There Are Monsters at the Door
B_25
Outside the castle window, blackness swallowed the night, devouring its light, the sun and moon, covered by black paint. No stars twinkled. Not even a fire could be struck. The darkness consumed the struck embers before there was even a chance for them to light.
Princess Celestia had forgotten the shape of her throne before it was cast in a golden hue of flame. Her eyes—and the others in the court—settled on the raised torch of emerald flame. It lowered, tilted by the purple claw attached. Others held out their clubs as the fire spread across them all.
"Don't let the light go out," the dragon towering over the ponies said, with his other claw resting on the handle of his sheathed blade. "This is their world. They want everything to return to nothing. Even they don't really exist.”
"Then what are we supposed to do?!" one guard shouted among the many, shoulder to shoulder, golden plates grinding against golden plates. "I got to the gates before everything disappeared! There are others still out there! We have to—"
Spike shook his head and leaned back to his full height. "They're gone."
Another guard, in the sea of shifting ponies, bound toward him in anger. "How can you say that! How can you know? We haven't heard anything—seen anything." A blockage of guards blocked his path, but his forehooves shoved each obstacle aside, becoming closer to the still dragon. "Maybe, they're just knocked out! Or kidnapped! Perhaps something else that—"
The dragon clenched his eyes at the sadness that washed across his face.
Princess Celestia's heart suffered the same crack—although it was not for the fallen guards. She remained composed and frozen, allowing the scene to play, waiting for the right moment to intervene. However, she wished trouble had been led by someone else.
"We can't wish for the best because it makes everything and everyone feels better," Spike seemed to find the words after some time, although talking ceased to become his strength. He struggled to become something. To be something. Celestia's heart swirled at that. "Because if we're not careful, what happened to them... can happen to us."
The guard stopped at Spike's feet and glared up at him from the dragon's waist. "And, so what? Waving around fire is enough to keep them back?"
Spike's eyes twitched. "Dragon fire seems to be the only source of light here. Nothing else works. We have to go with the best we have."
Something pounded on the door.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Left to right.
Sloping up and down.
Before retreating.
Princess Celestia cleared her throat, and within a second, all heads were turned to her. She waited for the final pair of eyes to set on her. Then, she prepared to speak, and all else kneeled in the room.
"Sir Spike is correct in his assumptions," Princess Celestia began while closing her eyes, unable to trust what they would give away if they were to lay on him. "We are in a void that consumes matter and light. Even now, this castle is being chipped. If we are to do nothing and assume the best—soon, we'll become anti-matter as well."
None dared speak against the Princess.
Regardless of her words.
And even if their soul had come from another.
"Enchanted dragon fire can burn away the darkness and return some of what was there before." Princess Celestia shook her head slowly. "Do not be mistaken. What is around us is not the mere absence of light—it is nothingness itself."
Her head lowered.
"That which comes after death," she rattled. "What lies beyond the edge of the universe and, on its return to the center of existence, will cease all matter on its sweep backward." She breathed loudly and deeply, once then twice, evoking the room to catch in her tempo. "Somehow, a pocket of that void has been cast on this castle. We are unsure of the reach of its spread."
Even though order dictated to never speak to a princess unless expressed permission, the end of the world, their world, was enough to break decorum in the room.
A guard couldn't help but speak. "Miss? Was this the work of some villain? Or..."
Princess Celestia shook her head. "Unknown." Her muzzle lifted, and her mane flourished over it. "What we have, now, is a solution. The Elements of Harmony are working now on a spell to dispel the void. They need time." She exhaled. "And they might not have it."
Everyone in the room lowered their heads—far beyond when it was due for respect.
"I'll lead the first volunteers out."
Celestia's eyes shut at the words she never wanted to hear.
They reopened seconds later to the mass of guards across the throne room.
Many rose and joined behind the dragon, who led the way to the twin doors, resting a claw on one... before looking over his shoulder. His eyes were on her for a moment. Silent. Scared. Pleading. Was it fear of him going out? Or what might come in while he was away?
His eyes then jumped to the torches being mounted to the walls of the room and, with a heavy inhale, pushed open the door. He held his fire into the hall, burning away the blackness, showing the dimmed hallway.
Various holes of differing sizes appeared across the ground like ebony puddles. Puzzle pieces were missing from the window. A table laid before it, chunks of it gone. It stood, somehow.
Then the dragon went out, and a line of guards followed behind him, the last volunteer sealed out by the lingering cowards closing the doors. Monolithic doors groaned before a gust of wind sealed them shut.
And then there was silence.
Princess Celestia sat like that for a while. She closed her eyes as, for both a pony and a Princess, it was the greatest way of preventing one's tears. She wanted to say something to the dragon. To do something. But what? She couldn't zap a spell to cast the darkness away.
Those lingering in the room were scared, running low on hope, and unsure of waiting or beginning to panic. When they looked at the frozen, meditating Princess on the throne, it reminded them of the familiar—the comfort of a goddess's assurance.
Leaders set an example, offering others to follow, allowing all to get through the night and the next light. They needed to assert and assure order and morals—for those two always fell first, and all is made worse in their absence.
Even if the answer isn't certain, one's attitude can be, though many may struggle to find it—or maintain it. Hence why Princess Celestia was needed... and Celestia was not. The needs of the many cast on the surface appearance of the one.
Will he be okay?
There was nothing she could do to change that fact. He was skilled, trained, and endowed. He had needed nothing from her in all his great feats, and thus, their interactions were limited to whenever the next objective brought him to her.
What's a mother's hug to a developed dragon?
Magic sizzled in the air.
Celestia opened her eyes to see a scroll, burnt into existence within the hue of the green flame, slowly unfurling itself. The hoofwriting was of her student. The format, however, was new.
Princess Celestia,
I've found a way to return this void to the pocket it was sliced from. It'll take a bit to channel the proper energy to compose the spell.
Please hold out for us.
~ Twilight
The scroll dropped to the darkness beneath the throne, consumed by it, as the shuffling of footsteps came to the door. Celestia's heart pounded as the door cracked open—and a flood of troops trickled through. Implosions swallowed balls from their armour and flesh.
"I-It... it doesn't hurt." One guard was lifted in by two others at his sides. His hoof was set on the side of his face—which was no longer there. He spoke with only half his lips, each syllable a gurgle of spit. "It's no longer there. But it doesn't hurt. It's no longer there. But... it doesn't hurt."
The guards escorted him to the left wall of the throne room, of which he slid down, still pawing a hoof at his face, disappearing into the void. Suddenly, the wrist sunk into the abyss, his elbow following afterward.
It wasn't pulled.
But gravitated toward non-existence.
A purple claw clenched the guard's bicep and, gently and swiftly, yanked it out from the black hole. The stallion sat there, nudging his arm forward, waving a stump before his eyes. Then the stump drew toward the void—held back by the claw.
"Don't give up." Spike was crouched on a knee before him, while the guard looked up at the drake, the terrified half-thing that he was. "You might be scared, and doing so feels easier than enduring a nightmare—but don't give up."
The digits of his claw released from the stub, allowing it to retreat back... down at the stallion's side. He laid against the wall with the remaining half of his face against it. That was the way he would keep, and it would be the last he ever spoke.
"Okay."
Spike nodded himself before rising, struck by sudden pain, flinching at his ascension. He carried himself to the carpet with a claw wrapped over his waist. A mass of guards had gone out. Now, only a group followed behind him.
They stumbled to the throne and soon took the knee.
Their heads bowed for their next order.
I can't give it.
But you have to.
"It seems like the castle is free of beasts for the time being." Princess Celestia hummed at feeling the peace within the chambers. However, with her eyes closed, her detection picked up a disturbance below. "But I fear the monsters will sense the magic brewing from the Elements."
Her eyes opened to the sweep of subjects before her.
"Your next objective is to clear the way to the underground passage and ensure enough dragon fire is lit across the hall. Guards will leave the torches and return to me at once." Princess Celesta focused on the leader of the pack. "Is your next objective clear?"
Spike bowed deeper. "Yes."
Her cold face spat icy words. "Any objections, dragon?"
He faintly grinned. "None."
"Dismissed."
The dragon rose and turned and strolled across the carpet, those he passed, collecting behind him. They reached the doors and ventured out into the non-existent night. With a boom came the seal of closed doors. The Princess was alone again.
The guard murmured from the wall.
"Nothing wrong with curling up... curling up... curling up!" His lone had gone crazed as it flicked across the room. The twitching of his lip wiggled its sliced middle-section. His hoof caressed his phantom arm. "It's cold. And scary. You don't find warmth out there. None really help you. Just in the darkness together. Together. Except you're not really in the darkness. And none are together."
Princess Celestia blinked.
The guard slid his bottom across the ground until his arms—and stump—curved over his thighs. With his legs pointed at his face, he pulled them in, his soles, ankles, and knees sinking into nothingness.
"Once you have a bit of death about you... there's no getting rid of it! Stained and tainted and weighed by it! It collects and collects like a growing blob!" His laughter glimpsed the cosmos. The darkness took to his waist as he strained his stomach. "You stop being pristine so quickly! So you might as well disappear quietly!"
Then he hummed. Hummed and hummed while feeding himself to the abyss. It took him early in his surrender. Soon half of his belly had gone through, which struggled to rise from the ground, unable to reach the void of his face.
"The only comfort and warmth found in this life..." the guard spat with a crooked grin, "...is when you curl up into yourself!"
The guard crunched his head down and his waist up, the darkness eating everything to his chest, which lingered in existence. Laughter broke from him as his head and neck fell from the air, rattling on the ground, rolling to behind one of the columns.
The eyes of his rolling head settle on the Princess.
"And now I can't even hug myself!"
The head rolled behind the column, the laughter softening before it stopped.
Nothing came on the other side.
Silence lingered in the court.
What did a princess do? Be a mother to her country, and set the standard for her subjects. The guard lost himself to madness. Her silence was not out of respect to the non-existent. No! It was fear if the same were to happen to her dragon.
A mother brings her baby into existence.
It makes sense that non-existence would be their biggest fear.
Did your flesh birth his egg?
Did your magic hatch him?
What part did you play in the creation of his existence?
Princess Celestia looked aside with a hoof set at her chin.
Across the throne room, the doors groaned, pushing inward over the floor.
Few appeared through the crack, shivering and dashing toward the posted torches, keeping beneath the green flame without respect to their Princess. She allowed it without comment or acknowledgement. The darkroom glowed in the green ember.
Moments passed without words.
At the opening of the door, a claw passed through, as did the rest of a dragon, who limped inside, barely, not bleeding. Over his eye, an eye patch laid over it. He turned and pressed his shoulder against one door, one of the sleeves hanging down his side.
Spike's feet planted hard against the ground, his talons chipping the marble as he pushed the door shut. Once it was sealed, he carried over to the other, doing the same. He wheezed, buckling legs taking from the door and across the carpet before he succumbed to a knee a few steps before the throne.
Scattered across the room were the few that remained... those standing on three legs and seeing with one eye. Their heads, although struggling, soon bowed as well. Everyone was focused on Princess Celestia, the one perfect and above.
"I can better sense the conjuring happening below." Princess Celestia looked forward, over everyone, and at the doors. "The monsters shouldn't be able to stop us. With that being the case, we should—"
The low roar came like a lick on the ears. Its muddy presence filled the room, rising like a non-existent water level, elevating to the torches. Then, like licked fingers pinching a flame, each went out—not even puffing a wisp of smoke.
"S-Spike!"
The dragon rose before the call as his sharpened muzzle opened to reveal his maw. Emerald flame glowed at its back—before a jet exhausted across the carpet of the room. Panic slowly settled as the flame caught across the path.
But it was already dimming.
"Locate the monsters responsible for this!" Princess Celestia cried without leaving her seat. "Ensure it is dealt with before it finds the others! Is your objective clear?"
Nods from the remaining squad.
"Any objections, dragon?"
Only a shake of his head.
"Then go!"
The last survivors jogged out of the room the best they could, the familiar opening and closing of the door following. There wasn't silence this time, though. Celestia's eyes settled on the carpet, the fire burning across it. It cast all in an emerald hue.
You can't let him burn the castle.
I should be out there with him.
So you can save him? But you can't even protect him! Your exaggerated power is to ensure your subjects believe in you.
At least I can do something.
What? Disappoint them with your weakness? Ruin generations of expectations? Your magic will fail you before a monster, and ponies will see a princess bleed. You are their hope. And hope is only a mirage.
But I can be with him.
He doesn't need you. You can't offer him strength or support. He's already handled the beasts in his silence. What can you expect to add to someone who can do it all himself? Spike's independence doesn't require your dependence.
Princess Celestia sat on the throne, as the symbol that she was, aware that symbols were useless without others to recognize them. She didn't exist as one by nature. Rather, she embodied one.
Yet even though I am not his mother, I feel like I exist as one.
Keep your feelings to yourself.
The doors crashed open, and, this time, they stayed open. Nothing came through for a couple of moments. Then, from the darkness, a wiggling torso came through. The dragon wiggled on the ground, fighting to push himself up, clenching his abs to finally raise on his feet.
Celestia watched as he raised up, stomping and stumbling toward her, with his feet crossing into the wrong directions. Once he was at the steps of the throne, he lowered, bowing his head. "It's gone... and so are they."
Celestia lowered her head and, when a voice tried to speak within her, she ignored it.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
That dragon was taken by surprise. Looking up at her, he did his best to smile, though he lacked the strength to hold it. Then his head dropped as was the custom to a soldier before a captain. Celestia sighed.
"Are you scared?"
Spike's head bobbed up before he fought it back down. He worked his lips until they found words. "I... dunno."
Celestia blinked. 'You don't know?"
"No one has really asked me before." His eyes concentrated at the ground at his feet, though they looked around, needing to move in their confusion. "Everyone cares about every little thing about you when you're young. Then someday, it's gone. It doesn't matter if you're scared or not."
He dared to raise his face to the Princess.
"Do what must be done?"
Spike nodded at her words and lowered his head again.
Celestia took a moment to ponder everything inside and outside, the monsters in the halls and the one inside her mind. The spell neared completion within the depths of the castle. The dragon—her dragon—stood with fragments of himself missing.
Not vital fragments. His arms and legs and some of his face remained. Not enough gone that serious concern or care or something had to be done. But parts of him were missing. Flesh embodied his identity. Because he could go on without them, such things did not matter much, as he did not value it himself.
When a son ceases to personally value himself... who is left to change his mind?
If he did not have issues with chunks of himself missing... and the world around him felt the same... did those parts not matter? The world would gasp if Celestia lost some of her face. But not thought twice about the dragon losing himself.
"What is my order?"
Celestia blinked. Below, the dragon bowed deeper for having spoken out. She cleared her throat and looked at the doors. Something tapped on the frame. Tack-tack-tack. More joined the taps. Spreading up and down, side to side, across the colossal barriers.
Taps consumed the whole of the things.
The dragon.... Spike rose in a twirl, with a claw over the handle of his blade, ready to unsheathe. However, a clearing throat from behind stopped him. He glanced back at Celestia, and, for once, an expression crossed his face.
Torn sorrow.
"P-Princess?"
Celestia breathed through her mouth.
"Please... do not call me that." She shook her head and closed her eyes. "There are none left that requires us to pretend any longer. Do not give me that look. I'd rather we not pretend to each other, either."
Spike opened his mouth, looking at her and then the door, unsure which to focus on. Celestia's shoulders dropped in exhaling dread. Her mind cleared of voices and her body flushed of worries. Her feelings resumed her consciousness.
"Is it not a mother's duty to deal with the monsters at the door?"
Spike's mouth closed. His claw tumbled away from the sword. Turning away from the door, he came before the steps of the throne. He didn't bow this time. Rather, he looked up at her like a child with his parents so far away. "I..."
"Though I'm unsure if you even still require a mother's aid." Celestia looked to the door as it budged. Pushing a foot forward before swinging back. More force gathered against it. "You've carried yourself so well for so long. Quiet, focused, determined. You rarely speak about anything you need."
The door opened more.
"I thought that, by having you on the guard, that we would be closer." Suppressing tears twitched the corners of her eyes. "But more of that time together caused us to become more distant as a result. What I wouldn't do to have you as a son rather than as my personal guard."
Spike looked down and thought about those words. His eyes searched through the past to see what became alight in the present. The monsters behind the doors didn't hurry him. Rather, like a child, he looked up at his mother. "I didn't ever stop being that... C-Celestia. Those impossible tasks. When I did them... I... I was always thinking of you."
Celestia blinked.
"It's always been the thought of you that's gotten me through everything." Spike went on in his quiet, dark voice, one of a kid having found his vocal cords after a decade without use. "Princess. Mother. It didn't matter. So long as it was for you... I..."
He went silent after that. Now he turned for the doors. They opened enough to expose a crack between them. The frames fell back together but pushed open the same, the motion building to the monsters' benefits.
"Bathe this place in your fire."
Spike blinked and looked back. "M-Mom?'
"The monsters can't hurt you if this place is cast in your fire." Celestia nodded. "Do it. Set this carpet on fire."
Spike shook his head. "N-No. Twilight will be done with the spell soon. Everything can be reversed. But if the castle is burned down... if you are..." His eyes squeezed shut, and his muzzle wrinkled. It was the first time she'd seen him demonstrate pain.
But Celestia would be in far worse if more harm reached him. "I don't want to take the risk of losing any more of you. Castle can be rebuilt. And my time... is nigh on done." She bowed. "Please. You look so tired and weak. Won't you let a mother replenish you one last time?"
The dragon stood without motion for a moment. Then he removed his coat, all his clothing, and holding it in a claw—bathed it in a fire. Tossing the burning articles onto the red carpet, the green fire spread, building in size. It carried to the door.
It closed as fire licked across it.
Spike turned away from the flames as they cast a glow onto his back. Slowly, he ascended the steps of the throne, the distance showing him as a child. Celestia blinked to see him as the adult coming toward her. Weakness faltered throughout her; muscles failed to keep her together.
The dragon reached the throne and, curling into himself, rested between her forelegs.
The Princess was a powerless being. Her magic, strength, and flight could be rivalled easily if multiple powerful subjects gathered against her. Her army would turn if they didn't believe in the mirage that was the crown. She served her nation with speeches and signatures. It was hard to tell how well she raised each and every generation.
But as she discarded the regalia from her forelegs, the Princess became a mare, one that was a mother to the dragon. She tucked him into her arms the best she could, draping her body over his own, coming to rest into his scales.
Green fires burned across the room.
The dragon shuddered within her grasp.
"This is something you feared, isn't it? The dragon within, finally coming out, destroying instead of serving?" Celestia laid her head over his own, nuzzling into the sides of his spines. "To have this room engulfed in your flames as everything you protected then burns."
She cooed into his frill. "It's okay, my dear. It was the right thing to do."
Her forelegs crossed over his chest as she tucked him close, doing her chest to love him, to transfer her essence into him. All she could feel was the boy tucked beneath the scales. The one that grew up without being taught how to do so.
"I'm so proud of the dragon you've become," she went on as the room warmed. Flags and stripes, all burning away, tearing away the history of the place. Yet that meant nothing to the past being shared between them now. "Dragons are supposed to be greedy. Yet, you're always helping ponies. You never stopped giving yourself away."
Celestia felt herself shrink as she felt him grow.
Those missing parts, becoming regrown, as she became a part of him.
His health and strength, now returned, as she turned frailer.
"So many times you came to me," Celestia continued as the air around her warmed, "and I sent you on those impossible quests. You looked so big and strong when you walked away. Each and every time, I wanted to reach out to you. But you never appeared as though you needed a mother's hug."
Spike remained still.
"It felt rude to ask," he replied.
Celestia chuckled to herself.
Celestia felt tiny as the flames closed in. So small and weak and barely able to cling around the dragon that had been restored in her grasp. Her legs slipped away as she lay on her side, waiting to be taken in his flames. Instead, something settled over her, and she was taken into his arms instead.
The dragon curled around the filly, returning a little of the lot that he had taken, able to protect his mother from the approaching fires. Fires spread across the rest of the castle as the soft burning crinkled with sound.
Far below, a flash surged outward, as a spell reached completion.
Author's Note
Writers find meaning in umeant things.
(Get the irony?)
Fanfiction is the epitome of that. It's things possible within a material's premise... that's unlikely to happen inside its canon. Yet, if a fanfiction is written well, it feels believable to the reader.
I'm much the same. I might be the last person writing Spike ships (or even Spike stories) and could be the one few that still goes back to read past stories about him. When it comes to deleted stories about him, many of those stories are gone unless you know what to look for.
(One of these days, I'll compile a list of great-but deleted Spike stories for those interested)
A while back, in a quest to save money, I had decided to download a bunch of emulators and, looking at a list of the greatest games of all times, downloaded every classic that a 'gamer' should play.
This involved the Metroid series.
Metroid: Zero Mission sees Samus returning to her home planet, Zebes. She was raised by Chozos. Relics of them are left behind, which, as you can see in that photo, she curls into a ball into their palm. They then sit down, recharging her with their lingering strength, before powering down for good.
(Yes. I know you can go back, and they will refill you again. But this is more so needed for the game design than story purposes.)
I liked the idea of that. Distant/absent love for a daughter of these long-gone species. They offer a power-up of some sort as well. But it was more so Samus, curling into a ball, being held and refilled, that interested me.
I had this absent idea where Spike would come to serve Celestia in the future as a knight of some sort. He would be like John Wick in his silence and competence. Celestia would yearn to become close to him as a mother.
But with her son so well by himself—she never dared to intrude her feelings onto him.
The two ideas above are combined into this story.
It wasn't meant to be anything more than the above. Something was done to tickle my fancy and have an idea leave my weighted mind. I wish I had prepared to craft a plot that added a bit more 'oomph to the story. But, as it stands, it will serve well as a testament to that past desire.
Maybe, one of these days, I'll get it right, but, for now, at least it is written.
~ Yr. Pal, B
