The Farmer’s Market was more subdued than usual. Normally, the street would be alive with light conversations, laughter, and a general sense of contentment as the citizens of Ponyville did their daily shopping while chatting with friends and soaking up the latest news or gossip. Not today, though. The Market now sat under a blanket of tension and sadness. Even as salesponies worked their stalls, their engagement with customers sat heavy with emotion, the conversations muted and short. Every pony in town seemed to be sad. It was as if the town itself had been wounded.
Spike snorted, shaking his head as he waited in line. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be anywhere else, but most especially back home, the Golden Oaks Public Library. Still, even dragons had to eat, so here he stood, a few bunches of carrots tucked into his arms, and a bag of celery and cabbage he had bought earlier hanging from his shoulder. It was a basic meal plan, spartan really, but he had no choice. He wasn’t going anywhere near the fruit stalls, and he had run through his entire gem stash less than two days after...
A shudder passed through him, and he huffed as his left foot tapped an angry rhythm against the grass. The market wasn’t nearly as full as it normally would be, maybe about half the total ponies mulling around, which was just fine for Spike. This was one of the very few times he was grateful for his squat stature. The less ponies noticed him, the less of those looks he would have to endure. Thankfully, the conversation before him was wrapping up, the stallion having finally laid his bits on the stall counter and turned to leave with his produce. Wordlessly, Spike stepped closer to the stall. He reached up to his tip claws and placed the bunches of carrots on the counter. When he did, he heard that all-too familiar gasp from behind the stall. Steeling his nerves, he glared up at the yellow mare.
“Hey there, Spike,” she said, her eyes dripping with the same overplayed sympathy that gushed from her mouth.
“Hi, Carrot Top,” he grunted, casting his eyes away from that darn look of hers. “How much?” He could all but hear the heart strings being tugged in her chest as she looked down at him. At the boy. The whelp. The survivor. The abandoned...
“Well, three bunches are normally five bits,” she cooed in that stupid drenched, condescending tone. “But for you, today? How about we call it three?”
“No,” he muttered, digging into his bag for the money. “Five is fine.”
“Spike, I insist. Really, after all you’ve—”
“Keep the change!” he hissed, slamming a claw full of bits onto the counter. He shoved the carrots into the bag and stormed off. She probably tried to say something as he retreated, he couldn’t be sure. He didn't really care.
As he began the trek back to the library, he silently cursed himself for his little outburst. Not that he thought the mare didn’t deserve it, what with her fake, smug sympathy, but because it had the added effect of bringing attention to himself. Already, he could feel it; the scales on the back of his neck itched like mad, his shoulders tensed under what felt like a physical weight from the dozens of eyes peering his way. He was sure he heard whispers, but it could have been his imagination. His brow furrowed even harder as he picked up the pace. Somepony called out his name. He trudged onward. All he wanted was to retreat back to the safe... to the library. The voice repeated, now much closer. His heartbeat was accelerating, which only aggravated him into moving faster. He just had to—
“Spike,” said a gentle yet firm voice right as a magenta hoof gingerly stepped in front of him.
So quickly ripped from his own mind, he jerked to a halt before he even knew what he was doing. A tiny growl escaped his tight lips as he looked up to snap at whomever had stopped him... only to blink. The green eyes that met his gaze were not oozing with fake emotions drummed up by propriety. Instead, they were soft, warm, just like the smile beneath them. Despite his best efforts, Spike found himself relaxing under the welcoming eyes. “Hey, Miss Cheerilee.”
“It’s good to see you, Spike,” she said. “Doing your weekly shopping?” She gestured to the produce filled bag on his shoulder.
“Uh, yeah,” Spike replied, giving the bag a little shake. “A dragon’s gotta eat, you know?”
She giggled, a genuine sounding thing, and Spike felt just a hair more tension leak from his body, but then he saw it. That inviting warmth in her eyes ever-so-subtlety shifted into that darn look. Here it comes. “Listen, Spike, I just wanted to check in on—”
“I’m fine,” he huffed, maneuvering himself around her foreleg. He stormed off, but it was mere moments later that he felt her presence next to him, her longer legs easily keeping pace with him.
“Spike, we’re worried.” Her voice now held a pleading air to it, which only raised his hackles more. “Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both came to see me after class the other day. They said they’ve been seeing less and less of you lately. In fact, most ponies I talk to haven’t seen you at all since the funeral.”
“I’ve been busy!” he snapped, then roughly shook his head, increasing his pace. A tremble wormed its way through his arms. “Lots to do in the library. Gotta get it ready.”
A flurry of movement, and he once more jerked to a halt as Cheerilee trotted a few steps to stand in front of him. Even as he growled and a tiny puff of smoke escaped his nostril, she pressed on. “Look, Spike. I won’t even pretend to understand what you must be feeling right now, this soon after losing somepony so im—”
“Just stop, okay?!” This time, he felt no regret about shouting at her. He could once more feel the weight of eyes upon him, but his mounting frustration prevented him from really caring. “Whatever words or stupid phrases you’re going to say just... just stop.”
The look on Cheerilee’s face nearly cracked his facade, but then she spoke in a more neutral tone than before. “We only want to help, Spike.”
“Well, I don’t need your hmmprgh!” Spike’s eyes screwed shut as an all too familiar rumbling built up in his gut. He turned his face to the side just as a gout of fire belched from his maw, accompanied by a puff of smoke that coalesced into a scroll. He snatched it out of the air and ripped the seal off, already having a pretty good idea who it was from before he even began to read.
Dear Spike,
How’s it going, kiddo? It’s Night—
Snarling, he crumbled the scroll and threw it to the ground. When he looked back up at Cheerilee, he saw that they had, indeed, attracted an audience. The whispers all merged together into what felt like a wall to his mind. He glared up at Cheerilee, whose eyes were now devoid of the warmth or even concern they held before, instead carefully neutral. “Look, just... leave me alone, alright?” With that, he turned tail and stormed off as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.
It was about ten minutes before he reached his destination, yet as he approached the corner, he stopped. His breathing had grown heavy from the anger and his brisk walk, but now the deep breaths began to shake ever so slightly. He didn’t want to round the corner. He knew what was waiting for him in the courtyard. The same view that had stood there, mocking him for the past week and a half. His heart was already pounding, and he knew it would only get worse. His eyes shut tight, and he pounded one foot against the grass. He willed himself to calm down, demanded his body not succumb to emotion and walk proud. It did little. Still, home lay on the other side, so it had to be done. With one more heaving, shuddering breath, Spike turned the corner.
A cool, gentle breeze wafted over him as he stepped into the open area. The courtyard in front of the Golden Oaks Public Library was fairly large, probably around twenty-five meters across. Depending on the day, it was usually devoid of life. Being honest, it hardly mattered what day it was. While the ponies in town weren’t stupid by any measure, they weren’t exactly lining up in the yard to check out books. Now, however, a cursory glance told him no less than fifteen ponies meandered about, drawn to the two new structures that had only been completed eleven days ago. Spike angled his body towards the farthest one. The safer one.
In any other context, he may have found a simple beauty in its design. A large stone sarcophagus stood maybe ten meters away from the library’s front door. It was rectangular in shape, about four meters by two, and was constructed of a type of jet-black stone he had never seen before. It was apparently some arcane-infused stone from someplace way north of Equestria. Princess Luna had said the stone would do at least a little to help contain the swirling vortex of chaotic energy that spewed from what could only be described as a rend in the fabric of the world, which the sarcophagus had been built around.
As he walked by, doing his best to not look in either direction, he could see out of his peripheral vision a couple, a mare and a stallion, standing before the tower. They both had one hoof pressed against the sleek black stone, their heads bowed, as they muttered what must have been prayers or words of encouragement to the Princess sequestered inside. Within those cold stone walls, Celestia would spend the next who-knows-how many years focusing all her efforts on closing the mad rift. That tear that had ripped through reality the day that—
Something softly crunched beneath him. Lifting his foot, Spike saw a crushed tulip, and a rose beside it. He could see several more flowers strewn on the ground. He knew why they were there. He knew where they had come from. He didn’t need to follow the trail of still-fresh flowers to their origin, and in fact he desperately tried not to. Mentally screaming at himself to look away, his gaze was nevertheless drawn as if by a terrible magnet towards the other structure that now dominated the courtyard.
A veritable sea of flowers, balloons, covered candles, stuffed animals, and cards scrawled with words of mourning and loss surrounded a large stone dais. It only rose maybe a foot off the ground, but standing upon it, just a hair under the height of the sarcophagus, were intricately detailed bronze statues of six heroes of the realm. Spike’s chest all but shook under the pounding of his heart as his gaze was intrinsically drawn to one particular statue. To a pair of dead, soulless metal eyes that should have been a deep lavender and sparkling with intelligence.
A harsh breeze had kicked up from nowhere. The rubied necklace around his throat sat inert, but the other Elements blazed with radiance as the strangely grey-looking girls rose into the air. He just assumed this was how it always went, until a powerful flash made him turn away, blinking rapidly to clear the blobs from his vision. A deep, thrumming tone began to vibrate the air around him. A pained grunt from above him. "Augh!" Rarity shrieked, her mane returned to its purple shrine. "Twilight! Something... is wr-wrong!"
Spike felt lightheaded, as if he had just run a marathon. This confused him greatly, until he returned to the present enough to notice that he was hyperventilating. He let out a rapid, shuddering breath and sprinted towards the library door. He nearly ripped his bag open reaching for the keys, and his trembling claws made him fumble with the lock far longer than he should have. Finally, the key slid in with a soft klink. He threw the door open, lunged inside, and slammed it behind him.
His bag of vegetables slid to the ground as he pressed his trembling body against the hard wood of the door. Spike screwed his eyes shut, letting out a shuddering growl as he pounded his fist against the door. He honestly lost track of how long he stood there, berating himself and demanding his mind to drop it. Could have been ten minutes. Could have been ten hours. When he finally opened his eyes, he found it to have been the former, as the shadows from the windows had barely gotten any longer.
Spike took one shuddering breath, then two, then another as his fist squeezed and flexed several times. “Work,” he muttered. “Get back to work, Spike. Uh...” his eyes frantically scanned around. “Reorganize the books.” With a nod of finality to himself, he trudged across the foyer and into the first large, circular room lined with books. He knew he had a lot of work to do to get everything in the right place. He hadn’t gotten it right the last eight times.
A gentle knock came from the front door, but he ignored it. He approached the ladder along the west wall, but slowed to a stop as something came into view out of the corner of his eye. Breath trapped in his throat, he slowly turned to look at the stack of books standing a few feet away from the southern shelves. The perfectly symmetrical stack sat at a precise ninety degree angle from the corner of the wall, spines neatly aligned to within less than a millimeter. It was far too perfect for him to have done it.
His heart pounded like a rampaging bull as he watched them writhe and tremble in the air, eyes clenched from pain as tears and beads of sweat evaporated into nothing from the intense heat of the Elements. "Guys! What's happening?!" he gasped from below, clutching his tail and stammering, "The Elements... Th-they're..." The evil thing muttered something, but he couldn’t make it out, nor did he care to.
“No,” he hissed, his eyes shut once more and his fists clenched so tight he may have felt warm wetness seeping into his palms. “Stop it,” he growled under his breath. There was another knock on the door, but he was already moving towards the shelves. He wiped his moist palms along his thighs and snatched a book from the bottom shelf. Modern Spellcasting. That’s an easy one. Magical Theory section, fourth self, three rows from the wall. He turned to walk but jerked to a halt. No, no that’s not right. Classics. It went under Classics. He remembered on his birthday when she had...
The deafening hum was so loud it knocked him to his backside. He had no idea what was happening, but he could guess why it was. He roughly grabbed a hold of the ruby lightning bolt upon his neck. “Come on, come on,” he shouted, for he had to shout to hear himself over the hum, as well as the grunts and cries of pain. “Why aren’t you working?! I’m loyal! Do something!” The blasted stone remained as cold and inert as a hunk of lead. “Come on, I’m loyal! They need you! Do—” Rarity shrieked above him, all but commanding his gaze. “No...” he whimpered. The searing radiance from her purple necklace had spread to her whole body. He screamed out her name as she exploded in a brilliant flash of dust.
A muted thump beneath him. The book has slid from his sweating palms. Why were his palms sweating? “Nrgh!” His hand reached to the sides of his head, soothingly rubbing at the frills on the sides of his skull. Gentle at first, but as echoing cries in his mind almost drowned out the third knock on the door, he gripped tighter.
Tears tried, but failed to obscure his vision of the piles of white, yellow, and pink dust that littered the ground. Even he could now feel the oppressive heat from above, and yet the necklace he wore refused to even flash. "Girls," stammered a voice above him. The only voice that mattered. "Girls, the elements. They... th-they're consuming us. I d-don't understand—" At the sound of her voice, he finally found his legs. The gale force winds repelled him, but he struggled forward.
“Thursday,” he hissed. “Gotta... g-gotta send out the overdue notices, then dust the upper levels.” His eyes were moist. “Recheck, r-recheck the checklist for Friday.” His chest was heaving. Why was his chest heaving? “Order more quills. Maybe...”
“Twilight!” he cried, his stubby legs straining to their limits, but he finally stood beneath her. Her vibrant purple coat seared his eyes with light, but he didn’t, couldn’t look away. He reached out to her, straining, willing his arm to be long enough to grab her hoof. “Twilight, stop! Please! You have to...”
Knock, knock, knock. A single bitter tear rolled down his cheek. He growled and violently wiped it off. “The n-next shipment of books will be here Tuesday. M-make sure to tip the delivery pony, like... l-like she...”
"So... so much burning..." Streaks of white light were all but bursting from her body, like cracks in the road. She was shuddering and writhing in obvious agony. "Nnnngh—Augh! Celestia—"
Knock, knock.
“Twilight!” His trembling claw never stopped reaching for her. “Twilight, no!”
Knock, knock.
Suddenly, she grew silent and her convulsing stopped. Tiny motes of ash rose off her body, like dandelion buds in the wind, as the humming reached a crescendo. Her eyes gazed downwards, and for a single, eternal moment, their eyes locked. A lone tear managed to stay intact just long enough to leave her eye before sizzling away. Her hoof began to drift down right as—
Knock—
“We’re closed!” Spike roared, then immediately cringed. That had come out way louder than he had intended. Still, his scowl remained. The roiling cauldron of painful emotions that had been bubbling in his chest for nearly two weeks sputtered and sizzled, but with an audible grunt of effort, he mentally slammed a lid on it.
He let out something akin to a snarl as he marched over to the cleaning supplies he had laid out in the north corner... yesterday? He grabbed the broom just as he heard the front door open. A silent curse ran through his mind. He forgot to lock the door. Stupid.
“Spike?”
At the sound of the heavily accented voice, he sighed, not even turning to look. “I said we’re closed today, Apple Bloom.”
Heavy hoof falls came as she walked into the foyer behind him. Very heavy hoof falls. “I know yer closed,” she said, voice much closer now, “but we ain’t here for a book.” We. Spike’s eyes pinched closed almost painfully. The heavy hooves made a lot more sense now. Casting a lightning fast glance behind him, he indeed saw the farm filly walking right next to her big brother.
“Then why are you here?” he muttered, staring down at the floor as he vigorously swept away the dust that hadn’t been there in over a week.
“Well,” she started, her tiny hooves now sounding like she was in the room, “we wanted to check up on ya.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I mean we haven’t seen you since—” Spike could all but hear her wince as the muscles on his back tensed. “Well... we were a mite worried about ya, and wanted to make sure y’all were okay.”
“I’m fine, “ he grunted, abandoning the broom and reaching for the feather duster, then walked back towards the ladder on the shelf. “You can go now.”
Apple Bloom took a tentative step forward. “Come on, now, Spike. We just—”
“Who’s ‘we’, Apple Bloom?!” he rounded on her, causing her to jerk to a halt about four feet from him. “You expect me to believe you decided to come here on your own?”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said, eyes hardening just a hair under his scrutiny. “We did, because we’re yer friends!”
Spike let out a contemptuous bark of laughter. “Friends? Remind me, have we ever spoken for longer than fifteen seconds before now?! Hmph, some friend you are.” A violent exhalation came from behind her, and Spike felt himself cringe just a little at the venomous glare Big Mac was giving him. Spike rolled his eyes and walked towards the ladder again. “Whatever, you’re just like all the rest of them.” He all but threw himself up to the third rung of the ladder. “Spend over a year barely paying us any mind. ‘Who? Oh, you mean that nerd who lives in the library and her weird pet lizard?’ But suddenly you all care so much!” He ran the delicate feather duster over the pristine books with force, the plastic stalk jostling them in their places.
“Now you wait just a durn minute,” Apple Bloom shouted, that famed Apple family pride flaring up. “We have been worried about ya! Sweetie and Scoots have said they barely see y’all around town anymore! An’ we got even more worried when Miss Cheerilee came to our stall a few minutes ago.”
Spike snarled and threw the duster to the ground, roughly sliding down the ladder and back to the supplies. “Of course she did,” he said, reaching for the broom.
“Look Spike,” she began, “she showed us that letter you threw away.”
“Naturally,” he said as he knelt down to ruffle through the supplies.
“It said that was the third time Twi—” A high-pitched growl echoed across the room. Apple Bloom cleared her throat and continued. “The third time that Mr. Light had offered to let ya move back in with him and Mrs. Velvet up in Canterlot. If yer so sure you ain’t got no friends here,” she emphasized, “then why not move back?”
“I can’t leave,” he muttered. “Somepony has to keep the library open.”
There were a few moments of silence, ostensibly Apple Bloom trying to process what he had said. “But... you ain’t opened the library since...” Spike heard a hitch in her voice. “Well, in nearly two weeks.”
“It’s not ready yet.” He stood on swaying legs, taking a few shuddering gulps of air to fill his lungs that now felt three sizes too small. “I s-still have to clean up. Dust everything, sweep and mop, polish things up. Then I have to organize the books. It... has to be perfect.”
She didn’t respond for a few long moments. He assumed she was looking around the near sparkling room and the neatly aligned shelves. “Okay, then,” she said, a flicker of defiance in her voice once more, “Me and Big Mac can help out! We already closed up the stall fer the day. Here, lemme help ya put up these here books.”
Spike’s whole body tensed almost painfully. He spun around and saw Bloom reaching for the stack of books. The perfectly symmetrical stack of books. He lunged across the large room and interposed himself between her and the books. “Don’t touch those!” Apple Bloom let out a tiny gasp and took a leaping step back, away from the tiny puffs of smoke coming out of his nostrils, his muscles clenched so hard they were visible even under his chubby form, and his curled lip exposing impossibly sharp teeth. In his peripheral, he could see Mac bounding over to wrap a protective hoof around his sister.
The library was still as death for a few painful seconds. That cauldron in Spike’s chest surged, but he firmly kept the lid on it. Finally, his body relaxed, albeit slightly, and he turned to walk away. “Look, just...” His hammering heart caused his voice to falter. “J-Just leave, okay?”
Before he could get very far, Apple Bloom threw off Mac's hoof and all but leapt in front of Spike. “We ain’t leavin’, Spike!” Despite the fear that had been in her eyes moments ago, she jabbed at his chest with her hoof. “You may not believe it, be we are yer friends, and we want to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” He made to sidestep her, but she blocked him yet again.
“Yes, you do,” she said, a bit more subdued than her voice before. Her hoof lowered to the ground and the anger had melted from her eyes, replaced by a growing sadness. “Look, Spike, we... w-we’re all in this together. All right? We’ve all... all lost something special. Somepony special.” A slight wet sheen fell over her eyes as she spoke.
Feeling his own eyes grow moist, Spike once more closed his eyes and shook his head to try and banish the flurry of emotions from his mind. Still, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest yet again, as well as the tremors running through his painfully tight fists. “You... y-you don’t get it,” he muttered through clenched teeth, stepping away from the filly.
“But I do,” she said, moving to follow. “We all do. Us, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, we all get it! I know it may be hard to believe, because it took Mac explaining it for me to get it, but I understand what you’re feeling. I feel it—”
“No, you don’t,” he snarled. For the second time that day, he felt tiny trickles of warm fluid collecting in his clenched palms. “You don’t...” his chest was heaving, his whole body trembling. “You couldn’t understand.”
She gasped, then aggressively stomped her hoof. “Don’t you dare try and act like y’all are the only one hurting! Ap...” a loud sniff, “A-Applejack was our sister! And we—”
“Exactly!” Spike roared, jabbing a claw at her, a tiny droplet of green blood at the tip. “She was your sister! And after...” He took a growling gulp of air, violently running his fist across his traitorous eyes. “After the f-funeral, you got to go home to your brother! And your grandma! What did I come home to?!” His seething glare danced around the room. “A library full of books I’ll never read and... and a bed too big for me to sleep in.”
Apple Bloom had taken a few steps back from the raging dragon, but Spike pressed on. “Applejack was your sister, but Twi... nrgh,” he slammed his fist against his thigh, “Twilight, she... she was my everything, okay?! My closest friend, my first friend, my big sister, my... m-my mo...” By this point, his tiny body was shivering so much that his knees simply gave out. He sank to the floor, but the twisted snarl never left his face. “You lost something. I lost everything.”
Finally, Apple Bloom took a tentative step towards him. “You’re wrong, Spike. Twilight may have been a lotta things to you, but she meant just as much to you as Applejack meant to us! And I know it hurts. Really, I do. I... I c-can still hear her voice in my head, you know?” The tears were now freely falling down her cheeks. “I can hear her saying goodbye the day of the field trip to Canterlot! And it hurts so bad that—”
“You can hear her?” he seethed. “I heard her. I heard all of them! I had to watch! You...” Another trembling breath, followed by another frustrated growl as his eyes sank to the floor. “You didn’t hear them all screaming in fear and pain. You didn’t watch the most important pony in your life explode into dust! You didn’t have to sit there helpless because that... nrgh, that stupid hunk of rock refused to do anything!” Spike threw his head up to stare her down again. “I hadn’t left Twilight’s side since I was five years old. Was that not loyal enough?!
“Every... everything reminds me of her.” He hiccuped, making him snarl in frustration yet again as the wetness in his eyes refused to dry. “And not just in here. I go outside, and I see the cafe we used to have lunch at sometimes. Quills and Sofas! Heh, she made me go there every other day. And now every time I open the door I see that stupid sarcophagus, and that stupid statue, some fake image of h-her staring at me!” The cauldron was bubbling at a fever pitch. He bit his lip. He tasted blood. “But I c-can’t leave... because this library, it’s...” his eyes flicked to the perfectly symmetrical stack of books, “it’s all I have left of her. So every day I’m reminded of Twilight. Reminded of what I lost.” His slitted eyes narrowed. “Reminded of her.”
“Her?” Bloom said, having retreated to the safety of her brother’s side. “Her who?”
“You know,” Spike began, voice wavering ever so slightly, “at first I was so excited that she survived. It was like some tiny part of Twilight was still alive. But then... she left. She made her little speech, spewed more fake words, got hugs and smiles and she just left! Everypony in pain, me in pain, and she just sails off into the sunrise! It’s... i-it’s her fault. It was all her fault!
“And I...” he took several heaving breaths before finally locking eyes with the filly, who gasped at the blazing anger in his eyes. “I... I-I hate her. I hate Rainbow Dash!" Spittle and froth flew from his mouth as he screamed. "I hate her for abandoning Twilight in the hedge maze! I hate her for not being here to stop her from dying! And I hate her for flying away from the pain! Pain she deserves to feel!” Spike once more slammed his clenched fist against this thigh. “I... I hate her so much, and...” he gnashed his teeth, shaking his head violently, “a-and I know Twilight w-would be so ashamed of me.”
That last statement hung in the air for an eternity. Spike’s harried breathing was the only thing to be heard in the library, until he rose to his feet with an annoyed sigh and turned his back to them both. “Look, just... just go, okay? Everypony just leave me alone!” He knelt down and roughly snatched the book he had dropped from the ground.
“No.” Apple Bloom’s firm and surprisingly loud declaration echoed. His teeth clenched, his whole body seething. “We’re yer friends, Spike.” His vision flashed red. “You’re in pain, and we ain’t—”
“I said go!” he roared, spun around, and launched the book at her.
Time didn’t slow to a crawl. The moment didn’t last forever. Nothing so dramatic. Spike had telegraphed the movement so much that Apple Bloom was easily able to dance out of the way, allowing the projectile to sail on and slam into the perfectly symmetrical stack of books that sat at a precise ninety degree angle from the corner of the wall, spines neatly aligned to within less than a millimeter, sending them all tumbling to the ground.
The muted thumps they made as they landed were an explosion. A deafening pressure wave. A scream of pain that echoed across the bare courtyard right before a brilliant explosion of light scattered purple ash into the wind. For several eternities, Spike felt nothing. No breathing, no pulse of blood through his veins. No emotion. Slowly, time reasserted itself. He first felt a tremor in his claw tips, one which spread up his arms and throughout his body. As if by a shock of arctic air, all the anger, frustration, and rage he had hid behind for the past eleven days slowly drifted away. Like dandelion buds in the wind.
Heavy hoof falls approached him. Right as his wide, hollow eyes were committing the exact positions of those books to memory, a pair of cherry red legs blocked his view. Big Macintosh let out a slow, heavy breath, then fell to his knees with a loud thud. He reached out with his beefy forelegs, and snatched the boy into a tight embrace. Spike’s hanging jaw trembled as a soft basso spoke into his right ear.
“It’s okay.”
The tears Spike had struggled to block for so long finally managed to break free. Mac yet again squeezed him, just enough to send a painful jolt through his heart. Spike began to hyperventilate, but these were no longer the heavy, seething breaths of a rampaging dragon. These were the tiny, shuddering gasps of a pony on the very edge. The cauldron in his chest roared with the intensity of an exploding volcano. Then, Mac spoke again, and this time Spike could just make out a tremor in his deep, yet gentle voice.
“Just l-let it out.”
It was over. Those four words blasted away what remained the thin veil of anger he had built, revealing a frayed, exposed nerve. His arms all but flew around the pony’s thick neck. Spike could no longer pretend, no longer hide behind the rage. He took a heaving breath, a whimper, a second breath, a hiccup, a third breath... and a piercing, wailing scream of agony and pain thundered through the cavernous library. Steaming tears poured down his cheeks as he buried his face into Mac’s muscled form, the dam fully broken as the lid exploded off that cauldron, spewing forth a week and a half of suffering with the force of an unstoppable tide.
Spike felt the tips of his diamond hard claws sinking ever so slightly into Mac’s flesh, but the work horse did not move away. As he desperately tried to draw breath under the weight of his wracking sobs, another body flung itself around him. Apple Bloom nuzzled in between him and her brother, her own tears joining the drake’s as fur and scale were both stained. “We’re here, Spike,” she mumbled. “You hear me? W-We’re right here, and w-we ain’t going nowhere.”
He had no idea how long they sat there, weeping, gasping, and sobbing. Could have been ten minutes. Could have been ten hours. Spike had fallen so far into the embrace that he couldn’t even check how long the shadows had gotten.
Spike gnawed on his lip. There was a nervous excitement in the air that made his scales itch. Muted conversations danced around the starlit garden, the laughter of ponies that were once strangers, brought together by tragedy. Ever since the Incident, they had all sort of unofficially agreed to meet with at least one member of another family every month or so, just to check in. Even with that bond, this was the first time all of them had been in the same place in a little over a year. Combine that with what was about to happen, and some frayed nerves were forgivable.
A little wave from across the way caught his eye. Hondo Flanks stood next to his family, Cookie Crumbles speaking with Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood while Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo nervously giggled. His eyes flicked down to something in Spike’s claws with a wry smirk. Looking down, Spike let out a huff and released the tight grip he had on his tail. He hadn’t done that in months. He rolled his eyes as Hondo snickered.
The voices of all their families merged in the air. Igneous Pie and Cloudy Quartz were sharing an awkward yet friendly conversation with Granny Smith, Posey Shy comforted a very nervous Gentle Breeze, and Pinkie’s sisters ran the gamut from terrified to furious to nothing, as per the usual. However, just audible above the din, Princess Luna spoke to a voice he knew all too well, despite not having heard it in a little over two years. A soft pillar of moonlight shone in the center of them from which emanated that scratchy, tomboyish voice, with only a slight tinny echo to it. Not bad, he mused, for being on the far side of the plane
Apparently Spike’s nerves were noticeable. A blue hoof tapped his shoulder, and Spike turned to see Night Light wearing a quietly excited smile. “You okay, kiddo?”
“Uh, yeah,” Spike said, giving a shaky nod to the stallion he was just a hair taller than. “I just—”
“If we may have everypony’s attention,” came the soft yet commanding voice of Princess Luna, and all the conversations immediately ceased. “We believe that enough preamble has been given, and that the main event should commence. Rainbow Dash? Art thou ready?”
“Yeah, I think we should, Princess Moon Moon,” Rainbow Dash said. “I think Pinkie Pie will explode if we don’t get started soon.” A quiet chuckle rumbled throughout the room. Even Maud cracked a tiny smile.
“Very well,” Luna said, turning to Spike and giving him a small nod. “Let us begin with somepony who specifically requested to speak to thee first.”
Spike had known this moment was coming. It was nearly a month ago when Princess Luna showed up at the library, offering a chance he never thought he would have again. He had a month to consider his words, to decide what to say with the precious time he would have, for he wouldn't get another chance. Rainbow Dash was just about to cross over to the Dark Side of the world, and she would most likely never return. Yet still, as the moment came, when Luna stepped away from the beam of moonlight and all eyes fell upon him... he froze. Every muscle in his body locked up, his fight or flight response screaming in his ear. He took a half-step forward, but made it no further.
“Hey,” Night Light said. “You can do this.”
Twilight Velvet gently nuzzled into his side. “We’re right behind you, sweetie.”
He gave them both a quick appreciative glance. Running his eyes across the garden, all the other ponies gathered smiled at him. Except for Limestone and Maud, of course. Steeling his courage, Spike took a deep breath and stood before the moonbeam. “Uh... h-hey, Rainbow Dash! It’s me! Spike... uh, obviously,” he said with a wince.
“Hey hey! Spike the Dragon Guy!” Rainbow’s voice came from the moonlight. “Heh, Twilight almost just had a harmony ghost heart attack over how deep your voice has gotten!”
“Yeah I’ve, uh... done a bit of growing,” Spike said, rubbing the back of his neck for some reason. “I’m almost eye level with Big Macintosh now. Plus there’s, you know... the wings,” he said, then rolled his eyes as he realized he was pointing at them.
“You better be practicing with those. I expect you to become the first dragon Wonderbolt! Anyway, you probably have a lot you want to say to—”
“A-Actually, Dash,” Spike interjected. “Before we get to... t-that, there’s something I feel like I need to say... to you.”
“Oh. Well, okay. What’s up?”
Spike took a deep, cleansing breath. “I... I want to apologize.”
“Uh, for what?”
“Okay,” Spike said. “So, shortly after you left Ponyville, I... I, uh...” He flicked his claws along his thighs, a nervous habit he was trying to replace the tail wringing with. “You see, the thing is... nrgh, look! I was hurt, I was scared, I was alone... I was angry.” Despite his best efforts, he found himself shying away from the moonlight. “I was very angry... a-at you.”
Now that the ice was broken, Spike found the words all but spilling out of his mouth. “I-I was convinced that it was all your fault. That you were the reason Twilight was dead. And that you left because you d-didn’t care. And no matter how many times everypony told me that you were under the same spell as the girls at the time, I refused to hear it. I... I-I hated you, Dash.
“But, eventually my friends,” he took just a moment to glance back at Night Light and Velvet. He had his arm around her, and they both showed him warm smiles, which he answered with a tiny smile of his own. “A-And my family, helped me see that I only felt that way because Discord was dead, and I... needed somepony to blame. Heh, I think Princess Luna used the word ‘projecting’ at some point. The truth is... you did everything you could given what was happening. It was just... a horrible situation all around. Discord was the one to blame, not you. And now that we know you’re on this destined quest older than time itself, maybe it...”
Spike let out a shuddering breath. “Still, you’re my friend, Rainbow Dash. You have been since the day me and Twilight came to Ponyville... and I spent a non-insignificant amount of time hating you for something that ultimately was out of your hooves. I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.”
The silence that followed was very likely the most tense and awkward Spike had ever experienced. For what seemed like an eternity, the only sound in the garden was a cricket in a nearby bush, blissfully unaware of its excellent timing. Right about at the point where he started to wish the spell had failed, a deep sigh echoed from across the world. “It’s okay, Spike. I honestly don’t blame you. Truth be told... I-I kinda hated myself for a long while there. In some ways I think I still might.” Dash took a deep breath, and Spike could all but hear the lopsided smirk he remembered so well. “Don’t sweat it, kid. Rain off a pegasi’s back.”
A seemingly literal weight lifted from his shoulders. He stood to his full height just as Night and Velvet walked up to him and hugged him from each side, which he reciprocated. “Thanks, Dash. You... y-you have no idea how much better that makes me feel.” Looking around, a sea of friendly faces, some with moist eyes, warmly smiled back to him. Spike heard Dash take a breath, and stiffened. “Uh, just... just one more thing, Rainbow?”
“Yo.”
Spike’s eyes clenched shut. Night and Velvet held him tighter as he spoke. “Um, I-I was also always afraid that... t-that if Twilight knew how I felt, she’d... be disappointed in me?” he asked more than said.
For some odd reason, the silence that ensued, while longer than the last, was nowhere near as tense. Eventually, Rainbow spoke. “Okay, through a whole butt load of tears, Twilight just said that you could never truly disappoint her, Spike.” A few moments later, she chuckled. “Uh, ‘except for the time when you were four years old and you ate Princess Celestia’s favorite diamond necklace’.”
Spike let out a snort of laughter. “Hey, she was the one who wanted to play dress-up and then basically put a giant piece of candy around my neck!” As a wave of laughter circled the garden, it finally struck him. The true weight and meaning of this night truly sank in. “Rainbow, she... she really is there, isn’t she?”
“Mm-hmm. And she’s got a lot she wants to say to you. What do you want to say to her?”
For several long moments, Spike gnawed at his lip. The past two years had been the lowest point of his life, and yet it had improved him in so many ways. He found a new family in the one he kind of always had, he made friends with ponies who knew his pain and helped him ease it as he did for them, he had decided what to dedicate his life to, and grown in every sense of the word. And now, he finally had the opportunity to speak with the one pony it was all for. The pony who mattered more to him than any. How could he possibly begin? Finally, a soft smile spread across his face as he moved to stand directly into the moonlight, gazing up at the stars.
“Twilight? I’ve missed you.”
