Love Springs Anew

20 Years Later...
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Cadance flew through the cold without trouble, a shimmering veil of magic keeping her free from the burden of the weather. As she descended, she eyed the smoldering crater that became a local legend amongst the Crystal Ponies. "The Heart's Abyss" they called it, a black pit of sorrow dug out over the course of decades by one heartbroken dragon. And as always, on this very day, he was there, burning through the snow and melting the ground beneath him.

Every year on the anniversary of Rarity's death, Spike flew out here and cried for hours before unleashing all of his pain in an explosive wave of green fire. Without fail, he'd dug a hole nearly a kilometer wide and a hundred deep. The sheer agony in his heart was scorched into the very crust of the world itself now, and everypony who witnessed the crater or the sky's green hue could attest to the howling pain he carried.

Many wept for the Hero of the Crystal Empire, but none so more than the Princess herself. She'd been there, the day Rarity passed on. The day she couldn't save her. The horrifying visage of her crushed remains still kept her up to this day, even when Spike himself refused to hold her accountable. Even with his words, she felt no ease in her harrowed heart.

Until today.

As she set hoof in the ash, wingbeats behind her flapped up until another landed beside her.

A dragoness.

She turned to look at the Princess before wiping away her tears, the sight of the dragon eliciting a maelstrom of emotions. Cadance knelt down next to Spike's unconscious form, checking his pulse as she'd done every year now. His heartbeat was slow and steady, despite his clear distress, and she picked him up in her magic. The dragoness behind her rushed up to them, wiping his scales of soot.

"Spike..." she said aghast. "I... I'm so sorry."

Cadance grabbed them both and teleported back to the Crystal Empire, the only thing left in the crater being a rough diamond left in the center where Spike had wept.

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The sensation of spinning, falling, and emptiness came to Spike as they had consistently for the last two decades. He knew Cadance had found him and brought him back to the Crystal Castle as she'd done every other year. Waking up in a pristine bed instead of ash and misery clued him in on the trend early on. Nevertheless, it didn't make waking up any less painful. Every muscle ached, every bone creaked, and his head pounded furiously. Sitting up, he groaned and pushed the heavy comforter off, checking his surroundings.

Standing in the corner was a dragoness. He could tell it was a dragon from the shape of her wings and the tail slithering against the floor. It was too dark to make out much else, though, and his eyes hadn't adjusted properly.

"Can I help you?" Spike said, leaning against the headboard.

She nodded.

"Alright, what do you need."

"You."

Spike's heart froze.

With a single beat of his wings, he crossed the room and grabbed the visitor, her giant claws meeting little resistance as he grabbed the figure by her shoulders. His eyes glowed with fury as his grip dug his claws deep into her scales.

"S-spike, you're-"

"QUIET!" he roared. "Who are you!? Who do you work for!? I'm not falling for this!"

He turned and threw the intruder into the bed, his legs giving out after the throw. He slowly rose from the floor and glared at the shape as she tried to cover herself with the blankets.

"Chrysalis!? Is that you, or some other rogue Changeling!?" he growled.

"Spike, stop, I'm-"

"YOU'RE NOT HER!" he screamed, jumping at the bed.

His wings extended as his tail lashed about, smacking the curtains off the wall. As sunlight overwhelmed his vision, he landed atop the mystery dragon and found her wrists and legs. Gripping her hands and holding her ankles down with his knees, he waited until his eyes could see in the light. When he could open them again, they widened at the sight beneath him.

The dragoness in his grasp was bare of any clothes, her ample body completely naked to his gaze. Her alabaster scales glistened in the sunlight, the tone shifting from pure white to a darker shade with a hint of pale purple over her chest and belly, supple yet slim enough to easily entice any wandering eyes. His eyes shot up to the dark purple nipples, the hide matching the color of her wings' membranes, as well as the spines across her flicking tail. At the top of it all was a head of gorgeous royal purple hair, curled at the ends into a familiar coif. And the eyes...

Eyes that held a longing so familiar...

Eyes that carried a beautiful azure, reaching into his soul...

Eyes that betrayed her storm of conflicting emotions...

Eyes that belonged to a love he thought lost forever...

"Rarity?"

His voice was barely a whisper, the weight of the world a measly pin compared to the heft in his heart.

She smiled.

"Spikey-Wikey," she said, tears rolling down her scaled cheeks.

The two stared deep into one another's eyes for a full minute, crying out all the years of sadness as Spike's expression cracked, a smile finally splitting through decades of sorrow.

"Rarity!"

She said nothing, instead reaching up to kiss him. The sparks that rolled through them could have lit up Canterlot as they embraced, both dragons desperately holding on to one another as if their lives would end if they let go. The feelings they'd walled up finally came tumbling down, and all at once they sobbed tears of joy as they tried to make out. For an hour they simply cried and reveled in the embrace before they drifted to sleep, exhaustion wearing them down.

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"So..." Spike trailed off, examining Rarity's draconic form, "you... survived?"

Rarity's new form was clearly still somewhat alien to her, the former mare constantly fidgeting her tail and trying to tuck in her wings with her hands.

"Well, no, not truly," she said. "I do remember what happened... that day," she said with a shudder. "It was dreadful. One moment, I was conversing with Princess Cadance and then the next thing I knew, a rock had crushed my legs and I couldn't feel anything on my right side."

"So then... what is this?" Spike said. "Is this a dream? Because if it is, I don't know if I'll want to wake up. You hear me Luna!?" he yelled at the ceiling.

"No, no, it's not a dream, I can assure you. However, I was somewhat convinced it was at one point as well. You see," she said, sitting atop a crystal dresser, "it sort of began between when I had died and when... well, this happened. There was something odd, a feeling that I can't describe. In one moment, I was moving on to the Great Ever After, but the next, I'm surrounded by warmth. I felt, trapped, for lack of a better word. I could feel everything around me again, but it was as if all my senses were dulled like a pencil after Twilight's done with it."

Spike snorted, holding back laughter while Rarity blushed.

"Oh, I did so miss that," she sighed, smiling warmly. "Anyways, I had desperately clawed my way out of whatever it was, and it was like I was being overwhelmed in every sense of the word. I couldn't hear despite the noise, I couldn't see despite the light, and I couldn't feel much, despite the sudden cold that wrapped me like a silk blanket. It took me months before I regained full faculties of my awareness, and months more before I could truly recall... well, just about everything. It was like I had forgotten who I was at some point. My earliest memory like this was when I had found myself by a mirror in a boutique, and then I screamed when I saw myself."

She waved her arms around and made a swift spin in place, proudly strutting a leg out and running a clawed hand up her thigh, resting on her buttocks beside her tail's base.

"As you can see, I retained my Cutie Mark. I've no idea why, but I was somehow born anew."

Spike could only stare in shock and awe. The astoundingly beautiful dragoness before him, the perfect fusion of her previous pony form and the divine form of draconic beauty, was one thing. Something that made him drool and struggle to keep a pillow on his lap, but that wasn't what he was focusing on at the moment.

What mattered was what this was.

Another chance.

"So, I suppose I'm back."

Rarity took a more casual stance and cowered slightly under Spike's intense stare. She was starting to worry now. Before, when she had just spoken, he mistook her for some evildoer impersonating her to get their way with him. Now, however, with her somewhat ridiculous story that she still questioned herself? She doubted that he'd be so quick to accept her.

But she prayed, still, he would.

It was the only chance she'd likely ever get. Being reborn in a body that could finally keep up with him, in age and physical prowess, was a boon unlike any other. The little scrap from before did nary a scratch to her perfect scales, and while she could feel his anger then, she felt no actual pain. She knew only her heart could now, and she was hopeful that this time would be all she needed. Even if all it did was cement their friendship again, she could spend years alongside him, decades even, until he was ready to-

Spike rushed out of the bed, cast aside his pillow, got on one knee and took her hand.

"Marry me."

The two words echoed through eternity. Time stopped and all the stars in the universe ceased to shine.

To the two dragons, only this one moment existed.

Rarity blinked.

"Yes."

She muttered the word before her mind had a chance to comprehend what was happening.

Spike scooped her up and kissed her, carrying her into the bed so they may celebrate their reunion. Rarity decided that all of the drama, the talk about inadequacies and longevity, the life she'd lived until this point and the time she'd spent scouring the globe could all wait until another day. This day, only this moment mattered. In five hundred years, only this moment mattered to her. For this was the moment she'd been given the chance to live again.

For the chance to love again.