of the passing faces were the same in a lone feeling.
Sadness.
The slope had finally straightened beneath the dragon's feet. Spike didn't find himself scared as the body of blood rose to his chest as he was forced to wade through it. The cold and darkness of before frightened him more. Yet those were required to hide away this place as well as they did.
There wasn't fear to be held at seeing the bodies of the dragons much like him. The means of their deaths and what remained evoked only sorrow. It was their blood Spike was bathed in. Nothing was filthy about the essence of their sacrifice.
The heated warmth of the blood wrapped around him like a blanket.
The little dragon waded through to the sounds of splashing. Distant whimpers now painful whispers as the prolonged cry had reached its apex. Spike slowed at reaching an opening, the ending of the cave revealed.
And at the center of it all laid a dragon unlike the rest. Large and dying and wrapped around herself. Her chest weakly rose in the weak system of her breathing. The side of her body was exposed to the approaching dragon. Her tail curved around a bloodied egg.
"S-Spike? Are you still with me?" The mother's head limply hovered before the egg, each second a fight, a losing struggle to keep herself raised. "My sweetie. I'm so sorry. I really wanted to bring you into this family."
Spike stopped in his crusade on standing feet away from the monolithic dragon. Her size didn't intimidate him as he felt an intimate connection toward it. Like it was something to hug and snuggle and perhaps cuddle. Gashes ran across it as blood continuously washed over smooth purple scales.
"I never meant to bring you into this world alone." Her eyes closed at the words as her lips forever quivered. "You had everyone ready to greet you in. So many were happy to finally see you. Already loved before you were born. So previous few dragons have ever had the privilege."
The mother struggled to open her eyes as her head kept inching toward. Whimpers escaped her lips and tears fought to come through. Her lips struggled to reach his egg. She tried to bless his birth with a final kiss.
But it never reached him.
The mother's head collapsed in a weak dash across the floor, coming to fall still, the pained whimpers always on her lips. She cried without being able to shed tears. The sounds of a prolonged cry as she whispered her final words.
"You had a family... that loved you...." the mother exhaled and never did so again. "...even if... you never... knew it..."
Silence.
The little dragon stood in the pool of blood and, raising his claws from the depths to the surface, stared at his palms. Nothing except blood covered them. In the seconds that were to pass, something washed it away. It was droplets pelting into his claw.
Tears dripping from his eyes.
The mother had been unable to cry before meeting her demise, and that howl, those shallow whimpers, they'd followed him throughout his life. That unknown past always lurked in the background of his mind. Waiting for the day until he could handle the strain.
Spike was able to cry for her, he was able to cry for them, in years of not understanding why, he was able to cry, a freedom discovered in its release. Torrents poured as the streams ran their salty course. His body becoming cleanse of all the blood.
There'd been an echo from the beyond. Spike barely fought through the stinting in his eyes to gaze at the ceiling. It rained not with blood... but water. The coming current pelted across the pool, dwindling its size, reducing its level.
Tears from beyond had started to rain.
"Spike... oh... Spike... I'm so... so... Spike..."
The little dragon awoke to being held in the forelegs as warm as before. Few blinks returned him to reality. Around him loomed the bedroom properly awash in moonlight. Blinds billowed from winds of an opened window.
And Twilight Sparkle laid on his bed, hugging him to her chest, the pelting of hears a tickle to the top of his head. He shook it at once. Coming back from a memory not of his own. He'd already woken up crying. Pressing his face onto that lavender coat to exhaust the built woe of too many collective souls.
"Spike... you're not crazy... not in the slightest..." Twilight hugged him tighter as hiccups and tears were unable to be repressed. "I went to visit Celestia about your c-condtion. M-Maybe see if she knew something." She nuzzled the base of his spines, blowing warm exhales, unable to keep her breathing contained. "I'm so sorry, Spike. I'm so so sorry. I-I found something out that I shouldn't have. I found out..."
"Y-You found out... that I'm not crazy." Spike nuzzled the warm coat a final time. "I found it out too. I finally got the sound to stop crying... and I... I really wish I hadn't!" Fresh tears bawled as the sound that pained him... he now missed the most. "Please don't leave me Twilight. Don't ever leave me. Please don't go. I don't want to go to sleep tonight."
But Twilight had already ushered them underneath the blanket as her body filled across the bed. It was barely enough to hold her, causing him to be housed as close as possible to her. His head laid on her chest. The beating of her heart lulled him into a serenity.
"You never have to go to bed alone." Twilight laid her muzzle atop his head and, in the failure of the mother before, the surrogate one found new success. Her kiss landed on his head, keeping there as it infused him with her love. "You can come into my room at any time. Oh Spike. You know we love you, right? Me and Shining. Mom and Dad and Cadance. All of our friends too. We're so glad for you."
Spike nodded his head as his body had finally gone limp. There'd been no sounds but the beating and breathing of Twilight's chest. It expanded and dipped every now and again, a reassuring comfort that she was still there.
That she would forever be there for him.
