Unnatural Selection

Chapters

Manifest Destiny
Fallen Angel
Be Our Guest
Ugly Things
Breathe
Natural Selection
Question
Salt
Eyes
On the Dining Habits of Equus Carnivorus
Line in the Sand
The Other Side of the Bit
Hush Now
Footnote
Sick
Fall
Clear Blue Skies
Fire from Heaven
The Mask

Manifest Destiny

It took until after a brief, restless nap and the next sunrise for Spike to realize that he'd fled in the same direction that the other three dragons had been headed anyway. Applewhatever town, and eventually Everfree Forest, right next to Equestria. If he hadn't been too tired to care anymore, he probably would have turned and walked in any other direction. But because he WAS tired, and thirsty, and still kind of hungry, he kept on going forward. The three ponies from earlier never troubled to catch up with him, and neither did Garble or Frock, if the latter were even alive. Well, he was a little guy anyway. Easily to overlook. That was for the best.

The desert gradually became less loose sand and more and more hard-packed dirt baked by the sun into nigh-stoniness. He found a surprisingly short and gentle pass through a pretty big mountain range before long, glad to see no signs of it being used by ponies. How did ponies that couldn't fly get around in the desert? Oh, right, they had trains. As long as he watched out for train tracks he'd be okay. He stopped to sniff beautiful pink flowers blooming in cacti to calm his nerves and wipe away memories of poor Raggle, and it didn't really help him forget, but he did feel better afterward. Water was scarce, but dragons were used to going without for long periods of time. He thought he might be able to cut open a cactus for juice if he found a good stick or rock shard, if he had to.

Past the mountains, he saw what looked, at first, like boulders moving in the distance. As he got warily closer, shuffling from one rocky outcropping to the next, he saw shades of tan and brown, and furry textures. Tiny horns. Feathers, especially, vibrant white against the darker fur. They were hooved four-legged animals, but not ponies, thank goodness, for a change of pace. They were just buffaloes, and if he recalled correctly, buffaloes didn't have any grudges against dragons.

Maybe he could get some chow and a safe place to rest, or at least directions. The thought occurred to him to ask for help for the other dragons, but he realized that whatever had happened to them had probably already resolved by now. Either the other two had escaped or they were dead, and it wasn't his problem anymore, even if he still felt guilty about it.

He made his way over to them carefully, hands held up in the universal peace gesture. They seemed to be in the middle of preparing for something – lots of them were headbutting each other, others smearing paints over their faces. It looked kinda cool.

Even though he had to look pretty small by their standards, they noticed him almost immediately, and a group of three separated from the rest to gallop over to him. He just stood and waited, trying to look unthreatening (which was easy). They didn't seem like they were mad or anything, and there was one in between the two big ones, a much lighter buffalo calf, who was only a few times his size instead of a mountain of fur-covered muscles.

“Hey, dragon, no offense, but you really shouldn't be here,” the calf – a girl – called out, raising a hoof to wave away the clouds of dust caused by her pals. “We're kind of in the middle of a teensy war and stuff, and things are gonna get messy soon.”

“Whatta you mean, a teensy war? What would be a big war?” He winced as two buffalo a ways back headbutted themselves way too hard and saw stars. “You guys look fierce enough to me, and us dragons, we know fierce.”

One of the adult buffaloes snorted, sending visible puffs out to the sides of his nose. “Sure you do, kid. Yesterday I saw a buddy's head get almost completely torn off when an earth pony bit into his throat and started chewin' away. No magic, no wings, just one ferocious little bastard gnawing on something with at least five hundred pounds on 'im. You wanna talk to us about fierce, go check the cairns.”

Spike's eyes obediently followed the buffalo's gesture to the horizon, where small but numerous stacks of rocks were easily visible. A lot of them didn't even have bulges underneath the dirt or any sign that the ground had been disturbed. Markers for the dead who hadn't made it back from the last conflict. Which was most of them. There were dozens of rock stacks, scattered without order, as if each death had caught the buffalo completely by surprise and they'd just arranged a burial marker wherever there was an open space.

“That's enough, Stonehoof,” the smaller one chided. “He looks exhausted, we don't need to scare him, too.”

“Um, I don't mean to be a pain or anything, but I could use directions... a map, maybe... and if you have any spare food or water....” He almost cringed while asking, but with so many dead buffalo, chances were their supplies were pretty good, since there weren't many buffaloes left to eat or drink! “I'm sorry about your friends. So it's ponies, huh?”

Stonehoof and the smaller buffalo exchanged looks, while the third jerked at a order from one of the others in the distance and wheeled about to get to whatever his job was.

“Yeah. Ponies,” the smaller one said flatly. “We'll give you what we can, but you have to get going soon. It's best if you don't spend the night. We're pretty close to Appleloosa.”

The Applesomething Garble had talked about. That meant he was on the 'right' track, if he actually wanted to go through with the plan and find a nice place in Everfree with gems in it. And all he had to do was sidestep a warzone first, sweet, that sounded TOTALLY safe. Maybe he'd be better off coming up with another plan.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. If you can help me figure out where I am, I'm sure I can figure out where I'm going from here.” He offered a hand to the smaller buffalo, and his smile to the bigger one. “My name's Spike.”

Stonehoof rolled his eyes.

“I'm Little Strongheart,” the calf said with a sad, tired, but genuine-looking smile. “Come on, you might not find a lot of smiles here, but we can at least spare you a bowl of chili pepper stew. I wish we could offer you some turquoise, but... but most of it is under the cairns now.”

Between mushy (but delicious) bowls of stew and some informative dirt scribbles to help him figure out where all the major bits of local geography where, Spike felt much better and much more informed. The geography lesson flowed somewhat naturally into an unintended history lesson, too. Unfortunately, most of the area around was hard living and full of rocky precipices where it wasn't simply near-dead wasteland. The exception was a relatively fertile and inhabitable strip that went along in a much larger mountain pass than the one Spike had recently walked through. This strip was an important part of the stampeding trail of the buffalo and they'd been using it for generations.

Quite naturally, the pony settlers, when they'd come, had considered it prime real estate.

“After the first few fights stalemated, the Chief thought we should talk,” Little Strongheart continued glumly.

“I'm guessing that didn't work too well,” Spike said with sympathy, patting her back.

“Considering that they made him into a corn and pepper HASH and drank his blood with salt cubes afterward, I'd say so!” Strongheart yelled at him, her surprisingly hard body stiffening and twisting away from the gesture.

“I'm sorry! I didn't mean....” He wasn't sure what he'd meant. Or what he should say now. Spike's head drooped. “I'm sorry,” he said again, sounding as tired as Little Strongheart looked.

“No, it's... it's my fault. I'm the one who should be sorry,” she said firmly, eyes staring off somewhere into the distance. That was a soldier's expression, even if she didn't seem to be much older than him from a buffalo standpoint. “Things have gotten... hard... since he's been gone. We tried to avenge his death, of course. But they got smart. Transplanted full-grown apple trees they imported from their farms elsewhere. There's barely any gaps between the trunks now big enough for a buffalo to get by, which is why I've been seeing a lot more action lately. Scouting work, raiding. Any time we try to take the fight to them, they use the terrain to their advantage. And if we stay out here, they keep on getting supplies from their train line and coming out to raid us when we don't expect it.” Her dark eyes shifted back to him. “Nobuffalo wants to just give up and leave after all we've lost. But we'll die if we stay here. I can feel it. And that's why you need to go to wherever it is you're headed as quickly as you can.”

“Are you crazy? I can't leave you guys in this kinda bind!” Spike said, surprising himself at least as much as Little Strongheart. “I mean, I know I'm just a baby dragon... but like you just said, small size can sometimes be helpful too. If we stick our heads together, we can come up with some way to get you and your people out of this mess!”

“That's nice of you, but I really don't think there's anything you can do. Unless you can spit enough fire to burn down those apple trees, anyway.”

“Even if I could, which I can't, that still leaves you all up against a bunch of ticked ponies. Look, it's all about pride at this point, right? You're proud of who you are as a buffalo. You're proud of the ones you lost. You're proud of your traditions that the ponies are messing up. You're proud of how good you are in a fight and hate to just quit because of some dumb trees.” As he started talking, she'd seemed skeptical and a little offended at first, but the longer he went at it, the more her face smoothed over into bittersweet understanding. He smiled. “See, that's something us dragons totally get. Pride. It's not a bad thing. But it'll get you killed if you can't think of a way around it every once in a while.”

She seemed scared to be hopeful. “And what kind of way around it do you think we could possibly have? We can't just run away. They won't listen to me even if I tell them to.”

“This is going to sound crazy, but you guys don't have anything to lose, so you might as well try it, right? Maybe we can bargain up a peace with the ponies.” The idea of buffaloes and ponies living side by side in harmony had immense appeal to Spike for reasons he couldn't understand. “If we can just convince them that they'll lose too many ponies fighting you, and then convince them to give up something big enough that it makes up for the Chief's death, everyone can stop fighting... at least, long enough for you to make it through this part of the stampede trail.”

“You're right, that does sound crazy. But it's better than no idea at all, which is what we're working with right now. What could we get them to give up? How could we even convince them to surrender in the first place?”

“I dunno, maybe-”

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAW!”

The multithroated cry split the air as though the source had just popped out of thin air right next to them, and Spike jumped and clutched onto Little Strongheart's back in a panic as he looked around wildly. The yeehaws were quickly followed by more generic hoots and hollers, high-pitched, joyously chaotic sounds that would have made a pack of rabid hyenas envious. With them came thundering hooves. Spike figured out what it was before the call from the furthest buffalo came in to confirm it.

“Ponies! Everybuffalo scatter!”

“Don't let them lasso you!” Strongheart yelled urgently, and it was a second before Spike realized she was talking to him, as she bucked and ran, her charge frequently interrupted by random pivots to the left or right.

He clung to her back for dear life as the world became a big mess of buffaloes and hat-wearing ponies rushing each other, performing dangerously tight dodges, snapping with teeth, lashing out with hooves, and just plain old lowering their heads to ram. It was a smaller pack of ponies than it looked at first, Spike realized – Little Strongheart's occasional aerial maneuvers, scary though they were, definitely gave him a good vantage point of the battlefield – and they had to keep moving at top speed, kicking up huge clouds of dust, to keep their offense from turning into a defense. They spread out as much as they could to make themselves seem a fair match for the buffalo, but converged whenever a buffalo got between them, briefly focusing all their aggression on anybuffalo that tried to exploit the supposed weakness of their loose formation.

Still, Spike would have thought the buffalo, with their size and numbers, to not have any problems handling it, until he saw the lassos Strongheart had warned him about. Coarse rope hoops whizzed through the air as sharp as whipcracks, tripping up hooves and lashing out to blind eyes or snap at faces distractedly. Worse yet, the ponies seemed to go out of their way to take advantage of the cairns to flee to whenever they were hard-pressed. Spike was reminded of what Little Strongheart had said about the apple trees as he watched the small, lithe ponies dodge through the rock piles with ease, not going out of their way to knock the things over, just mocking the buffaloes with their very presence in the area, while the buffaloes tried in vain to get at the ponies with their much bulkier, less agile bodies while simultaneously not disturbing the resting places of the dead.

It seemed to be a stalled fight without any serious injuries until two separate lassos just happened to catch onto Stonehoof from different directions, one settling around his midsection while the other settled on a leg. They both pulled fast immediately, and just kept on pulling, until the buffalo lost its leg with a scream that was as much rage as pain. Stonehoof's leg went flying through the air right in front of Spike and Little Strongheart, a tip of exposed, bloody bone skittering over their heads and off into the distance.

“WAAAAHOO, THAT DARK MEAT THIGH'S MAH FAV'RITE!” one of the ponies called out cheerfully as they reeled in their trophy and started arguing over whether to grill it with tomato barbecue sauce or mustard barbecue sauce.

Spike really, really couldn't blame Little Strongheart as she screamed in rage and lunged forward into the thick of it all as the ponies drew back into the cairns yet again. Instead, he just lowered himself down more firmly into her body and clutched more tightly at her fur, wishing he could be useful. Oh, to breathe fire, he would show these crazed ruffians a thing or two!

She jumped entirely over the first cairn in the way to land on the back of a surprised pink pony, knocking its ten gallon hat off as she stomped on shoulders and spine with a painful-sounding double thud. The pony, as far as Spike knew, was the first pony-side victim of the skirmish, and wailed in agony, tears streaming wetly down its face as it collapsed. Spike flinched as Strongheart, without the slightest hesitation, dropped her head to bite into the incapacitated pony's jugular and tear it open in a spray of red, spitting out the blood with clear disdain in the direction of the other ponies. Some of them cried out what was probably the pony's name in mixed anger and distress, but Spike's blood was boiling in his ears too much for him to tell what the name was.

A lasso came whistling for her, and Spike screamed out a warning. She dodged it just in the nick of time and he breathed a sigh of relief... that stuck in his throat as a second lasso came from another direction and settled to tighten around her neck. Little Strongheart choked and gargled as she was violently yanked and dragged off away from the other buffaloes, upsetting several rock stacks in her flailing desperation, unable to get to her hooves, her belly and sides hissing against the ground in agonized friction.

She couldn't breathe. The rope was too tight, and already Spike could tell her neck was going to be bruised like anything. It wouldn't take much before... before....

No! He was a DRAGON, and he was proud of it, and he was not going to allow this to happen! Maybe he couldn't fight, but he could at least save a buffalo calf!

Spike sank fangs and claws into the top of the rope, gnawing and scratching while his heart pounded, sure that any moment another lasso would come for him, or a pony would just trot over and smash him flat. Poor Little Strongheart, who had been so hospitable and so brave at the very worst of times, was being dragged very fast, too fast for the other buffalo to keep up with – there was that 'size' thing coming into play again, this time to her disadvantage.

Dang it, Spike, if you aren't going to do this, who is?! No one! Are you going to let her die because you can't beat up a stupid ROPE?! Her neck was supposed to be orangey-yellow, not red and swollen, and not blackening to purple, no no no....

The stupid rope was stronger than he was. The smart thing would have been to run. Just like he had with Raggle. Raggle, who was dead, like she would be dead.

No. Not yet. He wasn't ready to give up on her yet! Well, if Spike, if you can't take out the lasso at point B, there was always point A!

Wondering at what point he had gone completely nuts, Spike scrambled along the taut rope, glad that dragons were generally as good at moving on all fours as they were at moving on two legs. The air howling past him like a mad thing, taking the landscape at it at a dizzing speed, he skittered his way up to the other end. The part the stallion pony was clutching in its mouth.

“LET HER GO YOU JERK!” he screamed, swiping claws at the yellow pony's flank, which had a long leather vest draped over it. This was pretty much the opposite of what he'd done to survive his whole life so far, but no backing out now.

The pony whinnied and laughed at him, shaking his head and mane, and the rope with them. He swiped again, hard enough to get through the vest, but still only left bare scratches on the cutie mark, a red apple with a worm peeking out of it. Anxious of every passing second being agony to a Little Strongheart who might even already be dead, he hissed the serpentine battle cry of a young, ticked off dragon and jumped directly onto the pony's back. Then, in his desperation for anything that would work, he did something he'd never done before: he bit into flesh. Even baby dragon teeth were more than sharp enough to do some damage – and why not, after all, he crunched gemstones easily enough, and ponies weren't nearly as hard as those. He felt the blood pump into his mouth with the pony's heartbeat, tasted it through the sweat and dirty fur, and only bit down harder, feeling his teeth slice through meat. So easily. So easily. Was this what it was like for ponies? Right now, he was too angry to care. Little Strongheart had been nice to him!

“TARNATION, THAT SMARTS!” the pony screamed out, letting go of the rope as he did so. “TALK ABOUT A MEAL WITH A BITE TO IT!”

He laughed wildly and shook until Spike went flying into the dirt... headfirst. Spike had just enough time to realize that he was blacking out, and that he probably would never wake up, before it actually happened.

Getting the chance to wake up was a pleasant surprise, but his awful headache was doing a great job of putting a dent in his joy at being alive. In the middle of that throbbing, he heard a metallic sound, over and over. Schliiiiiink. SchliiiiIIInnnnk.

Spike opened his eyes and wasn't surprised at all to find himself staring at the yellow stallion from before, in the middle of sharpening a butcher knife on a big whetstone. They were in the midle of a not-quite-kitchen, sort of a shack with half the tools of a kitchen, including a counter, along with half the accessories of a jail cell. Iron bars were between Spike and the pony, and there were no windows so it was tough to tell what time it was.

“Where's Little Strongheart!” he yelled, instantly regretting it as it sharpened the pain in his head. He clutched at his face blindly before shaking it off.

The pony, seeing he was awake, put down the very big, very sharp, brown-stained cleaver and turned over to him. “Well, landsakes, you sure got up from your nap soonin' than we was expectin'! Maybe you can do us a solid, though, since you're present an' accounted for in all mental respects,” he went on cheerfully, peering over Spike with brilliant green eyes.

“I doubt it,” Spike growled, walking backwards to the other side of his cell and tripping over a bit of splintered bone in the process.

“Now now, that ain't how appetizers behave 'round here in AaaaAAaaAAppleLOOSa!” the pony hollered with grinning patriotism. “Don't you worry none, this ain't much of a headscratcher. All we wants to know is if'n you have any ideer what goes well with dragon. See, we're plain, unassumin' ponies round these here parts, and we don't have much experience in eatin' critters like you. Some folks think you'd be best with a nice tomato barbecue, an' others wanna stuff you with apples and pan-fry you with a fancy dee-jon sauce. Me, I'd say cactus pear an' onion shish kebab, on account of that bein' how we cook them rattlersnakes, but we're really just fishin' without bait here, if'n you catch my meanin'.”

“And exactly what am I supposed to get in return for telling you how to eat me?” Spike asked tiredly, flopping in the middle of a heap of leftover skin, fur, fleas and bones with a clatter. Mostly buffalo parts, but bits and pieces from the larger local birds and some coyotes, too. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, as far as death cells went. No entrails or anything really gross – 'waste not, want not' was a maxim most ponies lived by.

“Weeellll, I could just lop off your noggin, if you're so kind as to be cooperative. Nice and quick, no pain, no fuss. Or if you'd rather be a stubborn lil thing, we could just start with the tail and work our way up.” The pony shrugged, his vest rippling enough to let Spike notice the pristine white bandage patch job that had been done to the bite wound. “Makes no difference t'me, it's all in your sav'ry-lookin' hands to decide, pardner.”

Spike wondered if there were mice in the cell with him, because the bones and other rubbish seemed to be clacking around a lot. Then he realized it was just him trembling. Funny that you could be so scared and not even feel it inside. He didn't want to die. But, either way, he wanted to know that the poor buffalo girl was safe before whatever happened, happened.

“I'll tell you the best way to eat me, so I'll be all yummy in your tummy, if you let me see Little Strongheart and promise me you'll let her go. That's fair, right? A meal for a meal!”

The pony laughed and reached through the bars with a hoof to do... Spike didn't know what, because he wasn't going to step away from the far wall, and after a moment the pony figured that out and pulled his hoof back.

“Well, aren't you just a hot lil thang for a cold-blooded varmint. You're referrin' to that little buffalo girl, am I right? Yeahhhh, that's a trade that just can't happen, sorry. She's got at least a hundert pounds on you, pardner. But we ain't cruel here in AAaaAAppleloosa, we'll be happy to let you chat with her before you're both served for supper.”

“Swell,” Spike said sarcastically, picking up a snake skull and opening and closing its mouth. Its head was shaped eerily similar to his. Then a new feeling of outrage came over him. A little detail he'd known for ages but hadn't even thought to ponder before now suddenly became amazingly important. “Hold on a minute, why do you eat EAT meat in the first place?! I mean, you just told me you eat vegetables too! Why don't you just eat pineapples and potatoes instead of buffaloes and dragons and everything else that isn't a pony?!” He threw the skull at the pony, and it shattered into countless pieces against the bars. Bars which he was only just noticing had numerous scratch marks on them, as though things had tried to claw or bite their way out.

The yellow pony sat down and adjusted the tilt on his personal version of the hat that all the local ponies seemed to wear. “Well, that there is what my cuz Applejack would call a right philosoph'cal noggin nagger,” he said thoughtfully, clacking his hooves together. They had a deeper ring to them than most hooves due to the horseshoes, which were ringed on the edges with small twisted spikes like metal burs. “Why do we do it? Why do ponies take what they can when they can? Why do they hunt when there's plenty in their stores, or eat when they're not even that hungry, or pluck a nice, juicy buffalo calf out of a herd even though there clearly ain't that much fight left in 'em?”

Spike bristled but said nothing.

“I reckon every pony has their own answer to that their question, and which answer you get'll depend mightily on what kinda pony you're askin' it to. But for me an' for good ol' Appleloosa, it's all about one thing.” The stallion leaned closer, his eyes seeming to pierce the distance between them with their alertness, the perception of a hunter who'd lived rough on the brittle edge between civilization and wilderness, and learned to love it. “They call it... manifest destiny,” he said almost dreamily, like he was referring to a girlfriend or idol.

“Who with the what now?”

“Manifest destiny,” the pony repeated with narrowing eyes, irritable at being interrupted from his mood. “Ain't you got no poetry in your soul, pardner? Manifest destiny is the ideal all ponies should strive for! It's the magic that lets us all, unicorns, pegasi, but 'specially earth ponies, be fruitful. Multiply. Till the earth and make it our own an' spread out from there like a bee-yoo-tee-full tidal wave of life, unstoppable in our humble brawn and honest as the day is long. Why, if I opened this here cell door and trotted you out for a looksee of our town, I'm sure you'd be amazed at what we've accomplished here, all while under constant threat of attack from those tasty buffalo. Mmm, I tell ya, the way they go with ranch dressin' is just gobsmackin'... oh, pardon me, where was I.”

“Y'see, it weren't always like this.” The pony gestured around them. “Nice an'... civilized. Why, you can't see it now, but there's a thrivin' industry right here in Appleloosa. Salt-lickin' parlors, square dancin' circles, pianey teachers, buggy haulers, gardeners, plow pullers, carpenters, blacksmiths, miners, weavers, jewelers....”

He went on like that for ages, until Spike finally tapped his claws meaningfully to get him to hurry up.

“...and jacks of all trades like m'self,” the pony finished, tipping his hat in Spike's direction. “Why, we've even got a train station, you might've heard! Our pride'n joy. Now, do you see any of that kind of thrivin' industry going on with them there buffalo? Or your feller dragons? With the griffins, maybe, or the, heh, hydras or manticores or timber wolves?”

Spike shook his head meekly. He didn't actually know that much about griffins, and the buffalo seemed perfectly civilized in their own nomadic way, but there wasn't any point in interrupting when the pony so clearly wanted to build up to a point.

“Exactly! Nowhere else in the world has magic, good old-fashioned stick to it-iveness an' sweat drippin' off your brow come together to create somethin'... well, somethin' magical, quite frankly. Over in Equestria everythin' is just dandy as the spit shine on a fresh-polished horseshoe. We're honest in word an' deed, kind to each other, generous with our humble belongings, loyal to a fault and full of laughter as we make it through the day. Appleloosa is still pretty rough around the edges, but as we settle in some more and really spread that good ol' pony magic around, it'll soon become the busiest, most hardworkin', productive and downright pleasant little outpost in this wasteland you'll ever see. Course, the wasteland don't have to be here indefinitely neither, that's what the Princess's magic is for, but t'ain't no sense in nibblin' dessert before you've had your main course, am I right?”

“You're making that up,” Spike accused the pony, who wasn't at all phased by it, just blinking his green big green eyes innocently. “No place could possibly be that good!”

“Have you ever seen it? Pardner, have you ever even seen the outside of APPLELOOSA yet?”

“Well... no...” he was forced to admit.

“Then maybe you should consider the possibil'ty... just the possibil'ty, mind you... that I'm not speakin' with a forked tongue here. Although them tongues are suuuuhhhh-weet if you fry 'em with jalapenos and a lil honey. Now, t'ain't your fault if you feel left out! It's just how y'are. How you were raised, prob'ly, but more importantly, how you were born an' bred.”

“Hey, just because ponies have lots of, of buildings and things doesn't mean they're all that! Dragons can do stuff ponies can't do! Like breathe fire!”

“Actually, we've got some yoo-nee-corns that specialize in that there kinda magic back in Canterlot.”

“...and fly...”

“Pegasi.”

“Right, right. Well, we can eat gems!” Spike finished hotly, flushing while the pony just looked and looked at him with a condescending, almost sympathetic smile.

“How's your letters, pardner?”

“My what?” He blinked in confusion.

“Can you read or write?” the cowpony asked with an air of distinct pity.

“Well... no... nodragon ever taught me... but....”

“Everypony in Appleloosa that's older'n a wobbly tot can at least put their name to parchment,” the pony said calmly. “Most of 'em a good bit more'n that. Y'see, pardner? While you're eatin' your rocks and dreaming about a hoard of your own, scratchin' somethin' out of nothin' away from the rest of your kinfolk, us ponies are workin' together. Buildin' history. Can you feel it, pardner?” He leaned in to the bars a bit more, and Spike shuffled around in the corpse debris with aimless nervousness.

“Could you feel it when you bit into me and tasted the blood pumpin' through these here veins? Everypony, each one of us, is part of something greater than his or her self. You nonponies, you just lack the intellectual capac'ty for greatness. T'ain't nothin' wrong with you, you're a fine, brave young dragon, and smart as a whip, too, if you don't mind me saying so. But you're still a dragon. An' dragons don't build proper empires. We're laying the way to paradise one brick at a time, lil guy, an' ain't nothin' gonna stop us now. But there's a place for dragons, too! Dragons and griffins and buffaloes and all the nonponies. As our food, you become part of us. You'll be used to fuel our bodies as we build the greatest things this world has ever done seen. By bondin' with our flesh, our blood, you'll finally become part of somethin' greater than yourself, somethin' that's really meaningful. It's your destiny to be prey. It's our destiny to eat you and our duty to use that life force and make you greater than yourself. Do you get it?”

For a few moments, black thoughts drifted through Spike's head. Shame about how he'd never really learned any skills except for those necessary to survive on his own. Frustration that his fellow dragons, while strong and brave, always seemed to be lacking some specific, important thing that he could never put his claw on. A nameless longing for a thing that he was unable to describe, only knowing that as he kept moving from place to place, it was never what he was looking for. An emptiness inside, like an empty stomach, but without any food for it. For those moments, Spike actually stopped to wonder, with a chill deep in his spine (and for a feeling to make a dragon cold, it had to be pretty icy), if maybe the ponies were right. If he, if every nonpony thing was just inferior, and that they best they could be was to be a meal for creatures wiser, more magical, more harmonious and industrious than themselves.

He'd never thought such things before. Why would he? Ponies had always been alien, monstrous things that seemed to attack, hurt and kill without warning or need. Spike had adapted to them like every living thing had, by treating them like unpreventable natural disasters. But what if it was more than that? What if there was purpose? What if they really were better, and this was just how things were meant to be?

Then he remembered ugly choking sound Little Strongheart had made as the lasso had tightened, the knot against her throat, and those thoughts incinerated themselves.

“I get that you're so stuck up that you think you have the right to kill anything that's not a pony without thinking about trying to help it, that's what I get. If you're so great, why don't you teach dragons how to write, or buffaloes how to make train tracks, or whatever? You're not better, you're just selfish!”

The pony blinked rapidly several times, his face going through several expressions that Spike couldn't really make out. Eventually those eyes widened with a glint of something like jubilation blurred into mania. “Why, mister dragon, isn't that just the silliest idea I ever done heard! Teachin' non-ponies to act like ponies, hah! Why's it's, it's so plumb crazy it's like you done plucked it out of my ma's book a' fairy tales.”

“You're just saying that because you've never tried. And if you admitted it,” Spike went on with a cold smile aided by his rising certainty, “that'd just make you a terrible pony for all those times you didn't give them the chance, wouldn't it? So you're not going to admit it.” His eyes narrowed. “You coward.” As a well-honed coward himself, he knew his own type.

“What's your name, pardner?” the pony asked as sudden and intent as a bullet shot, all his joviality melting away into pure seriousness.

“Spike,” Spike said, mostly to keep from being called 'pardner' again.

“Pleased to meetcha, Spike. I'm Braeburn. An' I want you t'know, pony to dragon, that we're on the up'n up here. Why, if ever a single soul showed even a sliver of aspiration to the greatness of ponydom, it'd be our solemn duty, wouldn't it, to lend 'em a helping hoof on the way to enlightenment!” He took off his hat and held it in front of his chest. “In fact, Her Princessness as my witness, I'd be happy t'make that offer to that juicy little buffalo girl we hauled back here. Assumin' she hasn't been made into stew meat or some such yet, anywho. Bit of a touch'n go on that, frankly,” he added with a shiny grin.

“Well what are you waiting for?!” Spike screeched, jumping the length of the cell and latching with all fours onto the bars, causing Braeburn to stumble back in surprise. “Come on! Your Princessness as your witness, I bet we can figure out a way to resolve all this dumb stampedey stuff if we just sit down and talk with each other!” He groaned and dropped down, stumbling dizzily as his headache started to surge back. It was tough being self-righteous. He hoped she was still alive. He hoped, he hoped, he hoped.

He'd been hoping that Braeburn would've been dumb enough to just let him out with no catches, but Braeburn wasn't half the idiot that cowboy accent had led Spike to believe. Even before opening the cell door, Braeburn had passed through the bars a set of cuffs that were treated with some chemical coating that would even break dragon teeth. Then Spike had to pass them back because they were too big, and they went through four more pairs of cuffs before they found a pair that would fit without sliding off. A similar pair of cuffs went on his legs, so he couldn't run – not that even his best running speed was exactly a match for any pony's, particularly the kind of earth ponies they had here.

“Poor nutrition,” Braeburn commented mildly as they tried different restraints. “Stunts your growth. Wouldn't find that in a pony, not with family takin' care of family an' makin' sure of a square three meals a day.”

Spike grumbled meaningless broken syllables but made no more protest than that as he followed Braeburn outside.

The very first thing that met him as he stepped outside was a random pony yelling 'Don't make the food exert itself too much, now, you'll toughen up those beefy thighs.' It was met with much laughter from the other ponies nearby. Braeburn just chuckled and shoved Spike along with a pat on the back while Spike was busy glaring.

Ponies were like that. They played with their food, and the food often played back, just to stay sane while hoping for escape. Because when someone talked to you, you talked back. When someone joked at you, you joked back. You got offended when they insulted you, as if their opinions mattered, and acted like they were just regular fellow living beings, not eternally hungry predators that feasted on anything they could catch. Dragons might not have had that oh-so-great civilization stuff that Braeburn boasted of, but anything that could talk had instincts that were a lot deeper, more basic, than that. Instincts towards... conversation.

When it came right down to it, it was hard for Spike and, he thought, for most people to treat ponies like irredeemable, merciless enemies, which was why it seemed so cruel that ponies had zero problems taking advantage of that. It reminded him of a traveling caravan he'd once seen that'd included a griffin family. They'd kept chickens in cages as food supplements the way Spike carried around a few spare gems when he had the chance. The chickens had been too dumb to even know they were included on the menu, and responded happily to the idle pats of griffin claws and tossed corn like any lazy, well-fed domesticated creature would. Even as their numbers grew fewer and fewer, they could never do more than cluck mild protests, unable to put two and two together – and even if they had, what could they do about it? They were chickens.

But were ponies irredeemable? Braeburn hadn't shown any shame or regret so far, but maybe just the willingness to talk it out would be enough. Maybe he and Little Strongheart could both get out of this alive, and with Braeburn to cooperate on the pony's side, issue in a new era of peace. Yeah. All that from one little dragon's angry-scared random babbling. That was totally going to happen.

Spike snorted and choked on a fragment of passing tumbleweed.

It was still mid-day, plenty of light although the sun was starting to head in the direction of evening. Appleloosa wasn't exactly as glorious as Spike had expected from Braeburn's description, but it certainly had a lot of different wooden buildings, all of them dedicated to different, seemingly important things. Maybe if he'd been able to read the stupid signs he'd be more impressed. Down the main street to the left, he caught an eyeful of the apple trees Little Strongheart had talked about, a viciously green field with row after row of trees, more than he could count, evenly spaced with the rows staggered to prevent straight movement through them.

Braeburn saw him looking.

“Yep, that there's whatcha call a fine specimen of agriculture,” he said proudly, hefting his chin. “Ponies don't need fruit, but we like 'em. All part of bringin' order to the earth, and who better than earth ponies for that, yippity-doo-daw. Cousin Applejack just planted the latest sapling last week. She loves them trees so much she even names 'em. Last one was called Bloomberg, have you ever heard a' such a fanciful thing in your life? Full of imagination, my cuz.” He chuckled fondly.

Spike thought that through, and also thought about two unicorns who'd given up the ground to follow a less than ideal navigator into the sky.

“You sound like you care about each other. Other ponies, I mean,” he said as they passed a group of ponies in black formal wear (had to be mad hot in this climate, but whatever).

“Care about each other?” Once again, he'd genuinely surprised Braeburn. “Course we care about each other! Why, look over yonder!”

He pointed a hoof at the black-clad ponies. Spike looked closer, saw they all had their hats clutched to their chests, except for one pony who was sobbing into her hooves with her hat – the only one with a black veil – still on. Through the constant murmur and bustle of Appleloosa's extremely busy and somewhat rowdy daily routines, he made out one particular voice emerging from the ponies he was looking at. A strong, solemn voice. Still, he only got fragments of it.

“...to the ground... earth to earth, ashes... certain hope....”

“That there's Lariat Swish's fun'ral,” Braeburn clued Spike in, holding his own hat to his chest briefly out of respect. “The one your buffalo friend stomped and bit up real bad. We could've saved 'im if she hadn't gone for his neck like that, but once the jugular goes, it's all over. His widow's takin' it awful hard, though not as hard as some I've seen.”

'He deserved it,' is what Spike wanted to say and did not say.

“Maybe he didn't have to die,” is what he actually said. In hope of peace. In hope of... anything other than being dinner, or running from being dinner, for the rest of his life until he grew big enough to just fly away from all these scary ponies and hide deep in a cave somewhere.

“Maybe,” Braeburn said thoughtfully, looking the dragon over in an inspecting way that made Spike fidget despite himself.

Little Strongheart was in another little shack much like the one Spike had been in – with the notable difference that it was A) heavily reinforced, and B) rattling regularly from violent, steady thuds.

Spike grinned.

Man, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so happy to hear a constant stream of vaguely-intelligible curse words. Buffalo swears were weird.

Angry Little Strongheart was good. It meant she was alive and had the energy to waste on silly little things like being mad. Not to mention attempting a breakout! That was one tough freaking buffalo girl.

“A right firecracker, that one,” Braeburn muttered, grabbing his ring of keys and unlocking the mini-prison's exterior door.

Strongheart's furious, panting expression lasted just briefly before she managed to interpret through her rage and actually see what was in front of her. “SPIKE! Let him go, you monster!”

“Now that ain't no way to start up an amicable conversiculatin',” Braeburn objected gently, closing the door behind them and (Spike couldn't help but notice) locking it. “You may not believe it, but it's your lucky day, miss... Strongheart, ain't it?” he addressed the buffalo whose purple-bruised neck still had a vein visibly pulsing in it. She looked ready to jump through the bars and eat him, given the chance.

Little Strongheart didn't even say anything. She just snorted repeatedly in that way that seemed inherent to buffaloes, staring with her head half-lowered, full of pent-up aggression that was probably covering over fear. Spike was relieved to see that her tough hide had protected her from the worst of the sand burns, although it hadn't done much for her neck, and she sported a nasty gash on her side that was probably from being dragged over a pointy rock.

“I-it's okay, Little Strongheart,” Spike told her, though he wasn't sure himself if that was true or not. But someone had to be the cool head here and it sure wasn't gonna be her. “I've been talking with Braeburn here and convinced him that a truce might not be such a bad idea. He just wants you to show that you can be, you know, civilized about it, by pony standards.”

“Pony standards.” She gave him exactly the look he'd expected to get. “The standards of creatures who blocked our ancestral stampede trail and proceeded to pick us off one by one. You saw what they did to poor Stonehoof, Spike! Tell me why I'd want to meet the standards of creatures so, so VILE!”

“Might be on account if you knowin' a losin' fight when ya see it, I reckon,” Braeburn put in mildly. “I don't blame you for takin' it awful hard, what we've done to your kinfolk, but as far as we're concerned, you done attacked us for no reason. After that, well, we did what came natch'rally. But even in the best of hunts, we lose one every once in a while. I gotta pay my respects to a prey that can manage that. And I've been givin' it a little thought while we moseyed on over here, and I think I can offer you a solution that'll help to keep both of our kin from havin' t'hold any more funerals, if you're up for it.”

Little Strongheart's nostrils flared. “My people won't accept it, whatever it is you're offering. I'm not sure I would.”

“Strongheart, please!” Spike actually clasped his hands in front of her in pleading. “At least listen to whatever he has to say with an open mind! I know it sucks, I know it's horrible how ponies enjoy eating other people, but that's just how they are, they don't... they....” He fumbled for words, trying to explain what he'd realized intuitively but never really had a reason to express till now.

“T'ain't nothin' personal,” Braeburn supplied helpfully, patting a hoof on Spike's head. “That's how it is. It'd be a mighty tragic misunderstandin' if you died thinkin' we hated ya. But it ain't in pony natural t'be spiteful. Sure, we might kill ya... eat ya... and have a dang good ol' time of it doing so, but would it be better if we all wailed and wept while doin' so? You all'd still be dead and bread, as it goes.”

Little Strongheart scuffled around in her cell with uncertainty, hooves stirring up dust in the hard-packed floor. It was uneven, as though she'd tried to dig through it in a few places before giving up.

“Just say what you have to say,” she said finally, noncommittally.

“Now, as to sops for your pride,” Braeburn went on easily, tilting his hat to shade his eyes as he leaned against the opposite wall, “I think it worth a mention that you've taken darn good ratios of kills to casualties for any prey species. Right up there with paramilit'ry griffon flocks, which speaks mighty fine of your organizational skills. I expect you're still smartin' over losin' your bigwig, but confound it, we lost Sheriff Silver Star not a fortnight back, so that'd put us about even.”

“Besides that, you're all four-legged hoof plodders much like ourselves. Why, aside from your, pardon me for puttin' so fine a point on it, big-boned physiques and off-kilter wardrobe choices, y'all'd fit in trottin' the streets of Manehatten just fine. Physically speakin',” he stressed very clearly, “there ain't that much to separate a pony from a buffalo.”

“Under frontier law, technic'ly, there's prey, an' then there's varmints. Prey are free meals. Varmints are meals what likes to fight back. You understand my sayin' that you've long since climbed your way up to the second bracket, which limits our options for dealin' with y'all peaceably like. In fact, there's just one way that comes to mind, so far as I can cotton, and that's if we make y'all honor'y ponies. Accorded all the respects an' rights of a real pony, as long as y'all don't stir up no further trouble. Though I'm not sure if I'd care to test the strength of those there rights, heh, right in the middle of Canterlot, if'n you get my drift.”

“So you'd let us go through Appleloosa and continue on the trail if we did whatever we need to do to be... honorary... ponies? You wouldn't try to eat us later or anything?”

“Y'got it right on the nose, miss. Why, violatin' a sacred tradition like that would have the Princess herself clappin' us all in irons if word got to her! Mind you, we'll all be missin' that savory smell of barbecue bison waftin' through the warm breeze on a midday, but there's plenty of each prey 'round here, and we ain't so stubborn that we can't import right along our train line if neces'ry.”

“You know, maybe we'd have better luck with a truce if you could stop talking about how delicious the people you're trying to make peace with are!” Spike hissed in Braeburn's ear. Braeburn chuckled and mumbled an almost embarrassed apology.

“Right... so what would we have to do, exactly?”

“Oh, not much, not much. Just show you're willin' to participate in the basic mores of pony culture. Attend a proper hoedown or two, maybe partake of a salt lickin' contest. And, a'course, eat meat. We'll need somethin' properly symbolic so's the townfolk don't get uppity an' start questionin' your dedication, y'understand, but I'm thinkin' you can just nosh this ol' dragon babe here and we can call it a day.” Braeburn poked a hoof in Spike's tummy, his friendly tone and relaxed pose never wavering while Spike's mental world just exploded in renewed terror.

Spike tried to stare past the hat's shadow to Braeburn's eyes without moving and couldn't do it. This was crazy. “But... I'm the one who came up with the idea of you guys making peace in the first place! Why would she have to eat me instead of a rattlesnake or a chicken or something?!”

He wasn't whining, because whining was childish, and he was a fierce loner dragon who could take care of himself. And he was definitely not trembling. It just wasn't fair, that was all. It wasn't FAIR. All of a sudden, everything about Braeburn that had seemed reasonable and likable seemed to be just honey coating over poison. All that time he'd listened, and talked, and tried to be patient and hopeful even though the ponies hadn't seemed to deserve it, and Braeburn was just going to KILL him like THAT?! Like he was a... a....

A chicken.

The chickens hadn't wanted to die either. He'd watched once when one of them had had her neck wrung. So casually, so businesslike, because it was just a chicken. You might talk to a chicken while you fed it, since you saw it every day and all, but you didn't get attached to your food. But the food, if it was stupid, might get attached to you.

“Well, I don't think we could exactly call you a pony in any way, shape'r fashion, lil feller,” Braeburn explained with a smile, leaning his head to look Spike right in the eyes. Green, green eyes in a face so rough but still so carefree. It wasn't fair, Spike thought to himself. “I mean, look at ya. No hooves, you walk on two legs so far as I can tell, and you don't even have warm blood or fur! Dragons are obvious prey, or varmints at best. And proper ponies put down varmints.” The pony turned his gaze back to Little Strongheart. “So what'll it be, missy? Can you be the putter downer, or would you rather be the put down? Makes no difference to me, neither way.”

Little Strongheart's hooves slammed into the bars so violently and so quickly that even Braeburn nearly fell over in surprise. Spike, in contradiction to everything he'd learned, everything he'd taught himself throughout his whole life, just stood there, the hum of vibrating iron thick in his ears, his legs locked and his brain just about iced over. This was seriously Braeburn's best and only offer. For Little Strongheart, the buffalo girl whose life he'd kind of maybe at least halfway saved, who he had, he liked to think, befriended, to EAT him. To chop him into chunks for a stew, or maybe grind him into mush like one of those bowls he'd had back at the buffalo camp, or just skewer him and roast him whole....

His imagination flashed to a scene of him being covered in honey and seared on a grill. The ponies would probably complain because dragon scales didn't sear easily to give those black criss-cross marks. Then Little Strongheart would close her eyes and take a bite... and another, and another, swallowing it down without tasting, like medicine. And then his life would be over and he would be part of her, the energy that gave her the strength to charge through the stampeding trail with her buffalo brothers and sisters. The ponies would hoot and cheer the buffaloes on with hats waved in hooves, and no one would be around to be sad for him, no one would care, he'd just be GONE, the end of the Spike story forever.

IT WASN'T FAIR.

Then his brain caught up with the essential animal fear of being cornered and messed up by life with no recourse. Of course Little Strongheart wouldn't agree to it. He felt ashamed for even thinking for a second that she would. She was better than that.

“You're nothing but monsters,” Strongheart snarled quietly, her breath a gargle of spittle. She looked so strong and so frail at the same time, the vein at her neck no longer bulging but her bruise still vivid against the rest of her coat, legs shaking just the littlest bit. “It's either thing or the other, pony or food, and there's no room for anything else with you ponies, is there?”

“As a cousin of mine would say, yyyyyyup,” Braeburn replied, spitting a yellow glob into a corner.

“Alright,” Little Strongheart said with her voice barely more than a low whisper of a rasp.

Spike stopped breathing.

“I'll do it,” she confirmed, not even looking at him.

This couldn't be real.

“Well, swaller my britches an' call me a laundry line! Didn't think you'd have the gumption, missy, don't mind me sayin' so.” Braeburn shook his hat to the very back of his head, fully exposing a face that was so honest, so open. So merrily cruel. “Now, you do understand it's as much 'bout the spectacle and the symbolism as anythin' else. We'll have to call out the town and make a proper hunt of it, so's they all know where your loyalties lie.”

“Fine.” Her voice was alien to Spike now, like a completely different person's. He stared and stared at her and saw nothing of her earlier warmth or steadfastness. Just tired grimness as she panted through the bruised throat he'd saved from rope, her sides heaving slightly. “Whatever, just be quick, before I change my mind and decide on honor over living after all.”

Braeburn left them alone in that one-room hunk of splintery planks while he went to make the, as he put it, 'preparations.' For so long, Spike couldn't say anything. Couldn't think of what to say. He was torn between fear, anger and a feeling that it was all just a dream. How could she? It wasn't fair. Life should be fair. Why wasn't it? What had he done to deserve this? Had he walked under a ladder, broken a mirror, kicked a black cat? Why did the ponies have to mess up his life so completely? Why couldn't he just be allowed to be safe and have friends?!

Tears dripped down his cheeks to steam gently on the floor.

“W-why-”

“DO YOU THINK I WANT TO?!” Little Strongheart screamed.

Spike stumbled back against the far wall, eyes wide, tears startled away.

Words kept on rushing out of the buffalo girl like a river. “EVERY DAY I WATCHED SOMEONE I CARED ABOUT DIE! FRIENDS AND FAMILY I'D KNOWN MY WHOLE LIFE, STRANGLED, CUT UP, TRAMPLED, BASHED WITH ROCKS BUCKED BY HOOVES! THEY CALL THAT LAST ONE TENDERIZING! THEY CALL IT TENDERIZING!” she repeated, her voice cracking on the screech of the last word. “I DON'T WANT TO DIE AND I DON'T WANT ANYBUFFALO ELSE TO DIE, AND THIS IS ALL I'VE GOT!”

“I'm sorry,” she said after a long moment where Spike just stared and watched her panting, panicky foam flecking her lips. “I'm so sorry. But either someone I've known for just a day dies, or everybuffalo I care about dies. I watched it happen over and over and over and I can't do it anymore. If you can't beat them, join them. I'm sorry... but....” Her voice shook. “Would you rather we just laid down and died?”

It was her turn to cry this time, and he watched her tears fall down and moisten the dust.

He couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't absolutely hateful, so he kept quiet.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd stick in her throat and she'd suffocate.

But did he even want that?

Before Spike could figure out what he wanted, Braeburn was back, and the two of them were hustled off to the town square. More ponies than he'd ever seen in one place before were there, a huge crowd of pastel with tan and brown and black and white hats, each hat almost as big as Spike himself. The ones from the funeral were very obviously in attendance in their thick, hot black clothes, sweating quietly with intent eyes trained on him and Little Strongheart. The rest were more lively, cheering, joking around, a few of them offering Little Strongheart tips like 'work the paunch' or 'cut his saphenous short.' They seemed to expect a good show of it, talking about watching out for his fire (hah, oh what he would GIVE to be able to breathe fire), his claws, his teeth, even his little tail. All of which might have been dangerous from even a teenage dragon, but Spike didn't have much confidence in himself. All he was good at was running and chatting, and both of those things had failed him so far.

He wondered, feeling numb, how she would eat him.

There was a big empty space in that crowd of ponies, and he was shoved into it, his shackles unlocked, for all the good that did. By now, the sun was starting to get pretty close to the horizon, shooting mottled purple and orange across the sky in a beautiful display that set off the ponies' buildings (mysterious buildings with mysterious purposes written on mysteries lettered signs that he would never live to learn to read) just perfectly. The ponies parted politely to let Little Strongheart through, her head bowed so it was a wonder she even saw where she was going. But her steps weren't dragging or uncertain, and her posture was strong and well-balanced. Determined.

Spike's stomach rumbled, it having finished off the last of the stew the buffaloes had given him. He hated it, he hated being hungry, he hated the very existence of food itself as he looked around at all those bright, shiny round ponies eyes staring and watching and waiting expectantly.

“We are gathered here today,” Braeburn said loudly and authoritatively, in a tone unlike his usual one, and a good few ponies laughed and catcalled. He chuckled. “Aww, just joshin' ya, folks! Ain't no call to be a stick in the mud over a joyous o-kay-SHUN like this! Y'all all know the rules: no throwin' things, no stickin' hooves out, no interferin' whatsoever b'yond cheerin' our gal on. Any questions, miss buff- ah, that is t'say, miss PONY?”

Little Strongheart shook her head. Spike looked for gaps in the crowd, some place to run or hide, but there was nothing. Unless he spontaneously sprouted wings and flew, anyway.

“In that case-”

“Shouldn't we bless it first?!” a pony in the back called out, and a couple ponies near the front laughed so hard they had to hold themselves to stay standing.

“Why, that's a fine ideer! Hats down, everypony!” Braeburn lowered his hat to his chest and closed his eyes as everypony else did likewise. Spike tensed, ready to run, but saw Little Strongheart still with dark eyes wide open, staring silently, expressionlessly. “Good food,” Braeburn said with his voice balancing expertly between homey cheer and ritualistic seriousness. “Good meat. Good golly... let's eat!”

The ponies cheered and threw their hats in the air. Braeburn himself leaned forward to slap Spike on the rump and holler, and Spike ran forward a few paces out of sheer surprise. Little Strongheart lunged, and after that there was definitely no stopping running. The air was full of the happy mania (leaning more to the angry side, for some ponies who had recently lost loved ones) of the crowd, a twangy-accented roar that became an indecipherable earthquake in his ears. Spike ran without thinking of the point of it, ran without hope or a plan, ran just to live for another second of a life that he was increasingly questioning the fruitfulness of.

With the encroaching shade of evening, the pony background and the dust kicked up by claws and hooves, it became more and more difficult to actually see Little Strongheart in the quick glances he could afford to give to check back on her position. He ended up letting his eyes unfocus a little, paying attention to the movement and vibrations than anything else, although the sharp contrast between her bruised neck and the rest of her still kept itself burned in his vision.

Dragons weren't made for the ground like buffaloes were. Before very long, his breath was a panicked whistle in his throat, his lungs were searing iron, his feet and knees were mud. He didn't want to die. That was all he knew. He ran into the ponies, attempted to get through them, but they just shoved him back. Surprisingly gentle shoves, their hooves were almost soft.

Little Strongheart's hooves swung for the back of his head, probably with some idea of knocking him out before things got worse. They got a little closer every time. The air between her hooves and his head whistled harder, louder, and soon her hooves were grazing his prominent head spikes.

She hit him, and he went flying facefirst into the dirt, eating a mouthful of grit and banging his front teeth so they ached terribly. Still, he got on his feet and was dodging the followup blow he sensed rather than saw coming, as his eyes whirled over the crowd disorientedly, seeing a little filly in front with cactus flowers in her curly orange mane grinning and stomping her hooves in excitement. He ran a quick circle just to give himself time to catch his breath back and outrun the shock of immediate pain, and the filly nagged at him. She was about his size. Maybe a big bigger, but not too much so.

He was pretty sure he could jump that high.

With absolutely no better ideas occupying his head, Spike ran full-tilt for the pony girl. Her parents gasped and started to pull her back once they got an idea of his intent, but too late – he jumped the best jump of his entire life (which still wasn't that amazing, given legs of his size, but whatever, he wasn't trying to impress anyone here!) and landed square on her snout. She shrieked and flailed around and, even now, with his foot-claws digging into her fur, he felt the tiniest bit guilty. Then he got over it and grabbed onto her mane, scrambling up to her back. From there, the backs of other nearby ponies were available.

And from there... was freedom.

Maybe.

It wouldn't have worked if the crowd had been even half the size it was. The popularity of the event, with seemingly the whole town turned out to see it, worked against the ponies, because the crowd was packed so thickly that even the littlest bit of chaos had a ripple effect, and there was absolutely nowhere for anypony to go. Some of the more level-headed ponies were yelling at the others, trying to calm them down and get them organized to capture him and resume the hunt, but Spike was faster than he'd known he was capable of being, and kept on the move – with all four legs, wouldn't the ponies be proud of him being a quadruped for a change? – without so much as bothering to look where the heck he was going. Anywhere, any direction, would be better than where he'd just been. As long as it was away from the ponies.

All of the ponies.

Near the edge, he slipped and fell to the ground, and then Spike became totally certain that he was doomed. But to his amazement, they didn't seem to be able to catch him. In all the panic, with all the dust they were kicking up, with the sun just a bare orange sliver against the sky now, he was safe on the ground even in the middle of the enemy... as long as he kept moving quick enough so that any one pony couldn't notice him and do something about it. As soon as one figured out what was going on, he was ten ponies away. Little Strongheart and Braeburn were long gone, and the ponies couldn't understand each other through the clamor of yells any more than he could understand them.

He ran right through an empty barbecue station, a huge pit of unheated coals with several dirty iron rotisseries big enough for something huge (like a buffalo...), picked-clean bones and dishes both dirty and clean all around in neat piles. Long tables nearby provided cover with their benches and their red and white checkered cloths.

That was the good. The bad was that there were still ponies crying out and chasing vaguely in his direction, swarming all over. Even aimlessly in the shadows of the late day, there was no way they could keep on missing him forever. And the further away from them he went, the further he went from cover, which only made it more likely for individuals to spot him and catch him. Appleloosa had too much open space, too many wide streets to allow for easy galloping, not enough things to hide around. Worst of all were the glimpses he caught of the land beyond Appleloosa. There was nowhere to hide once he got clear of the buildings, the rocks weren't nearly frequent or big enough. Apparently he'd had the bad luck to run in the opposite direction from that stupid orchard that would've been useful. Nice going, Spike. Time to die for your dumbness, just like Raggle. At least the ponies wouldn't let him go to waste, hah.

His stomach churned with exhaustion-enhanced nausea and he licked at dust-coated lips. He would have given almost anything just to be able to sit down and have one nice glass of water.

And then Spike heard the train conductor's call as the horizontal column of black iron loomed before him.

“LAST STOP BEFORE-” was all he got, the clanking of train machinery drowning out the last word. What had it been? Somethingville.

Spike got an idea. A very bad idea. But, like Little Strongheart, when all you had to work with were bad ideas, maybe picking the last bad one would work out. It looked like a cargo train, not one with tons of passengers, and the employees weren't taking any breaks to watch the show. It was a way out. Maybe the only way out that didn't involve turning around and running through the whole stupid town of bloodthirsty ponies again to get to the orchard, where they'd probably find him anyway even if he lasted that long.

What would he do when the train arrived at the next town of bloodthirsty ponies, though?

Well, for a start, at least they wouldn't be actively hunting around and looking for him.

Making up his mind, Spike ran for the train. The very back had several whole semi-open cars of just a bunch of heavy gray bags that looked like they had sand or some other fine-grained, heavy minerals in them. And no ponies. No ponies, thank goodness. He tried to climb in, banged his head until it bled and fell down in the clumsiness of his haste, then climbed in for real while muttering a few words that baby dragons weren't really expected to know yet. Spike took no chances; he wedged himself directly beneath and underneath several bags, even though he felt like he was suffocating, because being hidden was more important than being comfortable. It felt like cement in the things, not just sand, but the physical pain somehow had a distance to it and didn't seem to matter. There was still somehow just enough light while entombed in canvas to watch his blood cut a stark red trickle down through the dull gray cloth sacks.

She'd been going to spill a lot more of his blood than that. She'd really been ready to kill him and turn him into dinner. Just like that. And Braeburn had put her up to it after Spike had given him the idea in the first place.

Spike started to shake.

Come on, you might not find a lot of smiles here, but we can at least spare you a bowl of chili pepper stew.

Why, Little Strongheart?

I'm the one who should be sorry. Things have gotten... hard... since he's been gone.

Had it really been as hard as that? How hard would it have to be for him before he was willing to do the same thing to someone else, someone who trusted him, someone who he might have called a friend? Was this the ponies' fault for being cruel, or Little Strongheart's fault for being weak... or maybe even his fault for just not being smart enough to come up with a better way or keep her from getting caught in the first place?

Nobuffalo wants to just give up and leave after all we've lost. But we'll die if we stay here. I can feel it.

The train was moving now. Its pipes were choo-chooing.

Don't let them lasso you!

Little Strongheart had been a good buffalo, was still a good buffalo at heart. Spike believed that with his whole being. But when forced to, she'd turned into something bad. As bad as the ponies themselves. Ponies... ate things, and transformed them in the eating, into badness, into viciousness, forcing their ideas onto creatures and MAKING those creatures behave in the ways ponies needed them to behave. All the trappings of civilization around them were just a fancy, sophisticated backdrop to a basic drive to fuel their stomachs. Come rain or shine or the death of loved ones, nothing put off a good meal. Nor could anyone be equal to a pony without... not just the meat... but the hunt that preceded the meat. The murder.

That was all they did.

Manifest destiny. To gobble up everything, without pity, and leave only your own droppings behind. A whole nation of mouths that would never stop till they ate their way from ocean shore to ocean shore, and maybe further.

The train's pace quickened, and Spike knew he was free... until he got to the next destination, at any rate. One problem at a time, though. One day at a time. Just like always.

They wouldn't catch him.

No matter what, Spike swore that they'd never catch him.

Fallen Angel

Certain death wasn't supposed to look so painfully inviting.

Spike had left the woods to find himself facing a well-traveled dirt road, ponies coming up and down it every few minutes at various paces. Talking, laughing, some of them even picking flowers to snack on in between their 'real' meals. Some very young ponies had been playing hopscotch nearby a while back; they had gone, but their scratched chart in the dirt remained and seemed to entice every silly-minded pony who passed by to give it a try. Even the serious businessponies in their light working clothes slowed down enough to smile at those who had nothing better to do. Spike could recognize young couples, still in the earliest, giggly stages of that gross thing called love. He could see old ones, too, leaning against each other and complaining like nothing was more fun than picking apart every little thing that was wrong with their lives. And whole families, struggling to reel in (in some cases, literally) their younger members before too much havoc was wreaked. Even the ones who weren't plainly out for a good time weren't too rushed, and they all looked safe and reasonably happy.

No one looked up at the sky to check for pegasi – although pegasi often dipped down to wave and chat with acquaintances.

No one checked around them for danger – there was no danger for them here.

No one looked tired, or hungry, or scared.

He longed to be a part of it so much he ached with it, but it wasn't his world, was it? The moment he stepped out into the open, they'd be on him, and one of those happy families would stir up a big, proud fuss about catching a free dinner.

Too much time had already been spent just watching the road like it was separated from him by an invisible wall, as though they couldn't bump into him or glance at him any second now. And then he'd be done for, because there was no way he could get away from this many ponies at once.

Still, Spike couldn't turn away. He'd never seen them up close before engaged in regular non-murdery activities, just going about their ponies lives. The closest he'd ever come till now was seeing a funeral that had been caused by a murder expedition. Now, they were playing games, talking to one another about regular not killing nonponies stuff, or simply keeping to their own business and traveling with nothing more than getting to their destination on their minds.

Then Spike saw something he'd never expected to see in his whole life, something that changed everything.

A griffin with a weird bracelet flew by, low to the ground, completely untouched by the ponies. Some of them glanced over, but they always returned to ignoring the lion-bird hybrid after a second. The griffon paid them just as little attention, other than daring to pick somepony's saddlebag with her tail as she flew by, Spike couldn't help but notice.

Thinking back through everything he'd ever heard and seen about ponies, Spike couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation for it. Griffins were just as much on the menu as everything else. Nations didn't make peace with Equestria – at best, they bargained for ponies to eat LESS of their residents, not stop eating them entirely. And Spike was pretty sure that if there was a great big huge faction of successful working ponies who'd turned vegetarian or something, he would've heard about it by now. The griffin just didn't add up.

And it made him hope in a way he was really, really scared to hope.

Because if a griffin could step in there and not get killed right off the bat....

Who was to say a dragon couldn't do the same?

It was dumb, and like all of Spike's dumb ideas, he felt that admitting how dumb it was made up for the irresistible need to follow it through anyway.

Of course, he wasn't going to jump out there and trust his chances. There was dumb and then there was suicidal. But he watched which direction she was flying in, took note of the forest continuing alongside a big part of the road, and hustled to keep up with her. If she hadn't been going so lazily, barely flapping her wings, he wouldn't have had a chance. But the way she kept drifting around to peek at the scenery (or, for all he knew, steal things from more ponies' saddlebags) gave him the extra time he needed to keep up, even if it was at a pretty big distance. He followed that thieving, sour-looking, cat-calling griffin like it was an angel beckoning him to paradise, always keeping a spare part of his attention on a good hiding spot and on the sounds nearby. No snapping branches. He'd been kind of worried that... but no, no, he was okay.

He realized that he had to get closer to her if he wanted to get any answers; it would be better to ask her what was up instead of just tail her to wherever she was going, wouldn't it? Griffins ate some meat, but definitely not dragons. But getting closer asked him to trade off safety for speed, and he just couldn't bring himself to do it with the clopping of pony hooves and the murmuring of their voices all around him. So Spike just kept trailing, her feathery form sometimes pretty close, sometimes barely more than a vague smudge in the distance. It didn't help that he was still hungry, but he'd gone way longer than this without food before. Just had to remember to pace himself. Steady breathing, even strides, that was the ticket.

Going by the sun, he figured about an hour of this had gone by once he got to a crossroads and winced at the sight. Ponies, ponies everywhere, so many that he didn't even dare peek out enough to look at them all clearly. This was apparently a major hub of some kind; it even had a snack stand with an earth pony calling out the apparently infinite virtues of his delicious diamond dog sausages inna bun (with pickled parasprite relish!). The griffin just kept on going straight, which was a problem. How was he supposed to cross the road and get beyond if it was so well-traveled?

Watching wagons go by, an idea clicked in his mind. Most of the wagons were pretty open; apparently security wasn't a super high priority here. He could just climb into one and move along the road that way, and hop out once he caught up with the griffin. Even if it went the wrong way, he could just get out and try again... assuming he could get close enough to get in and out without being seen. That was tricky part.

Spike had never been so glad to be small. He found a particularly leafy cluster of trees just next to the main road, crouching and peeking through the thinnest slivers of visibility for an opportunity. His legs tensed every time he saw a big cart coming... and settled again as he saw all the ponies nearby that would definitely see him if he took the chance.

Minutes went past until finally a real opening appeared: huge, rough flaps leather bowed over what barely amounted to more than a large, sturdy wooden box with wheels attached. There weren't any ponies very close to the back of the cart, probably because of all the dust its wheels were churning up. Spike held his breath.

Did he really want to do this? Did he want to risk his life on a random weird thing that might not mean nearly as much as he thought it might mean? Then again, his life wasn't worth much at this point anyway. As the cart was about to pass him by, he jumped into the dust and crawled inside, rolling down against a crate.

Immediately, the smell of bloody flesh swam up his nose and mouth and made his eyes water. His eyes quickly adjusting to the dimness, he found himself staring at a jar. Inside it, the head of a hydra floated in a yellow-green liquid, its tongue bobbing gently with the cart's movement, its eyes turned up in the sockets. All that fear and disgust that Spike had been forgetting to feel came back in full force. What was he doing? This was insane. Garble's idea had been insane. Anydragon with a lick of sense would have run the opposite way from Equestria and just kept on running until a couple of countries were between it and him.

But a griffin flying among ponies and not being killed by them, that was insane too!

The rest of the cart, as much as he dared to peek at with a bare minimum of movement, was full of just as nasty things. Assortments of legs and arms of critters mummified into jerky. Bunny, possum and squirrel heads on tongue depressors, coated with caramel. Transparent soup mix packages that included chopped up fingers, claws, organs and skin. But his least favorite part, by far, was the whole stuffed griffin. It was stuffed with mice, rats, snakes and other tiny creatures, till they jutted out of its empty sockets and mouth and ears.

And yet, he'd seen another griffin being treated just like a pony not moments ago.

Even as his revulsion led to shakes and a sickly feeling that combined very strangely with his empty tummy, Spike knew that he couldn't rest now, not until he'd figured out what was going on. If the ponies could make exceptions for a griffin, why not for other kinds of... food? He wanted to be an exception. Then he could just forget about everything and move on with his life, he could start a hoard, maybe find a club of cool fellow dragons or start a catering service for yeast-based breads and associated condiments. He could do anything he wanted if he just had a day to himself without being afraid of that day ending suddenly.

The cart didn't seem to be turning left or right. He was solid. That delicate feeling of satisfaction, of everything going his way for once, shattered suddenly when he heard a high-pitched little pony girl's voice chirp up from the front of the cart.

“I still don't see why we gotta take all the meattastic treats back t'Ample Acres,” she said poutily, her words heavily-accented in a way that reminded Spike unpleasantly of Appleloosa. “I mean, the Inn did place their order first, it ain't fair! I know that Blueblood feller's higher on the customer priority list, but Sweetie Belle said he wouldn't notice if his snacks were just a lil late...”

“Sweetie Belle don't know much 'bout Blueblood, then,” came the unmistakably deep voice of a large stallion from further up still, probably the one pulling the cart.

“Can't we just pretend we didn't get the message till after we delivered the meat?” she begged, cuteness counterbalanced with an ear-screeching whine.

“Nnnnope! That ain't how we do business, Apple Bloom,” the stallion chided mildly. “Apple family started out honest and that's how we'll stay.”

“Aww, shucks! Stupid Apple family honesty traditions. Stupid priority list! Crusadin' is my priority, I'll tell ya that much!”

The smell was already getting to him. And something from the nearest crate was dripping on his back. Spike kept himself occupied by scratching a tiny hole in the side of the leather cover and propping himself up against it, trying to keep his stare fixed and unblinking to make himself look like another snack, if anyone ran their eye over things. It wouldn't fool any of them up close, not even in the shade of the wagon cover, but if he didn't make any noise, there wasn't any reason why any of the ponies would look close.

It was a lot harder not blinking than he thought. Pony after pony went by, but no griffins. Hm. Wait, of COURSE he wouldn't see the griffins, big wagons went by slower than even the laziest griffin would fly! If he wanted to catch it, he had to get out.

But the wagon was safe cover. Maybe the griffin would stop somewhere and he could catch up. And he wasn't even sure what he'd say to it once he caught it, either. What if it just turned him in to the ponies? Oh, irony of ironies, Spike, you were always too much of a dreamer for this world! The griffin would totally let them eat him, he knew it.

Still....

“D'you hear somethin'?” the filly asked.

Spike's breath stuck in his throat and he kept dead still, his heart rate doubling practically instantly.

“Nnnnnope.”

“I think we got mice in the back. I'm gonna go check.”

“Mmm... mice,” the stallion murmured, smacking his lips ogrishly.

Through a strained, watery eye, Spike frantically scanned outside, hoping for an easy escape route. The clatter of hooves was too loud, there was no time, he had to go NOW or they'd find him! With a hope and a prayer, he abandoned the stench-ridden vehicle for the clean, if pony-scented outdoors air, and ran for the treeline.

There were no screams, no shouts, no calls of 'Free dinner!' Nopony had seen him. Almost hyperventilating with relief, his knees knocking together, Spike shakily resumed his journey from behind the trees. He imagined the distant sound of branches snapping and screams. At least, he was pretty sure that was his imagination.

Running ahead, he found the griffin again, paused at a fork in the road while looking at a crumpled map. This close, he could see the griffin was a girl... or at least a slender-figured griffin with feminine makeup, either way. All the ponies were going right, but the griffin nodded once, shoved her map into her feathers somewhere and headed on to the left.

Perfect! All he had to do now was catch her before any ponies came from behind! His heart felt like a hammer on the anvil of his chest as he scrambled from tree to tree to tree, anxious to put his enemies behind him. The griffin, maybe bored now that there wasn't as much scenery, was flying faster now, but fortunately still keeping to the road. He ended up having to run full-tilt to keep up, and even then it was a close thing. Before long his breath was burning his lungs, and there was no way he wouldn't be caught if any ponies came nearby.

All the more reason to do it quickly. Ponies didn't hesitate and neither could he, if he didn't want his head to be on one of those tongue depressors and gooped up with a liquid sugar coating.

“Hey, you!” he whisper-shouted at her once he was close enough, unable to decide between a real shout or a real whisper and thus compromising. “Over here!”

“Eh? Wha? Whozat?!” she called out with a rough but very definitely female voice, banking sharply to roost on the tree just above him and peering through the branches suspiciously. “Look, colt, I don't have time for- oh, you're not a pony kid, huh.” She squinted and peered down more intensely, her eyes narrowing. “Where's your bracelet, dragon?”

“Huh? Look, I'm not into jewelry,” Spike said hurriedly, frightfully aware that any moment, a pony could just come trotting by and then he'd be lunch meat. “Look, why aren't the ponies trying to eat you?! Are you a duchess or something?”

“Hah! Me, a... yeah, sure shrimp. Look, I'm off the menu because a' this,” she said, shaking her wrist significantly. The bracelet, a simple steel thing with small cinnamon-colored parchments attached to it by rings at even intervals, hung loosely about her arm, mostly staying on because her talons were spread out. “If you wanna check out the Inn without becoming part of somepony's stew, you gotta shell out for one of these, so they all know you know what the rules are. How'd you even get out here without one of these, shrimp?!”

“It's a long story,” Spike said mostly because it seemed like the mandatory cliché to say.

“You do know you're smack dab in the middle of pony homeland, right? It's totally legal for them to eat you alive and kicking, whatever!”

“Yes, I know,” he hissed frustratedly, his forked tongue slipping out a few inches further than usual. “Look, can you keep it down?!” He glanced around, but no ponies. Some sounds in the distance he couldn't quite make out, but that was all. Probably not sounds of ponies coming hunting for him. Nope. No bloodthirsty ponies.

He locked his legs to keep his knees from knocking together again. It'd been so much more relaxing... relatively speaking... when he'd just been sneaking around on his own!

“Seriously, lame-o, they could just tear your throat out to make blood angels in the puddle of jugular stuff right now, and no one'd even-”

“I know! How do I get one of those bracelets then?!”

“I just told you, you pay a lot. I got me a three-week lease with a coupon for only a few thousand. Pretty sweet, eh?”

It would have been pretty sweet, if he'd had any money to his name whatsoever. “You don't have a spare one do you?” He tried to make his biggest, innocentest, sparkliest eyes at her.

She was unimpressed. “Look, loser, I'm real sorry that you ended up in the middle of crazy town without a strait jacket, but that's your problem. You're not nearly cool enough for this bird to give you anything for free, even if I had a bracelet other than the one I'm wearin'. Which I don't. If you want my advice, I'd say you'd better turn around and go back to wherever you came from. If you're as lucky as you've been so far, you might even make it out alive, but I wouldn't bet on it.”

His 'angel' had betrayed him. Turned out to be a harsh-voiced, unsympathetic vulture of a bird with way too much eyeshadow. That was just great. What was he going to do now? Just give up, like she'd said? Forget about immunity to pony attacks, forget about the bracelets and the Inn, whatever that was. Just turn around and walk away from Equestria, and go back to hoping that his life would settle down.

It never settled down.

He'd spent every stupid day of his cowardly fat little life waiting for it to settle down.

Never. Did.

He didn't want to give up! He was sick of running and hiding. He wasn't strong enough to fight. This was all he had, and he was so close to something like safety, he could practically taste it on the tip of his tongue....

“Come on, give me a break!” he said as loudly as he dared, looking back and forth and to the sky, seeing no ponies but dreading their appearance at any moment. “You're a griffin, you're supposed to be better than them! If you took that stupid jewelry off they'd kill you just as soon as they'd kill me, so why can't w-we h-elp each... each other....”

Spike only realized he was crying when the tears got big enough to make audible plops on the ground.

The griffin paused briefly, her still wings slowing her descent to the road's fine brown dusty dirt.

“That's life, kid,” she told him with just a bare touch of sympathy in her voice now, but it only seemed like enough to taunt him, mock him with hope of consolation that wouldn't come. “You might as well suck it up and get used to being screwed over, because it don't get any easier the bigger you get. Ciao.”

Spike watched his hopes and dreams flap their wings and gently amble off without a care in the world.

His stomach growled.

As if it were a gunshot for the start of a race, that set him off, and he threw himself against her, right in the open, heedless in desperation. He grappled her, begging, bribing, threatening and cursing all in a jumble, and she flapped harder and did a clumsy barrel roll, trying to knock him away.

“Let go a' me, you crazy thing!”

He thrust his little arm through the bracelet she was wearing. If her entire arm had been furry, it probably wouldn't have worked, but the part that the bracelet was dangling from was the sleek, compact yellow of a bird talon, not really that different from a dragon's hand.

“There!” he crowed triumphantly while she stared, open-mouthed. “Now the ponies won't eat either of us!”

She jerked back, causing the thin strands of the bracelet to bend and flex alarmingly. “It doesn't work like that, you moron!”

“How do you know?!” he hollered right at her beak. “Is there a rule, huh?!”

“Well, no-”

“Then you DON'T know, HAH!” He yanked back at the bracelet, not really that much, just enough to make it clear he wasn't going anywhere. Sweet, sweet safety was his at last!

“I'm warning you, buzzkill, you've got to the count of three to the count of three to get lost before I MAKE you get lost!”

The griffin brandished her claws, the beginnings of a lion's roar reverberating in her throat. Spike hesitated, trembling all over, eyes wide and burning. Then he realized he was shaking as much with anger as fear, and clenched at the bracelet with his free hand, thrusting out his chin.

“No!”

It wasn't a rejection of the idea of personal property or whether she, as a bystander, really owed him anything. It was a rejection of the idea that running was always the answer, that he had to give up and get away, every single time, no matter what he lost in the process. Why couldn't they just get along and be friends and work together? Just this one time, let things work out. Just this one time.

Something in his longing may have come out in his face, because she hesitated, looking conflicted in a way she hadn't in the whole encounter.

But then her eyes and she roared in his face, waving limbs in a fury to hurt him, to throw him off and bash him out of her way. Dragon scales were tougher than griffin claws, but it still hurt, and the force she put into her flailing had him instantly completely disoriented and feeling the full force of hunger and tiredness-induced weakness. He couldn't resist. Like a doll, he was thrown about in every direction, bruised and slashed and pecked from every angle. But he kept his grip on the stupid bracelet.

The dizziness turned into a head-over-heels whirlwind of blurring color and he flew through the air, smashing into a tree and tasting bark mixed with blood. The ground met his ribs as painfully as the tree had greeted his face, but his body's instincts were pretty automatic by now, and he got to his feet without even being aware of doing so. All he knew that he was standing again, and staring at a griffin who was charging him with all the fury of an eagle and a lion put together....

And, in the distance, he heard the sound of snapping limbs growing like thunder as a ring of rainbow warped the sky overhead, blasting away clouds and searing the blue with a lingering hue of shimmering colors from the whole spectrum.

He knew that sound.

He was pretty sure he knew that rainbow pattern, too.

They were more death to him than his fallen angel could ever be, no matter how she was screaming at him and slashing away, many of her wild, arrogantly-hasty blows (but not all of them, of course, so many still got through) landing on the tree instead of on Spike.

Stay and fight and die.

Run and live.

Or really: Stay and fight and die like the dragon you wanna be... or run and die inside and live on the outside.

Spike intended to stay, made the conscious decision to hold his ground, no matter how dumb it was. But his body knew what was up better than his heart did, and it had no intentions of obeying the commands emerging from simple little things like feelings or thoughts or principles. His body, as treacherous and cruel as Little Strongheart or the griffin, betrayed him and fled through the trees, fled the ever-increasing sound of wood ripping, fled with the icy wind at his back and the rainbow overhead. A lifetime of running had burned itself into him, harder and hotter than dragon scales or dragon fire, and he couldn't shed it so easily. The griffin's screams in his ears faded quicker than he would have believed possible. Maybe the ponies had something to do with that. The ponies, the ponies, always the ponies.

It was a very, very long time later when he had the presence of mind to realize that he was still clutching at the warped remains of the steel bracelet, its rings completely snapped and twisted into crude horseshoe shapes, like a demon's gag idea of an ominous surprise gift.

Be Our Guest

The empty road ended at a cul-de-sac that looked like someone had decided to design a neighborhood after the fanciest wedding cake ever. A single immense house-like building sprawled out, two wings coming forward around a garden with pony-shaped bushes and marble fountains. The entire estate was surrounded by a tiny little ornamental white plank fence, and the grass here was even lusher than he'd seen so far: a dark, rich green that reminded Spike of spinach.

And in that place, ponies and nonponies mingled freely. They picked flowers together, engaged in conversation while shaded by frilly parasols, shared meals and even played some sort of racquet and ball game in a far court over to one side. Diamond dogs and earth ponies, griffins and pegasi, dragons and unicorns. Minotaurs, donkeys, zebras, gazelles, camels. There was even a changeling intently reading a newspaper while siphoning a little love off of a nearby pony couple... apparently with their permission. More kinds of creatures together than Spike had seen in his whole life. With ponies. So many ponies. Everyone seemed happy and very much not interested in immediately murdering each other. All the nonponies shared one common trait: matching bracelets draped with tan-brown little squares of paper, each with a bracelet roughly to their size.

It was surreal.

Spike gawked, clutching the bent up bracelet to his chest like a teddy bear, eyes roaming over impossible sight after impossible sight. How could a place like this ever exist and him not hear about it? Never, never EVER, had anyone ever said anything about ponies just calling off their whole 'anything that isn't a pony is on the menu' ideals to just interact with them normally. This wasn't an inn, this was heaven!

His brain clicked back on after a bit. Would they just treat him like the rest of these nonponies if he walked up? How much could he admit to being clueless before they got suspicious, and would it even matter that he was totally ignorant? Would the bracelet being pre-owned and obviously damaged invalidate the apparent immunity to pony hunger that it gave? Would the griffin chase him all the way here?

Now that he thought about it, he hoped she was okay. He'd basically taken the thing that was supposed to keep ponies from eating her, even if it'd been an accident. If they were understanding, she could just explain that she'd been 'robbed' or whatever, but Spike had no clue as to whether or not they'd care. This was brand-new territory for him.

Worst came to worst, she looked like a fast enough flier to get out of town in a hurry if she had to. Faster than him, and he'd gotten this far. He kept telling himself that, trying to make himself feel less guilty, but it didn't work so well.

It'd been an accident. Wasn't his fault. Who would blame him, really? There was no one who cared about him enough to be disappointed.

Taking in a shaky breath, he looked over the happy, crazy Inn and tried to decide what to do next. There wasn't anything that he could do that wasn't risky, so it was just a matter of how much he wanted to risk. Just walking out there in the middle of them? No, he wasn't ready for that. Who knew what would happen. He wasn't even ready to stop freaking out over the changeling yet, let alone the ponies. He'd never seen a changeling before; the creepy little thing looked like a pony made out of rot-blackened holey cheese.

Maybe he could corner a visitor or a servant or something one on one. That way, if things went south he wouldn't be too overwhelmed when he had to book it. That sounded about right. But who to pick? Diamond dogs weren't known to be very bright or friendly, griffins could be feisty, minotaurs were kinda scary. A fellow dragon might work out for the best. On the other hand, it might look suspicious if he started talking to the guests before the ponies, who seemed to be in fancy servantish positions, handing off lemonades and stuff. There were a lot more unicorns than other ponies, did that mean anything? Maybe he was overthinking it and should just charge in there and...

“Goodness gracious, darling, whatever are you doing cowering over there in the bushes? It's your first time at the Inn, isn't it? I just know I would remember a darling fellow like you.”

Spike was very proud of the simple fact that he managed to avoid wetting himself. He straightened himself up and slowly looked over at the unicorn who was addressing him, more by shifting his eyes than his head, and managed a grin that was probably coming across as super fake and cheesy. Wow, she was actually a looker, as far as carnivorous hooved monsters went. For the first time ever, he wished that he had hair to style. And she'd addressed him like a normal person! No 'Hi, can I eat you' or any of that junk! Maybe this would work out.

“Yes, yes, this is my first time, as a matter of fact.” His smile was too big. It had to look creepy, the corners of his mouth were aching from it. Tone it down a notch, Spike, showing your teeth was bound to give ponies bad ideas. There we go. “I'm sorry, I just, um, got a little lost, yeah, and...” A flash of genius struck him. “And some crazy pony with a rainbow mane broke my bracelet!”

The unicorn gasped in a high, loud pitch with an impressive amount of suction, adorable dark eyes widening. Wait. Pony eyes weren't adorable! Just because they were all big and sparkly and... moist-looking. He was totally coming unraveled, all the stress and hunger had to be getting to him.

“How mortifying! I keep telling that, that ruffian to pay more attention to who she hunts, but the dratted pegasus has cloud for brains, I swear! She will be appropriately reprimanded, I assure you! My sincerest apologies, my good dragon, I will personally see to it that a replacement is issued right away. It should be ready by breakfast tomorrow at the very latest.”

She was... apologizing to him?

“Ah, you should probably keep holding on to that poor beat-up thing, just in case any other roustabout lowlifes become troublesome. Not that we see many non-pony folk walking around Ponyville to begin with, of course,” she added dryly with a meaningful tilt of her head, “but it would be simply dreadful if anything happened to one of our guests because of a simple misunderstanding! Why, I simply couldn't live with myself. I worry so that it keeps me up at night as it is, wondering if they will all manage the trip hither and thither in safety.”

She was... worried about people like him?

“Are you sure you're quite alright, dear? You seem to be quite, ah... scuffy. Oh, here, let me just get that for you...”

The unicorn licked her hoof and ran it in semicircles over Spike's cheek, and he tensed inside, the sudden, completely unexpected sensation like a jolt of electricity to his system. Instead of being a precursor to being taste-tested, he realized that she was cleaning a smudge off of his scales. He blinked a few times, unable to believe it even though it was really happening, right now.

Spike looked over this white unicorn with her mane like endless curls of... of, something purple, not grapes, something ELEGANT that he was too stupid to think of the word for, and he saw something he'd never seen before. A pony who might not be an enemy. She looked at him, mostly composed but with a hint of anxiety behind her politeness, shifting from hoof to hoof in a way that he could not stop himself from admitting was unbelievably cute. Then he remembered she was waiting on him to reply. What had the question been again? Oh yeah. Was he alright?

“I'm fine now,” he said quietly, looking around and taking reassurance from the fact that even though everyone knew he was there, they weren't doing anything. The ponies were going about their business, the other 'guests' still doing their own things. The only eyes anyone had for him were full of simple restrained curiosity, and only a little of it, at that.

“I'm so very pleased to hear that. As per our exacting standards for greeting newcomers to our humble establishment, I'll have the invitational musical number up momentarily. Please help yourself to any of our twelve varieties of tea out on the patio, and do remember the Rules in the meantime. On behalf of the Inn, the general Ponyville environs, the country and, indeed, Her Princess Herself, I, Rarity maîtresse de l'élevage, humbly welcome you to Equestria.”

She bowed her head to him while he was busy trying to figure out what a musical number had to do with anything and what the 'Rules' were. Spike tried not to gawk too much more, but it was hard. A pony was bowing to him. A pony was being polite to him. A pony was treating him like an equal. A pony was, plain and simple, not trying to kill and eat him.

“I-It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rarity. I'm Spike.”

“Spike! What a charmingly robust draco-ethnic name.” He blushed as they shook hand-to-hoof, her lashes batting at him. He had no idea what she meant with every sentence that came out of her mouth, and somehow she was still turning his insides into ooze. In a good way. “I beg your pardon for the wait, but it won't be a moment, dear.”

He sat down at an empty table and helped himself to a pitcher of sweetened tea and devoured an entire bowl of garlic-and-butter biscuity things, which instantly made his stomach feel tons better. Just when he'd started considering getting into another conversation, maybe bugging a guest about what the 'Rules' were so he could avoid breaking them, Rarity came back with a small herd of other unicorns, each of them levitating musical instruments, except for Rarity herself, who had a conductor's baton.

And then they started singing.

♪Be our guest

Be our guest

Put our maaaagic to the test!

Bring a heart that's full of wonder

And let us pooonies do the rest!♪

Spike couldn't decide whether he was amazed or terrified before that thing that he previously knew to be reality intruded upon the elaborate song-and-dance setup. Screaming, the whistle of sharp-torn wind, wood being demolished. Incoming violence. As the song slowed and stuttered while Rarity simply glared at them and tried to keep them performing with her clenched-teeth smile, Spike glanced overhead and saw a pony-shaped rainbow diving right for him.

He had enough time to start to duck under the wrought iron patio table before Rainbow Dash slammed into, and through, a series of magical barriers, each one the hue of a separate unicorn's magic. Rarity's, a pale blue, was the one at the end, and the only one to hold, flexing and bouncing the furious pegasus back twenty feet into the air. When the pegasus went for another charge, cursing, all the unicorns swarmed in front of Spike protectively while he considered the irony of his predicament.

“Rainbow Dash! Just what in the name of meat and marrow do you think you're doing?! This gentledragon is one of our guests!”

“Wha?! BUNK! He's MINE!”

Rarity stamped a hoof, scowling. “Honestly, haven't you the slightest SHRED of propriety?!” she yelled right back, meeting Rainbow Dash's charge face-to-face.

The pegasus actually stopped in midair. Spike marveled. How could such a dainty, well-spoken thing stand up to a brute that moved faster than your eyes could even track?! This mystery was only second to the mystery of the Inn itself. It was as though Dragon God had woken up today and decided 'Well, might as well make Spike rethink everything he ever thought he knew about ponies for giggles.'

The two of them apparently knew each other, because they immediately got into what was, unmistakably, a shrieking no-holds-barred verbal girl fight, minus hair-pulling (barely). The other unicorns rolled their eyes at each other and went back to whatever they'd been doing before they'd been hauled in for musical duty, while Spike propped his chin on his hands and stared at Rarity effortlessly, shrilly holding her own with no quarter asked nor given. He should've been scared, he knew he should've been terrified, but somehow, with that classy unicorn between him and danger, he felt... safe.

From what little he could make out of their argument/slapping duel/shoving contest, Rainbow Dash apparently had a history of 'accidentally' eating guests who chafed her very chafable sense of self. Rarity, the founder, owner and manager of the Inn and its unique form of jewelry-based diplomatic immunity, had been losing non-tiny amounts of money from this, since the second half of a two-part payment systems was only finalized when the guest checked out, turned in his or her bracelet and was escorted safely to the border. They spoke casually enough (and dragged up enough juicy dirt on each other) that they'd probably known each other for years, but any friendliness between them was stretching to a breaking point.

Spike wondered if his alibi about the bracelet would hold, and breathed relief when Rainbow Dash admitted that she couldn't even remember if he'd had a bracelet or not. Whew. Rarity, red in the face, actually threatened to buck Rainbow Dash after that, which Spike got to be something of a big deal for so cultured a unicorn. She was seriously defending him, a stranger from a prey species she'd only just met, down to the last bit.

He thought back to Little Strongheart and sniffled, wiping his nose.

When Rainbow Dash lost the argument, she made another lunge for him. Spike jumped back under the table, but it wasn't necessary – Dash's wings were being paralyzed by magic from too many unicorns for even her to break with brute force. The pegasus fell down on her belly with a thud and started spitting out more threats.

Like an animal. And to ponies, Spike thought to himself morbidly, he was the beast.

Rarity stalked up to the grounded pegasus and leaned in till they were snout to snout.

“RAINBOW DASH.” Rainbow Dash shut up, though even that in your face icy yell wasn't enough to douse her glower. “Get. A. Hobby.”

Spike snorted and started laughing. He couldn't help himself. The stupid look on Rainbow Dash's face, the way she'd been effortlessly shut down by someone so completely unlike any of the terribly violent ponies Spike had ever met. And the musical number was still bubbling back there in his brain, too, unanalyzed because it was really just too silly and he was totally going to explode if he thought about everything in detail. He laughed until he fell off his chair, till tears rolled down his eyes. Kept laughing over Rainbow Dash's amazingly awkward attempt to back off and make it look like he wasn't important enough for her to care about anyway. Laughed for finding a place of safety in the middle of pony land, run by the ponies themselves. Laughed being alive. Laughed for having food in his tummy. Just laughed and couldn't stop.

When he got over it, his lungs aching from it, his face wet, Spike found himself being pulled gently to his feet by the unicorn. He flinched a bit, purely out of reflex, and the wince he saw in her face actually hurt him to see.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean-”

“It's quite alright, sir Spike.”

SHE CALLED HIM SIR.

He almost fainted the spot.

“...or is it mister, rather? I must admit that I've still so much to learn about draconic peerage, one is always so busy, what with running a full-fledged revolutionary business and all, that sometimes the mere boondoggle of cultural research quite slips one's mind....”

Spike wiped his face. “You can just call me Spike. I mean, I'm still a baby dragon technically, so....”

“Surely you're joking! Oh, but you're not, and I've offended you by saying so, I can see it in your eyes, what a dreadful harridan of a lady I am. And you out here visiting the Inn all by yourself, in truth? Oh, Spike, Spike Spike Spike, how could you do such a thing? Think of what could have become of you had we not managed to find each other in the nick of time! Why, your parents must be worried sick!”

“I don't really have any.”

That caused Rarity to do another one of her amazingly piercing gasps, and he grinned and got back to his tea, resigned to tell her his life story. It ended up being the short version, as she interrupted with dramatic re-imaginings of how she expected different parts would have went. He particularly liked the bit about him as a knight saving damsels in distress. She had a romantic heart... and was such a considerate listener.

For a unicorn.

For a pony.

That didn't have to mean anything. They weren't all bad, maybe, possibly. He wanted to believe there was good in them. He wanted to believe in Rarity, and resolved to do his best to do so while he stayed at the Inn and got a handle on things. And in admitting that to himself he felt a bit less guilty about also admitting that she was abso-freaking-lutely gorgeous.

Foraunicornforaponyofcoursecoughcough.

Spike caught himself sighing wistfully and staring into her eyes during pauses in the carefully-edited story, and ended up kicking himself in the shin to snap out of it whenever her eyes just seemed a little too sparkly or her voice a bit amazingly melodious. He tried looking at other parts of her, including the blue diamonds flank symbol, but that just made him seem evasive, so he gave up. He did wonder why the diamonds had dark squiggly blotches in them though.

Then they moved on to the Inn, and his delicate admission to maaaaybe having forgotten most of the sales brochure information. Rarity, fortunately, wasn't offended.

“Impulse purchases are often a matter for flighty minds, but I'm sure it was an exception rather than a rule for such a cute little fellow like yourself,” she said sweetly.

At some point after his confession of his age, Rarity had switched from 'adult to adult' mode to 'adult to child' mode. He didn't really mind; she still paid him total courtesy and was even more forthcoming with info this way. Not to mention nuzzles that smelled like vanilla shampoo and made him want to melt from the inside out into a puddle of happy dragon. Around her, he was getting over his years of painfully-learned terror of ponies with almost disturbing ease. Some little part of his brain told him that it was wrong, that it was all just a trap, that he needed to stay alert and be watchful because there was absolutely no way Rarity wasn't going to try to eat him. And the rest of his brain told that little bit to shut up and let him enjoy something for once.

He was extremely disappointed when she handed him off to one of her fellow unicorn underlings, a mint-colored pony named Lyra. Citing business-related engagements, she bid him a 'ta ta' with a last apology and her hopes that she would see him at dinner. With nothing else to do, Spike clutched at his bent bracelet nervously and followed Lyra around as she took him to the front desk and gave him several maps and brochures, which he pretended he could read. The map wasn't too bad, at least, mostly comprehensible pictures and some different-colored lines that he could basically guess at the meaning of. Lyra was happy enough to explain everything about the immediate area and the Inn that he didn't know – which was pretty much everything.

“...and over there's the smoking parlor, dragons like yourself find it quite handy, though I'm not sure if we've any silk robes in your size... I'll see if we can get something resized for you, if you'd like.”

“Sure, that'd be awesome.”

He paused to eyeball the smoking parlor interestedly, where a few dragons, griffins and two more of the ever-present unicorns were having smoke ring contests. Then he shrugged and moved on. It wasn't dragons he needed to learn about today.

“What's down there?” he asked as they passed an ignored stairwell on the way to his room.

“Oh, that's just the kitchen,” she replied with a bright smile and glassy eyes.

Spike nodded and considered asking one of a million questions, and ended up asking a completely different room instead.

“So... these Rules you keep mentioning... how important are they? Is it three strikes you're out or what?”

“Oh, no no NO no no,” she said quickly, tittering a bit. “I'm sorry, sweetie, I really should have informed you before, it's just that we don't get many guests as... um, as in blank slate condition as you. Here, have a seat and I'll go over everything important.”

She patted a hoof on one of the nearby cushioned benches that were scattered throughout the Inn's polished wooden halls, and Spike hopped up. He immediately sank down to his waist in the plush stuffed fabric. After a few futile attempts to readjust himself so that he was more on top of it, he just gave up and let himself be a weird half dragon half furniture centaur thing.

“Huh. You sit weird for a pony.”

“What are you talking about? I'm sitting the way you're sitting.”

“But you're a pony.” He was holding back giggles again. It was probably hysteria, right? Had to be that. This was just such a weird day.

“Hush, you. Anyway, the Rules aren't anything really strange, just codified common courtesy, really. But you only get one shot. You have to understand, Miss Rarity went through a lot of political hardship to get the Inn open. Part of the deal was that guests had to prove themselves capable of holding up to a pony standard of civilized society. If you break a rule, you're... out.”

Instead of making him nervous, that actually helped relieve him a little. So not all ponies agreed that the Inn, that making peace with prey, was such a great idea. Compromises had been put up to get a workable business out of it. He totally got that, it was something he could shove, however awkwardly, into his world view, instead of just treating the Inn like some weird detached fairy tale land where everyone was happy and sang songs for no reason.

“So it's stuff like don't burp at the table, wipe your feet before coming in?” he guessed.

Lyra smiled and patted him on the head. He eyed her warily. Her affection seemed to be less... genuine... than Rarity's. Or maybe he was just more suspicious because Lyra wasn't smoking hot.

“Well, most of it's a bit more symbolic than that, dumpling.”

He really wished she'd stop using nicknames for him that referenced food or flavors.

“Rule number one is: always eat what's set before you. Don't worry, we take great care to accommodate draconic dietary needs here at the Inn. You can leave some on your plate if you want, but it's expected to eat at least half, and don't ever ask for a different dish.”

“Wait, what if I'm allergic to something?”

“Are you allergic to anything?”

“No....” Not that he knew of, anyway.

She rolled her eyes and smirked. “Pumpkin, part of being in Equestria is knowing when to open your mouth and when to leave it shut.” And it was totally a coincidence that she licked her top front teeth after that, polishing damp shiny white with her pink, broad tongue.

Spike sank back into the cushions more to hide a shudder.

“So, rule number two: once a hunt is called on legitimate prey, you can't interfere. Legitimate prey, of course, doesn't include guests of the Inn.”

“Can I argue with them?”

“Can you... what?” She tilted her head and blinked those big sparkly pony eyes at him.

“I get that I can't jump out and wrestle a pony to stop it from eating something, but can I poke them and tell them that what they're doing is wrong and start bringing up relevant points about why they should feel bad about it and stop and eat grass or something instead?”

He gave her his best smile, but Lyra just looked at him with a weird, appraising gaze that made him squirm.

“...no, you cannot do that,” she said after a very awkward silence as the changeling from earlier walked by arm-in-arm with an earth pony, both of them laughing and smelling of booze. “I'm like ninety-nine percent sure.”

Spike sighed silently. There went his big idea to spread peace to all crazy ponies by talking them out of being crazy. Not like it'd ever worked before anyway. “Great. Anything else?”

“Oh, yes. Rule number three: always address the Princess with the utmost respect, regardless of company. Rule four: you must allow yourself to be accompanied by an employee of the Inn if you wish to see Ponyville proper, as designated by the town limit signs. Rule five: at the continental breakfast, don't use more than two creamers for your coffee. The creamer is for everyone. Rule six....”

And so on it went, a good mixture of vaguely ominous restrictions on his movements and activities mixed up with basic politeness things that Spike would have expected out of any inn. He listened to the rules up to twenty-three, and then pretended to listen until Lyra stopped talking about them. There was only so much a dragon could take!

He was shown to his room on the third floor, which had a nice little overlook of the side of the building and the lush rolling hills and trees beyond. There were at least three separate couples having picnics in the shade of those trees while the sun glowed like gold down on everything. The room itself was better than anything he'd ever been in – it wasn't exactly a huge luxury suite, but every piece of furniture was polished to a sheen, the bed was so soft that he actually asked (to Lyra's laughter) if it was stuffed with clouds, the marble bathroom had four entirely separate sets of bath-related liquids organized by fragrance themes, and the minibar was loaded – not that he cared about that last part except for the cute little olives and sugary syrups and stuff, of course. When Lyra took her leave after informing him about the communal supper in a couple hours, he promptly made himself at home with a nonalcoholic cider with four lime wedges and a sprinkle of sapphire dust, and flopped on the bed. If he stayed on top of the blanket, it kept him from sinking too far down. The blanket was decorated with blue diamonds just like Rarity's cutie mark, minus the blotchy parts in the centers.

Heaven, Spike thought to himself as he stared at the cherry wood panels of the opposite wall where an ornate cuckoo clock sat, its weight-driven bird safely housed inside. This was heaven.

To think that a place like that had existed all this time and he'd never heard about it. Then again, not being the reading type, it wasn't like he could check out the advertising pamphlets. But he would have thought someone would have talked about it before, at least. They probably got loads of customers from people who were just sick of having to put up with ponies trying to eat them all the time and wanted to rest for a bit. As nice as this place was, and as full up as it seemed to be, shouldn't it be doing even more business?

Maybe it was struggling because of what other ponies thought of it. Spike had seen firsthand what ponies like Rainbow Dash thought of the Inn, and bet that Braeburn and his cowpony pals wouldn't have had much more respect for it. The courage it took to stand up to your entire society like that... to go a different way and make friends with the creatures every other pony thought of as just food... he couldn't even imagine how brave you'd have to be to do it. He thought back to Rarity and, instead of becoming skeptical of the virtue hiding behind her silver tongue and raw beauty, he became even more impressed the more he looked the situation over. She had singlehandedly... singlehoofedly, whatever... come up with a way for ponies to stop hurting dragons and everyone else, from the ground up, and even made it profitable. She was a genius, a visionary.

A beautiful, compassionate visionary who treated him with respect and was actually interested in his life story. To have someone like that in his life, even if she was a unicorn, a pony....

Sighing, Spike finished his drink and started chewing on one of the lime pieces. These thoughts were sick. He was sick. There wasn't a single dragon who wouldn't react with disgust to his pervy thoughts! But then again, was it so wrong? To want a world where ponies and dragons could live together happily? To want to judge someone, not by what they were born as on the outside, but what they tried to be on the inside?

Spike's eyes looked over the pictures on the walls. There was the pony Princess, of course, with her insanely wavy hair that was probably a pain to brush in the mornings. Another pictured Ponyville from a sort of artistic overhead view with abstract streaks of color, probably based on a pegasus's viewpoint. Then there was a sketch of the Inn, done in charcoal, with a sunhat-equipped Rarity relaxing in a rocker on the front. He snorted and chuckled at that one; that picture had to've been posed if it'd ever existed in the real world at all, a rocking chair was way too... rustic... for a classy lady like her.

Underneath the bed, he found a folded-up metal rod contraption of some kind that he guessed was for some sort of exercise, a smaller child-sized mattress and a surprisingly total lack of dust bunnies. In the closet were enough high-end formal and light spring wear clothes to make him feel like the fresh prince of Ponyville... if any of them hadn't been two or three times his size at a minimum. A small cabinet beside the door held a bunch of magazines and books. Checking out the magazine covers, they seemed to be mostly touristy or general-interest. There was also a dresser with a first aid kit, toothpicks, after dinner mints and something that Spike eventually recognized to be shoe polish. Shoe polish. From a business run by a species that didn't wear shoes. Could this place possibly get any sweeter than it already was?

No bloodstains, no weapons, no restraints, no tools of murder or imprisonment, no traps doors leading to secret dungeons, nothing that would indicate that the Inn was anything other than a really nice place to chill for a while.

The first aid kit lingered in Spike's mind long after he shut the dresser back up. It was the kind of thing he would have found incredibly useful during his travels. He kept wanting to grab it and hide it in a magical space pocket or something to keep with him forever. But, he had to keep reminding himself, the ponies here weren't going to hurt him. They didn't want to. They would have if they'd wanted to already, or at least let Rainbow Dash hurt him instead of doing the dirty work themselves.

He was safe.

He was safe, and yet his brain kept going back to the memories of bloody pony teeth, of screams and snarls, of hooves bruising and spitting flesh.

Obviously it was the room that was the problem! All this time on the road, he wasn't used to being cooped up. Sure, there were two windows, but nothing in the bathroom, what if he needed to duck in there for an escape route? Wait, no, stupid Spike, you don't NEED an escape route, you're SAFE here. Calm down. Get some fresh air. Think about Miss Rarity, maybe.

Raaaarity.

Spike smacked himself on the side of the head. Hard.

“Okay, that's gotta stop,” he told his reflection in the room's hanging mirror firmly. “Seriously, you're creeping me out here, bro. Keep a lid on that inner volcano of hot, ragingly handsome dragon feelings, 'kay? 'Kay. Cool and suave. Remember the rules.” The ones he'd actually paid attention to, at least. “You're a SIR now, after all!”

And even then, he couldn't help but think that it would be awfully hard to scale out the windows and down to the grass, if he had to.

Blaugh! For once in his life, something cool had happened to him, and he couldn't even accept it. But it'd take time. He could afford to take the time... how long had the griffin said this bracelet was good for again? Whatever, he'd just ask one of the ponies at dinner or something. It would be long enough for him to rest and enjoy himself and maybe think of a way to come up with some spare moolah to buy an extended stay. After all, a dragon in Equestria... there had to be something he could be useful for that ponies couldn't do.

By the time he got over himself and decided firmly on a nice stroll around the digs, the clock's cuckoo said it was time to go down for dinner. Realizing he didn't exactly know where to go, Spike found the nearest guest (a diamond dog with a monocle and a tail like a half-unraveled spring) and followed him to the main stream of moving bodies, which got him pointed in the right direction. The dining room was on the first floor, set in the back of the building with most of the longest wall being nothing but windows. It gave a terrific view of the fields and the cute little cottages that dotted the horizon.

He felt super out of place, and not just because of his size. For one, he was the only person in the room who wasn't clothed – even Rarity, presiding over the inner center of the crescent-shaped, red silk-draped table, had put on a few strings of pearls and a large peacock-feathered blue hat. All the guests had put on some kind of formal wear for the occasion, even if it was just a polka-dotted bow tie in the case of the changeling, and the employee ponies were all uniformed in starchy black and white. He heard the whispers and saw the faintly condescending sidelong glances as he stepped in, and a clumsy grin and finger wave didn't do anything to make it stop. They only quieted down when Rarity herself cast a suddenly-cold gaze around the room and cleared her throat meaningfully, which, to Spike's relief, immediately caused everyone to mind their own business and go back to their earlier conversations.

There was apparently some kind of seating arrangement, too, and he felt his face heat up when he had to resort to asking a random unicorn about where to sit and she, of course, pointed out all the stupid place markers that he couldn't read. The markers weren't even regular folded paper slips, they were funky origami things. Anyone could've been forgiven for thinking they were just artsy stuff! His seat was two down from Miss Rarity on the opposite side, far enough that he wished he was closer, close enough that he felt safer than he would have otherwise.

Golden candle holders were matched up against real silver silverware and plates polished to mirror reflections. There was also a small plate and two sizes of bowls on the side, and three forks, and a couple extra utensils he couldn't even identify. He didn't know what to do with it all, and hated that feeling of being a fish out of water. It was a vulnerable feeling, a scary feeling, like being hunted. Only instead of being scared that he'd get hurt, he was scared that someone would laugh. The ridiculousness of it wasn't lost on him.

There was a menu sort of thing underneath the place markers, but to him, the only good of it was in telling him that the Inn had access to sparkly gold ink. Spike waited for the food to come, wondering how Rarity had managed to get dishes for so many different species. At least he knew how to tie a knot behind his neck to get his napkin bib to stay on, that part wasn't as easy as you would think at first!

There wasn't a blessing or anything like that. Spike approved. This joint was way too highbrow to be superstitious, and he wasn't sure he'd appreciate even pretending not to hate anything that ponies had that came close to religion, considering his brush with the Appleloosan idea of faith.

“Entrée is served,” some pony in the back announced, her faintly-accented voice, not too different from Rarity's, effortlessly slicing through the ambient noise.

Guests quieted down as the dishes started being brought in. Spike had been right in his guess that the dishes were appropriate for each species; at least, the unicorns were levitating over different dishes for each guest, with a discreetly murmured description as the meals were floated from platters to plates. The order they were delivered in seemed to be random, because over a dozen guests all around him were getting theirs before he got anything. He tried not to drool and clenched his stomach muscles to keep it from growling and embarrassing him; the steamy smells that were drifting up were like a straight happiness injection through his nostrils, and the food all looked great, even if it was so fancy and covered in herbs and sauces and things that he couldn't really tell what it all was. And one of the dishes was even on fire, which was apparently how it was supposed to be, because the server unicorn just blew it out as it was served, leaving light smoke and something like top-blackened pudding for the gazelle to deal with.

Finally, his meal arrived – he was fourth to last out of a couple dozen guests, not including Rarity and a couple other employees who were apparently similarly important – and he licked his lips, fidgeting a bit as he watched the platter float over in his direction. Too high to see, of course, but that was unavoidable. He considered asking for a couple extra pillows or something to prop himself on, but decided that he didn't need to stand out any more than he already did.

Lyra bent down expertly to place her mouth near his ear as she placed the food on his plate in a short, delicate rain of juices, creamy golden sauce and tiny squares of green herby leaves.

“Filet de lézard avec souffle feu, if you will, braised in a light velouté of itself, rimmed by diced ginger-infused lotus root and topped with the house seasoning and chives.”

Spike thoughtfully stared at the entirely unidentifiable lump of whatever in its rather pretty sauce with planty things on top it and around it. He didn't really like the idea of putting something in his mouth when he didn't know what it was, and took a moment to try and decipher Lyra's words without risking the humiliation of asking a dumb question again. He knew what a filet was, of course. Meat. He could handle that, it was okay, everydragon ate meat eventually when there weren't enough gems to go around. Just forget the cute waving dead squirrel. Totally out of mind. He couldn't afford to get squeamish over something like that now, not when he'd already embarrassed himself by not wearing a tie or anything!

Lézard was a gimme, obviously it was some kind of lizard or other reptilian thing. Bigger than a gecko. Maybe an alligator? What other big lizards were there? Turtle? He liked turtles, they were adorable and helpless. He hoped it wasn't turtle.

That just left the rest of the name, avec souffle feu, which he was clueless on. Wait. Souffle was that puffy egg thing. He'd even had one before. But it was named that because it was puffy, so souffle in this case probably meant puffy or puffed up or something, since he didn't see any egg around.

And he knew feu, now that he really thought about it. They'd said that when they'd delivered the on-fire dish, he was sure of it. So feu was fire.

Meat... lizard... something... puffy, puff, puffed up, puffing... fire.

Or if you reversed it....

No.

Oh, no.

They wouldn't.

They couldn't.

Who would do something that SICK?!

He stared down at his plate, scraping off a little of the sauce with a trembling, beautiful silver fork. There was no way he could tell, of course, it was all cooked up, he couldn't TELL, and he sure wasn't going to ASK!

Fire puffing lizard.

What else could it be?

It was then that Spike noticed with utter and very carefully-concealed horror that everyone else in the room was paying attention to him. The conversations had died down, the eating had slowed, as guests peeked over at him while trying not to look like they were. The servants had slowed their hoof steps, keeping half an eye on him even as they delivered the next course to more eager diners. They all watched. And waited.

For him to eat.

Always eat what's set before you.

...don't ever ask for a different dish.

Spike couldn't breathe. He was certain he was going to throw up.

His eyes went from place to place aimlessly, flitting about like a wounded bird, looking for help he knew he wouldn't find. They stopped on Miss Rarity, beautiful, brave, smart Miss Rarity, who was the only one looking straight at him. Her wide, fixed smile could have been used as a battering ram.

As their eyes met, she broke the quiet, her voice just a little louder than usual, but in that atmosphere it was enough to make everyone start and twitch uncomfortably.

“Goodness gracious, Sir Spike, your dish looks a trifle overcooked even from here! Honestly, Lyra, I expect you to have a better eye than that – this never should have left the kitchen in such a shameful state. Please do me the favor of allowing me to be a good hostess and let me cut that up for you, dear.”

With that, she floated his plate over to her with a blue glow of effortless magic, proceeding to wield knife and fork with similar arcane ease, quickly reducing his filet to bite-sized cubes. Even through his revulsion, Spike had enough functionality left in his brain to marvel at how well she multitasked the most finicky procedures in sharp steel without any visible effort. He marveled, and was increasingly terrified. There was no pretending that the meat was anything but the flesh of another ex-living creature, now, with the soft, pink innards exposed by knife and fork.

She sent the plate back, and that seemed to be a hidden cue for everyone to get back to normal. Everyone started talking and eating again, but they still kept glancing at him, pretending they weren't. But he saw. He saw.

And that strained, big toothy grin never left Rarity's face as she talked a little too loudly with the griffin on her right. He watched her sweat drip down the pearls around her neck. It wasn't that hot in the room.

Rarity very carefully did not look in his direction after that. She looked in every other direction, but not at him, but there was a tightness to her cheerful hostess routine that spoke of fear. Spike knew it because he'd felt it in himself too many times. As she shifted in her seat, he eventually got another look at her flank without meaning to, and finally realized what the blotch in the gems were. They were bugs. What type, he wasn't smart enough to know. Bugs trapped in crystal, frozen forever. Death presented artistically. Tastefully.

Did she want him to eat because he'd embarrass her if he didn't? Or because she cared about him and didn't want to see him embarrassed for his own sake? What would happen if he broke a Rule? Did he even want to know?

Heaven. This was heaven, Spike reminded himself. So what if there was an entrance fee? His hand was still clutching at the fork because he hadn't thought to put it down. Good thing, too – it might have stained the tablecloth. The horror, right? The horror. Stains. Nothing worse than that. They'd all laugh at him, or worse, turn their noses up at him or even make him leave. Make him leave and return to a life where a pony could kill him anytime it felt like it. A life without a soft bed or a beautiful room or a cuckoo clock or a minibar with lime wedges.

Everything he wanted was right in front of him. He just had to be willing to take it.

It wasn't like not eating a steak would bring somedragon back to life.

Excuses.

All excuses.

Spike wanted to throw up, but he didn't.

Instead, he closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

Ugly Things

The bees buzzed about the pink bell-cupped garden flowers with lazy contentment, slowed by the abundance of pollen they'd gathered. It was a nice contrast to the seemingly perpetual birdsong. And the sun was shining, of course. Spike had never before seen the sun shine so beautifully, warmly, consistently in his entire life. He was told that it only rained when the pegasi made it rain. There was even a schedule, so ponies knew when to wear raincoats and galoshes.

But for him, all his brain could latch on was the smell of bacon invading his nostrils, rich and aggressive and reminding him of the feeling of its hearty crispiness crunching between his fangs, hard little fragments spilling over either side of his tongue. He swore he'd swallowed it all, but his mouth insisted that some of the softer, oily fat was still hiding in there. No matter how he licked his lips and ran his tongue over his teeth and swallowed, it wouldn't go away.

At least they'd been nice enough to stop telling him what the food was when he asked. As long as he didn't know, it was just food.

Food that had been made in a way he totally didn't approve of, but he couldn't change that. He was just doing what had to be done. They'd even given him a nice new bracelet so he could walk around and all the ponies would be sure he wasn't a meal.

Which would have been great, except he could barely stand to go out of his room, let alone go outdoors. Whenever the employees checked up on him or he had to make smalltalk with other guests, Spike spent claimed that he was spending his time reading up on Equestria. It wasn't totally untrue. He flipped through magazines and looked at the pictures, and peered over the map again and again till he was ninety-percent sure he knew where the major landmarks were and how far away from each other it all was. The Inn was in one of the biggest blotches in a series of mostly-empty fields with a lot of thick lines crisscrossing them. Farmland or parks or something like that. The way he'd come was clearly visible with its clusters of trees and a segmented line that looked like train tracks. Opposite from that direction, the roads inclined inwards past several widely-spaced clusters of dots, which were probably outlying households and stuff, and then in to Ponyville, which was an unmissable huge mass of dot after dot after dot. There was a big river nearby, and some mountains on the far right end, and more forest over on another side. The ponies might've been masters of their own domain, but there were hiding spots and escape routes outside the town. The biggest dangers were the empty plains were he was at now, and, of course, the actual town.

Not that they were dangerous to him right now, but you never knew.

His eyes followed a gardener pony (he had a huge floppy sunhat, and a spray of grass for a flank symbol) as the employee went around spraying bees with poison. The stuff looked like water, but left a faintly unpleasant chemical tang in the air, and bees dropped immediately after they were sprayed. Spike had tried to tell the guy that he liked the bees, but pony'd just mumbled something about 'company policy' and went about his work. Sighing, Spike left the garden to head inside to the communal study – no one ever studied in it, as far as he could see, so it was a great place to lay low. He took his tea with them in hopes of its weak, mildly sugared taste would drown out the bacon eventually.

Spike settled himself on the couch and found a newspaper to pretend to be reading while he hid from the world. The Inn could get a little rowdy at night, but in the day, the classy partying was mostly outdoors, so he pretty much had the joint to himself. Every once in a while one of the staff would come up and ask him if he needed anything, and he'd say no, and that was it. Still, he couldn't help but tense whenever he heard hooves. He was supposed to be happy. Safe. At peace. But he couldn't make himself feel any of it, even though it was all true on the outside. Throughout the past couple days, his muscles tightened and relaxed so many times from reflexive panic that his arms and legs were sore by now.

Rarity came by before he could get bored of being scared. He still couldn't manage to get scared around her. It was weird, he KNEW she was a pony, knew she ate meat (so did he, so did heeee) and he couldn't get himself to care. Every time she looked his way, he just got sucked into those huge dark eyes and his brain did its best to clunk up. She didn't pay more attention to him than to the other guests, but with him, she was more touchy, patting a hoof on his head, straightening his scales. He liked it, and she kept doing it, saying he was 'such a polite young gentledragon' for whatever reason. He watched for her to lick him or start pinching his belly or something creepy like that, but it never happened. All the creepy was strictly confined to the catered meals.

“Spike dear, you seem to have forgotten to fill out your customer satisfaction poll,” she announced, waving the white card Spike had deliberately ignored in the air. “It's not a formal procedure, of course, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything else we could possibly do for you.”

“Oh, I'm fine, Miss Rarity,” he replied meekly, eyes downcast.

“Please, call me Rarity, you make me feel such an old maid.” Her weight as she settled on the cushions next to him made Spike bounce slightly. “And please... look at me?” she pleaded gently. With a voice that seemed like it belonged to a creature that could never hurt him or anyone else. “I... I've gathered that you weren't entirely informed about what you were... in for... during your stay. A gross deficiency on the part of the salespony, I shall have the ruffian fired if you give the word.”

“Please don't do that,” he said urgently, all in a quick breath, glancing up at her and then looking away again. He seriously could not look at her and concentrate. Though now the smell of her perfume was getting to him, and that was just as bad. “It's my fault, I don't want anyone to get in trouble.”

“Oh, very well, but do let me know if you change your mind. I must say, for a member of such a, ahem, bold species, you're a very considerate guest.”

“Thanks, Mi- um, Rarity.”

“You do know that you don't have to make your own bed, dear? That's what the maids are for.”

“It's no problem.” He didn't usually have a bed, so having one to make actually felt really nice for a change.

“And I really must recommend the services of Steady Gait, our local carriage master. Most guests prefer to avoid going on foot when they first sight-see, although for the streets of Ponyville during working hours, there's really nothing quite like feeling the under one's own hooves or feet, as the case may be.”

“It sounds nice.”

They settled into a quiet in which Spike was uncomfortably aware of the sound of her breathing, and the weight of her body shifting against the cushions. Subtly, like everything she did, with poise and self-control. He tried to imagine her going on a 'hunt,' tearing into some helpless victim. He could make himself picture it, just barely, but feel it was real? No, it was like a fairy tale.

“Are you certain that there's nothing else we can do for you?” she said meekly, eyes shifting back and forth. So considerate. Painfully so. Spike hated himself for disappointing her even as he wondered what poor souls had been turned into lunch.

“Y-yeah, I mean no, I mean everything is perfect! It really... is....” He heaved a sigh. That bacon taste wouldn't go away, but it was starting to turn metallic like copper. Which should've been a good thing, but it wasn't, somehow.

“I don't mean to be a nag, but... oh dear, there's really nothing I could say after that that would sound acceptable, is there,” she interrupted herself with a nervous chuckle. “I suppose I'll leave you to it, then, Sir Spike....”

“It's just...” he said as she started to get up, feeling his heart sinking with the possibility of being left without her again. She paused, and he licked his lips and looked over at nothing in particular. “I'm still trying to figure out if I should be scared of you,” he said in a rush, eyes widening. He had not really meant to say that.

“Oh...” she said rather emotionally, “oh,” she repeated, much calmer. “I see.” She turned to face him and leaned down so they were closer to eye level with each other, and Spike's brain immediately turned ninety-percent off as he got a whiff of her breath – mint, not meat. “Spike, nopony would ever hurt a guest. That's why you're here, isn't it? I know it may seem odd if you've never experienced it before, but we cherish the well-being of our guests as we would our very own bodies. This is all Rainbow Dash's fault, isn't it? She gave you such a fright... wait, idEEEaaaaaa! You simply MUST let me treat you to the spa, that will loosen up all those tense muscles!”

“What's a spa?”

“What's a spa?! Why, Spike, it's the must wonderful thing you could ever imagine! Come with me, come come come come come!”

He could no more fight her than fight a very polite whirlwind, and he was hustled through corridors so fast he lost track of the turns before ending up in the middle of a back section he'd never seen before, with marble flooring instead of carpet and an atmosphere of plentiful steam.

“Aloe! Lotus! Would you ready the double deluxe imperial treatment for Sir Spike here? I won't be satisfied until he's as limber as a, as a thing without bones, whatever that may be!” Rarity giggled behind a hoof, and it was infectious. He found himself laughing with her even though it wasn't really that funny.

Then Aloe and Lotus came around. He didn't like them. They looked even more identical than most ponies did, and their smiles seemed too polite, too much like Lyra's only with even less personality behind them. And their accents just added an extra layer of awkward on top because he didn't know where they got it from, and started worrying about foreign customs he'd accidentally break that could wind up with him being roasted with an apple in his mouth.

Still, one look at Rarity doomed him, and he submitted to being hauled over to a little table and made to lie down flat on his stomach. It was a really vulnerable position, and Aloe jabbered on about how he was too tense, but he didn't know how else he was SUPPOSED to be with her hooves mashing at him! He kept fidgeting and starting and twitching, no matter how much she told him to just relax, even though her hooves weren't sharpened, even though he knew she wasn't really going to lean down and bit into the back of his neck. Even just closing his eyes and trying to forget where he was didn't work. When you'd told yourself that you had to stay alert a million times, it kinda became a habit.

He heard giggling.

“What's that?”

“Oh, zhat eez just zhe girls. Mizz Rarity'z zizter und her friendz. Pay zhem no mind.”

Hooves pushed down into his back, and Spike thought about how he wouldn't be able to run if she wanted to pin him.

The giggling got louder instead of softer. He was getting good at judging the size of hooves – these were small, but louder than they should have been.

“Tsk. Razcals runnink in zhe hallvayz.” Aloe shook her head and tsked. “Doez zhiz 'elp, dumplink?” She pressed a hoof at the back of his neck and twisted in a peculiar angle that caused something to crackle.

“Y-yeah, sure,” he agreed quietly, not knowing why his body was making weird noises and not liking being out of control of it.

After that was the mud bath. He didn't understand why Rarity made such a deal out of being dirty and then approved of guests just wallowing in filth in this 'spa,' but whatever. Anything was better than having somepony's hooves all over him while he looked away from them. It took a massive effort to keep his trembling from that ordeal under control until he could hide his body under the sludge and just be free to shake.

He put the cucumber slices on his eyes and hyperventilated a little bit until he felt okay. And THEN he relaxed.

Not a lot.

Never a lot.

Just enough.

Time became a nice thing to ignore.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON SLAYERS, YAY!”

He screamed and flailed around helplessly in the mush before he realized that the three ponies weren't attacking him. They were laughing at him.

“Jeez, what a wuss!”

“Don't you know yer s'posed tah run?”

“You look a bit shrimpy for a dragon.”

Spike still shook, but from humiliation and anger as much as old repressed fears, now. There were three of them... an orange pegasus, a regular pony who sounded an awful lot like the one he'd heard in the wagon he'd hitched a ride on, and a unicorn with purple-pink hair. All fillies. That meant they might actually be weaker than him. Although he couldn't overpower magic, but if he could use one of them for cover and...

Wait, no Spike, this wasn't how it was anymore.

It was safe here.

Rarity said so.

“Are you supposed to be here?” he asked pointedly, and was pleased to see the three little monsters wince and look at each other guiltily.

“They didn't say we couldn't go into the spa,” the orange one half-yelled back quickly. “Specifically. Today. And stop trying to distract us! You're a dragon, you're supposed to be mean, not talk your way out of a fight!”

“So I'm a lazy dragon, so sue me. Go slay someone else.” He didn't like the way they kept looking him, or looking between each other. Like they were telepathically consulting menu choices.

“This ain't no fun. We can't really eat 'im anywho.” The three ponies sighed in unison. “Even though he looks right delicious. Lookit that there cute lil paunch, it'd just melt in yer mouth I reckon!”

Spike got more than a little rude at that point, and the ponies fled, snickering, after seeing that he wasn't going to be amusing to 'play' with. Two of them, anyway. The pink and purple maned one stayed behind. They stared each other down with even, resentful looks.

“Well?” he asked irritably. He'd never felt less relaxed in his life. Okay, not his WHOLE life, but still. The magic of the mud was gone. “Aren't you gonna go bother someone else with your friends?”

“I don't see why sis likes you so much, you're rude,” she said abruptly, sitting down on her haunches.

Spike seriously considered throwing mud in her face.

But that would have been RUUUUUUUUUDE.

“Who likes me so much? I barely talk to anyone!” And none of them really LIKED him, as far as he could tell. There was just Rarity, who obviously felt bad for him, and Lyra, who kept looking at him and licking her lips when she didn't think he could see, and the maid who kept trying to do his bed and pouted when he got to it first every morning.

“Uh, did you totally not see Rarity pouring all that attention all over you?” she asked with acidic scorn. “She hasn't talked to me that much in WEEKS!”

This was Rarity's sister? Spike squinted at her skeptically. Nah, he didn't see it. This crazy little filly wasn't making him weak at the knees or anything. “Are you adopted?”

She glared at him in silent fury, her horn glowing. The mud around him began to bubble and pop, heating up to a near-boil that he found rather nice. “NO I AM NOT ADOPTED!” she shrieked, voice cracking. “Why don't you just hurry up and break a rule already so the cooks can put your over some rice?! Having family care more about a sandwich than you is humiliating!”

Spike's head jerked up. “Ponies don't eat guests. Be our guest, be our guest, put our magic to the test,” he sang weakly. “Remember? I'm not a sandwich.”

She got up in his face, and he stiffened, eyes locked to her well-brushed teeth. “Are so! You just have a 'do not use until' label, like wine or something! Don't you know what happens when you break one of the rules?”

“You... you get thrown out,” he guessed with a sinking feeling. No one had actually told him what happened if you broke one of the kajillion rules. “Right?”

The filly smirked. “Come on, I wanna show ya something.”

“I'm not going anywhere with you!” He sank deeper in the mud, for all that that helped.

“Okayyy, I guess I'll just have to tell Rarity, theeeen,” she replied in a singsong tone. “You know doing what an employee politely asks you to do is one of the rules, right? And I'm the sister of the company owner, so ipsy factor, I'm an employee.”

“Oh. Yeah. Ipsy factor. Right.”

Spike was pretty sure that wasn't how it worked, but he didn't want to get in trouble by making Rarity's sister mad anyway, so he sighed and ducked in the shower to clean off before following the little pony out of the spa. He didn't trust his current guide nearly as much as Rarity... in fact, she made him nervous, the way she pranced about, ducking in and out of places, going one way and then mumbling 'Oh, wait' and then turning around and reversing course. There was no hint of the grace that her apparent sister held, the stately poise, the elegant self-control and wherewithwhatchacallit.

It was because he was halfway expecting it that he didn't freak out when they started going down that little set of stairs to the kitchen. If anything went wrong, it was totally her fault. And he wasn't breaking any rules. The ones he'd listened to, anyway. She wouldn't just let him break a rule he didn't know about, would she?

Would she?

His personal tensions loosened up a bit when she paused just halfway through the swinging door (with those metal plates on the bottom part, what were those even for?), groaning. “Hold on a second, I've gotta put on a manenet.”

“A manenet?”

Spike saw what she meant soon enough when he followed her into the big, empty room of stainless steel and white-polished stone. All of her curly mane had been gathered up into a ridiculous looking transparent baggy thing stuck on her head. Her expression made it look even sillier than it did to start with, and her mane seemed strained, like it'd jump out at any second like a bundle of springs.

He snickered a little, but stopped and tried to look innocent when she glared at him.

“It's annoying, you're so lucky you don't have a mane.”

“Yeah. Lucky,” Spike echoed mindlessly, watching her calm down with the same wary interest that he had with ponies when they were visibly deciding whether to attack him or not.

“Anyway, over here, look.”

She trotted over to a series of stovetops, one of which was on a low burn with a large pot atop it, her little hooves clattering very loudly between help from the room's acoustics and her own characteristic enthusiasm. It was almost cute, in a totally different, less amazing way from how Rarity held herself. Maybe she wasn't so bad once she got away from her annoying friends, Spike thought to himself. Maybe they could work through this thing and not hate each other. Maybe....

The filly lifted the top of the pot off with her teeth and set it down with a clamor that made him jump. “See?”

He went up and tried to peek, realized he was too short and got a stool to try again.

In the pot, bobbing and cooking gently in a foamy, herb-speckled broth, was the head of the changeling guest, eyes gouged out to gaping holes.

Spike fell off his stool, hit the back of his head on the metal of the nearby counter and blinked back tears of pain before jumping to his feet, heart pounding in his chest. He looked back and forth between the pot, its contents thankfully hidden to him at floor level, and the manenetted filly, who was smiling with squinted eyes, the smug expression of someone who'd just won a little argument. Then he looked back and forth again. Cute filly. Dead changeling. Cute filly. Dead changeling. Remembering how just YESTERDAY he'd seen that changeling, whatever its name was – had BEEN – talking, laughing with the ponies, playing badminton terribly. So alive. So dead. Gone, just like that.

“It's headcheese soup!” the filly explained cheerfully, as though completely unaware that it was soup made of a guest like the dragon she was talking to. “Or going to be, anyway. Chef Fletch Fetcher says it's still in the preminilary stages. Wanna taste? Rarity says it's okay just because it's me, and I think it still counts if I share.” She found a ladle and held it out to him in her mouth eagerly, pale green eyes ashine. “Hey, I wonder if changeling tastes like anything. I hear ponies say it tastes like chicken, but other ponies say it just tastes like that because it gets the flavor of the broth you cook it in and stuff. I guess we'll never know since it's already cooking.”

His eyes were fixed on her as she kept her happy expression, which slowly shifted to gentle confusion as she saw he wasn't responding. She really didn't get it, did she? Even when she was rubbing his face in it to prove a point, she still didn't get it. Were they all brain-damaged? Were they just taught to be this way? Had someone taught her... had Rarity taught her?

No, Spike told himself firmly, angrily. No, not Rarity. The rest of them, maybe, but not her. She understood, the Inn was just the best she could do as a victim of circumstances, just like him. That was how it was. All that worry, that concern, that was for him, because she cared about her guests!

“I don't really feel like eating anything,” he told her with total honesty, so she shrugged and put the utensil back in its slot. He started to say something else, choked on his own thickened spittle and swallowed, coughing. “What rule did he break?” he asked, feeling shaky but noticing that his body actually was really still. Like he could just fade from view because her sight was motion based or something. Hah, if only it were that easy.

“He used up like, half of the entire thing of creamer! The creamer is for everyone,” she said self-righteously, nose uplifted.

“You killed a guest over a COFFEE SUPPLEMENT?!” He could smell the meat cooking, going from raw to boiled so slowly, it was attacking his nose and forcing itself into his body.

“Those are the rules. If we don't have rules, we have chaos! Discord and stuff. Dontcha know about Discord?” He stared blankly. Already, she had moved on from the topic. Because changelings weren't ponies, changelings didn't matter. They could pretend to matter, oh sure, but the moment the line was crossed, kaput. “Discord was a mixed up monster who made everything topsy turvy, hobos living with stockbrokers, boots catching fishermen, mimes becoming beloved pop icons! It was crazy and everypony was sad. But then the Princess saved us, stuck Discord in stone forever, and now we have RULES to keep everypony happy!”

“Rules to keep everypony happy,” he repeated carefully, seeing her happiness unbroken. “To keep every... pony... happy. Every. Pony.” She blinked. “What about the rest of us?” He had to get through to her. How couldn't she see it? How couldn't she understand? With Rarity for a sister, she had to! “Maybe we don't want to be eaten. Maybe that changeling could have paid you back for the cost of the creamer or something! How could you just KILL someone over something so STUPID?!”

She scoffed and waved a hoof. “Oh, you're just getting upset 'cause you thought you were a pony. But you're prey. Sometimes we keep prey as pets, we don't have to eat you right now, but it's only a matter of time. Rarity needs food too, even if she doesn't like to see how it's made. I wish you guys would stop panicking when it's your turn.” The pony rolled her eyes, leaning back against the counter. “That changeling guy gave Dainty Dishes a black eye, fighting back, once they told him! Don't you understand that you could hurt somepony really badly if you don't act like you're supposed to? It's soooo immature.”

Spike was speechless.

“It's a good thing most of the staff are unicorns,” she went on, rambling. “'Cause you can't beat magic from a buncha unicorns, even if you can outfight an earth pony or a pegasus! Even if you go for the eye or something so it hurts too much to use magic, you can't do that with ALL of them, and they'll getcha.” She nodded to herself and waved her hoof in his wave. “So you better be on your best behavior around my sister, mister!”

“My name is Spike,” he said listlessly, hurrying out of the kitchen. He wanted to get that smell of boiling meat as far away from him as possible.

She followed after, an unwelcome tail end, her forehead furrowing. “Huh, that doesn't sound like a very delicious name to me.”

It wasn't supposed to be delicious. Because dragons were people, not food. Not. Food. “You still have your manenet on,” he pointed out.

When she blushed and ran back to the kitchen to be rid of it, he slipped off at a fast jog and managed to lose her, running aimlessly.

He couldn't take this anymore.

He couldn't live like this anymore.

Any of them... any of them... could do something dumb, make some stupid mistake, and then wind up on his fork come dinnertime. And this was how scared he felt, how bad it hurt, when he didn't even know any of the guests. What if he got to make friends with them, what then?

Spike found an employee, asked if there was a rule against skipping meals, and immediately asked to be excused from lunch when he was told there wasn't. There were rules, of course, against premature cancellation of a stay. You couldn't just leave unless you had the money to pay an extra fee, and he was broke. And, too, he was worried about using normal methods of travel. Civilized methods like the ponies wanted. Once he was out, he was no longer a guest. He wouldn't put it past a hungry pony, one of them in particular, to track him until he stopped being a guest and then pounce. The map would show him out of here and then he could go....

Back to the woods, where he'd already been harassed by two separate ponies?

To the mountains, even closer to pegasi cloud homes?

He didn't know. Some mythical place in his head, probably.

Come to think of it, he hadn't even listened to all the rules, so he could've broken some of them already. Maybe it would be his head floating in soup tomorrow. Maybe that dragon with the hearty laugh who hung out at the smoking parlor, or even Rarity herself would be nibbling at....

His brain crunched to a stop at that one. Rarity was still pure and clean and pretty. No matter what, he couldn't come to believe otherwise. But he had to talk to her. Had to find out why it was this way, so she could help him understand. With that goal in mind, Spike stalked the halls restlessly, peeking into room after room of potential meals laughing it up with ponies, playing checkers, debating novel symbolism in book clubs, even juggling. Yeah, it was a laugh a minute at the Inn.

So long as you behaved.

Rarity was settling a poker game dispute about some tiny card ruling or other that held sway over a mountain of coins. The perceptive, kindhearted pony that she was, she immediately noticed him standing at the doorway even though he was more hidden than not, and finished up the business right away with the air of a dignified peacekeeper.

“Spike, you're done already? I'd quite expected you to make a day of it, I know I usually do when that call for the spa arrives in my poor overworked muscles. Were the facilities up to your expectations? Aloe and Lotus are artisans of their craft, it's true, but a new client is always a bit of a learning experience....”

“Oh, yeah, it was great. Is it okay if I talk to you about something real quick... in private?” he asked, scratching a toe claw at the floor in a little circle.

“But of course, darling, anything for a guest! Let's retire to the veranda, it has such an air of solacement that I just know you'll find it impossible to be in anything but peak spirits there.”

He trailed behind to the nearby veranda, which was apparently a fancy word for the patio, and joined her at an umbrella-shaded table. There was a pitcher of lemonade sitting there with some glasses, and the ice wasn't even melted even a little bit. She followed his gaze and immediately poured him a glass with a gentle clatter of ice cubes and murmuring liquid against crystal, and he held back the urge to sigh admiringly. She was so... nice. And pretty. And nice.

And totally not like all the other ponies.

“Your sister showed me what was in the kitchen,” he said after a sip that seemed to go straight from sweet to sour, but it wasn't the flavor that was making his mouth twist.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity muttered with unusual irateness, clasping her head in her front hooves, “how can you be such close blood to me and yet so persistently vulgar, I will never understand. Please understand, I never wanted it to be like this. Guests should feel safe!”

Yes. Yes! This was what he'd wanted to hear. Spike's heart soared. She was just a victim, just like him! Together, they could take on the pony world!

“I would like to say it wasn't always like this, but waxing deceitful is unbecoming of a lady,” she continued with a sad little smile. “I used to want to make dresses, you know. I saw a bolt of fabric, a bit of thread, and the ideas just wouldn't stop flowing. But... well, I seemed to be needed here more. Someone has to keep this place from turning into a filthy midden like the Apple family's farm,” she added lowly. “But I'm being terrible, talking so much of myself at a time like this. Are you well, Spike? Was it all so very dreadful?”

“I want to leave. Maybe we could go together,” he suggested in a rush, face heating up furiously. She was a business entrepreneur and he was just suggesting that she abandon her entire life on an impulse. Swell, he was such a smart little sandwich, wasn't he? But he couldn't help it, she was like a dream come true!

“Spike! Have you taken leave of your senses?” Even as he stood up, Rarity's horn glowed, her magic forcing him back down in the chair. “You mustn't leave now, Rainbow Dash is quite the grudge holder, your life would be in peril! I couldn't stand it if anything happened to a well-behaved guest like yourself! In fact, I insist.” She refilled his lemonade even though he'd barely touched it, till the drink quivered perilously at the very rim, as tremulous as her smile. “I shan't hear a word more of you endangering yourself, and the staff will be instructed to be more... discreet... from now on. As for Sweetie, why, I may very well just tan her hide, see if I won't!”

“But... but you said...” He stumbled over his words now that he was faced with the reality of resistance. How could he possibly voice his admiration and respect for her, his LOVE for her, without sounding like a pea-brained dummy? How could he make her understand what it meant to him to finally meet a pony who wasn't a vicious killer? “I mean... why should a pony as great as you be stuck with all these others who LIKE killing and making people into food? You're so much better than them! I know I can't stand it, how can you?”

“I know, I know, it's such a grotesque farce of the noble hunts of the olden days,” she said with dramatic misery, rubbing one hoof against the other as one would wring hands. “But what can one do? Why, if I were to let a guest ill-treat us and get away with it, why, I'd be the laughing stock of Equestria from Canterlot to Manehattan.”

“What?” Spike asked, ice working its way slowly up his spine as he stared into pony eyes of dark velvety dew.

“The tabloids print such trash about our services as is, you wouldn't believe the filth they... but I digress,” she went on, lost in her own little rant about a world that Spike had never been a part of. “A lady of fine breeding like myself is of quite the sensitive disposition, you see, sweet Spikey-wikey. Even the smallest whispers about... inappropriate... conduct between myself and prey species just burns my ears so painfully, and they do so whisper! Honestly, the way some ponies talk, if I'd let that changeling off the hook, I might as well have married him!” She collapsed back against her chair in a mock swoon. “So you see, my dear, my hooves are quite tied in this matter, however awful it may be.”

“I understand,” Spike said numbly, his mouth moving without the rest of him doing much at all.

“Oh, I'm so glad you do, dear! I just knew you would.” She leaned over to give him a friendly little hug with one limb, which would have sent thrills to his heart just minutes ago.

But now, his heart was already stoked with smoldering anger.

“It would be embarrassing if you'd let him live,” he said, just to be very clear on it.

“Yes, exactly! Your astuteness does you credit, sweet Spike.”

Sweet, it occurred to Spike, was also a flavor as well as a compliment.

The tactical part of his brain considered the circumstances, weighed the dangers against the desires in his heart, and found the dangers wanting. No matter how much he looked at her and tried to recall that feeling of safety and comfort, it was gone. It was headcheese soup.

“You know... Sweetie Belle seems like she cares about you a lot,” he threw out idly, watching Rarity tilt her head, those gorgeous mane curls falling and shifting. “But she kind of has a big mouth.” Said things she shouldn't have said. Useful things.

“Whatever do you mean, Spike? Has she been spreading lowbrow, ugly tales?” Rarity asked indignantly.

Spike's eyes drifted to the vast green fields, empty but for ponies playing and ponies in little folksy cottages and flowers that were picked by ponies. “No.” The ugly things were already here, there was no spreading to be done. “I think...” He stopped, unable to say it, and then found that his mouth wanted to keep on going without him. “I think you're the ugliest pony I've ever known,” he went on, careful to keep his eyes away from her so that he wouldn't see the expression on her face. “I mean, all the other ones don't even know it's bad. They don't understand. You do get it, maybe just because it's gross or something, but you get it. And you do it anyway. You treat them so nicely and then just let them croak because some other ponies might laugh behind your back if you showed some pity. You tell yourself you're so classy, and you act like it, you live in this fine fancy place with all its fine fancy rules, but it's all a lie. It's a lie because at the bottom of it, some poor sucker's head is floating in a pot of soup because you want ponies to think you're not weird or anything. To me, that makes you a liar, and uglier than any of the ponies who were honest about what they were and what they wanted. Rainbow Dash told me she wanted me dead. You just want to pretend it's not like that when it really is.”

His eyes swept back and forth. There were no pegasi, no unicorns that he could see right now. Everypony was busy with their own affairs, and all the nearby staff and guests were indoors. No one was paying attention to the two of them. Then he looked back at Rarity, whose mouth was moving, she was saying something, tears gleaming beautifully in her eyes, but his ears refused to hear. His brain refused to understand. Whatever she was saying didn't matter, it was just noise, nothing could take back what she'd already said and he had never, ever met someone so beautiful on the outside and so rotten on the inside.

“I thought the other ponies were really bad, but you're hideous, even worse than all the rest,” he told her calmly. “And I HATE YOU!” he shrieked, ripping the bracelet off and lashing out with one handful of claws.

Directly at her right eye, exposed with one crystal-shiny streak of moisture trickling down from it.

Her scream could have done an opera singer proud, it was almost like a physical force that helped to propel him away as he ran, without thinking – he'd thought too much already, after all. His body knew what to do better than his stupid heart or brain ever did. Spike hopped the little ornamental fence around the veranda, rounded a corner to the other side, found more ornamental bushes and used them for cover as he ran for the nearest treeline. Ran for cover.

Away from comfort, away from the lies, back to honesty and fear and freedom. Although, for hours after that, he was surrounded by the noise of angry ponies barely avoided, barely ran from in time, mobs, hunting parties, search parties and who knew what else, the ruckus they made drifted into his ears and past them and was forgotten as soon as it was gone. No matter how tired he got, his body was on auto, and it told him where to hide and when to run and when to look at the map and when to keep still. The only thing he couldn't escape, the only thing his mind latched onto, was that sound of that beautiful pony's scream.

Would he feel bad about it? Shyeah, right.

Not after all they'd done, what they would still do.

Maybe he was prey to the end, however pretty they wanted to dress it up, but he'd leave these hunters some scars before it was all over, Spike swore to himself.

Breathe

Spike shivered in a puddle brown as his mood and even colder, cursing his only hiding spot for dozens of yards around for having a natural dip in the ground. The rain was thick enough to be a pain, but not thick enough to blind anypony who might be nearby, so he had to stay put in this tangle of bushes. It didn't even look or feel like rain, it looked and felt like gravel, with the gray sky and the gray water only broken up by the brown of sodden dirt. It was hard to keep telling himself that this was better than a soft bed, a hot bath, a roof over his head.

He had a little trick, though. Whenever he felt bad about it, he just remembered the taste of bacon.

Things would've been a lot easier if he hadn't lost the dumb map. Of course, when you're trying to build artificial straw dummy Spikes to trick ponies into going off the wrong fork in a crossroads with all of twenty seconds to do the job, you were bound to rush and forget some things. He knew he was pretty far from the Inn, but not far enough. Trouble was still hounding his heels, and he still heard the search ponies. At least it was only once every day or so, now.

Attacking a very important businesspony had not been the smartest move, as far as working on survival went. But some things, Spike was coming to realize, were more important than survival. Like self-respect and honesty. How would ponies ever change if no one ever told them what they were doing was wrong? Still, it was easy to think of a million things he should have done before running off. A compass, NORMAL food supplies, even a poncho or something for weather like this would've been great. Still, he was just one little – brilliant, handsome – dragon, he couldn't think of everything, now could he?

So he shivered in his puddle and waited for the rain to stop. Which it didn't. He started counting the seconds, then the minutes, then added it all together and it was about three and a half hours before he decided that this was no way for a dragon to behave, cover or no cover. Spike pulled himself out of his measly shelter and into the open air and rain, though his skin couldn't feel much of a difference because it'd been wet for so long.

Without any way to know where he was going, there wasn't much point in picking a direction other than making sure he wasn't going the way he'd already come. He kept his eyes out for the vague shapes of cottages or other buildings, but all he saw were trees as he walked. Not even any ponies, which made sense, since he was way away from the roads and intended to keep it like that. They didn't want him that badly... he hoped.

For most of the day, Spike's world was just gray and wet and the endless pattering racket of raindrops on turf. When he found a particularly thick line of trees, he went to it instinctively, only noticing after he was well in them that he'd walked right under a wooden plank fence. So it wasn't public ground, unless he'd just COME from private land, which he had no way of knowing. Argh. The things he would've done to've had that map back, and light and dryness to read it by. And that whole literacy thing probably would've helped tons too. He kept on going, feeling comforted by having all those thick wooden trunks around him when he couldn't see much else, and started to notice that the trees were spaced at very regular intervals, all lined up in rows. That was a very pony thing. Cultivated.

Trees ended after a bit, replaced very bluntly with the watery gray-blue shape of a building that, even in the blurry wetness of the weather, seemed to stretch out from the left side of his field of view all the way to the end of the right and taking over the skyline above. The broadness of the shape, the lack of towers or other irregularities, probably meant it was a business building for packaging or something mundane like that. There weren't any windows, at least, none he could see from this side, but the ground level had wide sliding doors lit up by horizontal lines of weak glass-shielded lanterns. The rain covered over any sounds there might have been, but he didn't see any signs of pony life on the outside.

Spike stopped behind a tree so that only half of him was getting rained on, and thought to himself hard. Facts were facts, he could use some supplies. They might even safe his skin later. And if he were going to be a naughty little dragon and steal stuff, the cover of rain worked for it pretty well. But doing that increased his chances of being caught right now, too. It was a tradeoff of whether he wanted to risk more now for safety later or the other way around.

The sound of the rain on his back spines really was driving him crazy. Heck with it, he might as well poke around and see what there was to see. If he had to run, he'd run, just like always, but there was no point in leaving opportunities around without at least peeking at them. He found a sliding door that was only just open enough for someone like him to sneak in, and crawled inside on his belly, immediately hiding behind a stack of somethingorother that it was too dark to see right as soon as he got in. Blessed, blessed dryness! The noise was still just as loud, though; from inside it was pretty obvious the place was mostly tin-roofed, so it actually was even louder inside, if possible, than outside. His eyes must've not liked the rain much, they were still watering and no amount of blinking would get rid of it.

Something to be thankful for, though, it meant he could make noise without being heard. If there was, in fact, anypony to hear him. He wasn't sure; the place looked deserted so far. As his eyes adjusted to the lantern lights, he got an idea of how big the place really was. He could look overhead and see crank elevators and pulley systems leading up to at least four more floors, maybe even more than that. The view from the ground level was cluttered up by walls and stacks of crates and other things he couldn't make out, but just glancing down a very wide hallways he could tell that they went on for ages, maybe even miles.

Spike took a deep breath through his mouth and nose to steel himself for exploration, and gagged so painfully hard he almost threw up just by choking on his own spit. The SMELL. How had he not noticed that right away?! No wonder his eyes were watering! The rain must've kept it down from the outside, but now that he was in, he was smelling the worst stench he'd ever smelled in his entire life. It was like rotten meat and an outhouse and a bunch of industrial chemicals all mixed together, impossibly strong. Trying to breathe again and gagging again, Spike gave up and ducked his head outside into the rain, panting, trying not to be scared of the sliding door falling down and crunching his poor head off.

Man, for a business place in a nice little scenic tree-y spot, that place reeked. What could they possibly be doing in there to make a place that big smell that bad? No way did he really wanna know the answer to that question, right?

Still, none of that changed why he was here. Provided he could stand walking around in there in the first place. What the heck, it was probably some kind of trash dump or manufacturing storage place that didn't get cleaned much, so he wasn't likely to bump into anypony. This was actually perfect. He wasn't gonna let a little thing like a bad smell get him down!

Spike pulled himself back in, tried to take a whiff through his nose, gagged again, punctuated that gag with an uncontrollable shudder and then started breathing through his mouth. It was almost bearable then. His eyes were still blurry though, and starting to sting a bit. It would probably get better once he got used to it.

As he took his first few tentative steps along the closest crate wall-defined hallway, he noticed his toe claws pinging against something metallic. Spike looked down and saw that the floor, which he'd thought to be solid, really was a series of several layers of massive grates. They extended down underground into darkness, giving him a feeling of walking on top of an infinite pit, and he shuddered again. He thought that part of the odor, an ammonia-y smell, might've been wafting up from there, but the smell was so thick and so ever-present that it was hard to be sure. Okay, Spike, don't look down, those grates are clearly strong enough to hold up hundreds of pounds of stuff, no problem.

Sidling along the crates, he could see markings. Even if he couldn't read, he could at least see the stamped symbol that went with the repeated letters – an outline of a half-eaten apple. He wondered if any of the trees outside were apple trees. Stopping to peek through the gaps in the crate planks, Spike saw that they were empty. Most people wouldn't have bothered to stack empty crates so neatly; they were uniform down to the last centimeter practically. Unless, of course, you had a LOT of crates to stack.

He moved on to a four-way crossroads in the crate hallway, with an iron bar extending from the floor and holding up a sign. There were arrows pointing forward, left and right, with some useless letters. The symbols were a lot more helpful – a deer outline on the part that pointed left, and a cow outline on the one to the right.

Apparently this was some kind of... butcher shop? It didn't bode well for his finding his way around that the place was huge enough to need signs to keep employees from getting lost. But that also meant there was lots of room to hide and run. He recalled what little he knew about butcheries, the hanging meat, the sausage makers, and steeled himself to be ready for it. Probably he should just be grateful that some ponies were 'civilized' enough to like their victims dressed up instead of just chowing down raw and unskinned.

Spike recalled a little trick about finding your way through mazes: pick a wall and follow it all the way around. Lacking any better ideas, he decided to go with the left 'wall' and headed towards the deer outline place. It wasn't long before he realized how easy it would be to totally lose track of distances in here, with the lantern lighting barely any better than nighttime moon and stars, so he began to keep track of how many stacks of crates he walked past, along with taking note of forks where he had to turn left. At about three hundred stacks, he started hearing noises besides rain on tin. A regular series of soft but countless thumps, followed by a much longer series of sounds – ripping, cracking, solid whacks, wet schlurping noises. Thumpthumpthumpthump, riptearcracklecrickwonkwonkschlurrr, thumthumthumpthump....

He slowed down, grimacing after looking around and finding no cracks or gaps in the crates to hide in. Still, he kept going, because where there were ponies, there were supplies. Maybe even an air freshener; the smell of this place was really getting to him.

Three hundred and twenty-two stacks, and he saw the source as the crates broadened out into the equivalent of a large room. At first, his eyes were drawn to the platform about fifteen above, a thin metal railing extending from who knew were. On that platform was the biggest, strongest looking stallion Spike had ever seen, and it didn't help that the fur that wasn't covered with a yellow (originally white, before the stains had set in) smock was blood red, either. He had a scary black rubber mask on that covered his eyes with dark lenses and his snout with some sort of broad tube that probably helped with breathing, and his wild orange mane was kept barely under control by an extra-big manenet. That pony was the source of the thumps as he hefted a crate larger than he was out of a stack of them and tilted it over the inadequate-looking railing with not so much as a grunt of effort. Spike's eyes followed the contents of the crate – bunches of furry, feathery, scaly shapes, definitely a pony's idea of 'wild game' – as they spilled down to a series of conveyer belts powered by a drab brown-tan pony on a large-wheeled bicycle, his own mask warping his little huffs into an eerie sound. Spike made a face, but this was about what he'd expected, so the shock was gone, and at least it was mostly things fawn-sized or smaller.

As the bodies fell down onto the conveyer belts, they were separated out in different directions, each belt leading to another smocked and masked earth pony at the end with his or her own table, sacks and other implements that Spike couldn't make out too well in the dimness he was so very grateful for having to hide in. At the tables, the ponies worked to separate bones, slice meat off, yank entrails, peel skin. There were no wasted bits; even the eyes and brains were separated into their own piles to be sweeped into already-bulging sacks. Only blood and waste were left to fall down into the grates. The ponies' hooves were coated with layer after layer of dry, crusty and fresh blood from what seemed like hours of doing this work, but none of them voiced complaints. In fact, they talked and joked with each other cheerfully, not caring how muffled and weird their voices sounded through the rubber masks, and through this, Spike learned that the 'boss' up above was Big Mac, and the conveyer belt pony, a fidgety little guy, was named Caramel. Spike even recognized Big Mac's voice from the cart he'd stolen a ride on. By their reckoning, it was a busy day for Ample Acres' Wild Game Processing, but 'no rest for the wicked' even in pegasus-ordained bad weather.

Hardy har har, you heartless jerks, Spike thought to himself. It was a good thing there wasn't anything from a talking species, at least not in this batch, or he would've had to've freaked out.

Then Spike saw something that changed how he felt.

Some of the animals were still alive.

He'd thought that those little random twitches had just been the randomness of a recently-dead body still not realizing it was dead. He knew some bodies could be like that, especially with animals like chickens. But then he saw the telltale heaving side of a baby deer breathing, saw the pulsating-with-panic throat of a gasping turtle, and knew the truth of it. Most of them had taken wounds too bad to live through, but not ]i]all of them. Some of them had just been hurt badly enough that they couldn't run or fight.

And, instead of taking the time to finish the job, the hunters had just thrown them into crates and transported them back for 'processing,' buried in dozens and dozens of fellow prey living and dead. The ponies at their tables didn't treat the living ones any different from the dead ones, they broke bones, split open bellies to yank out guts, slashed off skin just the same whether the critter was wiggling or not. Any pathetic dying squeaks or other sounds that the victims might have made was drowned out by the much louder sounds of rain on the roof, cracking bones and other noises of the butchering work.

Unbelievably, one of the critters with the worst damage managed to be the only one to struggle and flop off its table. An old badger that had been wizened to a gray grayer than the weather outside, missing all its teeth from age and both its front legs from a pony's bites, huffed and wheezed and snarled and just rolled right down to the floor. Its back legs struggling futilely to gain traction, but one of them got stuck in a grate and it was left flailing about with wild, pointless desperation. The ponies thought it was hilarious.

“Now where do you think yer goin', Wheezy McGee? Get back on that table, you rascal! Look at 'im, 'e thinks 'e can make it!”

“Eeeeeyup,” Big Mac commented with a deep chuckle.

Spike could have sworn that, for just a second, the badger SAW him. Looked at him with pleading, rummy, sunken eyes, eyes that wanted him to do something, mount a daring rescue, pull off an impossible escape plan. It was hard to tell if it was for real or just Spike's guilty conscience, though, because the badger soon turned to bare pink gums at an encroaching hoof and snap, as if the poor thing could have so much as broken a baby's skin with its mouth.

Then the critter was inevitably heaved back up to the table, and Spike hid his face in a hunk of splintery crate, moistening it with tears that leaked through eyes that felt like pits of fire by now.

No, Spike.

Don't turn away.

This could be you one day.

Look.

He didn't know where that voice came from inside him, but he obeyed, and he watched helplessly as the badger finished dying while he breathed in deliberately-paced breaths, the stench of the whole place taking over his lungs and mouth and nostrils. The critter lasted longer than he would have thought possible. Only when it was over and Big Mac started pouring out more critters did Spike let himself back away, fleeing the way he'd come in the first place. So this was how the ponies got their meat when they didn't want to hunt for it themselves. This was where Rarity's fancy meals started.

He felt so much better about 'honest' hunters like Rainbow Dash, the Appleloosans and those pegasi in the desert, now that he knew what the alternative was. It was one thing to be a murderer. It was another thing to just passively be a part of murder, to accept it as the normal way of things without ever having the guts to do the fighting and the killing yourself. His resolve at rejecting the Inn hardened into iron, into steel, into diamond, whatever was harder than those things. He would not lie to a pony and say that he didn't think what they were doing was monstrous. At least the ones who caught their own meals had the respect to put themselves at risk. It was just a pity the 'prey' didn't do a better job of fighting back.

An idea came to him.

If this place was a meat factory, and the section he'd just come from was for wild prey, the cow outline section was probably for tame prey. For slaves who had no reason to live except to die for the sake of pony bellies. Spike couldn't think of a better reason for a critter to be angry at life than that! Right now, he was the only one who was fighting, who was hostile. Because this was Equestria, land of the ponies. But what if he got a band of freedom fighters with him? Comrades in arms! The wild animals didn't understand cooperation like that, but tame ones had to, a lot of them were probably penned together anyway!

Yes.

This could be the start of a revolution to shut down easy pony meat sources and get all the squeamish ones like Rarity (stop being so pretty in my memories, Spike thought, you have no RIGHT to still be pretty) to admit that what they were doing was terrible and had to stop. That was the way to deal with civilized ponies, if they said something was wrong and did it anyway, you just made it inconvenient to do the wrong thing! And from there... who knew what could happen? Maybe something magical. Something harmonious. But first, the prey really had to fight back.

The signs told him the way. The place he wanted was over a thousand crate stacks away, but he practically flew there, the idea burning in his brain as much as his eyes stung in their sockets, giving him a fresh boost of energy. The smell itself didn't bother him as much, he accepted the nastiness of it and kept on going, resolving to fight it till there was nothing like it in the world ever again. He wanted to smell flowers. Flowers, and oranges, and the smoky tang of a cedarwood fire that was cooking a vegetable stew. Spike was so excited by his new idea that he could practically make up the recipe for the stew on the spot. Tomato-based, of course, because tomato soups were satisfying on cold days, and then you had to have something green for contrast, maybe arugula. And a big spoon of sour cream on top with little dots of chives.

When he found them, it was a lot worse than he'd expected, but then, that was the trend, wasn't it? Because they weren't in pens with each other. The cows, the chickens, the canaries and sheep and geese and pigs, they were all in their own cages. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that the cages were, down to the last inch, only just barely big enough for the animals to fit in! And stacked on top of each other, just like the crates, with no concern for hygiene or personal space, every animal right next to every other animal, the bars too tight for them to lash out at their neighbors – though some of them had bruised and bloody paws, wings and webbed feet from trying. When they had to go, they just... went, and it fell through the other cages, on top of unlucky animals who shook it down further till it reached the grates.

Like a nasty joke, the animals had their own masks just like the ponies, but these masks were different. Each animal was hooked up to a rubber half-shell lashed tight over their mouths with a crisscross of straps, with a pair of flexible tubes that fed small amounts of water and food at regular intervals. The animals had no choice but to swallow if they didn't want to suffocate, and there didn't seem to be any way for them to control how much they got or when they got it. The same masks kept any outcry the critters might have made to a strangled minimum, although they still banged against their cages. Only very rarely, most of them didn't seem to have the energy for it, but there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of animals, so there was always something banging against its bars somewhere. A minority of them were banging very, very regularly, in what Spike took several minutes to recognize at attempts to hurt themselves or maybe even kill themselves. The ones that weren't basically big balls of feather, fur or scale-coated fat with limbs halfheartedly attached were working up to being that way, and no wonder, since their lives consisted of eating, drinking, going to the bathroom and absolutely zilch else.

None of them tried to get out. There was no hope left in them. Just a sea of eyes in the dark, choking, whimpering, fattening up, waiting to die.

Every time Spike thought he'd seen the worst a pony was capable of, he came up on something new. His heart still wasn't done pounding from the badger, and now... now this.

This is the filth you're so scared to see, Rarity.

This is the ugliness that you try so hard to cover up with your spas and your lemonades and your suit-and-tie dinners.

Could she even stand to walk in here, Spike wondered? Could she see these things, breathe this air? Would she wrinkle her noise, totter, maybe even faint from it all? And do nothing, do absolutely nothing, other than make it get out of her sight so she didn't have to deal with it anymore.

Maybe he was still running, but it was with hope of change. Change that would start right flippin' now.

Spike picked a cage at random and began to scratch it open with quick little filings of his claws. Dragon claws were good for that. The steel was quality, so it wasn't exactly breaking instantly, but he could definitely get through it. He felt all those eyes focus on him.

“I'm gonna help you guys,” he said while he worked, mostly to keep himself calm, even though he knew it was a huge risk to make noise. “I'm gonna let you all go. That's what you want, right? Freedom. You can be free to pick your own meals and walk around and do all sorts of stuff. It's awesome. But you guys might have to help, I mean, there's a lot of you... I'm not sure if I can do it all at once, you know, maybe I should do it a little at a time. Sneak in and out. What do you think?”

He chuckled nervously. “Of course, you can't say anything right now. Stupid tubes. I'll get rid of them and make everything better, promise.”

There! Spike yanked open the cage and cradled the round hen in his arms, gently sliding the mask off of her beak. He winced on seeing that the mask had left her beak and the area around it pinkened and squished-looking.

“It's okay, it'll heal,” he said as much for him as the hen. “I know it's asking for a ton, but do you think you can walk?”

He set her on the floor, and she fell over.

“Eek! Are you okay? Yeah, you look fine. Just a dustup. No problem. No problem, you just need to rest a little bit, right?” He couldn't tell anything from her beady little dark eyes. “I'm going to set you up straight again, so just stick with me....” He set her up, and she wobbled, but stayed up this time. He sighed, and then choked on instinctively taking in a normal breath of air with all its filth. “Ack! Um, okay, you just... stay there, I guess, and I'll get the others while you prepare yourself for a way cool dashing escape!”

Man, he hoped the other chickens weren't that bad. Poor little chicken legs. The birds might have to ride on some of the other animals, but birds were lightweight, it'd be alright. His ears still picked up rain, too. The rain would wash all that gunk and ooze and grit away and they could get outside and breathe the fresh air and it would be fantastic. He was almost sobbing just thinking about it himself, and he'd spent less than a day in this flesh farm.

A baby cow was next. She licked him as soon as he got the mask off, her broad tongue half-blinding him. He giggled, probably the first happy sound from a non-pony this awful place had ever heard, and totally forgave her when she immediately fell on top of him as soon as she was out of the cage. Even though she was covered in messy liquid droppings from some animal that'd been sick, and they'd gotten onto him too. He checked over her legs while she was flopped there. They didn't seem to be hurt, but the combination of too much fatty food and no exercise had left them looking more like tumor blobs than legs. But the bones were okay, and the muscles, wherever they were in there, didn't seem to be torn.

“Okay, come on, let's go,” he said, worry over getting caught making him impatient. “I can maybe carry a chicken, but a cow is a total non-starter. You gotta pull your own weight here, Bessy.” He wasn't sure why he called the cow Bessy. It just seemed like a cow name.

She tried to stand up. Really gave it her all, straining with all four legs quivering, her entire body shaking. Then, with a massive wheezing gasp, she fell on her belly, legs spread out like the points of a compass, looking very apologetic.

Spike made a face, then reminded himself it wasn't her fault and gave her a hug. She rewarded him by lick-blinding his OTHER eye, just so, you know, the spit was all evenly distributed. He checked up on the chicken again, who had somehow rolled herself over upside down to the other side of the aisle, and he set her back upright. Hm. Maybe this section was for the animals who'd been here too long. He might get better results if he 'shopped around.'

So he jogged over to a section a little ways away – but not too far away, because the little cow started mooing when she couldn't see him. His next damsel in distress was a little baby gator, a lot less little than he should have been due to the force feeding. As soon as he got the mask off it, it BIT him with a toothless mouth, hanging on to his fingers for dear life.

“Seriously?” He glared at the fellow reptile in total exasperation. “I'm tempted to put you right back in there, pal.”

The gator blinked its purple eyes, one at a time, and did absolutely nothing else. Experimentally, Spike set it on the floor. Where it stayed. Blinking.

There were not enough cuss words in the world.

He moved on to another cow, several pigs, a sheep, a ram, a rooster, three more hen chickens, a green-headed duck, a pheasant. Every single time, the results were the same: they couldn't walk, and definitely not fly in the cases of critters with wings. Some of them tried to attack him pitifully, others were glad to be out, and some didn't react at all, but none of them could move in any meaningful kind of way.

“Come onnnn,” he begged, reduced to whining with his hands held out as if to yank on invisible strings to MAKE their legs move. “I know it's hard, guys, but I can't do everything for you! Don't you want to be free? Don't you wanna go outside?” They stared with their shiny eyes in silent confusion, and something occurred to him. “You... you do know what outside is, right?” They still stared, and he licked his lips. “It... it's a wonderful place where the sun is shining... that's a great big ball of fire in the sky, but it's not scary, it's warm and nice, and the sky is like that big empty space over your heads without a roof, and there's nuts and trees and grass....”

His magnificent plan was falling to pieces and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

“I'm tired of running, guys,” he confessed. “I wanna make a stand. I wanna make a difference. Can you guys help me? We can help each other, but before any of that happens, you need to walk first. Just one little step. Just to show me you can do it. Come on, right this way, outside is over here....”

The little alligator found the strength, somewhere in its hateful little body, to slither in an S shape over the floor, working its way slowly but steadily toward the cages. Spike ran over to it, made a grab, and missed.

“Dude, don't go that way! That's the wrong way, there's no telling how many ponies are over there! Come on, man! Be a bro!”

He watched the gator's tail vanish beneath the cages. Meanwhile, all the rest of his cows and chickens and other critters wiggled and wobbled and wheezed and did not budge so much as a single inch.

This was his fault.

How could he expect them to save themselves all of a sudden when they'd been jammed in cages unable to move their whole lives? They didn't know anything about anything, and he'd expected being able to sweep in and rescue them easy-peasy, no harder than opening the darn cages. The cages were the easy part.

He wasn't good enough to pull off his end of the bargain, this was a revolution smothered in the smell of dirty flesh and blood and pee before it'd ever gotten started.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized to them tearfully, taking particular care to face the first baby cow when he did so.

Hooves. He heard hooves. With the metal flooring, that sound carried very well, and he could even pinpoint the direction. They were coming this way, and there wasn't any time to do anything about it.

With a last silently mouthed 'I'm sorry' to his would-be rescuees, Spike ran for what seemed like the millionth time. Twenty crate stacks away he heard a female voice call out, accented thick like the little filly from the cart but deeper, more mature. And, of course, muffled by rubber.

“Confound it, how did y'all manage to wriggle on outta there? Well, I s'pose it don't matter none, Granny says it's about time for another veal shipment anywho....”

Spike ran off before he could hear the rest, already upset to have heard as much as he had. This had been a bad idea. He wasn't ready. He didn't know how to get anything done, how to help the other prey species. There was so much to do, so much to learn. But he wasn't beaten yet! No way.

The rain, he realized, had stopped. In a massive insult to his depressive mood, a giant warm bright slap in the face, when he got back outside he saw that it was no longer raining, not even enough to get the mess from the cow off of him. The sun shone in a clear blue sky, huge and warm and brilliant yellow-orange. He glared squinty hatred at it. This was a horrible day, and it deserved horrible weather. He demanded a thunderstorm. The air on his face felt painfully fresh, like the slight breeze was stripping him to the bone and eating up his lungs, but he wanted gusts, he wanted hurricanes, he wanted lightning.

So, he had come out of that ordeal with nothing but wasted time and a little more knowledge about how hard things were. Intel would fill him up instead of food, and determination would keep his legs going now that they were tired. He had never in his whole life appreciated the simple act of walking more than he did right at this moment. Walking and fresh air... so, so fresh, better than any meal, better than the spa, better than anything else ever after having been in that stinky underworld of a building.

On his way out, Spike found that the trees were, in fact, apple trees, and stole half a dozen good juicy ones with a faint, raging thrill of satisfaction. He timed his bites in-between even breaths of air, contemplated all the ways he'd like to shove ponies' faces right in the middle of their own muck, wishing he could take the sunshine and breeze he breathed in and transport it to those cages, to those sacks and crates.

Natural Selection

It was good to be back in a wooded area. Spike didn't know how the birds could stand to sing when pony teeth could pluck them from the sky at any second, but they did, and he appreciated the background music. He remembered enough of the map to know where he was in a broad way, too – over to the left (west) of Ponyville. A determined run for a few minutes would get him to high ground and the dam, if he had any reason to need 'em. But what really took over his brain was that subtle smell, that smell that had made Garble think Equestria wasn't such a bad place to be in after all (ignoring that Garble had been a total schmuck). The scent of rich mineral clusters. Gemstones. Finally, something delicious that he could eat without feeling horrible.

He found a likely-looking boulder and, not interested in playing any namby-pamby games, just sliced it in half with a firm stroke of his stiffened tail. The top fell off and he started drooling, eyes and mouth wide, at the sight within. It was full of all kinds of gems, diamonds, rubies, amethysts sprinkled about like confetti. As far as Spike knew, that wasn't how gems grew in the rest of the world, but whatever, pony magic was pony magic. He dug in without a further thought, at first prying out the gems with both claws and then getting impatient and just biting off the ones he could reach with his teeth.

A few minutes later, he withdrew his face, covered in pebbles and gem dust, and groaned happily, patting his full tummy. Oh yeah. That was the stuff. Now he felt like he could hike over mountains, swing on jungle vines, do whatever crazy thing was required to move around in arctic tundras! Yeah, this would be a good location to set up a temporary base. It was a nice little spot of woods, but with just enough thorns and other inconveniences that the ponies didn't go in for pleasure hikes. Now he just needed to find a nice little cave – if he didn't want to just dig one himself – and a source of water.

The water revealed itself before the cave, and he uncovered a stream that had probably been too small to put on the map. Spike started to follow it upstream to make sure it wasn't dirtied up by anything nearby... and to make sure there weren't any ponies hanging around, like the last time he'd found a stream.

Upstream, of course, led him back in the direction of the pony town. He could see the distant shapes of their painfully cute little houses already. How typical. Still, nothing risked, nothing gained and all that jazz. He told himself that the moment the trees stopped, he'd stop too, but they just kept on going. Spike was starting to enjoy his little stroll just when he heard a rough, familiar voice that made him stop cold.

“Come on, Fluttershy, this would be so much easier if you'd help!”

That was the crazy rainbow pegasus's voice! Just his friggin' luck! And it sounded close. Like, just a few trees away. Spike peered around frantically until he pinpointed the source. The tree line ended suddenly on his right side in a few measly yards, and past that was a cottage where Rainbow 'Crash' was half-talking, half-yelling to another, butter-colored pegasus.

“Look, I know you don't like doing hunts, but we really need everypony to pitch in! This Spike guy's attacked at least two ponies already, and some ponies are even saying he might've broken into AJ's place! What if he's got that crazy foaming at the mouth disease or something, huh? What if he comes for you next?”

The yellow pegasus squeaked and cowered back against her cottage, her face vanishing behind her long mane.

Okay, Rainbow Dash had officially gained a check on the 'dangerously obsessive' box in Spike's mental checklist. This was just nuts. Sure, he'd hurt a friend of hers... but only a little! And okay, maybe that thing with Rarity had been mostly unprovoked, but it wasn't like she hadn't deserved it. So he didn't want to die, how did that equal having rabies?! He wasn't even sure if dragons could get rabies! The ponies were the crazy ones, not him!

“Pleeeease, Fluttershy? We need your pets. Plus I broughtcha a sweet meat pie,” Rainbow Dash added, pulling the steaming round tin over and waving it in the still-hair-blinded Fluttershy's face. “It's veal, that stuff is way pricey, but I thought you might like it better because it's all soft and fatty so it's easy to swallow.”

“Oh, thank you very much,” Fluttershy said so softly that Spike could barely hear her over the mild breeze. Weirdly enough, she sounded almost as nauseous as Spike felt from looking at it. “I guess... if it's that important... I could help a little bit....”

“That's the spirit! I knew you had it in ya!” Rainbow Dash patted her friend's back so hard the other pegasus stumbled. “We need to get started right away, no tellin' how far off the little twerp is by now!”

“Um, okay. Release the hounds,” Fluttershy said in a voice barely louder than her earlier one, and at that point, Spike decided running away was probably a good idea.

Hounds. Hounds, seriously?! No, wait, it was okay, he could use the stream to hide his scent. But he had to get further off so they didn't hear the splashing. Spike pumped his legs as fast as he could right back the way he'd come, cursing himself for having acquired a stalker. Okay, sure, from their point of view maybe he did kind of look like an out of control bandito or something, but it was still totally their fault for being such, such PONIES! At least he was pretty sure he could beat that other pegasus if it came to it. She looked like a total wuss. Skinny, too; either she was a major dieter or she had some food supply issues goin' on, because she looked a few missed meals away from being a poster filly for anorexia. Thank goodness they weren't all mad athletic types like Rainbow Dash and Braeburn.

He heard three sets of barks. And they were closing. Great, they'd already picked him up, life was so unfair! It was kind of hilarious that he'd just wandered by at the right time to become dog food, he bet the ponies were almost as freaked as he was. Beware the big bad Spike, 'cause he's gonna break into your home and GETCHA! Yeah, he wished he was that scary.

Okay, so they already knew he was here, it was probably too late to jump in the water and wash away his smell to escape. But there were still trees, and he hoisted himself up one with claws that had zero problems with gripping bark. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to climb or jump over to the next tree, and keep on like that for a while until they'd lost track of him. They couldn't smell him all the way up here, could they?

A few very dangerous tree-hops later, his blood pounding in his ears, Spike saw three dogs bound into view underneath him. Big gray diamond dogs with floppy ears and lolling tongues. They didn't seem too bright; as soon as the biggest one stopped in front of the first tree, the medium one ran into the big one and the littlest one into the medium one, and they sprawled in a pile, barking and whimpering in confused indignation. Figuring that moving would be certain to give him away now, Spike settled in tight close to the trunk and hoped they wouldn't think to look up. The branches provided some cover, but purple kind of stuck out. Truly, being a handsome dragon was sometimes a curse.

The diamond dogs ran in circles for a while, sniffing at the ground, other trees, the stream. They didn't seem to grasp the idea of 'up,' though, and just keep running around like he was going to magically appear in front of them if they sniffed hard enough.

Home free. All he had to do now was wait, and Spike was, if he did say so himself, a champion at waiting.

Then the yellow pegasus, Fluttershy, hovered over, barely above the ground and fluttering in a very butterfly way, looking every which way in clear nervousness.

“Ohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness...” she was mumbling to herself, her head going left, right, down, to the stream, to every tree and shadow and rock, and... up.

They froze, staring at each other, neither of them breathing while around her, the dogs continued their aimless yapping.

Spike slowly moved a hand behind him, looking for a breakable branch, anything at all that he could throw at her. Then she put her hoof to her mouth in the universal 'Shhhh' gesture, and he hesitated, bewildered.

“Didja find 'im?! Didja find 'im?!” Rainbow Dash called excitedly through the sound of branches cracking up all around from her usual mode of transportation.

“He went that way!” Fluttershy called out, pointing to the far side of the stream deep into the woods, right where he'd come from in the first place.

Mutts and Rainbow Dash both zoomed off in the completely wrong direction while Spike took a moment to wonder what the heck was going on. Did she want to eat him all by herself? Maybe bake him into a special snack for the doggies. But that wouldn't explain why she misled the dogs too, or why she acted like she was helping him hide. What kind of trick was this?

When the extremely loud sounds of dogs and Dash were gone, Fluttershy looked up again through her curtain of pink mane and addressed him with the softest, most gentle voice a pony'd ever used on him before. “It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. Oh, you look so scared! You really shouldn't be here, you know.”

This trick didn't make any sense at all! And like he would be scared of one dumb pegasus after everything he'd gone through, hah! Spike puffed up angrily. “I'm not scared, you stupid-” And then he lost his footing and fell.

...straight into her outstretched hooves.

He couldn't help but scream just a little bit as he flailed around until he got to the ground again, ready to high tail it. But after ten trees, that repetitive background drone in pony vocals finally got processed in his head as words, and he stopped.

“I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry....”

Spike turned around to stare at the pony, every ounce of him feeling it was a trap, like hooves and teeth could spring out of the air from all directions if he didn't run away right now. Even though it didn't make sense. Even though she could have just had him killed a few seconds ago, either time. She'd said he looked scared, but she was the one who was shrinking against her own skinny, underfed body, hiding behind her mane, hooves slid close together and worrying the ground anxiously.

But curious always beat fear, just like fear always beat practically everything else except curiosity.

“Why?” he asked after taking a very few carefully measured steps back towards her, still ready to run. Every less blade of grass between them was a tiny bit of space closer to being dinner, and still....

“I just don't want anypony to be hurt,” she said sadly, body slumping. “Or any, um, anydragon, I mean. I don't want anyone at all to be hurt. If, if that's okay with you.”

“That... is fantastic with me,” he said with a slightly shaky voice. He didn't want to believe, not after Rarity, but.... “You still eat meat, right?” His eyes narrowed accusingly.

She started crying, which to Spike seemed completely unfair. Monsters should not be allowed to cry. Especially not big tears with sniffles that they tried to hide like they were ashamed of it.

“I'm sorry! I don't want to! I try not to, not very much, and sometimes even when I do I just feel so bad about it that it comes right back up. But th-they make me... when they see I'm not eating....”

“I've seen you guys eat vegetables, why don't you just eat those?” he asked, starting to want to give her a hug. But it was a trap. It was a trap, it was always a trap, he was just... testing out the lure, that was all he was doing.

“Oh, I do, but it hurts my stomach when I eat more than a fourth of a salad at a time,” she whispered, turning her head aside and blushing. “I, um, I drink a lot of tea.” Then she tilted her head to look at him straight on, and squeaked and hid her face behind her mane when she saw him looking right back.

This seemed like the right time to clear up some misconceptions and nasty rumors that were floating around about him.

“I'm not gonna hurt you if you're not gonna try to eat me or anything,” he offered cautiously.

A plump little crow fluttered down at her hoof and he wanted to cry out 'Run, you bird-brain!' before it got snapped up. But even though Fluttershy saw it, he was sure she saw it, she didn't try to eat it. She didn't do anything to it at all.

“Look, if you really don't want anyone to get hurt, can you tell me a place I can go to be safe from ponies? Someplace where you guys won't try to hunt me or eat me or anything, ever?”

She looked at him with the confused face of someone who had been asked a college level math question when they were still working through what one plus one equaled. “I don't know of any place like that, I'm sorry mister dragon.” Her lips opened to let out the tiniest of sighs. “Maybe someplace really far away from Equestria?”

He laughed bitterly, making her flinch like he'd smacked her. “I only got here a little while ago but ponies have been hunting me all my life. You guys are sick, you know that? I don't wanna run anymore. Maybe I'll just go dig a hole and hide in it forever. At least I'll have plenty of gems that way.”

“Oh, don't say that mister dragon!” she entreated him, holding front hooves together. “I'm sure your life will be full of happiness and gems and, damsels or whatever else it is dragons like! I can't believe that someone as smart as you would have any problems.”

Spike blinked. Was she trying to butter him up so he'd lower his guard? “I'm not that smart.”

“Yes, you are, mister, and I don't want to hear you talking yourself down like that,” she scolded him in a motherly way, which made him blink even more. “You're still alive, and as long as there's life, there's hope! You even tricked Rainbow Dash into losing a hunt, and that's hard for anyprey to do.” Her facial expression shifted to something a bit gloomier. “She doesn't like losing,” she added darkly.

“Sheesh, tell me about it. I mean, I didn't even hurt her personally and I feel like she's tracking me everywhere I go now! I wouldn't even make that big a meal, she's probably burnt up twenty times the carbs I'd give her trying to find me!” Spike actually walked right up to her, he was so caught up in his complaining, and he jumped back as soon as he was realizing he was doing it, finding a tree to hide behind.

“She just... tries very hard, that's all,” Fluttershy said vaguely, and then giggled. “Gosh, I've never met anyprey as shy as me before. Especially not a dragon. I didn't know they started out so cute, either!”

Okay, things were clearly getting TOO comfortable. You couldn't let the enemy know you were weak! “I am NOT cute! I'm a cold-blooded killa with a heart of stone and claws of ice!”

“Oh, okay, mister cold-blooded killa, but then why did you ask me for a safe place to go to if you're that dangerous?”

Crud. “Err. I didn't care, I just wanted to know if you knew.”

She giggled again and he flushed.

“Look, this is... um, never mind,” she interrupted herself. “You should probably go now in case anypony or anydoggy else comes.”

She started to walk off – walk, not fly, even though her wings looked fine. The change in position gave him a quick glimpse of her flank symbol, an angular grass-green contrasting the rest of her fur, but he couldn't make it out better than that.

“What,” he asked flatly to her tail.

She paused and half-turned back around.

Mumblesqueakymumble.

“What was that?”

“I was just saying...” Mumblesqueakitysqueak.

Spike clapped a hand over his face and dragged it downwards. He was getting nervous standing still and holding a conversation like this. And she wasn't helping by being so... so... shy! Was this reverse psychology? He totally didn't get this pony.

“Look. Fluttershy, right? If you've got anything else to say before I continue the epic journey of Spike running away from ponies, say it loud.”

“Um. Well, if you wanted to. That is to say, I mean, maybe you could... stay with me?” The last three words were so soft they were more like a vibration that a noise, and he half lip read them to get the general idea.

“Stay with you,” he repeated, making sure he'd gotten that right.

“Like the diamond dogs and all my other cuddly little friends,” she explained, turning back around. “I keep lots of prey as, as pets, because that way nopony tries to eat them. Everypony thinks I'm strange because of it but. Well.” She smiled halfheartedly. “I guess I kind of am strange. I'm sorry, I'll let you go now.”

“Wait.” He looked for any sign, any reason to distrust her, and saw nothing. “You want me to be your pet? And I'll be safe?”

“Not actually be my pet, just, um, pretend.” Her eyes shifted to one side. “I know dragons don't like to be owned by ponies, but it's the only way other ponies would know not to eat you, besides the. Err. Inn. Which you can't do anymore, because you hurt Rarity, and I'm sure you didn't mean to, but-”

Yeah, that ship had sailed.

“I meant to,” he told her, and watched her body stiffen, her eyes widen in a fright. Wow, the pony being afraid for a change. It didn't feel nice like he thought it would have.

“But you wouldn't do it again, I'm sure. You're such a nice little dragon.”

Spike thought through his answer very carefully before saying it. “I would if they hurt me or tried to hurt me.”

“Because you'd be scared. I wouldn't blame you for being scared. I'm scared all the time.”

That, he could believe.

“Do you hurt people when you get scared?”

They had closed in again during conversation. Somehow she had a way of making distance evaporate without it seeming like a violation of Spike's internal safety radius. Fluttershy leaned in after looking around for a second, and it didn't even occur to Spike to jump back by now.

“One time I stepped on an ant. It was horrible,” she whispered with a stoney serious face, as though it was some great terrible secret. “His legs just kept... twitching...” She was starting to cry again, good grief.

The realization struck him and made him want to laugh so much. She wasn't just not murderous, she was a great big wussy! Probably the wussiest pony in all Equestria! He waved his arms to distract her from her memories until she snapped out of it and began blushing from embarrassment instead of crying, which was probably as good as it was gonna get.

“Okay, okay, okay, I get it. But... even if I did stay with you...” So weird, to think about something like this when a few minutes ago he'd been ready to attack her. Hurt her. “Even if I did, wouldn't the dogs know I'm here and give me away?”

“Oh, no, I don't let them inside since they did something naughty on the rug. And even if I did, I have so many pets that their noses would be too confused to smell you. As long as you stayed out of sight, I'm sure it would be fine!” she said breathily, her marshmallowy voice managing what seemed like her best approximation of a loud, happily enthusiastic exclamation.

These were his options. Trust a strange pony he'd just met was friends with Rainbow Dash and who'd probably betray him like every other pony, or go back into the woods and probably get caught because a crazy pegasus and three dogs were looking for him in the area right now. So, bad and worse.

He'd said he was tired of running, and he'd meant it, but he kept running anyway. How much was he really willing to risk here? Hadn't he been hurt enough? Wasn't it time to give up on ponies? But something in him sank at the thought.

Spike's eyes went back to the crow. Fluttershy had stretched out a hoof for it to perch on, perfectly content to play furniture for something that anypony else would have gobbled up in a second. That was what made up his mind for him.

“I guess I could use a place to rest while I get a new map and junk,” he said as casually as possible, waiting to see that light of hunger in her eyes, drool drip from her mouth, all the signs of a hunter glad that the prey had been suckered in so easily....

Fluttershy smiled as the bird made itself at home in her mane, both of them seeming as happy as could be. “Oh, I'm so glad! I promise I won't let anything happen to you, mister Spike. And I can get lots and lots of gems so your baby dragon bones can get big and strong!”

Mmmm, gems. This was seeming like a slightly less insane idea every second.

But. He did have his standards.

“Just one thing.”

“Yes, Spike?”

He stopped following her and pointed a claw at her face firmly, steeling his face muscles and turning his gaze into ice. “Don't mess with me. Don't trick me, don't backstab me, don't hurt me. I mean it. Because if you do, I'll hurt you back. I'm not your food and I'm not gonna let anypony hurt me ever again, got that?!” His voice wobbled with anger a bit at that last sentence. That was anger it was wobbling with, a warrior's rage, that was all it was.

She looked at his last stand sermonizing with blankly. “Oh, Spike...” she finally said, reaching with both hooves.

Spike stiffened up and flexed his claws, but instead of an attack, she drew him into a hug so soft it could've been made of clouds, her head and neck leaning down and her eyes closing as her delicate and weirdly flowery pony scent filled the air around him. He could've gotten out of it any time he wanted, there was absolutely no attempt to restrict or restrain him. A sneeze could've broken it, even.

“Shhhh, it's okay. I won't hurt you. I promise,” she murmured so, so softly in his ear.

He believed her, and almost hated himself for it, unable to think a clear thought with the warmth of her body and the pink framing of her delicate mane and the smell of her pony body all over the place.

“Okay, sure, but can you stop hugging me now? Guys don't do that kinda thing.” That was the bluff he used, and thankfully it worked, because she immediately backed off before he felt the need to completely freak out.

This wasn't like Rarity. This was going to be different. Maybe. But even if it was like Rarity, all he really needed was a few days to rest, get some gems stockpiled, get some supplies and things. He didn't have to put himself 'out there.'

Small talk. Small talk would make it all cool.

“So, how many pets do you... hooOOOoooOOOoooly moly, you have a zoo in your backyard!”

Vultures, crows, eagles and falcons dominated the skies and every branch of every tree. The portion of the stream that ran past Fluttershy's cottage seemed dominated by the dark green bumps of alligator eyes just barely peeking out of the water. In the fields nearby, mountain lions slept in sunny patches like overgrown house cats while large brown bears took up the spots with the softest, thickest grass. Snakes curled up in empty stumps and logs. So many animals, more than Spike had ever seen in one place before, all of them mysteriously not fighting each other. In a faintly eerie callback to the Inn and its bracelets, each of them had a collar; a dark brown leather loop with a little metal tag with a wobbly cursive symbol on it.

All of them, it occurred to Spike, were carnivorous.

And they were all looking at him very, very interestedly.

“Everyone, this is Spike,” Fluttershy told her menagerie with something actually resembling a tone of authority. “He's going to be staying with us for a little while, but he eats gems, so you don't need to worry about sharing your treats. Now I don't want to hear about anyone trying to sneak a nibble on him, is that clear?” There was a terrifying racket of fearsome animal sounds that would probably be haunting Spike's dreams for weeks to come, to which Fluttershy replied as though they'd been clear words. “That's good. I'm so proud of you for taking this so well, I know dragons can seem strange or even scary, but Spike is going to be on his best behavior.”

“Yep! No fire-breathing or nothing,” Spike put in with a nervous chuckle, regretting it when the animals looked at him again. He actually cowered against the pony, that was how intimidated he was. Never going to live this down.

Then they got inside, and Spike was only slightly comforted by the hiding space afforded by the walls, since there were almost as many animals – smaller ones, but still – inside as out. He took note of the species. Still no plant eaters, although there were some carrion eaters and mixed diet critters, carnivores still dominant. They had little hidey holes in the walls, beds and racks built in to the furniture. Even when he looked up, he flinched to see dozens of amazingly ugly bats hanging from the ceiling.

“Bug eaters I guess?” he asked his apparent hostess squeamishly. Eating bugs wasn't so bad, considering all the menu possibilities in a pony town.

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy replied as she fussed around with them, giving little nudges and pats with her hooves. Spike relaxed, happily surprised that she had at least one group of fruit-eating critters around. “They suck blood from livestock.” And then he unrelaxed, looking back up with extra, extra wariness.

He was almost afraid to ask, but...

“Do you have a room that isn't full of animals?”

Fluttershy seemed bemused, as if anyone not wanting to be surrounded by animals all the time was weird.

“Well, I try to keep the guestroom upstairs clear just in case somepony comes over....”

“I'll take it!” With this kind of crowd, he didn't really expect to get a whole room to himself, but all these eyes were making him twitchy, and even just a smaller amount of roommates than usual would be just terrific.

To his surprise, she did let him have the entire guestroom, which was full of snuggly quilts and picture books with big old-timey covers. With the windows shaded, he almost felt safe. Almost.

“Now it's very important that you remember not to go outside unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm not right in the middle of Ponyville, but ponies do come by here sometimes, especially the mailpony, so...”

“Ya don't have to tell me twice, sister.” He started flipping through a picture book. It was a story about ponies making friends in a classroom or some garbage like that. He hated how happy they looked.

“Okay, well...” She seemed at a loss now, hesitating, and he smiled up at her encouragingly. “I don't really have anything for you to eat right now, but I'll go get some gems at the market right away.”

Fattening him up? No, no, she didn't need his PERMISSION to do that, she could have just caught him. Still, the back of Spike's brain continued to suspect while the rest of it embraced her apparently total wussiness.

“That's alright, I found some growing wild today. You don't have to worry about it.”

“Aww, you're such a sweetie. I guess I'll leave you alone for a little bit... I still have a lot to do today, but I'll see you early in the evening at the very latest, okay?”

“Sure thing.” He was still testing out the bed, which was thick but firmer than the Inn's, and the quilts were warm and heavy. “Thanks tons, Fluttershy. You're a life saver.”

“Um, is that literally, I think?”

They giggled together while Spike tried to spot any signs of hunger in her, any clues that would point to tricks or lies or cravings for flesh. Nothing. She was just a scaredy pony who couldn't even stand to be a pony. Then she commented on him not blinking very much and he made a point to blink very regularly just so she wouldn't suspect that he was suspecting anything.

She brought him up a big bowl of lemon wedge-decorated quartz for dinner, staying only briefly before apologizing and heading out to deal with more pet-related duties. He spent most of his spare time, once he was done with the picture books, thinking up new plans for the upcoming glorious revolution. Could he burn that meat factory down? Nah, it was mostly metal. Some kind of sabotage for sure, but he had to be careful since they already suspected he'd gone there once. Mess with the wagons? Poisoning the food supplies would be super easy once he figured out what to use, but even now he was kinda shying away from the idea of killing ponies at random. There were limits, lines you had to draw. This was war, but war wasn't an excuse to be a total jerkwad.

He found some crayons and some paper and scribbled down a few pictures of ideas, including what he remembered of the Ponyville map. Maybe a social revolution would work better than violence. An underground prey-freeing chain of vegetarian ponies. Now that he knew that Fluttershy was around, he figured there had to be more ponies like her somewhere. And if not, well, they'd just make some more! The required elements were still slipping him by, but he figured for sure that Fluttershy's insane levels of raw kindness were a good starting point. She was so nice it was beyond belief.

Just like how Rarity had been so generous with her time and all the services at the Inn....

Spike clocked himself on the side of the head and the guilt of hurting Rarity submerged again. No time for regrets when you were walkin' the line. He figured Fluttershy wouldn't mind if he used her shower, so he had a quick one to get his mind off of things and came out feeling like a whole new dragon – not to mention one that smelled like apricot. Her bathing accessories were all flower and fruit-scented! That had to be a good sign.

The windows latched, but the door didn't lock. Spike made a note to find a way to barricade it quickly if he had to. When he found himself scribbling a picture of a pony with a purple mane instead of revolution plans, he officially called a break from the planning and set his crayons and papers under the bed.

The biggest scare of the evening was hearing Rainbow Dash hollering about something outside. He couldn't hear what, exactly, but he could dang well guess. Thankfully the loudmouth never came inside, and that was good enough.

The second biggest scare was looking over and suddenly seeing a huge hairy spider in the corner, staring back with all eight beady black eyes.

“You. You are seriously creepy,” he told the spider, then smirked. “But I've seen creepier.” He decided the spider could stay and keep the flies and other annoying bugs out.

He didn't mind being cooped up. It was a nice change after being on the lam for so long. He didn't mind being left alone, either. It was good that Fluttershy was too busy to pay too much attention to him, because attention from ponies was generally a bad thing, and they were both nervous around each other as it was. The digs were nice, but homely nice, not classy nice, so he wasn't worried about messing anything up. And if he really had to, hey, he could always just jump out of the window, make a rolling landing on the grass, and be off at a run to the treeline. He had it all figured out.

Yes, Spike, things are finally going your way.

His idle thoughts on how practical or useful it was to try to make a shiv out of a toothbrush (and whether Fluttershy would miss her spare toothbrush) were interrupted by Fluttershy wishing him a goodnight through the cracked open door.

“G'night, Fluttershy. Thanks again for, you know, not killing me or anything.”

We would just have to see how long that held out, wouldn't we? He kind of wanted to know what had happened to the meat pie, but not badly enough to ask and upset her. At least he was still sure he could beat her up if it came to that. Go for the eyes. But now, those thoughts made him feel a little ashamed of himself.

“Oh, you're welcome Spike. Thanks for not killing me too.” She said it like it was a joke.

He snickered. “Whatever.”

Sleep didn't want to come. Too used to the field, to being prey, Spike just half-drowsed, one eye half-open, vaguely aware of shapes and colors and sounds even with all the lights in his brain dimmed down to nearly nothing. It was nice though.

Some time later, the door creaked a little, and that cold, sneaky, always-terrified part of his brain perked up just the littlest bit. Light came through in a gentle sliver, and a pony's outline was in the doorway. Her hooves made absolutely no sound on the floor as she walked over, bent her head down and pressed her mouth to his face.

Then all of Spike's mental lights snapped on at once, harsh and uncompromising, and he flipped out. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he grabbed the nearest thing he could find, which was a table lamp, and flung it at the pony's face, smashing it in shards of ceramic and glass. He lashed out with claws next, but the pony was already running away, escaping, sobbing. He was victorious.

Panting and shaking, Spike stood on the bed, unable to think clearly enough to understand or plan or do anything but listen to all his memories that screamed at him to run, run, the ponies were the enemies, they always wanted to hurt you, always, always.

Then he realized what she'd been doing.

She'd pressed her lips on his forehead. They'd been pursed. Not open. Not open at all.

She'd been kissing him goodnight.

The enormity of what had happened, the mistake he'd made, hit him full force and he started crying, raging against himself for doing so but completely unable to stop, blinding himself with it. The only pony who honestly seemed to want the same thing he wanted, for everyone to just stop hurting each other, a pony who'd invited him into her very own home and bought him gems and saved him from Rainbow Dash and kissed him goodnight and he had smashed a flipping lamp in her face.

He was a terrible dragon! The spider glaring at him over in its corner seemed to agree.

“I'm gonna fix this,” he told the spider on the off chance that it could care, because sleeping in the same room with a spider that had personal reasons to be mad at you just seemed like a bad idea on general principles. “Don't worry, I'll make it all right.”

He had no idea how he was gonna do that, except that it would start with an apology. Fluttershy's sobs were still very audible, she sounded like she was still upstairs too. Probably in her bedroom or the bathroom. He hopped off the bed, winced at the sound of broken lamp underfoot, and gingerly made his way out into the hall where an infinity of upset-looking bats, owls, rats, voles, snakes and other critters looked at him with silent resentment.

Okay, how ironic would it be if he lived through all this pony stuff just to die to pets because he'd been mean to the kindest pony he'd ever met? Oh yeah, irony. It was hilarious stuff.

The light was on in the bathroom and the door was closed. He knocked.

“Fluttershy?”

More sobbing with some sniffles thrown in.

“I'm sorry, Fluttershy, I just, I just panicked, I'm not used to...” He took a breath, calmed down and started again, wiping away his own tears. “I'm not used to ponies being nice to me. It means a lot, but I just got scared. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“N-no, I'm f-f-f-fine. I'm s-sorry I w-w-w-w-woke you!”

“You don't sound fine.”

“I-i-it's just a f-f-ew sc-scratches...”

She started crying again, and he sighed. “Fluttershy? I'm coming in.”

He ignored her inevitable protests and opened the door slowly, very carefully keeping his face neutral as he took in the damage. He hadn't hurt her eyes, thank goodness. There were just some slivers in her snout and a little redness from bruising.

“You don't look so bad. Come on, bend your head down and I'll get the shards out, okay? It's easier for me to do it than you.” He wiggled his fingers pointedly, and she nodded, leaning down.

It wasn't so easy with her flinching with every little movement he made, so he kept talking to keep her distracted, and that seemed to work. As long as they didn't look at each other's eyes directly.

“I'm sorry about your lamp.”

“O-oh, it was a really ch-cheap one anyway.”

“I'll get you a new one.”

“You don't h-have to do that.”

“Let me? Pretty please?”

“Oh, well... alright, I suppose, if it's not too much trouble....”

Great, now he just need to find a way to get money, as a prey species and wanted fugitive in the land of ponies, without taking it from the pony he was trying to apologize to. Maybe he could just steal a lamp. Sigh, why was his life always so complicated?

“Almost done... there. Do you have any bandaids?”

She did, and he plastered them over every cut. If she got infected or something he would never forgive himself.

“Maybe... we could sit and talk for a bit?” he asked after they stared at each other awkwardly for way longer than he was comfortable with. “Unless you're really sleepy.”

“That... sounds nice.” Her eyes hovered over to one side of his head. “Oh dear, you gave yourself a cut! And we're all out of bandaids! Here, take one of mine....”

“No no no, that's okay,” he waved her off quickly. He hadn't even remembered cutting himself. Wait, when he'd jumped up, he'd banged his head a little on the bedhead, that'd probably been it. A quick peek in the mirror told him it was a totally ignorable little thing. “I mean, we'd probably mix up germs or something that way, right?”

That seemed to persuade her after it was combined with a long, steady stare, but he still had to sit through her dabbing at it with a moist cotton swab. It gave him ample opportunity to wonder how ponies used things with their hooves, and even after seeing it, he was still wondering.

After that trial was over, she made a pot of tea that smelled like rose petals and they sat together on her couch with just one lamp on (and its reflection in infinite critter eyes) to see by. He drank politely, didn't much like the taste of it, but it was made out of plants, so he loved her for drinking it. For a few minutes they just sat like that, both of them still shaking a bit, leaning against each other, getting used to each other's company. Remembering not to be afraid.

You'd think it'd be easy, a little thing like that, but it wasn't.

It wasn't easy at all.

He bothered to pay attention to her flank symbol for a change. The pair of praying mantises cut a sharply green shape against her side, clashing with the rest of her in every possible way. He wouldn't have picked something like that for her if he'd been in charge of giving ponies their magical symbol things. She was such a fluttery, delicate thing, she should have... maybe moths. Something like that.

“What's that mean?” he asked her. He'd always been curious as to what those symbols were about. “You ponies all have different ones but I never heard why.”

“My cutie mark? That's just a symbol of my special talent,” Fluttershy replied, more at ease now that she was being asked something simple that she could explain in a general way. “All ponies have them. Rainbow Dash has a storm cloud and a rainbow lightning bolt because she's very, um, fast, loud, brave and, well....”

“Violent?”

“Volatile,” Fluttershy corrected him with a faint smile and a twinkle in her eyes. “She's also very loyal to her friends, which is why she's been after you for so long.”

“Guess it's a good thing you're not the loyal one or I'd be dragon stew now, huh.”

She shuddered, and actually gagged a little on her tiny sip of tea before swallowing it, a reaction he watched with silent interest. “Please don't talk like that, Spike, it's just so... awful.”

“Sorry. So, cutie marks are always about a pony's personality?”

“Oh, it can be about personality, interests, careers, even hobbies. For instance, Miss Cheerilee in town teaches all the little foals how to catch prey on a hunt with special traps, so her Cutie Mark is a bunch of flytrap flowers.”

Not really making him feel better, but he didn't want to make her feel like she'd said anything wrong, so he kept quiet. This was what pony society was, anyway. No use wigging out every two seconds.

“So why is yours two praying mantises?”

He wasn't trying to get any leverage on her or anything. He just really wanted to know because it seemed strange for her. Just like keeping a bunch of ferocious beasts around seemed strange. Of course, he might as well have been a ferocious beast too, to the ponies. It was all... what was the phrase, it was all related? No, it was all relative, that was it.

She was quiet for a very long time and he wondered if he shouldn't have asked. Spike was on the very verge of apologizing when she began talking again, rubbing a hoof idly at one of the bandaids covering the bridge of her nose.

“Most pegasi live up in the clouds, and I wasn't a very strong flier when I was very young. Before I could really fly, I had an accident and fell down to the ground. Luckily, bunches of cute little butterflies were there to catch my fall. I wonder sometimes if things would be different if I had butterflies for a Cutie Mark. They just feed on flowers, you know.”

He nodded and they shared a serious, sad look between them, the first where neither of them flinched back after meeting an even stare.

“A little while after the butterflies saved me, I learned about all the other amazing critters on the ground. I'd never been there before, you see, and I liked all the cuddly-wuddly creatures so much I just wanted to sing. And I found a pair of little praying mantises on a leaf. They were...” She blushed and looked away. “They were mumblesqueakity.”

“They were what?” He leaned in closer, and something small and hard at her belly dug into his side and he wondered what it was. He didn't want to mention it in case it was some kind of deformity or medical condition – which, seeing as how she was skinny as a rake, would make tons of sense.

“They were making little mantis babies,” she gasped out, and he snickered behind a hand. “Do you... do you know about that, Spike?”

“Yeah, I saw a couple griffins doing it with whips and stuff through a window two years ago,” he said with a casual wave of a hand. You didn't live the life he lived and not know about the facts of life – ALL of them – pretty quick.

She spat her tea back into her cup, looking almost as freaked as he'd ever seen her, which was lots.

“Oh! Well then. Um. Anyway.” She cleared her throat and sipped the tea she'd just spat out and he grimaced, looking away so she wouldn't see. “Anyway, they were making l-love, and after they were done....” She quieted, looking down. “After they were done... the momma mantis... ate the daddy mantis.”

“No way! Sick!” Finally, something so horrible even a pony wouldn't do it. Man, that was messed up.

“I felt like that too, especially when I first saw it. In some ways I still feel that way.” Her eyes wandered around her home vaguely. “But later, I learned that mantises only do that because they need the nourishment to survive. Momma mantises especially because they need extra food for their babies. It's very sad, but... if she didn't do it, lots of baby mantises could die. So it was cruel to the daddy mantis. But it was kind to the babies.”

“And when you saw that you got your Cutie Mark? I still don't get it though. What does that have to do with you? I'm pretty sure you're not gonna eat me.” No matter what his body told him in a blind nighttime panicky lamp-smashing incident. That damp warmth on his face had just been a kiss. The most harmless and caring of gestures.

Fluttershy quieted again, sipping her tea until it was all gone. Spike's own eyes roamed to see lamp light reflecting from infinite little animal eyes. Would they attack if she weren't there to say no? How much did they care about their mistress being hurt? How many of them were real pets, and how many were just 'pets' as cover, like him? Was there even a difference in the end, anyway?

“Everything is very... controlled... here in Ponyville. In all of Equestria, really. We like to think of nature as kind and compassionate. Us ponies, I mean. But it's also cruel and mean, and the two sides are often the same thing at the same time. I just want every living creature to love every other living creature, because I know every living thing is worth loving and I can't stand to see anything in pain. But when I realized that was impossible, I got my Cutie Mark. I realized....”

Her eyes drifted down, lost in memories.

“Everybody needs to eat?” he asked quietly, not looking at her.

“...yes,” she said at last, soft and ashamed, just as unable to look at him as he was unable to look at her. “The weak get eaten by the strong. Then the strong get weak and get eaten. That's nature.”

Spike clenched his hands together tightly. It was like she was reciting the primary rule of his life, not even realizing it.

“I read a book once that called it natural selection,” she went on. “Because over time, it's supposed to make a species stronger for their environment. If, if it doesn't kill them for being too weak.”

“That's kind of a big if.”

“Yes. I thought so, too.”

“Fluttershy?”

“Yes, Spike?”

“You're kind of a weak pony.”

She smiled wryly. “I think you and Rainbow can actually find something to agree on, then.”

He snuggled into her, ignoring that bulge at her belly, not up to any more paranoia or investigativeness or planning for revolutions tonight. He just wanted to be still and sleep. “I like you that way though. Don't ever be a strong pony, okay Fluttershy?”

“I won't.”

They fell asleep on the couch, nestling against each other. In the last dredges of consciousness, Spike was aware of her leaning her head over to kiss him again, and this time, he didn't so much as flinch. Safe. Safe. He was safe. The kiss lingered on the cut at his forehead, nuzzling it, warmer and damper than the first one. Almost ticklish.

It was only the next day that Spike could think clearly enough to realize what those sensations had meant, the difference between the first kiss in the second one.

That moist, ticklish feeling had been her tongue, lapping softly at the crust of blood at his temple.

Question

Since most of Ponyville knew enough to be on the lookout for a little green and purple dragon, Spike was pretty much confined to indoors. He didn't care. He'd had all his escape routes planned out the day after arriving, and didn't really trust most of Fluttershy's bigger outdoorsy 'pets' without her around anyway. From what he could tell through the windows, they seemed to sleep most of the time, but they sure woke up when an Ample Acres wagon came by.

It was a something of a regular deal, but not as often as Spike would have guessed. He asked Fluttershy, and she said the wagons only came by once every couple of weeks – most of her critters could fend for themselves to some extent and only needed Fluttershy in the sense that they liked having a home base with a pony who spoiled them with love. The meat Fluttershy bought was just supplementary, but knowing that didn't help the dripping raw flesh, bones still sticking out jagged and pale, look any better. He was glad there was glass between it and him so he couldn't smell it.

That week, he watched Fluttershy with eyes as intent as a predator's himself. He watched her hand out the food to everything from lions to frogs, and she didn't seem to enjoy it or flinch away from it. She treated it just like any old chore, and about the only detail worth noticing that he could ferret out was that she was very careful to turn her eyes away when they were actually eating.

The snakes were the worst. She fed them LIVE mice – the only still-living things on the menu. Afterward, he asked her about it, and she explained that snakes didn't understand the concept of eating dead food, which seriously made Spike ashamed to be a reptile.

The things dumb animals did to survive.

Maybe she could train them to eat regular food, he asked, and she tried, she said. She had tried so hard.

They didn't really want to talk to each other for the rest of that day.

But the next day brought its own kinks in their household harmony.

“Spike?” Fluttershy asked after his morning shower, a pink towel still knotted around his hips.

“Yeah?” he asked distractedly, admiring the way he looked in the little room's mirror, tweaking his back spines. Gotta look fierce. Can't get soft just 'cause you live in a soft place.

“Why do you have a drawing of Applejack's farm with bundles of dynamite sticks around it?”

Now there was a question with an easy answer.

“Oh, yeah, plan number twenty-seven.” He'd had a LOT of time to draw. Spike pulled his feet off the arm of the couch and leaned in. “So, that mutilated animal butchery-”

“Farm, Spike, it's a farm, we've talked about this!”

“Farm, sure, whatever,” he corrected himself without conviction, waving it off. “That farm looked like it would be pretty weak around the walls, and I thought maybe if I kerploded those and some of the big support pillars at the same time, it'd fall in on itself.” Since he knew Fluttershy cared about ponies, you know, not dying horribly, he had to add an addendum to that plan. “Of course I could do it at night so nopony would get hurt. But at least the business would be stopped and all the animals would be outta the picture. Then all the critters and ponies can go back to hunting for themselves and they'll be way too busy to bother worrying about one little dragon.”

“Sp-Spike! I'm shocked that you would talk about such... such horrible things! I thought you wanted everyprey to be safe and happy, not just yourself!” She almost sounded maybe a tenth as angry as a regular angry person would've sounded. Somehow it was still kinda scary.

“Ow, hey, it's not like that, alright? Most of 'em are beyond saving.” At her uncomprehending stare, he explained further. “Look, they can't even walk if you take 'em out of their tiny cages. Probably don't have the brains to survive on the outside anyway. I'm just sayin', they'd probably be happier dead, is all.”

He really should have been able to tell that that would have made her cry. Watching those big tears drip down her muzzle was just terrible, but he couldn't understand why she wasn't MAD about it, like him. Her entire life revolved around animals, and from how she talked he knew she didn't just care about the meat-eating ones. How could she stand being around other ponies, being in a society built on hurting the things she loved? That question hovered in his head, unspoken but always there, humming insistently, dynamite that wanted to go off.

It wasn't all him getting into trouble or being careless. Sometimes it was her, as he found out the day after that. Sometimes it was her, whether she knew it or not.

“So Flfrshy,” he said with a mouthful of kunzite, “whsh yer excooz fr th' gms an'wy?”

“Manners, mister. Oh, I just knew that garbage diver raccoon would be a bad influence on you, not that he meant to be. Chew, swallow, then talk.”

Gem fragment-spattering sigh, chew, swallow.

“What excuse are you using when you buy these gems? You don't have anyprey else who eats gemstones, right? So what's everypony think you really need 'em for?”

“Oh dear, I hadn't really thought about that.” Her forehead wrinkled with an alarming lack of alarm. “I have been buying an awful lot of them lately and I never bought them before....”

Spike's appetite died, his insides shriveling up in themselves as he stared at her in disbelief.

“You never even thought about it, you just started buying tons of gems when there's a missing dragon ponies wanna kill and didn't think anypony would think it kinda strange?! Ponies could be coming here to fricassize me RIGHT NOW!”

“I'm sorry!”

“Sorry won't make me less dead if your friends eat me!”

Then he realized how loud he was being and cringed, clapping both hands around his mouth as he strained his eyes towards the windows while not getting too close to them. Anypony nearby could have heard that. Within a stone's throw. They could be coming, they could be here, he had, he had to-

He had to let Fluttershy hug him, apparently, and rock him back and forth like a baby. And pretend he didn't kinda like it.

“Sshhhh, I won't let anypony eat you. Everything will be fine. I'll think up some excuse and make sure to say it the very next time I go in to town, okay?”

“Fine,” he mumbled, spitting mane out of his mouth.

He was still angry and scared but there wasn't any point in not forgiving her. She'd just cry more. It was funny how incredibly helpful she was... and also completely useless, just in different ways.

That night, she told him a bedtime story, probably to make up for the earlier thing. She cracked open one of the big fairy tale books with fake gilding and worn cardboard edges and showed him the full-page illustrations. Ponies flailing around in chocolate lakes, legged snakes running from hordes of slithery mice, the stars outlining silly faces while houses wobbled like jello. That was the story of Discord, based on real stuff that had happened, before the Princesses had come to Equestria. Only one Princess now, of course, but Spike turned his eyes away from the too-pretty pastel ponies grumpily, preferring to focus on the chaotic mishaps. It was hard not to snicker even though Fluttershy described everything like it was so terrible with Discord around. Oh no, ponies were confused and scared! They'd had their schedules disrupted, the poor things! It sounded kind of fun to Spike, like a never-ending prank war. And if all the ponies got stressed out and fought with each other while Discord was ruling, wasn't that their fault for not being able to take it? He hated the way Fluttershy talked about the ancient ponies like tragic victims. She probably didn't even realize how it sounded to him.

Back then, the ponies had been getting a little taste of their own medicine, and it was as yucky for them as it was for anyone else. But in the long run it hadn't done any good. The Princesses had swooped in and saved all the ponies, turning Discord into a garden ornament in Canterlot and starting a new reign of harmony in Equestria, all rainbows and love and junk. Rainbows and love and junk... for ponies. The story didn't mention anything about the prey who weren't given those same benefits; bunnies and dragons, griffins and coyotes. They were all just varmints and not worthy of mentioning in a big dramatic historical reenacty story.

Spike slept that night dreaming of playing ring around the rosie with crayon drawings of ponies who didn't want to do anything to him besides give him great big hugs... until they morphed into huge scribbly purple-black monster ponies. When he woke up and had time to think through it, he was surprised to realize that the first part had been what scared him. The second part had been comfortingly familiar, but that first part, whoa, he couldn't focus on it, it made him want to retch because it was so different from how things really were.

It was scheduled to be gray and drizzly today, so he and Fluttershy spent a lot of time together inside. She wasn't always the greatest conversationalist and even when they were talking it was hard to stay off of subjects that would get weird, but doing chores with her was surprisingly fun. Demonstrating how well his hands worked by washing dishes, making her 'ohhh' and 'aaahhh' over such a simple task, and listening to her contented background hum had Spike feeling as at home as he'd ever felt here.

“Hey 'Shy, whadda you feel like for lunch? I'm thinkin' arugula rhinestone salad.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful, although I should probably substitute feta for the rhinestones on my half. Do you like non-vinegar dressings or vinaigrettes?”

“As long as it's not ranch I'm okay.” He made a gagging face, squinting into his reflection in the newly-dried plate.

She giggled. “Oh, okay, cranberry honey vinaigrette then.”

In the reflection of the plate, he thought he saw her sniffing at him, eyes half-lidded in pleasure. He blinked, and it was gone. Spike, old boy, you really need to get a firm grip on your inner paranoid survivalist!

Fluttershy let him experiment a bit with ingredients; since he so rarely got the chance to do so, it was fun to mix and match bits of veggies. An arugula bed hosted diced green and red peppers, shaved carrots and some baby corn, rhinestones on the very top, while she mixed up vinegar and oils and flavorings for the dressing. Would it all go together? They had no idea, and that was what made it fun! When she asked him what he wanted to drink while she was prepping the tea kettle, he pondered over the question interestedly.

“Hey, can I try some of your tea?” It couldn't be that bad, since she drank it like fives times a day. He could always drown it in sugar and milk anyway.

“Oh... oh, no, Spike, I'm sorry but no!”

He almost jumped at how loudly she'd said it even though it'd still been soft by normal people's volume levels. Staring at her wide-eyed for an explanation, he watched her blush and stare deeply into the bowl of liquids she was whisking around. As an afterthought he added a little cracked pepper in there – she didn't like spicy things, but it was only a little and Fluttershy distracted enough that he could actually get away with it.

“It's... um...” She mumbled a few nonsense words before getting back on track. “It might be a little dangerous. I don't just drink regular tea, it's... medicinal... so it might hurt you because it's made for ponies, not baby dragons.”

His stare morphed into a concerned frowny face. “You're not sick, are you?”

“No,” she squeaked out with embarrassment, wings fluttering vaguely like they could help her fly out of the conversation. “It's just an, um, appetite suppressant.”

“Huh.” Well, that gave him something to think over.

Lunch went fast, and then he excused himself to go back to planning how to overthrow pony society. It wasn't like Fluttershy was gonna be a big help. Something about that story she told him last night had his imagination all fired up. Discord, that mixed up pony/dragon/ram/lion/bird/whatever thing, had really been just about the only thing to bamboozle Equestria so completely. And it wasn't fair, darn it, for ponies to live such happy lives without experiencing the same kind of hurt that they hoofed out to their prey every day without a thought. Something was there, something he could use, but how... darn it, he couldn't concentrate without his sippin' juice. Which he'd left downstairs. Spike made an about face and went back down, calling to Fluttershy as he went.

“Hey FS, you didn't pour my glass out already, did you?”

He stopped at the last step, staring into the kitchen as Fluttershy eeped and whipped her hooves down.

“Were you... licking the handle end of my salad fork?” he asked slowly, probably the weirdest question he'd never expected to ask her.

“No! I was just holding it up closer because I saw a spot on it!” She hastily turned back to the sink and dunked the fork in so hard she splashed herself in the face with soap bubbley water.

Sure, she saw a spot. With her tongue.

Spike stared at her back very firmly while she washed things off with the furious dedication of a pony who was trying to avoid looking at the person right behind them. Then he got his glass of juice and went back upstairs, thinking.

It was... nothing.

Right?

Nothing at all.

He thought back through all the time they'd spent together. Had those lingering glances been ones of maternal warmth, like he'd thought, or actually just repressed hunger? Had she been licking her lips, not because they were dry, but because she was imagining flavors he didn't dare guess at? When she hugged him or patted his back with her hooves, did she enjoy it the way he enjoyed it or in a different way entirely, the way he would've enjoyed polishing and sizing up a gem before chomping it? When she eyed him while he was flexing in the mirror after a shower, was that with the amused face of a friend or the eagerness of a pony who liked to see their meat move before dinner?

This was stupid. He was stupid. If she wanted to eat him, she would have already! She hadn't even invited him to stay over right away, he'd had to practically make her say it. So she had a few... quirks, that didn't mean anything! It wasn't like she was fattening him up to eat him herself later....

Spike looked down at his stomach. She had been feeding him pretty well. Had he gained a few pounds? Was it a natural growth spurt or what? He pinched at the flab and wiggled it angrily, watching it echo around the surrounding torso.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

But he had to be sure.

Spike took a deep breath and headed for her room, where he'd never been before without her hovering around. A curious raccoon and rat peeked at him, but they left after he told them to buzz off. The door didn't even make a creak, he opened it so slow and careful. If she really was like all the rest, there would be proof in her room, wouldn't she? He'd just take a quick look around just to be sure. No one could blame him for a quick look around, not after all this weirdness. He still didn't even know what that thing in her stomach was. He even imagined he saw it moving sometimes, twitching like spider legs.

It didn't occur to him till he was already in the room that she'd keep pets there, too. A vulture, four different types of snakes and a herd of scorpions glared over at him and he grinned his most innocentest grin.

“Hi, guys, don't mind me. Fluttershy just asked me to... to clean a little, yeah. I'll be out in a sec, okay?”

The vulture leaned back and compressed its wings, the snakes coiled back up, but the scorpions didn't seem very convinced. Drat their tiny vicious bug brains. At least they weren't skittering all over the place, they just seemed content to watch him with tails and claws poised menacingly. Or maybe that was just their natural postures.

Every inch of his body humming tightly with nervousness, he fiddled around with her dresser, checked under her bed, peered into the closet. He found a lot of lacy things, a diary he did not read (a guy had to have some standards, after all), a well-hidden cache of chocolates and other little sweets that she was probably embarrassed to admit to liking, and an endless supply of spare collars, tags, food bowls, water sippy straw things and other animal accessories. He checked for hidden doors or secret hidey holes, opened up her trunk, even peeked under the rug. No hidden horrors revealed themselves.

So, that was it, then. No... what had he expected to find, exactly? The bones of old victims? A hidden torture cellar? Stocks of dried meat and jugs of blood?

Face it, Spike: you're losing it. Now it was time to get out of here before those scorpions started getting antsier than they already were. They were looking menacier by the second.

He rubbed his hands over his face, stepped through the door, and bumped right into Fluttershy, who looked at him with an innocent blink.

All the old fears flooded back as he opened his mouth, unable to think of anything to say with those huge, moist eyes just staring and staring into his soul.

“What are you doing in my room, Spike?” An obvious question without any answer he could come up with off the top of his head.

“I was trying to make sure you weren't secretly a dragon-eating evil pony like all the rest of them,” he blabbed out immediately, unthinkingly.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT

He slapped his hands over his mouth but it was too late. The following moment seemed to go by in slow motion as he watched her eyes widen in predictable shock and then tear up with predictable sadness. Like a perfectly innocent, non-carnivorous pony would do when accused of harboring secret evil thoughts of eating her guest.

Then she blinked back the tears and calmed herself, and time sped up back to normal.

“That's okay, I guess it's understandable if you still don't trust me after everything you've been through. But is there anything, anything at all, that I can do to make you feel differently?”

No, this was wrong. She wasn't supposed to ask questions like that! She shouldn't be forgiving him and acting like she'd done something wrong when he'd been the one who'd suspected bad things of her for no reason. He had to get over this! Fluttershy wasn't like the rest of them!

“Look, I'm sorry, I know I'm being a jerk. Just tell me that you don't wanna eat me and I'll believe you and we can put all this junk behind us, okay?” It was the only question that meant anything to him, ever had, ever would, when it came to ponies.

She blinked again and managed a tremulous smile while a tarantula crawled through her hair unnoticed. “Oh, okay. Spike, I promise I'll never eat you, never ever ever.”

A quiet passed between them, and Spike's eyes followed a speck of movement in the upper ceiling corner of the hall where it ended at Fluttershy's door. A black wasp was buzzing around there, stinging some other bug he couldn't identify. He looked back at Fluttershy, staring straight ahead, and her smile that had nothing but kindness to it.

“That's... not exactly what I asked,” he said carefully.

“O-oh, I'm so sorry Spike, what did you mean then?” She wrung her hooves together awkwardly. He could still salad's honey vinaigrette faintly on her breath and, for the life of him, could not stop looking into her mouth and its seemingly infinite pit.

“I know you're not gonna eat me. But you don't want to, anyway. Right?”

She paused, her smile fading... and then it picked right back up again like the insistent question was no problem at all, barely a missed beat. “Of course not, Spike, I don't want to eat anyprey. Even if they are cute little chubby-wubbies!”

She poked him in the tummy and they shared a laugh that was a bit too sudden and loud to be real.

Very reluctantly, Spike quietly turned off the inside part of him that wanted love and snuggles and free food, and turned back on the part of him that wanted freedom and survival and change by any means necessary. Cold and calm, he faked his way through the rest of the conversation and went back to his drawings, his plans. Fluttershy was at peace here, like everypony else, even if she was a misfit. This peacefulness was something he wanted, but he had to break it if he was ever gonna show them that what they were doing was wrong.

And Fluttershy wasn't gonna help.

For there to be change, he had to make the ponies understand what it felt like to hurt. To be hunted. To not know if you'd live or die, to have everything depend on... arbitrary... random... chance.

Arbitrariness, that was what he wanted, yeah. Once he'd shaken the foundations of ponydom, he could start rebuilding. By himself? Not a chance. He just needed a little help.

Good thing he knew just where he could get some, now.

He told her at dinner, while in his head what he wanted to say nearly drowned out what he actually said, the nicer words that it was so very important for him to put out so she wouldn't get weird on him. Spike didn't want to make her scared or uncomfortable any more than she already was; he owed her that much.

“I think I need to go somewhere.”

I don't belong here.

“Where I can make a difference, you know, and not just hide all the time.”

Where I don't have to owe my life pony who's too scared to do anything about the bad things all around her.

“I was thinking... maybe Canterlot, where the Princess and all the fancy ponies are. Maybe there I could get the attention of somepony who's in a position to change things, whadda ya think?”

I'm going there whether you like it or not.

“That... that sounds really dangerous, Spike. Ponies could spot you along the way, and even when you get there... it's such a big place, with so many ponies, you probably wouldn't even be able to go out in the day at all!”

Then she asked the question he'd been hoping she wouldn't.

“Are you doing this because I did something wrong? If anything's the matter, please tell me and I promise I'll fix it. I just don't want you to get hurt, Spike...”

“I know you don't. I promise, it's not anything you did.”

You don't want anyone to get hurt, do you? Prey or pony. But that's part of the problem, isn't it?

He sighed. “I guess I just feel like... like it's time to move on, you know?”

“Well... if that's really how you feel...”

His eyes lingered on her teeth and tongue for no reason at all before falling down, crossing over her silky pink mane, her skinny underfed body, the mantises cutie mark....

And he could SWEAR that in her stomach, the outline of a mouth pressed out against the skin, large dull teeth visible in a gullet opened so wide it was almost flat across from jaw to jaw.

He could've sworn it.

Crazy, Spike. You're going crazy with all this peaceful niceness and you've get outta here, or your own fantasies are what's gonna swallow you up, not a pony.

It would've been nuts to travel in the daytime, even though Fluttershy'd said that the big search for him had been called off by now. He stayed up late that night and prepared, with Fluttershy's help. A map with special symbolic notations from Fluttershy that he could actually understand, a compass, food, water, a knapsack, clothes in case it got whatever kind of weather dragons were uncomfortable in, a Fluttershy collar so he could pretend to be a runaway pet if it came to that, allergy medicines, pain relievers, bandages, splints, disinfecting ointment, a tin eating set, a pot, a frying pan and a sleeping bag. Those were Fluttershy's contributions; the sleeping bag had been Fluttershy's when she'd been younger, and was pink with flowers and smiley faces all over it. With some specific polite asking, pleading and nagging, Spike also got his hands on a multipurpose pocket knife, a tinderbox and some lightweight cord that could pass for rope in a pinch (or tie somepony up...). When they started yawning more than talking, they called it a night and went to bed.

He woke late and spent most of that day figuring out how to get all the supplies they'd gotten him into that tiny knapsack, with the sleeping bag tied to the back. Okay, so they'd overdone it a bit, but as long as he could walk without falling over it was all good. He made sure he could slip out of the straps in a snap if he had to leave it and run, and there wasn't any point in ditching anything he might need.

Canterlot wasn't exactly a great big wilderness, but getting there was sure to be... fun. Once he was actually there, of course... the real challenge started. It wouldn't just be about survival anymore. It would be about doing what he had to do to get the world right. To make the ponies understand and stop being such... ponies. Fluttershy thought he was going to the seat of power, maybe even to the Princess herself. Hah. That was just the scenery on the way. What he was really after was the exact opposite.

When nightfall came and it was safe for him to go, he left. The goodbyes were as short as he could make them, but he meant it when he told Fluttershy that she was the nicest pony he'd ever met.

Still, niceness alone wasn't enough, and he wouldn't bug her with letting her know what else he thought was needed to get things fixed. Spike went cross-country, carefully checking the map every once in a while to make sure he was going the right way. After a few hours of not seeing any ponies for a wonderful change of pace, he started making up a song to entertain himself, humming and mumbling the words in a drowsy tranceish half-melody as he went along.

♪Discord, I'm howlin' at the moon

And sleepin' in the middle of a summer afternoon....♪

Stupid ponies.

He would fix everything.

Whether they liked it or not.

Salt

The draw of the train tracks was irresistible. Spike felt nostalgic towards his means of entrance into Equestria, and thought it would be kinda appropriate if, in a small way, those trains helped to get him to where he needed to be. They were going in the right direction anyway, there wasn't any significant train traffic at night, and nopony stayed near the tracks once they were away from the town's station, so it was a good deal. He still had to keep a few trees between him and open space, but other than that it was almost like a pleasant little stroll.

It was rough trying to flip flop your entire sleeping schedule all at once. Way faster than Spike would've liked, he found himself yawning and bleary-eyed, ready to go to bed. Going by the moon in the sky it was still not that much past midnight though. He had to make himself keep on going. The sooner he got to Canterlot, the sooner he could figure out how to free Discord, and the sooner he'd be safe. Ish. Well, definitely in no greater danger than he already was all the time anyway. Probably.

His poor tired brain didn't notice the long underpass of the train tracks until he was practically right at the edge of the darkness. Spike stopped there, thinking. He didn't much like the look of it, it was way too much like a round, infinitely deep mouth. But there was enough room that he didn't have to walk right on the tracks, and the way forward was increasingly hilly and mountainous, so going around either side looked like it would take him ages out of his way.

So be it, then! Through the darkness the brave heroic dragon... um, waddled. He couldn't help the way he was built, stupid biowhatsit. That knapsack was getting super heavy by now too. Spike wondered if he could use some of the clothes Fluttershy had insisted on giving him to pad the back straps. Maybe the scarf. He'd just feel terrible if it got messed up, though, since it looked kind of delicate and she'd knitted the thing herself. Eh, he'd see how his shoulders felt after another couple of hours. Long, slow, boring hours. Yaaaawn. But boring was still better than being chased by ponies.

The whistle of the wind through the tunnel turned out to be creepier than the darkness, and encouraged him to hurry up. It hadn't seemed that windy outside, huh. He could already see the end of the tunnel too, a blotchy blue-gray spot against the dead black. Focusing on that blotch, making it his goal, he quickened up his pace. He would feel so much better once he was out of here.

Uh oh.

The wind was getting suspiciously louder. And shriller.

Yeah, that wasn't regular wind. That was a train. Of course, his friggin' luck! Spike groaned and wedged himself back against two little support columns that helped hold up the tunnel. He was gonna have such a headache with a train passing within a few feet of his face. With a skinny instant of thought, he also huddled up behind his knapsack, which was more than big and bulgy enough to hide him in case any ponies happened to glance out the windows. Not that the risk of being seen was that great anyway. It would take a pony with superpowers just to tell he was anything more than a split second blur.

He curled up in a ball and scrunched his hands over his ears and closed his eyes to keep any pebbles or grit from getting in there and waited as the banshee howl got louder and louder.

Then... he was flying. Wait, flying?! No, he was being jerked along! Eyes whipping open as he flailed like a panicky octopus ragdoll, he realized through the blur of motion that the force pulling him was centered on his sack. He started to slide out of it, but before he could get very far, he was pulled through a window and into the train itself, plopped on the floor while a pony brayed at him in mockery.

“HAHAHAH! Oh my gosh I can't believe that worked, you should've seen your face, you were all like OH NOEZ GOTTA HIDE and then I was like NOPE and then you were like WHUUUUUUUUT and now you're here, hahahah, oh man, I wish Dashie coulda been here to see this one....”

It was the crazy pink pony again. She had actually leaned out of the window, grabbed him with her teeth and pulled him in. At the exact right tenth of a second.

“How... how did you... the train...” he babbled, making vague gestures to try and get his point across while his brains tried to unscramble themselves.

Wow, the ponies weren't even playing remotely fair anymore! Had he been born under a bad star? Had his momma cursed ponydom while hatching him? What was UP with his consistently ridiculously bad luck?! The rest of this boxcar was empty, except for a lidded dish on a affixed stand. Okay, so he was only with one bloodthirsty pony. That was great. Just super duper. The half-shaded windows looked like dark eyes staring at him while the pony just talked on and on and ON, so fast he couldn't even keep up. He plucked one of the million things that were wrong about this situation out of the air and focused on it.

“How did you even see me?!” he half-yelled before realizing that he might be drawing some attention. A quick check to front and back told him the doors were closed, nopony was coming. So far.

“Oh, I didn't! My tail just went all corkscrewed like THIS, see?” And her poofy tail did indeed curl into a screw shape. “That means there's super juicy prey nearby, like, finger-lickin' good prey. And I knew it couldn't be on the train because gosh, how could anyprey get past the train attendants? So I checked out the RIGHT windows and then I checked out the LEFT windows and then my ear started to waggle just as I was looking at that blobby clothy blob and I realized that blobby clothy blob was YOU so I just leaned over my neck like thiiiiiiiiis-” She bent her neck in a U shape while Spike was backing away and using his sack for a shield. “-and then grabbed you and boy did it hurt my teefies but it's all good 'cause I gotcha! Yep.” She nodded in satisfaction, apparently signaling the end of her meaningless, stupid explanation that Spike wasn't even gonna try to make sense of.

“Hey. Where're you going?” she asked after he started scrambling at the back door. Which, of course, was locked.

“Oh, heheh, nowhere,” he said, trying not to sweat. “Uh... no hard feelings about bonking you with a rock, right?” The crazy pony seemed like she was okay. For a certain definition of 'okay.' There weren't any visible bruises or bandages now. “I mean, you have to admit, you were kinda asking for it...” He grinned widely, realizing that had probably not been the right thing to say, and wondering if his pocket knife would be useful.

“Pshawww, no way hozay!” She waved a hoof dramatically. “I've gotta keep on my toes with you tricky guys, it's hard to find prey who even know how to play a game in the first place, let alone be sneaky-weaky cheaters at it!” Then her insanely cheerful expression drooped into a scowl. Literally, her entire face shifted downward a couple inches. “You shouldn't have hurt Rarity though,” she said quietly, almost menacingly. “That's a bad prey! Bad bad bad!”

Spike was getting a headache. Normal evil ponies he could handle. Hyper insane ones, not so much. Okay, so the train was going too fast to jump out of the window, and the doors were locked. He had to fight or talk his way out of it somehow before other ponies came in and complicated things. It was way too enclosed here, but maybe he could bash her against a seat corner or something. Even now, the thought of hurting a pony while she was just talking to him and acting like everything was fine... the very thought of it hurt, and he was angry with himself for still caring after he'd already broken that line with Rarity, so he channeled that anger outward.

“I'm not a bad prey. I'm pretty good prey, considering that I'm still alive and all,” he shot back, flexing his claws pointedly. “So how about we-”

She leaned forward, neck darting in like a snake's strike, and he lashed out with the tip of his tail. The pink pony snapped her head up to avoid it and then backed away a pace, looking confused.

“Whooooaaa, what's with all the angry grrr face stuff, little guy?! Remember what I told you about getting your yummy body all tough, that's a no-no!”

Her voice was hurting his ears, seeming to rattle around into his skull, and the slight tremor of the floor under his feet imitated that, reminding him that he wasn't safe, never safe, they just came out of freaking nowhere when you least expected it, didn't they? But he couldn't afford to lose his cool now. He wasn't just trying to live. He had something to live for, however crazy it was. Huh. He wanted something crazy, and she was, apparently, crazy. Maybe they weren't so different after all.

“Wanna play another game?” he asked, leaning his body in one direction and then another as she swayed exaggeratedly to match.

“Oh, I'd really really really like to, but I'm delivering a super big bowl of Marinated Mutton Mincemeat Madness to a contest in Canterlot,” she explained, hooking a hoof over at a steaming lidded bowl locked into a stand further up in the box. It was big enough to hold at least three Spikes. “It's so mmm-mmm goodily good,” she moaned with a moist slurp, “but it's my job to guard it from thieves and not even sneak one tiny little sliver of a mince! So I can't go running around and play crazy games with you because then it might spill!”

“Well, if you try to eat me I'll definitely try to ruin your meat thing,” he threatened, trying to get a hold on whatever passed for thought processes in the pink pony's painfully chipper skull. “So how about you just let me go when the train stops and I'll be on my way and no already prepared foods will get hurt!”

She gasped, which unfortunately gave Spike a better view of her mouth and throat than he would've liked. There was a little tuft of bloody fur caught in her back bottom teeth.

“Nooooooo!” she wailed, front hooves clutching the sides of her head. “My Marinated Mutton Mincemeat Madness, I never meant to endanger you by betraying your identity!” Abruptly, she calmed down. “I guess I'll just have to eat you after the trip's done,” she said with a smirk, a bit of drool working its way out of the corner of her mouth. Spike watched the trickle with his spine tensing. “Hey, I don't know much about what goes with dragon. Should I eat you with lemonade or one of those fancy cream and sprinkles coffees?”

“I'm thinkin' appetite suppressant tea,” he replied snarkily, using mockery to hide his fear. At least, he thought that was what he was doing. He was so used to be scared that it was starting to get hard to tell when he wasn't now. “With a side of laxatives for all the constipation I'm gonna give ya. Us dragons block up stuff like plugs in a tub drain ya know.”

“You're a big fibber and a cheater, everypony knows dragon meat is yummy and spicy! And gives you the trots,” she added as an afterthought. “But that's only if you eat too much at once! Which I always do because it's so yum. Maybe I can counteract it with some whipped cream. Do you go well with whipped cream, lil dragon guy? What's your name again? It was all over the papers, lemme think, lemme think. Oh right! It was Prick!”

“Spike,” he growled out, flushing. “My NAME is SPIKE.”

“Oh, neat. That's a fierce name, you deserve it, you wascally dwagon, you. I'm Pinkie Pie.”

“Why can't I eat you then? You're the one with food in your name!”

She laughed, a genuine laugh that left her rolling on the floor, and he couldn't help but chuckle a little too. Any second now they would be trying to kill each other. Any second now. But why mess up the momentary safety while he had it?

“Ponies don't get eaten, silly!”

“Why not?” It was one of those things he kept wanting to scream in every pony's face every time he met one, but this was the first time the recipient of the question actually seemed to take it seriously.

“Because... because... huh.” She frowned, poking at her tail like it was going to give her an answer. “I dunno. Wow, that's really gonna bother me until I figure it out now. It's like that riddle about the eggs and chickens.”

“No it's not! It's nothing like that stupid riddle which isn't even a riddle anyway!” He paused. “I think.” Jeez, this was definitely the dumbest conversation he'd ever been in. He kind of wanted her to attack him and get it over with. “Why do you wanna eat me? Why can't you just let me go? If you were a dragon and I was a pony, I'd let you go!”

“Awww, you would?” Her eyes teared up and she sniffed. “That's so sweet. Hm. I wonder if you taste sweet. Can I lick you? Just for a samply wamply?”

Pinkie Pie was really pretty polite as far as evil murdering ponies went, he had to give her credit where it was due. “No, and you wouldn't like my skin anyway, it's all dirty. Plus I have diseases and stuff. Yeah. Really, not eating me is probably the healthiest thing you could do.”

“Oh, that's okay, everypony says I have a ridonkulously robust constitution for somepony who eats junk food all the time. I like to think it's because of the periapt of health plus three (plus four versus draconequi) that I keep under my pillow.” She yawned, and at the same time, her stomach growled, causing a disturbing gurgle to work up out of her mouth. “Exsqueeze me! But I need to get a nap in before it's canterin' time at Canterlot, so I probably need to finish you off now.”

Alright. He was tired of talking. Too much of the time he was talking instead of acting, and it wasn't getting him anywhere half the time. He wanted them to just listen to reason, but they wouldn't, so he should just save his energy for other things.

Like kicking this pony's flank all over the place.

He charged at her holding his tail stiffened into a makeshift lance, teeth gritted... and she somersaulted over him with boneless grace, her sproingy mane engulfing him and lifting him up into the air with her head. With a sharp flick, she sent him flying dizzily.

“Secret ponyjutsu technique: headbutt bonk!” she hollered, smashing him with her snout and sending him into locked door.

...and through it, because the stupid thing was cheap wood that he suddenly realized he probably could've clawed through himself with a few seconds of effort. Beyond, he fell painfully to the floor in an unoccupied boxcar, unlit and occupied only by empty seats. He rolled to his feet and shook his head in a vain attempt to clear his mind and his vision, then jumped behind a seat for cover. Headbutt bonk? Ponyjutsu? What was WRONG with this pony?!

“Heeeeeeeeere cooooomes Pinkie Piiiiiieeee,” Pinkie Pie crooned, sticking her head through the hole in the door and then trying to jump through it.

Fortunately for Spike, she got stuck in the middle, oofing and wheezing and wiggling in a very undignified way.

“Argh! Never... shoulda... had... that fifth... piglet...” she grunted out between pants of effort, finally getting through and demolishing more of the door as she did so. She peered around in the dark, her tongue lolling out wet and red, eyes gleaming in the bare starlight shining through the windows. “Ohhhh Spiiiiiiike. Where aaaaaare yooouuuu.”

Spike crouched down at the floor, hoping the shadowiness of the seats would keep him concealed, not wanting to fight but knowing he'd probably have to.

“If ya don't come out I'll just have to huff and puff and... something something something,” she went on calmly, her peaceful tone totally at odds with the rabidly hungry look on her face, the foot long tongue, the drool dripping down as she padded hooves forward one at a time. She looked less like a pony than a fairy tale picture of a wicked wolf – not that there was much difference between the two. “I've been smelling the Marinated Mutton Mincemeat Madness all day and all night and it's been driving me cuuurrrrrAAAzy. Have you ever been driven crazy by stuff, Spike? Let me tell ya, it's for the birds. Mmm, yummy, chirpy, crunchy birds.”

“Go eat grass then!” he yelled as she jerked her head to his hiding spot and snapped in his direction; he managed to scramble over the seat to the next one just in time, leaving her with a mouthful of cushion.

“But grass isn't so tastyyyy,” she whined, pouring herself over the top of the seat and then onward like a blob while Spike ran to the back of this boxcar and tried the door – which was being stubborn and also locked, per his luck as usual.

She howled up at the ceiling, giving Spike vivid flashbacks to Fluttershy's pack of wolves, and bounded forward, but luckily Pinkie Pie had more enthusiasm than accuracy. By dodging left and right frantically and circling around her, Spike was able to make sure she crashed into the sides of seats instead of into him. Each time, she shook her head a little more furiously. It was... silly, at least it would have been if he hadn't been running for his life.

“You think you're so smart with your refusing to stay in one place, but I'll get you! Lightning bolt, lightning bolt!”

Spike cowered away from her outstretched hoof, expecting to be hit with some kind of weapon... and then blinked as nothing at all happened.

“Oh, that's right, I don't have lightning bolts,” Pinkie muttered, apparently to herself. “Knew I shouldn't've wasted that multiclass on shadowdancer. Alright, try THIS on for size... hoof CHOP!”

Since she'd actually announced what she'd been planning to do before doing it, Spike effortlessly ducked out of the way.

“Grrr, hoof KICK!”

That one was even easier to dodge than the chop. It was getting kind of difficult to take this seriously, honestly. Was she actually dangerous? Or just pretending to be? Was there even a difference?

“Hoof chop hoof jab hoof kick hoof chop hoof chop hoof jab hoof kick!”

By the time her flurry of... well, he guessed that they were technically attacks... was over, she was panting, sweat dripping from her face as she grinned. She stopped and straightened, crossing her front hooves in a stern way.

“Okay, this is getting totally zoroasteribulatory. Hoof CHOP!”

...but instead of chopping, she kicked.

Spike rolled on the floor, dazed, his head pounding and swollen from the bruise. Instead of following up on the successful hit, Pinkie Pie just stared at him intently, licking her chops.

“Heehee, I knew that one would getcha! Seeee, you're not the only one who can cheat!”

“It wasn't that funny,” he grumbled, trying to decide between the locked door, the demolished door or a window as a potential escape route. Going outside, maybe getting up on the train's top, would be safest if he could hold his balance, but he didn't know if he could or not.

She didn't give him a whole lot to decide. For whatever reason, her next attack was styled after some sort of wrestling move set, and she was sufficiently bad at it that it gave him time to get away... but it also left him cornered at the locked door. His mind made up for him, Spike whacked at it with his tail until it broke enough for him to dive through the opening, splinters digging between his scales. As he hoped, she took a lot longer to come through after him, and the next boxcar beyond was longer, also dark, and full of those fancy private compartments for high-class passengers. Ample room to hide that he was glad to take advantage of.

He heard her take care of the door (was she going to end up paying the train company for this?!) and stomp down the aisle with slow, stony hoofsteps, taking her time and presumably looking over every shadow and corner. Thud thud thud thud, very deliberate... but not even, and the sound was off, getting louder and softer and louder instead of steadily one or the other. This Pinkie pony was intentionally making some of her steps audible but keeping quiet the rest of the time, either for dramatic effect or to make it harder to tell where she was. The feel of it was something like that of a ghost – floating around in silence except for the random, arbitrary bangs of it throwing things around poltergeist style.

“I really hope you're hiding somewhere cleaannnn,” she crooned singsongishly. “'Cause I hate having to scrub my food. I already brush my teeth, like, an entire one times a day, and that already feels like total overkill as it is.”

Try flossing, was what he wanted to say but didn't, because it would reveal his hiding place and possibly get him killed. He allowed himself the luxury of snorting quietly in amusement through his nose, though.

“Come on, be a pal. You know you wanna let me eat you.”

He had several rude responses to that in mind.

“Maybe being gobbled up is really kinda fun. You've never been gobbled so you don't know, right? Maybe my tummy is a magical place full of rainbows and sweets. Huh. Actually, now that I think of it, my tummy definitely IS full of sweets. One outta two already's pretty good, you'd be crazy NOT to let me eat you!”

Spike's thought on that was that maybe she shouldn't rush to judgment on whether dragon tummies were more or less awesome than pony ones, considering she was named after pie and had a mane like cotton candy.

“Look, if you let me eat you THIS time, I promise not to eat you NEXT time, okay? Pretty please?”

How would that even work?! Did ponies believe in reincarnation or was Pinkie Pie just weird? He was gonna place his bets on Pinkie being weird. She didn't seem like the religious type anyway. Five seconds of imagining her in a church already had him holding back snickers. Bad move, Spike, keep chill, keep quiet, be like the stone and the oak!

“I know! I'll let you CHOOSE how you wanna get eaten! We could put you in a soup, wouldn't that be neat? You could swim around with flippers and a snorkle.”

Spike tried his best but couldn't suppress another quiet snort.

“Or you could get baked into bread. Hmm, not a loaf though. You seem more like a buttery poppy seed roll kinda guy to me.”

Yeah, that was him for sure. Buttery all over and full of seeds.

“Or I could just eat you whole. I never tried that with anything bigger than a cat though, and BOY, was Rarity maaaaaaaaaaaaaad after that so I try to be more careful these days!”

His mind visualized some poor helplessly cat with its tail still lashing out of Pinkie's mouth, closed in a big happy 'I'm full' smile while Rarity, so graceful and cultured like she was, walking in and staring in utmost horror. He wasn't sure why it was funny instead of horrifying. Maybe the two feelings weren't so far apart. But... no matter how much he told himself not to... no matter how he clenched his mouth....

He couldn't help but laugh.

Even though he strangled it off almost immediately, it was too late. She heard and pounced on him from above, all four legs forming a canopy around him while he was treated to a sight of her long pony underbelly and her head as it craned down and she cackled with melodramatic glee. At that point, the obvious thing would have been to punch her in someplace vulnerable, and the practical part of Spike identified and ranked a variety of places that would hurt her suitably badly in an instant.

That being so, he wasn't really sure why he just extended the tips of his claws and... tickled her.

Fortunately, she was apparently very ticklish, because she immediately started laughing up a riot, her body jerking around unstably as she tried to get away from his claws without letting him escape. That was enough of a distraction to let him run out between her legs, and as he made back for the forward boxcar, a glance back showed him that she had actually bent her neck down and was looking between her own legs at him as he ran.

On a silly scale of one to ten, Spike decided, this pony was at eleven and a half. Still, he was a little relieved he'd gotten out of that without hurting her, as amazingly stupid as it was. Maybe it was leftover guilt from the rock and Rarity. Okay, now he just had to get out of the train! Resolving to climb out of a window and scale the outside of the train where hooves wouldn't do so well, Spike headed for the nearest side of the train.

And bumped into a train attendant, who was glaring at him with the same expression people used when critters upset their garbage cans.

“Where do you think YER goin', ya rascal?!” the pony demanded, the dull roar of his energetic voice slightly muffled by his very bushy mustache.

Spike was so fired up from adrenaline by now that the grabbing hoof seemed like it was moving in slow motion and dodging it was incredibly easy. He scampered forward, hoping that the other door would be unlocked since somepony had just come through it. But his mind veered off into a totally different direction when he saw the jumble of luggage next to the big steaming pot in its stand. Had to be Pinkie's things. For whatever reason, he saw fireworks sticking out of one bag, but his eyes were drawn to the pure white of a large container of salt.

A crazy idea came to mind to fit a crazy night.

He grabbed the salt, scrambled up the nearest seat for some height, swiped the lid off of the pot and held the salt container over the bubbling mess of brown meat and gravy threateningly, ready to dump the whole thing in. Some deeply hidden inner script writer inside him found the most cliché words he could think of to say, he thought they were cribbed from a puppet show he'd seen once.

“Don't make me do it, man! I'll totally do it! Just back away and nofood gets salted!”

The employee put a hoof forward, seemingly undeterred, but he froze in place with shock as Pinkie let out a blood-curdling screech from behind him.

“WHYYYY! WHY DO INNOCENT FOODSTUFFS HAVE TO SUFFER?! DON'T DO IT, I'LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT JUST LEAVE MY MARINATED MUTTON MINCEMAT MADNESS ALONE!”

“See, I told you I would,” he told her with narrowed eyes, rattling the salt in its little shaker. “You've only got yourself to blame!”

Pinkie whimpered and cowered down to the floor while the train pony looked back and forth between them with a rightfully confused expression.

“All you had to do was let me eat you! Whydja haveta make things so complicated?!”

“Can't you just not eat me for one night? Is that really so hard?” he asked in exasperation, wondering if all ponies had food-based OCD or something.

“Well, you are delicious-looking,” the train pony pointed out, lowering his head to stare pointedly at Spike's belly in a very uncomfortable way. “Lookit that cute lil paunch, I bet it would spread over fresh bread like cream cheese.”

“I knowwwww, right?” Pinkie agreed, both ponies getting glazed eyes as they slurped in unison. “See, it's not my fault you're so yummy-looking Spike!”

“Oh, bite me.”

“I keep trying to but you won't let me! In fact, you might say that's the whole premise of the conflict between us.” Spike blinked. “What? Didn't think I knew a fancy word like premise?”

“Actually I think the premise is that you ponies don't understand that non-ponies like me aren't just food, they're living things with feelings and lives and stuff who deserve to be happy just as much as you do,” he blurted out spontaneously, spinning the salt shaker on a claw tip while they both goggled at him.

“Well, that's just nonsense. Everypony knows dragons and griffins and whatnot're all meant to be food. It's not like ya can even feel pain like a pony does, not properly,” the station attendant went on, adjusting his little cap. “Different nerve endings, dontcha know.”

Spike's eyes went to Pinkie, who was watching the salt shaker with a scary level of unblinkingness. He ehehed nervously and held it normally again just to try and calm her down a bit.

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!” he told the attendant. “I feel pain, alright?! Pinkie, come on, focus here. All you want is to get to Canterlot with your Madness thing-”

“The MMMM!”

“Right, the... what you said without salt poisoning. All you have to do for that to happen is NOT eat me.”

They looked at each other while the train attendant rubbed a hoof under his chin. “Sounds like varmint tricks t'me. I say we eat 'im.”

“Pinkie,” Spike said urgently. Something in the way he said her name made her stand at attention, looking unevil and serious for a change. “I bet you ate something today, right?”

“Oh, sure. I had breakfast and second breakfast and brunch and lunch and lupper and supper and dinner! That's not counting snacks, of course.”

“Of course. So you don't really need to eat me, do you?”

The ponies exchanged glances.

“What's this nonsense about? Everypony needs to eat,” the train attendant put in.

Pinkie nodded slowly, but her face was full of... something. Questioning? Confusion? Doubt?

Okay, clearly he had to lay this out in simple terms. “Pinkie, if you don't eat me, the Madness thing will be safe. If you do eat me, I'll murder it with salt.” Salt, the great purifier, the flavor so strong you wanted it a little in everything but never too much, never too much. Best weapon he could expect to have against an unruly set of stomachs. “So just. Don't. Eat. Me.”

“But... but... you look so good,” Pinkie whimpered. Her tongue rolled out and she rolled it back up again like a carpet. “Why do you have to look so nummy, little dragon?”

“So close your eyes!”

“Last time I did that you totally hit me in the head with a rock!” It was apparently hard, but not impossible, to make Pinkie Pie indignant.

“I won't this time, promise! There's no rocks here anyway. Come on, is it that hard for you to control yourself?! I can go whole days without eating if I wanna!”

“That's that there dragon biyologee,” brushy mustache pony put in sagely. “Us ponies have entirely dif'rent metabolics. Simple science, fellah. Ponies gotta eat.” His stomach growled. “Speakin' of which....”

“Noooo, the MMMM!” Pinkie cried out, grabbing at the other pony's hooves.

Whatever. He'd tried.

“Fine. The revolution begins now,” Spike told them with an eye roll, opening the salt container and dropping the whole thing into the meaty depths of the pot.

What a weaksauce way to start a revolution, but hey, he worked with the tools that were given to him. It was probably his adrenaline-fevered imagination that Pinkie Pie's resulting scream broke all the windows in the boxcar, but he still didn't care for the look of abject despair on her face. Then he reminded himself that she'd never spare so much as a wink of concern over the food that had gone into the pot while it'd been alive and steeled himself. War on, ponies.

Feeling full of pride and stony lack of remorse, Spike flung himself out of the nearest window – only remembering that he'd forgotten his knapsack while in midair, SMART one Spike – and tried to grab at the outside of the train. But it was shaking too hard and the wind was too strong and he fell, so as a desperate last-ditch means of preservation, he curled himself up into a tight little ball, protecting his stomach and face.

Spike impacted the ground once... twice... three times... four times, teeth shaking with the violence of it, biting his lips bloody with the hurt. After that he began to roll along his back and tail spines, till the sound of the train was out of mind and he began to tilt to one side. It was too fast to think, too fast to be nauseous, too fast to do anything but hurt and hate the hurting.

Somewhere in there, he blacked out.

When Spike woke up and had woken up enough to realize he was awake, two things were obvious. One, it was daytime. Two, he ached all over. Literally every scale and every between bit between the scales throbbed.

He picked himself up painfully, noting the vast green fields, the mountains further off that represented his destination, the perfect robin's egg blue sky. Oh, yeah, and he should probably get off the train tracks, shouldn't he? Spike swallowed gravel whole, brushed dirt off along with flakes of crusted blood, and started walking.

His pack. He really missed that thing now. He'd walked all night lugging its heavy weight around, spent an entire day organizing it. It had a million things that he could have used, like those medical supplies. Not to mention it was his only evidence that, somewhere in the world, there was one pony who wasn't completely horrible. Now he was naked and unsupplied again, walking like a hobo just like before. Fluttershy and Rarity and Appleloosa and even Pinkie Pie seemed so far away now they might as well have been dreams. Or nightmares.

What could a dragon do? He could have not gone in the tunnel, for starters. Or not closed his eyes so he could've dodged Pinkie's grab. Or not been beset by a crazy pink pony who magically knew the EXACT moment to lean over and snatch him up out of the scenery even though that was completely impossible. Or been a smooth enough talker to convince her to leave him alone. Or. Or or or.

Molt and shell, he hated his life.

Now he was hungry and tired and beat up and still a long ways from Canterlot and he didn't even know how much of a long ways because he didn't have his map which was in the SACK that was on the TRAIN with all the PONIES who wanted to EAT him for NO REASON WHATSOEVER EVEN THOUGH IT WAS CLEARLY AGAINST THEIR BEST INTERESTS.

Why did this stuff always have to happen to him?!

Ponies were nuts, but he saw how other people managed to live their lives without messed up by ponies every single day. Griffins and zebras and sphinxes had entire civilizations without ponies gumming up the works. Why did the ponies keep coming after him? Was he really just somehow magically delicious? Did he smell like yummy things?

Spike sniffed his armpit and smelled nothing.

Why couldn't he ever just have a normal day?!

“It's not fair! I don't look for trouble, but it always comes to me! I never get a break, not ever, it's always something, and it's always PONIES that are doing it!”

He wanted that knapsack of tools and clothes and goodies so badly.

Eyes blurring with tears, Spike sat down (behind a tree, because gosh, a pony might KILL HIM if he didn't HIDE all the time) and cried, kicking gravel and rocks and grass angrily like the ground was responsible for it all. He cried until he was mad about crying so much and then he cried some more and then got exhausted from crying, and mad about being exhausted, and cried more still. Always something, always something going wrong. Nothing ever went right. Ponies, ponies, ponies.

Even after he stopped crying, Spike couldn't work up the energy to move. He just laid there, back against the tree, hating the bump against his spine, hating all his aches, hating the warmth of the sun, hating himself and everything. Like that he laid there, stewing in his own helpless, hopeless frustration, pointedly ignoring the growl of an empty stomach. Even if gems were just beyond the surface of the soil, a few claw swipes away, he couldn't be bothered. Eating was stupid. Food was stupid. Everything about being alive was dumb.

His bad mood didn't even start to weaken its hard grip on him until the sun started to go down, shading orange, red, pink. When that happened, he made himself get up and get a move on, not thinking much, just moving his legs, his head too tired to be full of anything except knowing his own tiredness, a bleak, bitter dryness deep in his mouth.

There was no surprise in him when he heard the tootity-toot-toot of a classy little horn, followed by the barking of dogs and hoofbeats. No shock. The ponies always came. Always.

Spike sought shelter in the trees, empty-headed and instinctive but no less quick or sharp in ears or eyes, barely more than a voiceless critter himself, so total was his tired despair. The dogs and the ponies followed – the dogs had caught his scent, and the ponies followed the dogs. He even heard an enthusiastic, gentlemanly-accented 'Tally ho!' from one of the ponies in the lead, which caused an idle part of him to wonder what that phrase actually meant. No streams nearby. He couldn't outrun them. Climb maybe, like last time?

No time, his brain was dulled and uncreative, his usual spark of survivalism doused from everything that had happened. If only he'd had that sack, it had a Fluttershy collar, he could've just put it on and been safe. Just like that. So easy. So simple. So impossible.

They surrounded him and he was too tired and sore to even care. The dogs yelped and lunged, but didn't go in for the kill. Were they trained not to finish things off? Still, he was pressed back against a tree without even any branches he could reach. There was nowhere to go.

The shapes of ponies clarified through the trees and evening shadows, more easily visible than he'd expected because of their bright red coats. Two of them in particular trotted up to inspect their prize, calling the dogs to heel. Their pelts were as white as the salt he'd weaponized, come to ruin his day just like he'd ruined Pinkie's dish. Was this the evil pony version of karma?

“I say, jolly good chase you gave us for a fellow of your stature, lad,” said the first one, a unicorn with an itty-bitty mustache, blue to match his mane.

The other pony, also a unicorn but with a firmer build and a flowing tan mane, lifted his head and sneered to the point of closing his eyes. “Ugh, look at the beast's pelt, though. So filthy! I wouldn't eat that even if you positively drowned it in butter.” Somehow, his coat was amazingly, sparkling salty-white clean for a pony who'd been in the middle of a hunt.

The glare of their coats and fur hurting his eyes, the yelping of the dogs hurting his ears, Spike decided that this was as good a time as any to give up and die. He flopped on the ground in the least dignified pose he could imagine and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Y'know what, do what you want,” he told them bitterly. “I don't even care anymore.”

Eyes

Well-trained, the dogs were no longer barking, but they were clearly ready to turn on him as soon as a signal was given. Still in the sweat of his now-extinguished fear, Spike became suddenly conscious of how cold it was – the altitude change had been gradual but significant, and he could the breaths of every pony and dog, his own too, outlined in faint puffs of mist. He waited patiently for the ponies to finish him off while he made a mental note of his body's every ache and throb resentfully.

Meanwhile the two fanciest of the hunting party ponies were busy having a very polite argument over how edible he was.

“...come now, you can't very well expect them to come out of a struggle for their little lives all spic and span, unless, perhaps, we chased our prey through a washroom,” the mustached one was saying, causing a light chuckle to drift through the ponies at his little joke. “Why, I daresay every bump and bruise on this little fellow's hide is a testament to his noble spirit! Giving his all, as it were, and we must treat him with the same respect as he's accorded us, mmm?”

The other unicorn rolled his eyes.

“Noble spirit, pfaugh. You do a disservice to the idea of nobility, Fancy Pants... not that that's particularly uncharacteristic of you. I can have the finest seasoned dragon steaks imported from the Principality of Sehorsa any time I'm feeling peckish, and I repeat, you're welcome to this one's filthy blubber.”

Spike felt offended.

“So what, I'm not even worth eating now? I'll have you know tons of ponies have thought I looked delicious! You have no idea how many ponies have tried to eat me by now!” Spike started to count in his head, and quickly gave up. “Like... lots.”

The snooty unicorn just turned his face away with a faint grimace, clearly not interested in talking to the food.

“You appear to have quite a bit of pep left for a dragon who's given up,” Fancy Pants pointed out. “Perhaps a wager is in order, a sporting-”

“NO, Fancy Pants, we are not wasting our time with that balderdash AGAIN!” the other unicorn burst out. “Every time you find an excuse to give our prey a 'sporting' second chance, we end up wasting hours trekking through this wretched wilderness-”

It was actually mostly hilly, pleasantly green plain with a few trees dotted around, as far as Spike could tell.

“-and corner the beast a second time anyway. Why not cut to the chase and just be done with it for once?”

“Ah, Blueblood, I daresay your sense of adventure is a trifle malnourished! But never let it be said that Fancy Pants is one to run roughshod over his fellow hunters. Let us put it to a vote, then. All ponies who wish to give this little fellow a second shot, hooves up!”

Besides Fancy Pants, three other hunters raised their hooves. Spike watched stonily, knowing that even if he was given a 'second shot,' it was just delaying the inevitable. His whole life had been just one big delay of the inevitable.

“Mmm, I see. And all ponies who are with Prince Blueblood for putting the beast to bed, as it were?”

The rest of the ponies (mostly, Spike couldn't help but notice, soft-looking unicorns with pipes and monocles who'd probably never had to fight for the right to live or even gotten into a brawl in their whole lives) raised their hooves. There wasn't even any point in counting, it was obvious that Fancy Pants was in the minority.

“Good, glad that's over then,” Spike said bluntly, flopping down on his back and resting hands behind his head.

It would be over any moment now. Any moment now, and he'd just focus on the peaceful swaying of the tree branches in the breeze....

Instead of descending upon him with forks and knives, they parted while one in the back rolled up an uncomfortable-looking cage, flimsy top and bottom and steel wire sides. They must've not encountered dragons very much; he could've broken it easily if he'd actually tried.

“You're not gonna eat me now?”

Somehow he was disappointed.

“Yes, let's just gobble him down in the middle of all this dirt like caveponies,” Blueblood responded, but by pretending like he was talking to another unicorn next to him. “What does the creature take us for, Manehattanites?”

Laughter spread through the group of hunters as they shoved Spike into confinement. He didn't resist, but he didn't make it any easier either. Great, so now he had to deal with a whole new trip back to... their larder, the kitchen, what? And even though he'd already given up, the delay in his fate caused Spike to begin to regret his decision, to feel that old fear crawling over his spine again. Hard not to think about the different ways they could kill him. Even harder not to think about what he might go through before then. Would they just stuff him with food until he burst? Throw him in a giant pickle jar? He remembered what happened at Ample Acres all too well.

“Afraid to get your hooves dirty, huh? Yeah, I know your type. Keep on trottin', wusses.”

It shouldn't've been like this. He should've gone down in a real fight, against Rainbow Dash, maybe, or Braeburn, or that really strong-looking red pony at Ample Acres. Instead, he'd just run out of the energy and surrendered to these fancy ponies who thought hunting was just a 'jolly rejuvenating dalliance for the senses,' to quote one of the poshest ones. And most of them were unicorns, so even if he did lash out, they'd just smother him in magic with all the effort a mommy had to take when spanking a naughty kid.

“You lookin' at me? Come on, you got something to say, say it!”

The accosted pony shied away from his glare uncomfortably, putting a few hunters between himself and the cage.

Wusses, all of 'em. They thought they were so tough.

“See, this is why I keep telling you we should snip their tongues first thing,” Blueblood murmured to a female unicorn, who giggled, her emerald-bedecked beehive hairdo quaking slightly.

Spike contemplated for a moment and, after coming to a well-thought-out and mature conclusion, took careful, deliberate aim and spat on Blueblood's face. The beehive maned pony fainted while Blueblood stood paralyzed in shock, all the hunters around gasping – except for Fancy Pants, who just looked back with one eyebrow raised curiously.

“You VILE little thing! MAKEUUUUP!” the unicorn screeched with an almost feminine pitch to his panic, just before being swarmed by ponies wielding fluffy pads of powder and other tools of the makeup artist's craft.

What a giant poof.

After that, the hunters took care to keep their distance. Fancy Pants was the only exception, and seemed to be more amused by their skittishness than anything else, even if he somehow managed to trot through the grass in a way that still left his clothes, mane and tail as impeccable as Blueblood's. They were moving along rolling hills now, and that didn't do much to make Spike's ride any more comfortable, but he took the jostles and bumps as they came, quiet and resigned in his bitterness.

He was both surprised and unhappy when Fancy Pants opened up conversation.

“Do you mind enlightening me on what your diet has consisted of thus far, little fellow?”

Spike blinked, thrown off by the unexpected question (not to mention finding a pony that still used the word 'thus' in regular conversation) and immediately on the defensive because of it.

“What's it matter to you?”

“Diet affects the flavor of the meat, you see,” Fancy Pants explained, dodging a small rock in his way with stylish lack of effort without even looking at it. “I do hope you haven't been eating berries and such, it makes it ever so difficult for the cooks to work in that expected sense of piquancy into the dish. Whoever heard of a mild dragon, I ask you in all seriousness?”

“I've been eating gems and veggies.”

“Oh dear, at even ratios? Chef Piping Blanch will be most put out. But perhaps he could use a good, solid turn out of his comfort zone, the fellow is far too much of a traditionalist when hovering about the stove.”

“Sure.”

Why was this pony talking to him? Normally he had to provoke the ponies into talking and prove that prey was worth having a conversation with. This one seemed to want to even though Spike just felt like waiting for the sweet release of death.

Then something about earlier came back to him, like a boomerang, and clocked him in the backside of his thought stream. Fancy Pants had caught prey before... and then let them go to catch them again. There was self-restraint in that, wasn't there?

“...you don't drink tea by any chance, do ya?”

“Tea? You mean that beverage composed of water brewed with plant matter?” Fancy Pants wrinkled his nose delicately. “Afraid I've never partaken. I usually take a glass of mulled doe's blood with my meals.”

So much for that idea. Man, if they had just all been like Fluttershy, what a different world it coulda been. An irritatingly wimpy world, but still.

“But you let prey go when you could just eat them right away. If you're doing that already, why're you even bothering to hunt them in the first pla-”

They rounded a particularly big hill and the view took Spike's words away along with his breath. Buildings of marble and polished stone, accented with gold, sprawled over a mountain and around it, even over steep inclines that seemed in danger of dropping the massive weight at any second – magic at work in the architecture, for sure. The airy, towering designs of the buildings lent themselves well to gentle curves, swells narrowing to points, alabaster and mauve that dwarfed the tiny shapes of the ponies moving beneath them and through them. The predominance of archways and other such fluff in gold, along with bright-colored canopies, kept the place from seeming brutish or utilitarian. It was art, like the fanciest birthday cake ever brought to life for ponies to live in.

But the centerpiece of it all was a massive castle made up of impossibly light limbs stretching out to main tower hubs. It was halfway off of the mountain, built out into thin air, and yet it seemed like it had stood there forever and intended to go on doing that for another forever. Pink flags waved at the greatest heights, looking flimsy against the winds even though the distance involved had to mean they were pretty huge.

“Positively breathtaking, isn't it?” Fancy Pants said with mixed pride and empathy. “Nowhere else in all the world will you find such a marvel as Canterlot, my boy! Of course, to be fair, nowhere else in the world will you find architects and engineered properly fueled with their rightful allowances of rejuvenating red meat. It's no wonder your zeal for the chase gave out! Who could possibly maintain an enthusiasm for life while turning up their noses at a good steak to subsist on mere weeds and rocks?”

It was beautiful, that was the problem. It was prettier than it had any right to be. Spike's heart ached with the unfairness of it all. Unless it was fair, and ponies really were destined to just eat everything else that lived and breathed. Sometimes he still wondered, and he wondered if Braeburn would be happy in knowing his words hadn't been totally forgotten.

The ponies split off from here. Half continued onward towards Canterlot with Blueblood, while Fancy Pants and his people took Spike over to a small but well-paved path that led to an estate just outside the city. It was a mansion almost as gorgeous as Canterlot itself – if it hadn't been for the ornamental fence, its spikes decorated with the preserved heads of other 'game.' Spike wasn't the first dragon to be caught, but by far the smallest, judging from the display. Lions (or maybe manticores), bears, bulls (or minotaurs?), even a small hydra head were held high in a display of a successful hunter's pride, extending with the fence well out of sight.

They'd all had their eyes taken out, though. Their replacements were gems, polished and cut in neat facets, and carved with Fancy Pants cutie mark – a trio of crowns, half disintegrated into rust.

“And here we are! I daresay the cooks will want their hooves on you soon enough. But before we part ways, I'd like to see that dreadful scowl part from your face, little fellow. After all, bitter humors tarnish the flavor of the feast, quoth our dear, radiant Princess!”

“Oh, you're quite right, Fancy Pants!” one of the remaining hunters chimed in adoringly.

“Very perceptive as always, even when it comes to the most negligible things!”

“Who among us knows more about the disposition of game than Fancy Pants? Nopony, that's who!”

“Lads, lads, please, all this undue adulation is making me blush!” Fancy Pants objected to his entourage, even though he wasn't blushing at all.

He turned his attention back to Spike. “It is true, though. We've tracked down many a game here at the Estate de Fantaisie, and I've seen your like before, lad.”

Spike hmphed and crossed his arms tighter. “I doubt it.”

Why couldn't they just get it over with already? He didn't want to have to listen to another manifest destiny speech about how ponies were awesome and everything that wasn't a pony wasn't.

“Come come now, keep an open mind!” Fancy Pants chided him mildly while the hunters giggled. “Prey that's not unable, but is unwilling to fight... it depresses me so to have to end a hunt on such a note as that. You seem bitter, lad, but you must understand, it's not as though you were bested in a contest of strength of arms or sharpness of wit.”

“Are you stupid? Of COURSE that's what it is!” Spike snarled, causing all the other hunters to gasp at how rude he was being. He even saw one pony stomp forward with a sharpened horn glowing menacingly, but Fancy Pants waved the hunter back off. “If I were a full-grown dragon, you'd be dead!”

“A common misconception!” Fancy Pants said happily, eyes shut on account of how much his smile was pushing his face around. “Take a look at yon heads, if you will be so kind.”

“Yeah, I see 'em,” Spike growled. “What's your point?”

“Well, do you not see some very fine and handsome beasts on those spikes, my boy?”

“...so you got more hunters to kill 'em.”

“Certainly not. It's not about your mien in battle, little fellow, nor even about your cunning in strategizing out such conflicts. You strike me as one used to such things. But eventually, at some point or other, they all just... give up. Get tired, you see.”

Spike frowned and opened his eyes a little wider, watching his captor and trying to make himself stop ignoring the words that were being said just cause the guy looked like a posh spoiled idiot. Maybe that dumb little mustache had some smarts behind it, couldn't hurt to listen either way.

“And can you blame them?” Fancy Pants went on, surprisingly sympathetic. “After all, even the best of us – ponies or prey – can't keep our brains at peak tactical efficiency all the time, and muscles get tired, oh my, they certainly do. It's really a matter of simple endurance more than anything else. We ponies may be clever and mighty, but we aren't always the cleverest or the mightiest. These things aren't truly relevant, because we never give up.”

“You really don't,” Spike mumbled, and shuddered, hugging his tail.

“It's all about stamina in the end, lad! Looking at things that way, you mustn't see this conclusion as a failing on your part. A momentary weakness, perhaps, but it would have come to that sooner or later in any case. It's my fervent wish that you will go to your end knowing that your fate was simply inevitable, and that you are not a bad dragon... just a dragon.”

Staring, Spike felt that Fancy Pants meant that in the nicest possible way. Coming from anyone who wasn't a pony, it would've been mocking. From the pony, though, it was like Fancy Pants was giving the utmost sympathy that it was possible for him to give. Like he really didn't want the fat little baby dragon he'd caught to be miserable – even though his death was gonna come whether he was miserable or happy.

Stamina. Not a bad dragon. Just a dragon. The ponies never got tired.

He sighed.

“Thanks, Fancy Pants,” he told his enemy, not insincerely, who beamed through his monocle back at him.

It was hard to even remember that they were the enemy. But that was what had gotten him this far in the first place, right? Wanting peace. Wanting everyone to just relax and let the fighting and hurting stop. Maybe... maybe trying to think of it as a war had gotten him worn out faster than he would've been worn out normally. He definitely felt tired to death.

And that was appropriate.

As they took him inside (not the front way, of course... he got a little side entrance for servants, straightaway to the kitchens) Spike's thoughts drifted to Rarity. He'd been so angry, felt so betrayed by her, and had wanted to hurt her back. Had that done any good? It'd made him look like the beast they all said he was and got all of Ponyville hunting for him. If he'd kept his cool, he could've talked to her more. Maybe tried to convince her. If Fluttershy could do it, anypony could. He just didn't know the magic words to break it to them.

Piping Blanch was super annoyed, and the first thing Spike heard from the chef was about how awful his scales looked and how they would never do for a garnish in their current state, absolutely not! Now was he going to behave for the scale-polishing, or would a de-fanging and de-clawing be in order?

Spike told him very quickly that he would behave, and sat through a no-nonsense scrubbing that was thorough, painful and humiliating without a peep of complaint. It felt dreamlike, having given up and being ready to just sit through whatever ponies did with their food before he was executed. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to think of it as all real.

If he'd been a smart dragon, he could've walked the other way in that desert, maybe headed to Griffonia or the Sphinxian Empire. The ponies probably would've found him anyway though. They always found him. It was just his luck to keep running into them again and again. They didn't know what it was like, but it wasn't their fault.

After the scrubbing he was fed a meal of something the chef called turducken stew. It seemed fancy enough to not be worth wasting on 'prey,' which made Spike wonder how fancy the meals they actually served were, if this was the estate's equivalent of fodder. For his part, Spike was grateful that there wasn't a whole head floating in the brown slush and gulped it down with slow, steady swallows without tasting it much. Still, the steaming richness of it coated the back of his throat and tongue and stayed there for hours.

He was tossed in a comfortable but tiny little cell in the larder, strings of tomatoes and onions hanging in front of the grilled door like jungle vines. There were even toilet facilities and a tiny sink and towel, how thoughtful. As far as death sentence prisons went, this was a classy one.

Since the half-air door didn't give any real privacy, Spike was free to watch and listen to the cooks going about their cooking stuff. Washing pans, setting pots to bubble, shoving things in ovens, swearing at the ponies lower-ranking in the chain, all that. If he put his mind away from the kind of food that was being served, it would've come across as comfortingly normal. Like the Inn.

The Inn....

Had he really made such a big mistake back there?

It wasn't like he was a bad dragon for getting mad at things that were trying to kill him. But lashing out like that at Rarity had been... different. It hadn't been about survival. It'd been about trying to make a point, to hurt her because she'd hurt him. And she still probably didn't get it. What'd it really done for him? Made him more scared, made the ponies more determined to get him, left him with memories he didn't like the taste of.

Things had been different with the others, like Pinkie. Especially Braeburn. He had actually bitten Braeburn and tasted pony blood and it didn't bother him no matter how many times he went over it, because he'd done it for Little Strongheart.

Was that the trick to lasting forever? Do it for other people instead of for yourself?

Kind of hard when 'other people' in the middle of pony country all consisted of people that wanted to gulp you down.

No, that wasn't what'd really bothered him. What'd worn him down to the point of not caring – or at least not ADMITTING to caring. He was as good as dead now, might as well think through what'd gotten him to this state so it'd have some meaning. That way it'd be poetic and stuff, even if he was stew in the end anyway.

Inhaling the smell of dried onion, Spike thought of Rarity. Those huge dewy eyes... one slashed, maybe blind and milky-white. The idea horrified him. And he thought about cowponies out in Appleloosa just expanding their borders over and over, never getting that the lives they were shoving into their cooking pots could've been friends. Little Strongheart had been a good buffalo right till she'd been forced not to be. Maybe dying was better than giving in to something like that. Into letting survival turn you into something mean and alone like a starved rattlesnake.

He thought about poor Fluttershy, hiding at the edges of Ponyville because she couldn't fit in with a society she couldn't bring herself to stand against. And Rainbow Dash, so desperate to prove herself a good hunter and stand up for her friends. Factory workers murdering harmless animals and laughing about it, not understanding, never understanding, that creatures they thought of as meat were also worth being nice to, or at least being respectful to....

Friends. That's what they needed. Friends who were prey, till 'prey' stopped being an excuse to just pretend non-pony people didn't count as people. Revolution wasn't just about the body, it was about the brain too. It seemed like his body got tired even if it was safe if he didn't get his head on straight too, and he needed buddies for that.

This would've been so much easier to think about if he'd had a second head to bounce ideas off of. But Spike made a decision by himself, since there wasn't anyone around to help tell him it might not be a great idea. He decided that if he somehow lived through this and saw Rarity again, he'd tell her he was sorry and that he didn't really hate her.

He wanted to, he still wanted to, but he just....

He just couldn't.

So Spike accepted that part of him as a wuss and breathed all the anger and bad feelings out, along with it that desire to just be over with it all no matter what. He wasn't so dog-tired after that.

They didn't pay any attention to him for the rest of the day. Apparently he wasn't immediately on the menu, maybe they needed to plan it out or something, he didn't know how ponies organized their meals in a place like this. He had to put up with the smell of slow-cooking meat all night, but eventually he got used to it (even though, in some ways, that was even worse).

One of the chef's assistants tossed him a little bag of fresh-baked muffins for breakfast, and Spike couldn't stop laughing even though it was kind of a horrible reminder. By the looks the servants were giving him, he was probably coming off as totally bonkers, but whatever, they could just deal with it. He had never really liked bran muffins but they tasted good today as they never had before, warm and soft with just a bit of resistance on the outer edges.

While he was licking the last of his crumbs out from between his fangs and gums, it occurred to Spike to wonder if maybe there was something more to ponies and eating. He'd tried to tell Pinkie to just not eat him, and she could've held off, but she just... hadn't. Neither had that train attendant. For that matter, why would ponies risk their lives and get hurt hunting wild stuff when they could have food delivered to their doors? They all did that, from the fanciest of the fancy all the way down the ladder. The ponies at the Inn might've been exceptions, he wasn't sure since he hadn't really kept track of what they did when they weren't on the clock.

And they all ate meat a lot. With every single meal, plus snacks. Even though they didn't have to and also enjoyed other non-meat things, but the vegetables and stuff were always secondary to the main dish, the dead animals. Even griffins didn't value meat that much, and they were two different meat-eating animals smooshed together.

Fluttershy was the exception to all of that, but was that because of the tea or something else? Spike had just about convinced himself that he'd imagined that weird thing with her stomach just because it didn't make any sense and he had way too much to worry about already. He just didn't know enough.

So many questions, and Discord would have, if not the answers, at least the means to get the ponies off his back so he could find the answers. Okay, so maybe jailbreaking a supernatural prankster spirit wasn't a totally foolproof plan that could never ever backfire, but it wasn't like he wasn't aware of the risks. And frankly, no offense to Fluttershy, ponies were so messed up right now that he was sure that nothing Discord could do to them would make them worse.

But it didn't matter anymore. He'd had a bad day and called it quits.

Increasing awareness of how stupid he'd been to do that kept creeping up on Spike, dominating more and more of his thinking, but instead of making him angry, it made him giggly. It was just so funny that after everything he'd gone through he'd just thrown his hand of cards away after one bad draw. Like the kid everyone kept saying he was.

It'd been such a neat backpack, though!

The kitchen staff kept looking at him nervously, and then started to very specifically not look at him when he started smiling and waving back. He was tempted to try to make conversation, but decided he didn't wanna give the mean-looking chef an excuse to de-tongue him.

Predictably, he was having second thoughts about giving up on this whole annoying but addictive 'life' thing, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. The piping of his toilet wasn't exactly big enough for an escape unless he magically turned into a snake or fish, and even if he could eventually claw and bite his way out of the cell, there were always a few unicorns around. And he couldn't fight magic. And there definitely wasn't any way he could just talk the ponies into not eating him....

Spike's eyes widened and he almost jumped up in excitement.

That was it.

Ponies had self-control issues about NOT eating meat right in front of them.

He didn't need to break out, he needed to convince them to break him out themselves! It was about time he found out just how badly they couldn't resist a nibble on something tasty. That still didn't help him get past their magic, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

Spike wanted to try out his super awesome idea right away, but that was a no go. He had to wait until it was just one pony around, and somehow there always seemed to be bunches of them shuffling around doing kitcheny things. The hours ticked by at the slowest possible pace as he thought about how they might serve him up for dinner or supper or lunch or lupper or a midnight snack. There was no telling when they'd want to do him in.

It was really his fault for throwing away his chances though. Imagine what Fluttershy would feel like if she knew he just gave up and got eaten after everything she'd done for him! That made him feel awfully guilty, but it also made him feel better in a lot of ways. He had a friend who would care if he was gone. Even if she was quiet and timid and had an army of ravening beasts and weird in a million other ways, she was his friend. He was proud of that.

He owed it to her to at least try.

A little after lunch cleanup, his moment came. It was a fragile thing, with most of the help being whisked away to gossip over a supposed kissy face thing between somepony called Fleur and a haberdasher, their chores all done – except for one last pony, finishing scrubbing a particularly stubborn pot.

“Hey there,” he called out to the lime-green unicorn, who, like all the rest, had learned to ignore him.

Scrubscrubscrubscrubscrub.

“Kind of a shame to let a tasty morsel like me just go to waste, dontcha think?” he asked her, sticking his belly out and slapping it slowly.

Scrub... scrub... scrubscrubscrubscrubscrub.

“Fancy Pants probably just ate more for lunch than you've had all day, right? I see how you guys eat, little nibbles here and there. You should totally form a union.”

“We get enough,” the scrubber pony replied reluctantly. “It just doesn't seem like a lot because we snatch bites here and there instead of sitting down to it all at once.”

Spike nodded mock-sympathetically even though she couldn't see him do it.

“Yeah, I'll bet. Wouldn't it be nice to just sit down and dig your teeth into something nice and juicy and satisfying for a change, though? Like a little baby dragon that would fill you right up?”

She whimpered, tap-dancing back and forth on her hooves in a way that could've been... no, it was cute, even if she was doing it because she wanted to eat him!

“Why are you tempting me with your deliciousness?!” she whined, finally throwing down the pot and jabbing an accusing, sudsy hoof in his direction.

Drat! He hadn't even thought about plausible excuses or anything! Spike's mind went back to the second conversation with Pinkie for some reason.

“Because I'm a tummytheist,” he babbled with a wide grin, “and we tummytheists hold it as our sacred doctorine to be digested in a pony's tummy! For us, it's just like going to heaven!”

He kept the smile up, sweating slightly, as she scrutinized him with a suspicious wrinkled forehead.

“That doesn't sound very believable to me...” she said slowly, but she was licking her lips while she did it, and she kept blinking, trying to shake off that glazed 'I'm HUNGRY' look that ponies always seemed to get.

“Hey, why else would I just give up and let them capture me? You heard about that right?”

She was buying it. After a little more back and forth and some more made up details about tummytheism (anyone could be a priest – as long as they owned a fork!), he got greeny to open the door up with the keys that the chef so carelessly left hanging on the kitchen wall peg all the time.

Which brought with it new problems in the form of an enormous pony mouth opening up to apparently gulp him down whole. Now what was that tip he'd gotten about dealing with unicorns?

Oh, right.

The eyes.

Spike jumped up and slashed as violently, one hand at each eye. The poor pony staggered back down on her haunches, shrieking, all thoughts of using magic forgotten in the pain – at least for now.

“Sorry!” he told her very quickly but sincerely, because he had enough apologies to give out already, and busted his scaly butt running outside.

It was a good thing the kitchen had a servant door leading to the courtyard right there. And a good thing that Fancy Pants didn't seem to think much of guards – if it'd been protected, he never would've made it through. Even the estate gates didn't have any guardsponies.

That only helped him so much, though. Spike knew he couldn't run as fast as a pony, and it would only be a minute or so at best before they started looking for him. Hiding was out of the question – they'd search the estate top to bottom if they had to, and the immediate outdoors was way too open to get away with anything like that. He had to go somewhere fast where they couldn't follow, but he had no idea where that would be.

Spike's eyes desperately sought out the far-away, high-up vision of Canterlot, with its sleek curves, sun-sparkling domes and pretty little banners and flags and canopies. And he noticed something that he hadn't caught before.

Thick white lines with flecks of dark gray – iron painted white, he thought – led down from Canterlot and through the surrounding countryside and mountainside, always at a serious angle. For a heated, panicky moment, his brain couldn't get what he was seeing, but then he understood. They were pipes, set so that gravity would do most of the work.

Probably storm drains, by how big they were. Storm drains were supposed to be big, right? Not like itty-bitty sewer pipes.

And Spike was ninety-nine percent sure that dragon claws could dig into iron, and that pony hooves couldn't scale sheer surfaces.

Heart surging with hope and a new plan to (what else?) live another petty, frantic day, Spike ran as fast as his feet could take him. The nearest pipe was still way further than he liked. By the time he reached it, he was hearing yells and hoofclops getting louder and louder. The pipe didn't end here, it kept on going, and for a terribly dismayed moment Spike thought he was doomed, but then he saw the hole in a joint as the pipe bent. It was just big enough for a Spike-sized something to get through. Maybe. If he didn't mind losing some scales.

Spike didn't mind losing some scales, and jammed his little self through that sharp-edged hole as fast as very ungainly lightning. It didn't smell great, and it was absolutely dark, but he didn't need his nose or his eyes to know he needed to climb up.

It was way harder than he'd thought it would be, and he'd thought it would be pretty hard. The pipe was just a little too big to get his back up against, and the inside was all gunked up with something sticky and halfway between dry and wet. At least it wasn't slippery, and the edges of joints from pipe to pipe helped a little. Still, he quickly found his arms and legs trembling with the strain.

He couldn't stop for a breather, if he did that he'd just fall down when his arms got too tired. And it was a long way down, long enough to hurt him or maybe worse. So Spike kept on climbing, half hoping that the pipe would end soon, half hoping it would keep on going for an infinity so he had a better chance of getting far away from the ponies who wanted to eat him.

The sound of ponies making a fuss over him quieted down after a while. But just when Spike had started to bother being hopeful, he heard a disturbing sludgey, banging noise from above that echoed all the way down the pipe, sending little tremors through the metal he was clinging to so desperately.

He couldn't see, so he couldn't anticipate when to close his eyes or hold his breath, and as a result got an eyeful, mouthful, earful and noseful of something as it schlurped its way around him and own past him. He felt hard bits in whatever it was, but mostly squishy bits, and it left him wet. His eyes stung and that bad smell that was all around the pipe was suddenly much more intense.

He spat the stuff out of his mouth, then clung to the pipe in paralyzed realization.

This wasn't a storm drain.

Not unless storms in Canterlot had blood in them, because that was what he tasted in his mouth.

All the more certain that he didn't want to have any light to see what was going on in his little oh-so-bright-idea of an escape tunnel, Spike hurried up, climbing with an unfamiliar feeling of claustrophobia. His arms were starting to burn now and his legs were getting dangerously shaky. He didn't know how long he could keep this up.

But he had to keep it up, no matter how long it took, right?

Fluttershy would be disappointed, and he still had to apologize to Rarity.

He kept those two ponies in mind along with all that he'd gone through to get this far, and kept on going. Even when his arms and legs turned into white-hot fire, even when he was too tired to think anymore. Even after a second, third, tenth, twentieth load of bloody mess flooded through him and left him increasingly caked in filth till he couldn't smell it or feel that it was there.

So that was how Spike made his way from one danger to the next one, from Top Hat's home to Canterlot. Covered in filth, blood and worse biting at his eyes and trickling down his throat, soaking into his scales and the bits between the scales. Frightened, exhausted to animal mindlessness, driven by wordless, heart-squeezing images of ponies both good and bad, he kept on going, making way one clawful of iron at a time to the capital of Equestria and its lords and ladies with all their finery.

Spike was so tired by the time it was over that his mind refused to acknowledge it until he was already there. He went all the way to the top, to that shining hole of daylight, and pulled himself over and to the ground, and only THEN, coughing and choking, did he realize that it was done. He'd done it. How long had it been? It felt like miles and miles and miles. An infinity.

Shaking and wobbling like a drunken thing, Spike got to his feet and blinked till his eyes, which felt like his dragon biowhatsit had malfunctioned and started breathing fire out of them instead of his mouth. All was good, he was in a little side lane between buildings, no ponies around....

Except for one light purple pony, sitting on a street bench nearby, staring straight at him, a book forgotten in her hooves. Well, crud. It never gets to be easy, does it Spikey ol' boy?

Spike's eyes honed in on her horn. He wanted to run, but as he saw that little tower of bone start to glow, he knew that he didn't have any time to waste on little luxuries like being nice.

Without even bothering to take the time for an apology this time, he lunged forward with both claws, eyes eyes eyes, had to go for those amethyst-purple eyes or they'll GET you, Spike, and you can say you're sorry after!

On the Dining Habits of Equus Carnivorus

Spike slammed into thin air before getting to his target, smashing his snout painfully and falling to the ground even more painfully. He tried to lift himself up, then collapsed, arms wobbling, and scrambled to a stand from his feet up instead. Confused, he stared blearily at the unicorn, who wasn't just purple because of her coat now. She was purple because the air around her was shimmering with a bubble of purple.

Wait, so ponies got FORCEFIELDS now?! No one had told him that! That wasn't even FAIR!

Figuring that there wasn't anything he could do against something like that, Spike turned tail and ran, glad that at least his legs weren't as completely useless as his arms were. He still wobbled and panted and tripped over things that he shouldn't have tried over, but hey, he was moving. Back through the alleyway, hopefully to a secluded... wait, no, it just led to another big street, and there were even more unicorns in it!

“Oh, I've always wanted to catch a squaglureious gibberling!” an excited voice squealed from behind.

He glanced back just in time to see a lasso of purple magic zip towards him, honing with all the speed of a snake extending infinitely long to strike at a poor little mousie. Luckily, this unicorn didn't have nearly the pinpoint aim of an Appleloosan pony, and he was able to duck it, leaving the energy zipping pointlessly past him. And now he was left with a choice: keep going into a definitely crowded street, or go back the way he'd come to a less crowded street but with a pony actively trying to get him.

Maybe if he could distract her.

“I'm not a whatever it was you said, I'm a dragon, you nincompoppy!” he yelled nastily, happy to see her jolt in offense at the insult. Hah, pony hunger didn't totally override pony sense of dignity, right Rainbow Crash?

Just enough of an opening for him to charge and hit a slide to get between her legs and out the other side, her tail tickling his face as it swished past. He saw that purple bubble slam down around her again, but it was too late and too centered on defense. Up and running again, the other side, the way he'd been to start with, was relatively empty – only three or four unicorns in sight instead of the dozens the other street had, and they all looked soft and happier to munch their street vendor caramelized squirrel heads rather than burn energy chasing after live prey. He had no idea where he was going, he only knew that he couldn't stop moving.

The beautifully smooth, well-kept streets were bliss to his poor feet, but that also presented the problem of letting that unicorn keep up easily. Spike scrambled over tables, knocking over snacks and pitchers while unicorns in seats cried out at him in more offense than alarm. He shredded canopies, skittered under dresses (causing some particularly screechy shrieks with that) and barreled through ornamental bushes, hoping that taken all together, it would be enough to at least slow the unicorn down.

“But, but if you're a dragon, how come your coloration and pore exudings precisely match a well-documented subspecies of gibberling!” she was protesting, because apparently it was normal for ponies in Canterlot to have debate biology during a hunt. “Lexicon Locus's Primer to Class IV Tangible Prey clearly... huff, puff... states that dragons, huff, don't even drip naturally unless they're a sea serpent.. pant, gasp... subspecies!”

At least, heh, she sounded out of breath. Pretty quickly, too, she couldn't be much of an athlete. One of the lazy ones that liked food delivered to her instead of going to get it herself, awright! On the other claw, Spike was feeling more dead than alive himself, and knew that taking umpteen steps for every one of hers wasn't gonna do much for his long term survival chances. She was sending more magic lassos at him with more enthusiasm than aim, and all she got for her trouble against his frantic dodging was snatching a table, somepony's drink (which promptly splashed on her face as the glass itself jammed onto her snout) and a huge feathery sunhat.

Kicking up a fuss like this was definitely gaining him a little distance, but he was running down a big, paved, open street with shops and things on either side. Nowhere near good cover. Worse, some of the ponies that he'd disrupted had tossed away their top hats and monocles to join in the chase, wheezing and chortling with all the cheerfulness of gentleponies who hadn't had such 'jolly good sport' in ages. This wasn't good. He had to make a drastic change in his plan of action if he wanted to live to bash the pony mockery of their harmonious kingdom all to bits.

Since Canterlot was basically partway on a mountain, it wasn't too surprising to find a sharp curve in the street where going forward would have meant walking onto nothing but air. A bronze and silver-braced cliffside with bell-cupped white flowers growing out of modest cracks in the mountain rock, a touch of natural beauty in a place of creatures that insistently subjugated nature. Seeing a nice comfy fat-thighed unicorn in a belladonna dress to land on, and his pursuers not including pegasi, Spike decided to take that walk on air, and even as tired as he was got a little amusement from how the ponies all around him gasped as he jumped without hesitation.

That pony backside was well-fed, and he sank his feet in an inch before bouncing off it to land and start running again. Number one rule of being Spike: running always works, baby! Fat pony had been chewing on a fried leg of something that looked like it could've been related to him, and spat it out in surprise... then tripped over it. He laughed merrily, king of his own little world of outlawness, feeling like maybe the revolution really could happen and that brief surge of despair had just been a dumb impulse.

Then there was a flash of lavender light, and the purple unicorn from before was in front of him.

“Alright, gibberling, give it up!” she commanded him in a no-nonsense voice, stomping a hoof. “I'm already whole minutes behind schedule for my Joys of Subatomic Metaphorical Gastronomy report, never mind phase three of my thesis on the dining habits of equus carnivorus!”

“How did... but... you...”

Spike looked back between her and the cliff several times, feeling as bewildered and angry as he had with Pinkie's little train ambush. Why did they have to keep making up new tricks?!

“Oh, it's a simple teleportation spell. Nothing fancy, really, just basic spatial warping,” she replied modestly, then hunkered down, baring her teeth and setting her horn to glowing again.

Well that was swell, just when he'd thought a pony moving too fast to see was the worst thing he could run into, he'd now found a pony who could move around without being in the in-between parts between two places! It was getting sort of funny by now though. Or maybe he was getting hysterical. Either way he was feeling giggly. Next up he'd run into fireball throwing ponies or something, it had to be due on the list.

Frustrated and tired as he was, he still wasn't gonna sit there and let her shoot whatever spell she had planned. So he corrected her again on the gibberling thing, just to gain a split second distraction, and hid behind the fat pony who was trying to retrieve her greasy fried hunk of bone-in thigh.

This actually worked out better than he expected, since the purple unicorn was polite enough to apologize and try not to hit the other pony, and the other pony was sweatily reacting on a clock that was, at best, two seconds too slow compared to the rest of the world. On the downside he got to see way more frilly pony undergarments than he was comfortable with. The faint reek of pony sweat, half-covered up with too-strong perfume, combined really badly with the smell of fried meat.

Then the chunky pony got the idea to start stomping on him, and with four hooves plus magic to avoid, and that kind of weight behind the hooves to boot, Spike figured it was time to bail. As soon as he got a good distance, though, the purple pony, quickly becoming Spike's least-favorite-pony-besides-all-the-other-ponies-that-had-tried-to-kill-him, just flashed in front of him again, a near-mad sliver of a grin of triumph on her face.

“And you can't be a dragon because you're not even breathing fire!” she announced. “Even baby dragons can breathe fire by the time they're fully ground mobile! Hah! Your lies are as imperfectly formulated as your evasive maneuvers, gibberling!”

“Oh, sure, pick on the handicapped dragon, I'm sure he's not sensitive about his birth deformities already,” Spike growled. It wasn't his fault he'd never been able to do that!

He couldn't really think of what else to do with that crazy grin eating away at his peace of mind, so he swiped out with his dog-tired arm, trying to go for one side of a leg in hopes of getting something tender. It wasn't his brightest moment, and he wasn't at all surprised when a purple bubble flickered into being just long enough to block it before vanishing again. The shock made his arm bones quiver from clawtips right up to his poor protesting shoulder.

“You are totally a god moder.” He wasn't sure what that meant, but he'd heard another dragon use the insult once in tail-wrestling.

Her smile lowered to vaguely sane sharpness as she lowered her head, horn surging with sparks this time in addition to the usual glowy light show.

“Okay, now hold still, because I want to try a trick my brother taught me about offensive shield use, but it's a very precise maneuver and I don't want to vandalize any property!”

Yeah. Yeah, that was totally what he was gonna do. Stand still. Although the way his heart was thudding, maybe he could do that and the organ would just bounce him out of the way with each heartbeat. Even rolling his eyes as he dodged was a waste of energy at this point. Problem was he had no idea what he was supposed to be dodging, there was no projectile or anything, so he just picked a direction at random.

He was lucky.

Purple energy slammed down next to him, almost identical to the shield bubble the unicorn liked so much, except it had a harsher, flatter look to it and formed a wall instead of a sphere. An ornamental chain railing, so tiny it was totally useless as an actual railing even from Spike's point of view, was caught up in the purple glow and promptly slid apart, falling as if cut clean by an ax. Hooves and teeth and even horn gorings weren't so... clean.

Anticipating rather than seeing it happen, Spike jumped back from the second forcefield, which cut into the clean street with equal lack of effort. It still cut into part of his arm, just a little but such a thorough, broad slice that he was bleeding from it so much it actually was visible past all the blood he'd been covered in from the pipe. It was hard not to cry at how much it hurt but he wasn't gonna give her the satisfaction! If ponies even felt satisfaction from that sort of thing, he actually didn't know but DARN IT he needed SOME excuse not to cry, didn't he?!

She was mad that she'd broken the fence, he could tell just form her tone – no time to listen to the actual words anymore – and had decided to make up for it by getting it just right this time. Or the next time. Or the next. Or the NEXT. Being just a little too slow now would mean losing a tail, a finger... or his life, and it seemed like an insult that he could get hurt and worse so badly by something so innocent and girly-looking as that sheet of sparkly purple.

Using all the strength that was left in his tired dragon arm, Spike dug into the dirt with his claws and flung a handful into her face, causing her to gag and wipe at her tongue with both hooves, but more importantly also blinding her for a few seconds. He as much tumbled as ran downwards, not having the strength to fight gravity anymore, just hoping that the street would lead somewhere where he could hide. An alleyway, didn't this dumb pretty city have any grungy alleyways for him to hide in?!

So, checking off the list. Magical lassos. Teleporting. Regular forcefields. Weaponized forcefields. At least the unicorn with the boring manecut had to be out of tricks by now!

Noticing a large shadow overhead that wasn't from a building, Spike looked up and saw two wrought iron chairs, an umbrella-shaded table, a crate, three different sizes of suitcases, a dead tree swallow with a faintly confused look on its neck-twisted face and what was apparently the chain from the earlier guard rail all floating in air and headed toward him like a whole flock of diving falcons, all enclosed in that same, by now unhappily familiar purple shine.

Okay, so she could also throw a bunch of stuff at him.

“I really hate unicorns,” he said to no one in particular, just before it all caught up with him and buried him painfully in debris.

Even piled on, the different objects still bumped against him insistently, as if trying to squish him into a paste. Which, for all he knew, they were. Might've been a special Canterlot recipe: squished dragon paste, served fresh over your flapjacks. One of the chairs was digging its leg into the bad spot on his arm and he couldn't help but let out a... manly scream, yeah, and anyone who said it sounded otherwise was just clearly wrong. So what if he'd gotten what was apparently a steak-sized patch of skin totally taken off, he could deal with it!

“Guess I'll have supper tenderized,” his nemesis talked to herself idly, clopping forward.

Spike dug himself out of the crushing mass just long enough to glare at her before he got sucked into the middle again by the ever-shifting pressure, feeling like he was being buried alive. Except for the fact that ponies wouldn't waste a body like that, it was as accurate a comparison as any he could think of. His arm hurt so bad, and he was shaking all over from all the climbing and running. No strength left. He was gonna die.

“Huh, it looks like you are a dragon after all,” she went on conversationally as the magicked objects scraped blood off of him (when they weren't making him bleed in new places). “A baby dragon that can't fly or breathe fire. You're probably better off being a meal, poor little guy.”

The objects yanked away from Spike all at once, leaving him to fall on his face in the street. While they collapsed all around him in now-inanimate heaps, the air around him filled with dozens of sheets of sharp glowing energy like guillotine blades. Too many to dodge. Like everything in Canterlot, it was beautiful in a delicate, girly way, and like everything about ponies, it was lethal despite appearances. Would it have been better to croak by way of a suitably ferocious, ugly, smelly monster? Even now, the unicorn behind it all was staring with shining, earnest eyes only slightly tainted by that sheen of gluttony, looking more like a student eager to solve a math problem in front of her teacher than a killer. So harmless-looking, that typical pony unawareness only adding to the innocence they had no right to walk around with but still did....

If only things had been different.

Spike licked his lips, swallowed, and tried to think of an appropriate last thing to say as he stared into purple glowy death, ready to chop him into a twenty pieces.

“Maybe I can't breathe fire, but at least I'm not still wearing the manecut my mother gave me when I was two.”

As far as last words went, it wasn't his best work, but he felt it was good enough to go out on.

He felt a thrill of triumph beat back the pain and exhaustion as the unicorn flushed in mixed embarrassment and anger.

“My manecut is practical and attractive!” she half-yelled at him. Unstable much? “And, and besides... uh... you can't even read a dead-end sign! You were doomed by your own classic tactical blunder as soon as you headed down this street, I could have caught you with my bare hooves!” She flailed said hooves demonstratively, and Spike could have sworn he imagined a faint draft of musty scroll odor from the gesture.

Ignoring how much it hurt, Spike propped his wounded arm up on the street by the elbow and leaned his head into his palm, feigning too-cool-to-care with his usual expert ease.

“So I can't read, whatsit to ya? Are you gonna eat me or talk me to death? 'Cause frankly, I'm getting bored here.”

The unicorn blinked.

“What... what do you mean, you can't read?”

He glared at her silently, not even dignifying so dumb a question with a reply.

She blinked a second time, and the hungry look faded away entirely, replaced by... was that tears? Seriously?

“That... that is the saddest thing I've ever heard in my entire life,” she whispered.

All of a sudden, instead of being threatened by looming magic blade things, he was being cradled in surprisingly gentle magic energy. And a pair of hooves. Yeah, okay, this was unexpected and more than a little awkward. Going for the eyes seemed like the right thing to do here, but his arms were pinned.

“How can you stand to go through life not knowing the joys of neoclassical literature like Horse Ace's epistles, or dactylic hexameter-derived epics like the Neighneid, or Golding Withers's classic juvenalian Ford of the Lies or Buckskinius's Consolation of Gastrosophy or, or... even Daring Do!”

“Books are stupid,” he said right away, less because he really thought so and more to get another shot in. That muscle-flopping tiredness that was total throughout the rest of his body wasn't working on his tongue yet, handily.

“No they're not!” she yelled, hilariously offended. It was like he'd said something about her mom. “Books are full of all of the magical and wonderful moments in the lives of everypony important all conveniently compacted into a portable format so you can experience them for yourselves anytime you want! What's stupid about that?”

“Everything you just said. Sounds really lame if you ask me.”

He squirmed against her, but the magic was too tight even if her physical grasp on him was careless. She didn't have many muscles, not like most of the ponies he'd run across, but he guessed that was probably pretty normal for a city-living unicorn. That smell of paper and glue, so much like the library he'd gone into one time to find a bathroom, was a lot stronger now. Basically she read so much that it was apparently her equivalent of perfume.

And still had time to be out and about and kill helpless little dragons, whatta shame. Even the most 'civilized' of them still had to stoop to murder, it was in their blood.

“You're just saying that because your own ignorance has made you so blind that you can't even recognize the value of illumination! Oh, I can't kill you now, you poor thing!”

“You can't? Why not?”

Spike clapped his hands over his mouth. Nice going, mouth, just keep on running away with things without thinking about the consequences. You'd think he'd been looking forward to getting eaten, sheesh!

“I could never forgive myself if I turned you into a fricassee before you'd at least known the joys of a nice, juicy mystery novel, to say nothing of the pleasures of the satires of Filly O'Sorrel on applied subcultural analytics to the social mores of late antiquity Hoofington! You seem like you have a quick head on your shoulders, and the Princess has been bugging me about getting more hooves on experience anyway. It'll be a snap! Or a breeze. Or a breeze-snap! Eheheh.”

“Whatever you say,” Spike replied resignedly, still trying to decipher half of the first sentence as she wiped him off with her magic. It felt like being scrapped by soft rubber, and made exactly the same kind of squeaky sound that window washers made.

So, he was saved at the last minute due to blind luck and his inability to tell what squiggly ink shapes meant. Whatever, a win was a win, he'd take it. The unicorn actually looked almost kind of nice now that she wasn't trying to kill him. He couldn't forget that she'd tried, though. And would try again soon, probably. No matter how nice she looked. Remember, Spike. Remember.

“What's your name?” he asked, taking a peek at her flank to catch her symbol. Nothing but a nasty-looking scar there, the pale, jagged welts having taken over the entire space where a Cutie Mark normally was.

“Oh!” She blinked, as if surprised that she had such a thing as a name. “I'm Twilight Sparkle. What's yours?”

“Spike.”

“How fascinating, I'd always read that dragons had etymological predilections towards biological extrusions for their hatchlings' names, but I'd never actually-”

And at that point, Spike realized that she'd be going on like that for a while, so he tuned her out while smiling and nodding at regular intervals. She looked so eager and happy, talking like this. Way more happy than she'd looked while chasing him – that had been more of a 'grr, stop running away and wasting my time' look. He could have wondered why she'd bothered to chase him if she hadn't found it fun to begin with, but there was no reasoning to why ponies did what they did.

“...of course, the zoning laws are really bad about cold-blooded pets,” she was rambling on as he tuned in again (mostly because he wanted a distraction from the way all the unicorns nearby were eying him interestedly as she floated him along). “I'm not sure what to do about that....”

“Oh, boohoo, pony laws. I say do what you want, who's gonna stop a unicorn who can do all that stuff you just did? And can you put me down so I can walk on my own, please?”

“Spike! I can't just do what I want, that's wrong! The rules are there for reasons, to protect all of us and keep us safe!”

He guffawed so loudly and deliberately rudely a nearby unicorn with her mane in a bundle tilted up her nose and muttered 'Well, I never!'

“Well, to keep everypony safe, anyway,” she amended with a smile that almost looked embarrassed.

That's right, don't forget that non-ponies don't count, ya purple jerk. Then she brightened up.

“Oh, I know, I can just designate you for my unused emergency food supply slot. You'll keep fresher alive anyway!”

He wished she looked less happy about it.

“So are you gonna eat me after I've learned to read?”

His arm was still bothering him badly, all the more because he didn't have anything simple like walking to take his attention away from it. He'd never had a cut like it before... for one thing, cutting dragon scales wasn't exactly an easy deal. But even a magic sword couldn't have done a better job of it compared to what she'd done. She hadn't even thought that it might be hurting or could get infected or something. Spike could tell her mind was a million miles away, and he couldn't even be mad at her for it.

It was like being crazy, what these ponies had. It was a kind of nuts, only with no doctors or straitjackets because they'd built a whole civilization of crazy. Which made him the crazy one.

“Well, sure, I can't let perfectly good meat go to waste,” she replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “That would be like spitting in the face of my own thesis on the dining habits of equus carnivorus, don't you know anything about ponies? But there's no rush or anything. I'm really more of a sphinxian fritters filly anyway.”

“Hey, I'm bleedin' out here,” he tried, adding a bit of a whimper to his voice. “Can a guy get a bandaid or something at least?”

“Oh, don't be silly,” Twilight said after a split second glance at his arm. “You're clearly nowhere near a critical level of exsanguination. I'll have you cleaned and sterilized once we reach the palace. Just try not to drip on anything that looks like it's hundreds of years old. The Princess won't mind, but the guards can be real sticklers.”

Either her magic was flagging or she had actually heard his earlier request and only just now processed it, because she floated him over to her back and let him ride on top, where he flopped with a groan, grateful and boneless like a beached jellyfish. This was convenient. Discord was stoned (he was pretty sure that was the right technical term for it) in the palace gardens, so she'd be taking him right to where he wanted to go anyway. And hopefully preventing anypony else from eating him, too!

“So we're going to the palace, huh. Are you a maid or something?”

“Nooooo,” she said with a little head toss. “I am actually the personal student of the Princess, if you must know,” she added modestly. “I'm very fortunate to have the position.”

“I bet,” Spike mumbled automatically while his brain wheels churned out a million half-baked schemes he could use that fact to his benefit on. “What's the scar from? Looks cool.”

He paused, biting his bottom lip. Hadn't really meant to say that last bit, actually he'd intended to throw in a cheap shot about her obviously losing an old hunt, but it was cool by dragon fashion standards, so whatever. She didn't seem like she had a big head so he could afford to butter her up a little. It was for survival, that was all.

Twilight stopped walking, her face darkening into a ground-tilted scowl so intense that he was sure he'd made a mistake in asking that, no matter how obvious a question it was.

“Just an old experiment for the Princess,” she muttered halfheartedly, her voice almost Fluttershy quiet. “I wasn't good enough,” she said after a longer moment, with a tone of dark self-directed anger thick as syrup. Although he couldn't see to tell for sure, the movement of muscles at the sides of her head made Spike think of that eerie razor-sharp grin from earlier, as though a grin in response to anger was a pony thing, just like some cats responded to pain or fear with purring.

Spike'd just decided to say he was sorry for asking when she perked up, as if the moment had never happened, her hooves setting to a gentle trot again. Although the palace, castle, whatever-you-wanna-call-it was really close to Canterlot, Canterlot was big enough that getting there wasn't instant. They talked for maybe half an hour, getting to know each other's personalities, her mostly happy to explain at ridiculous lengths any question about pony society he asked, and him happy to distract her with explanation requests so he didn't have to lie to her very much about what he was doing in Canterlot and what he'd done up to this point. As far as she knew, he was just lost. Really, really, really lost. Which was kinda true, since he'd been that way pretty much his whole life. And she knew tons about pony... everything, from art to buildings to industry to crops to politics. It wasn't exactly surprising to find the themes of 'hunting', 'meat' and 'eating' cropping up in every possible way every few sentences. One track minds, these ponies.

Then they had to take a detour in reverse to back where they'd come from, just as they were in sight of the palace gates, when he pointed out idly that she'd forgotten the book she'd been reading way back when he'd crawled out of the pipe. He wouldn't have said anything if he'd known she'd be OCD enough to go back after it, jeez! But then she was all grateful to him for remembering, which he figured might make for good leverage.

From what he could tell, it wasn't that she was bad at organizing. She was too good at organizing. She had planned out her day so precisely that every minute was accounted for and probably more productive than any single week of Spike's life had ever been. Kind of disgusting really. But now she was all off her schedule, and she couldn't remember everything because she kept stressing about everything she wasn't remembering, and... yeah.

He would've felt guilty if he weren't so busy deriving secret amusement from it. He had dealt with life or death situations with less stress than she was dealing with a single hour of her day not being where she'd intended it to be in her schedule thingy.

The palace was as grand as he'd expected, a friggin' fairy tale castle that had to be using magic just to keep from falling off the side of the mountain, using a lot of the same architectural quirks as Canterlot itself, the gold and marble and bright flags against pale white and silver backgrounds. Probably because the Canterlot ponies copied the style, he realized. The Princess was old, and the place she lived in most likely was almost as old. Still, he wasn't one to get impressed by stupidly expensive, too-big buildings, so he just let Twilight chatter on about Renneighsance era architects and masterwork craftsmanship and landmark engineering techniques while he quietly counted entrances, exits, potential hiding spots (way too few of those), and guards.

Lots of guards.

Mostly pegasi, some unicorns and earth ponies too though. They were huge and muscley and had faces like statues that had decided being rock wasn't nearly hardcore enough for them. Although Twilight smiled and waved and greeted some of them by name, the best she got in return was a stiff nod or sharp-hoofed salute. She didn't seem offended; he guessed that was just how they were trained.

She ducked away from the big main halls quickly and into a smaller set of hallways that led to a tower's spiral staircase. Along the way, they bumped into a servant donkey who complimented Twilight on the 'juicy catch,' and Twilight beamed and grinned so proudly for such a long time after that Spike almost felt happy for her. Which was a whole new kind of wrong all by itself!

Her room was an absolute shamble, a whirlpool of science lab sets, scrolls, quills, colored tape, rulers, chalk, ink pots, miniature skeletal models, half-drunk cups of tea and half-eaten sausage sandwiches (the sausage parts all eaten, of course). Everything was everywhere. Spike looked up and around, and even saw what looked like an old essay paper with red editing correction marks on it stuck on the ceiling with some kind of brown stain. And books, books books in every potential book-shaped space. Books in stacks, books opened, books closed, books organized in little shelves and books crammed into the spaces between other books, wherever a book might fit – by golly, a book there was. A dozen ponies could have lived a dozen lives in this room if they weren't worried about being short on space, and gotten very well-educated in the process. Buried underneath all that was some very nice, if limited furniture in finished pine, and a rug that depicted the pony Princesses of old in a fashion similar to the style of Fluttershy's story book illustrations.

Spike looked at Twilight, who was paused at the threshold of the door with a blush, one hoof still raised, as if it had just occurred to her what her room looked like to somepony who didn't live in it.

“I... I have a system!” she said without any prompting.

“Suuuure you do.”

Cleaning and 'sterilization,' as she called it, was every bit as uncomfortable and humiliating and painful as he'd expected, dedragonizing in a way that somehow fighting for his life hadn't been. Her attempts at boosting his morale were even worse, though.

“Don't be fussy bus, Spike, let's just have two more measly minutes with the steel wool. Your eyelids look like they might be suffering from a mild case of dysecdysis, and ya don't wanna look bad if the Princess walks by, do you? Come on, who's a good emergency food supply? Who's my number one emergency food supply, huuuuh, Spike?”

Clearly 'dragon psychology' hadn't been one of the nearly infinite topics Twilight Sparkle had read books about.

“Please stop talking,” he told her flatly, and grabbed the scratchy pad and finished the rest himself while she very clearly bit back the urge to criticize his scrubbing technique.

At the tail end of him doing that, Twilight got distracted rechecking her schedule and frantically scratching off some things and editing other things. She could have probably done a whole two more of the things she'd meant to do today if she hadn't spent so much time with her schedule list, Spike thought to himself with a silent chuckle. The unicorn quickly became sucked into it, talking to herself, diving back into scrolls and papers and tomes with her magic levitating things that zigzagged all over the place as she remembered she needed them. Spike himself had to dodge a particularly fast quill before it impaled him as he was drying himself off.

Twilight was getting increasingly less responsive to his questions as she got back to whatever her super important work was, and he wasn't nearly smart enough to figure out half of what she was saying with her fancy college level words. So he just hung around quietly and checked out the place while she wasn't paying any attention to him. Window too high to jump out of, no climbing points. Door was lockable, and she'd already locked it. Drat. Too sturdy to break down without a lot of noise and effort, but he might be able to do it in time if he had to. The ceiling had a small sliding ladder up to a higher window, he had no idea what that was for. Whatever it was, it was latched and locked tight. Had to make a note to climb up there when she was asleep if she actually planned to let him be free in the room at night.

Hours passed like that. He passed, and tapped his feet, and yawned, and looked through the pictures of some of her books, and ate the bread from her stale sandwiches, and considered hurting her but immediately (and gladly) threw that idea away as being dumb. He was right where he needed to be, and he was, for now, 'safe.' No reason to rock the boat when the boat had lots of grumpy-looking armored guards on it who didn't take kindly to boat rockers.

This felt a lot like how he'd been with Fluttershy, but it wasn't the same. He reminded himself of that. It was closer to Appleloosa than Fluttershy, even Rarity was more Fluttershy than this was. She was still gonna eat him, just later instead of now. And to add insult to injury, she was gonna make him learn things before she killed him! All he had to do was look at that long stretch of stinging, itching red along one arm for a reminder. Still, he smiled as he listened to her fuss away at her notes and her essays and what all else she did with those scribbles of hers. He'd gotten along just fine so far without knowing how to read, but clearly it was something central to her life as much as hunting and eating meat was. Pity she couldn't seem to write about normal things, like... anything not involving meat, or murder, or points between the two themes.

When the sun started to leak the molten tangerine orange of early evening through the windows, she put her things down with an audible thump of countless papers, stretched her back cracklingly and sighed.

“Okay! I think I'm caught up enough now that I'll only have to pull a half-nighter tonight. I bet you'd like some chalcedony or something, wouldn't you Spike?”

He would loooove some chalcedony, and told her so. But besides that, he also asked for a quick tour around the place, since he'd only seen a little bit as they'd come in. Maybe the gardens? A nice, safe, peaceful place, the gardens, seemed like this unicorn's kinda gig. Good for study and maybe even some light contemplation of stonework techniques, he hinted, and she was instantly grinning and bouncing at the thought. For a pony who devoted herself to such boring mature junk, she was as easy to manipulate as a kid. Spike couldn't help but like her, but it was a liking that was held in check by his painful longing for her to just apologize for hurting him and knowing that she wouldn't. At least he go a bandage for it before they went out.

While Spike munched on the chalcedony Twilight had leftover from some old project or other – for all he knew, she'd been using it to make friggin' pony golems so she wouldn't have to hunt things herself – he was forced to accompany her on a kitchen raid, where she picked up an nth plate of her 'usual' sausage sandwich and super-caffeinated baby mice latte. He couldn't watch her with the drink, some of the tails were draped out of the cup apparently for ornamentation, and something about the sight kicked in his gag reflex seriously. The rest of his chalcedony, he swallowed whole without tasting, and it seemed to plunk down into his stomach like heavy daggers.

Worth it, though, because she took him on a quick trot through the pleasantly scenic outside of the castle, with its gardens and random exotic wildlife (poor meals waiting to be caught, not that they knew it) and hedge mazes. There were more sculptures than just Discord, most of them involving ponies killing something or ponies eating something – often at the same time. But Discord was unmistakable because his statue was like nothing else that Spike had ever seen before, countless animals jumbled together in a tall, snakey body with a wizened but lively face that grinned one-fanged with ominous cheer. He was careful not to even look except out of the corner of his eyes, and didn't ask any questions, only nodding when Twilight mentioned something offhandedly about the statue. Didn't need to set off any alarm bells, now did he?

As they walked, several passing ponies, all well-dressed nose-in-the-air noble types, asked if Twilight had dibs on him. Apparently he was tasty-looking, not that he didn't know that already. Spike found himself, much to his humiliation, shying away from them and hiding behind his former would-be killer, who at least wasn't going to snack on him within the next twenty-four hours. Twilight, for her part, seemed vaguely aware if not very concerned of his nervousness to their hungry-eyed badgering, and she took them back to her room instead of staying outside as they'd planned.

What else after that except more writing for Twilight while he sat around doing nothing? That was okay though. He needed the time to think. He'd walked right by friggin' Discord, his key to saving the ponies from themselves with a little crazy to fight the crazy. Hair of the pony that bit ya. He'd walked right by it, and the statue hadn't seemed alive or anything. Just rock. Was Discord really dead? Had he come all this way for nothing? Or maybe there was some kind of spell or trigger that could wake the guy up. Twilight seemed like the kind of pony to know, but he couldn't ask. Not unless he got her on his side, and he didn't even know if that was possible.

But he was alive.

That was something.

Alive, as a dragon, smack dab in the middle of Canterlot Castle.

While Twilight choked on the last mouse tail and gulped the dregs of her drink to make it go down smooth, Spike looked back at the slice of red on his arm, stiffening and drying into jagged little spots. It still hurt bad, especially every time he flexed that arm. He looked at it, focused on the pain, and then sighed and let the resentment go.

He wouldn't hate them for being what they were. How had Twilight put it? So blind you can't even tell the good of a light, something like that.

After wondering whether she was naive enough to really let him roam the room freely while she was asleep, Spike wasn't too surprised and only a little disappointed to find that she'd planned to lock him in the bathroom. After only two minutes of whining, he managed to get her to snatch an old basket just his size from the kitchen storerooms so he wouldn't have to sleep in the cold tub. She even throw a spare throw pillow and blanket in there, which touched him so much he almost cried. Even killers could be kind sometimes. It was a good bed. Comfy.

But he couldn't sleep in it.

Even when it got really dark, he couldn't sleep. He ended up staring blearily at the locked door, listening to Twilight scribble away with her quills and mutter to herself like a madpony. The bulk of her late night work seemed to about that thesis, the 'on the dining habits of equus carnivorus' thing. Hah, little did she know all that he could tell her about pony 'dining habits' if she wanted to sit still long enough for him to use every bad word he knew. He wondered what self-reinforcing junk she had spent all her painstaking time on assembling on her endless rolls of parchment and in her scattered pages of notes. You couldn't study your own madness, you couldn't see your own madness, because it was a part of you. Like whatever the thing in Fluttershy's stomach had been. If Twilight asked, he could tell her. He could tell her so much. But she wouldn't ask, and he couldn't take the risk of offering, so she would have to keep on working hard on writing her nonsense.

Something besides that was itching at the back of his head but he didn't know what. Walking back through the events of the day, he counted out every messed up thing that had happened to him, mixed with all the good stuff. Bad outweighed the good but that was normal. He hadn't planned to get here this way, but he'd gotten where he'd meant to go. He should be okay.

No, he was missing something. Something was wrong, he was sure of it.

After too many minutes of brooding in the dark, it finally clicked. Spike got up, still wide awake, and knocked gently at the door. He could still hear Twilight working away.

“What is it, Spike? Do you need a glass of water?”

He snorted. There was water right here, it was a bathroom. How could someone so smart be so stupid?

“No, I'm fine. I just... can you open the door for a sec? I just wanna ask you something real quick and then I'll go back to bed.” He thought of a way to phrase it so she'd be interested. “It's kinda a folklore slash architectural thing.”

She opened the door right away, looking so pleased that he'd finally shown an interest in her smarty pants gobbledegook that he felt bad for exploiting her interests that way.

“Yes, what is it? Oh, I know! Doubtless you're wondering how the Great Masters of the High Renneighsance achieved everlasting laudation by becoming the definitive ethos of the Canterlot geopolitical region, am I right?”

She said it with such breathless enthusiasm. Ah, the marvels of higher learning. What a waste of time. Also, there was at least one word in that sentence that Spike had no clue of the meaning of.

“Uh, no, actually, I was wondering about that mixed up statue we went by earlier,” he mentioned, twirling the tip of his tail nervously in his claws.

“Mixed up... oh, you mean Discord?”

“Yeah, that's the guy.” Spike concentrated hard, thought back the exact words and even the tone Fluttershy had used when she'd told him the story so he wouldn't get it wrong. “From what I heard, this guy was messing up pony land, but the Princesses beat him in a fight and turned him to stone with their magic, right?”

“That's correct, Spike, you have a pretty good grasp of history for a dragon your age. You'll be a natural at reading, I just know it!”

“Oh, why thank y- I mean, never mind that junk, argh!” Do NOT let her make you be proud of her being proud of you. Stay frosty, dragon! “I mean, Discord totally lost the fight fair and square, so he knew he was doomed and all, right? It wasn't like he was ambushed or anything.” Spike licked his lips but they still felt dry.

“Yes, that's how the historians describe the event. I've never thought to ask the Princess myself.”

“Right. So. Why is he smiling?”

Line in the Sand

“Okay, and if 'tin' is spelled T-I-N, it follows that tinsel would be spelled...”

“T-I-N-S-I-L?” Spike guessed.

“Close, that second I is an E.”

“Auuugh!” He slammed his head on the baby dragon-sized school desk Twilight had found for him somewhere. It was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked. “Can't you just eat me?!”

“Don't give up yet, Spike, you've been doing so well! I believe in you, I know you can do this.”

Spike made a few grumpy sounds that could have been interpreted into a vague comment on Twilight's momma.

“Okay Spike, just one more word for the day. Let's try 'cane.'”

“Like a sugarcane or a walking stick cane?”

“They're spelled the same way, Spike!”

“Oh. Okay. Ummm.” He wrinkled his forehead, thinking back over the lessons. The torturous, agonizing, mind-numbing lessons. It SOUNDED like 'kay,' but he knew it was one of the ones with a Y sound in the middle without the Y. “Oh!” He brightened up, he totally had this one. “K-A-I-N!”

Seeing his teacher grimace, his smile flagged.

“Actually, it starts with a C,” Twilight said matter-of-factly.

“Cs shouldn't exist anyway if you ask me,” Spike growled. “Everything they do can be done by S or K! Well, except for that 'chuh' sound, I guess they're okay for that.”

“And there's no I in the middle.”

“Oh come on! That was totally the right vowel sound for that!”

“And there's an E at the end.”

“A POX UPON YOUR SILENT ES!” Spike shrieked, flailing his claws in the air, causing Twilight to jump a little. He'd learned that phrase from a play script she'd read to him. A very, very boring play about a non-meat-eating pony with a red V on his chest.

“Okay, I think we're getting just a little bit of study burnout,” Twilight commented with a giggle. “How about a break for lunch?”

Spike agreed gratefully.

Only a week since Twilight had taken him into the castle, and he hadn't seen anything inside it except for her room and the library and a hall full of paintings that he had been forced to sit through an artistic lecture on. Twilight was a studyholic and expected him to be one too, and it wasn't like he could say no when that was the only reason he wasn't dead yet! He'd already memorized the whole alphabet and was going through boring basic vocabulary now, divorced from any fun context like stories or even history. For some reason Twilight seemed to find little random facts about grammar or spelling or language evolution totally fascinating and didn't seem to even notice, let alone understand when Spike failed to share her enthusiasm. At least she'd decided to leave cursive for later, but in a strange way that disappointed him. He liked the way the letters in cursive ran together, it was like they were holding hands together in harmony.

Besides the traumas of education being forced upon him, Spike also had to deal with a lot of other little quirks from the unicorn. She constantly misplaced or forgot things, not because she had a bad memory, but because she always tried to do too much, and he'd only added on to her already overburdened schedule. She was also a perfectionist and got very upset with herself or him whenever something wasn't just the way she wanted it. He was left to play along and pretend he cared about what color of ink was appropriate for scribbling notes in margins, and ended up being helpful to her a lot mostly to save on unnecessary stress.

So Spike found things that Twilight lost, and reminded her of things that she forgot, and downplayed things she found important because they were never important and she really needed to learn to relax before she became the youngest pony in the world to die of a heart attack. His casual, practical way of looking at things seemed to frustrate, confuse and amuse her in equal parts, while her OCD and geekiness bugged him a little, but also felt kind of... complementary, maybe.

Of course, the thing that bothered him about her most of all was something he couldn't talk about, not that she had the same kinda tact. The exact way she talked about eating him in the vague, somewhere out there future was interestingly different, though. She apologized for it, sometimes, stiffly and randomly and without any emotion to it, like she knew on some level that what she was doing was wrong – or at least, that she knew that he felt it was wrong. But it kept slipping out again and again, a natural part of her conversation, along with little things like telling him how nice he smelled, how round his tummy looked and other creepy stuff. Twilight seemed to lack the layers of sophistication that Rarity used to conceal such nastiness, or Fluttershy's kindness, but her love of sheer learning seemed to have partially bridged the gap between pony thinking and dragon thinking. Just a little bit.

Probably not enough, but maybe it was something to build on.

Lunch was okay as long as he didn't watch Twilight eat. She was really good about getting him fresh-mined gemstones with low impurities, every bit as nitpicky about it as she was everything else. Although that made sense, you wouldn't want to feed your food trash, because then when you ate it, it'd taste like trash too, Spike figured. Didn't stop him from enjoying the crushed spinel cereal or chrysoberyl skewers, though.

Just as he was downing his last mouthful while Twilight complained about him spilling one tiny bit of spinel on her freshly-cleaned floor (that he had cleaned without her even asking, hmph!), there came a knock at the door. Spike blinked; this was weird. Nopony ever came up to Twilight's tower, she seemed like a total shut-in who was almost proud of not having any friends.

Twilight got up to open it, blinking and looking as surprised as Spike felt, only to let out a girly little shriek.

“Cadence! It's been months!”

The two ponies embraced while Spike stared, considering how much the other pony's mane tips reminded him of cinnamon buns. Oh, yeah, and she had a horn, so she was a unicorn. Nobility from the accessories. And wings, so she was a pegasus. Wait, that couldn't be right. Wings and a horn?

He had tons of time to be bewildered, since the two ponies were busy doing some kind of freakish pony ritual involving a chant and wiggling their butts at each other. He privately wondered if this was some kind of alternative dating scene thing (not that he would have thought Twilight would dare allot any portion of her precious schedule to something that fulfilled the body instead of the brain), but figured he'd look like an idiot if he asked. So instead he asked his backup question.

“What kind of pony are you?”

“Oh, I'm sorry Princess Cadence-”

Spike's eyes bugged out. This was the PRINCESS HERSELF?!

“-this is my emergency food supply, Spike. I'm teaching him to read as an experiment on cognitive development in reptiles, I thought it might be useful to learn how our prey respond to organized mental stimuli!”

“That sounds like a fantastic idea, Twilight! Buuuuut... your little backup snack has been making waves over in Ponyville and Canterlot both, haven't you heard?

“He... he has?” Twilight looked back over at Spike, who grinned nervously.

Princess Cadence bent down so she wasn't quite so looming as she turned her attention to Spike.

And to answer your question, you cute little morsel, you, I am an alicorn – a pony that has the traits of all three types of ponies” Moving her head back up to Twilight, Cadence's tone switched from sweet to business-like, if still friendly. “Actually he's why I'm here.”

“He is?”

“I am?” Spike asked at the same time.

He and Twilight glanced at each other suspiciously.

“Yes, you see, she of the oh-so-difficult-to-condition flowing mane wants to meet him for lunch. Alone, for some reason.”

And just like that, from safety to the cooking pot again, was that how it was? There was even less warning than usual for this one, but at least he was getting used to it. He had his first three and a half escape routes already sketched out. Hopefully that would be enough. His biggest worry was the horns. If alicorns did magic half as good as Twilight, he was in troubllllle. Still, the time it took for the trip to whatever lunchroom awaited would probably be the best time to gouge out some eyes or... whatever. Ow. He didn't want to gouge eyes, but what if they left him no choice? And the guards, oh jeez, he'd forgotten how many GUARDS there were, over a dozen even if he went for a straight line outside from here!

“But... but... my experiment... and... he can't even read a book yet, do you know how depressing that is?!” Twilight whined, fidgeting from one hoof to the other while Spike quietly schemed and panicked inside his head.

“What's really depressing is that's the best you can do to beg for your number one emergency food supply's life,” Spike put in sourly, sharpening his claws with feigned nonchalance. That's right, don't let them know you're freaking out.

“Oh, don't worry, you'll probably get him back safe and sound,” Cadence replied with a smile. “Although with her, you never can tell for sure,” she added lowly, amused. “You know how she is.”

And just like that, without even a fight, Twilight let him go. He tried not to feel betrayed, and her wobbly bottom lip and saddened expression made that easier. Still, it required a tweakage of his... priorities. He'd thought he'd have time, to prepare, get supplies, figure out stuff involving magic stone spells and how to bargain with immortal personifications of chaos. Apparently not. Apparently, he was back to running again.

Although what the Princess had said about 'probably' getting back was... interesting. But was it worth gambling his poor handsome life on it?

That wasn't the only question in his head, and he voiced one of the more harmless other ones as she walked with him to where they needed to go, unaccompanied by guards.

“So if you're the Princess and all, why're you playing waiter for this other pony? Um, your highness,” he added belatedly.

She laughed, her multi-colored mane waving with her merriment.

“Oh, you poor little dumpling, I'm just a princess, not the Princess!”

“Uh. What?”

“The rank's really just a formality, I don't have any formal responsibilities,” she explained. “I'm much younger than the real Princess, and my talents lend themselves better to working behind the scenes anyway. Everypony talks like there's only one Princess... why, half the time ponies seem to act like I come out of nowhere whenever I assert myself. But that's got its conveniences, for what I do, being a royal wallflower's pretty handy.”

She showed off her flank and its fractured blue heart Cutie Mark with a quick, graceful sway of her hips, not even breaking her stride.

“Cousin Blueblood likes to call me the prima donna puppet meister, because I pull on heartstrings,” she went on, her tone edging to dry humor. “I heal discord between ponies, remind them of the bonds of love and compassion between each other that makes Equestria harmonious. Kinda like diplomacy between friends and family – only your friends and family are the whole kingdom.”

“Ever think that some not-pony people might wanna get in on that?” Spike put in so sharply that one of the guards they were passing raised an eyebrow and glared at him menacingly, which he pretended not to notice as a way of hiding how terrified he was of the glare.

“Awww, so cute, it thinks it's people!” Cadence said with a very loud laugh. “I think I can already see why Twilight's bothered to spend her time on you. You seem like a very quick-witted little guy.” One of her eyes turned to look at him while her head remained straight forward. “Of course, your history seems to point in that direction anyway. Even royal ears've started to hear the discord you've been sowing in our little kingdom, Spike.”

Spike swallowed. She looked way too alert to get away with ambushing her eyes.

“I, I didn't mean to....”

Except he had.

“I just wanted to be safe...”

Except that wasn't all he wanted, not anymore.

“That's not a crime, right? Heheh.”

Except it might be, in the land of the ponies.

“Don't worry,” she soothed him, the expressive tenderness of her voice contrasting with the quietly regal, almost icy calm of her expression and posture, her gold-shod hooves very loud on the hard floor. “Whether what you've done so far to my little ponies merits any kind of punishment isn't for me to decide. I just want to make sure that you understand that if you misbehave around Twilight, you'll be put down.”

“I understand,” he said through a throat suddenly parched for water and painfully tight. The Princess-who-wasn't-a-Princess had said that with such a warm, cheerful voice. “I'll be a good emergency food supply, I promise! No one'll ever be, uh, supplied in an emergency than ol' Spike!”

“That's what I like to hear. I'll never understand why food insists on giving itself names,” she added to herself with a wry smile, swaying her head from side to side.

He was too nervous to talk much after that, afraid he'd say something to push the balance on the scales over to 'eat the delicious little dragon' side. Princess Cadence didn't push him, but started to engage the other ponies they walked past. Servants, guards, nobleponies, she seemed to know them all by name, and their family lives and the latest gossip too. Spike would've felt a lot better if the gossip hadn't involved killing things, failed attempts at killing things, eating things that had been killed or cooking things things that had been killed before eating them. The names of prey, creatures he knew to knew had wanted to live just as much as he did right now, whirled past his ears, numbing them till all he could focus on was the tone of the words. The happiness. The affection. The harmony.

Every time he drifted just a little bit to one side, a few inches, testing the extent of her attention and the invisible, figurative leash between them, her horn glowed slightly and he felt a magical nothingness, warm but irresistible, nudge him back on the right angle, exactly the same path as her, perfectly aligned. There was no way he could get away. Which meant he might not live to see his basket tonight. He'd gotten to really like that dumb basket.

“In you go, sweetling,” she said after a sudden stop, just when he'd entered into a practically trance-like state of frantic exit-route-calculating that all came to nothing.

The guards standing at attention each opened one side of a massive door. Good thing, too – Spike couldn't have opened it, the thing was taller than five ponies standing on top of each other and made of thick, shiny metal. Still, it had the same elegance of design that the whole castle had, almost girly curves as the sides met up at the very high top. Spike looked inside but didn't have time to process more than vague colors before Cadence's hoof shoved him in firmly, and the doors shut behind him with an ominous kerthongongong.

Trapped in an unfamiliar room, great.

It was a very large room with exactly one very long table in it. At that table were exactly two seats. And sitting in one of the two seats was the only pony in the entire room.

The actual-Princess-Princess was an immense but delicate-looking creature with a mane and tail like flowing water. A weird combination of stormy weather through the peaked window behind her and the architecture around a nearby fireplace conspired to cast a faint shadow that just barely resisted the gleam of the twenty or so candles on the crystal chandelier overhead. In that shadow, for a second, she seemed like a dark, mysterious thing, and Spike thought he saw pinprick glittering lights in one long strand of her mane. Then he blinked, and his eyes adjusted, and she was clearly a large but motherly-looking white pony with her mane and tail in very gentle pastels, the gold of crown, hoof boots and neckpiece less intimidating and more accessorizing, almost like jewelry.

“Ah, Spike. I'm so glad you could join me for lunch. Won't you have a seat?”

Her voice was as motherly-sounding as her features, and Spike was a little surprised at how solid it sounded despite its mildness, unlike what he'd expected from the sheer otherworldliness of her tail and mane.

And she had invited him to lunch. Regular lunch, not put Spike in a pot and eat him lunch! Lunch. Alone. With the ruler of all ponies everywhere. Wow. He would've felt totally awed if he didn't hate everything about the ponies' meat murder machine with a vengeance. He still felt a little awed, and not just because this was the first time he'd ever had two lunches straight in a row.

“Uh, y-yeah, sure, thanks!”

No matter how quiet and polite he tried to be about it, the chair made a very loud scrapping sound on the polished floor as he pulled it out. Even when he climbed up to his seat, he felt awkward, like every scrap of his claws was making a huge racket. But she just sat there, not moving except for, of course, her hair. When he finally got an eyeful of the table, he almost drooled right there on the probably priceless silk or satin or whatever fancy cloth it was tablecloth. They'd given him a bowl full of the finest, biggest, priciest gems he'd ever seen. Black opals shining with every color but black, red beryls like plump pink grapefruits, sprinkles of smaller blue garnets for contrast. The whole thing was topped with a very generous sprinkle of diamond dust like powdered sugar. He was instantly hungry again even though he'd already had lunch. Then his eyes drifted over to the Princess's place, dreading whatever horrific, decadent display of meat he was certain to see.

It was just a bowl of something brown and faintly steaming, with a small saucer of fancy seeded whole grain crackers on the side.

“Beef consommé,” she told him, seeing where his eyes went. “Would you like a taste? It's quite good.”

“That's okay, thanks though your majesty,” he murmured, thinking about a little cow he'd left far away in Ponyville.

She nodded, seemingly not offended.

“So then, where shall we begin?”

He smiled and tried not to scratch the sudden furious itch on the back of his neck.

“I have other reasons for wanting to talk to you today, but I understand that you're probably worried about being punished, so I suppose we should get that out of the way beforehoof. Let's see now, your list of crimes to date, insofar as they're known....”

Her horn glowed faintly gold and a scroll over to one side of the table floated over to her face.

“Simple assault, assault causing bodily injury, aggravated assault, intent to commit assault, impersonating a food temporarily classified as a foreign dignitary, waylaying a food temporary classified as a foreign dignitary, criminal mischief, larceny, intent to commit larceny, intent to commit criminal mischief, resisting lawful detainment, criminal tampering of business resources, collaboration with an enemy food during a time of war and, ah-” Her nose wrinkled delicately. “-defecating in public.”

“There wasn't an outhouse for miles around okay?!” Spike burst out, then flinched, his face heating up. “I mean, um, your highness... pleasedontkillme....”

She raised an eyebrow, blank-faced.

“Is that the kind of Princess I come off as, then?”

“Oh, no, no, I just mean... I um... I'm sorry your highness, you don't come off as anything at all! And I didn't want to do all that stuff, I swear!”

The Princess tsked.

“Try to relax, Spike. This is going to be a very boring, not to mention dishonest, conversation if we insist on standing on formalities. I was hoping you'd respond well to my little joke, but I guess when you're as old as I am you lose touch with the current era's sense of humor.”

“Your... joke?”

“Food isn't charged with crimes, Spike,” she told him smilingly. “It's just eaten or thrown away. I thought of the rap sheet as a rather silly way of telling you that for the duration of this conversation, I would like you to consider yourself to be neither greater than nor less than a pony.”

Spike stared, honestly so shocked that he didn't know what to say. So he just nodded dumbly and shoveled a random gem into his mouth without looking at it. It was the best gem he'd ever had in his whole life.

“And on that note, Twilight has been telling me that you've proved yourself oddly helpful with assisting her in her studies. Is there a reason you feel obligated to help her sort her schedule, stack her books alphabetically and find her lost quills?”

“What? Oh, that stuff, it's nothing. I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but she gets stressed over so many little things, I figure she just needs someone to help her learn how to take it easy. And we're going to be living together for... for a while... so I thought it would be good to... you know, do whatever hospitality is, like that, but with the guest instead of the host.”

“And you still feel this way, even knowing that my student fully intends to eat you eventually?”

They stared at each other. Spike watched a shine of something like candlelight, a thin sliver of white, shift around in her dark purple eye as she cocked it at him thoughtfully. He didn't feel scared. He didn't feel particularly anything, which was kinda interesting by itself.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I don't wanna get eaten, but letting her be unhappy isn't gonna help that.”

“Are you pleasing her to try to make yourself look less appealing as food, then?”

“Uh, no. That doesn't actually work on ponies, does it?”

She chuckled.

“No, it doesn't. Prey species tend to be consistently surprised at the failure of diplomacy. My little ponies will talk to anything... at least once. But expecting them not to have a toast afterward is, well, generally beyond their common sense of self-restraint.”

“Tell me about it! I've tried everything I can think of, Princess, I swear I have, and it's like nopony understands they don't have to eat everything else!”

“What do you mean?”

The words he'd been wanting to say, wanting to SCREAM, his whole life just spilled out, thoughtless and outraged.

“You know what my first memory is?! Some vacationing ponies with big floppy sunhats finding me on a picnic and trying to put me on their grill! Of course, I'm a dragon, so it actually felt kinda good, but that's not the point! Even before I came to Equestria, I kept bumping into ponies. Must be all that manifest destiny junk your settlers talk about. Ponies, ponies everywhere. They don't stop if you cry. They don't if you scream. If you beg, they laugh or look confused. If you fight, they fight HARDER. Hide in the water? Sea ponies. On a mountain or in a tree? Pegasus ponies. Earth ponies will keep on going till you get tired, unicorns will use their totally unfair magic, and that's not counting all the crazy ponies like Pinkie Pie WHO BY THE WAY GRABBED ME FROM THE SIDE OF A FREAKING MOVING TRAIN.”

“Everyone else gets it, everyone who's not a pony understands. Why don't the ponies get it?! Half the time you don't act like you know that other things get hurt at all, and the rest of the time you act like they do but it's not important. It's like your stomachs just went and decided one day to eat up your shoulder angels that're supposed to tell everybody when to feel bad about doing bad stuff!”

“It's not like you need food either! I mean, I could get it if you were all starving or something, but you can eat all kinds of stuff! You have food everywhere! You can even eat GRASS, but instead, you pick on griffins and minotaurs and dragons and birds and squirrels and everything else that just wants to live! And I don't wanna hate you, I realize that now, but I just, I've tried everything, everything I can think of, and... it's just... it's just not fair....”

There was no taking it all back once it'd been said. To even try would be stupid, as good as telling the Princess he thought she was an idiot. So he didn't take it back. And he didn't want to. It was a good thing scrubbing tears out of his eyes kept him from seeing her face, she was probably looking scary and angry right now. Any chance he'd had, he'd definitely blown it.

“I see. It must feel a lot like running into a pitfall, or a bonfire, on a regular basis. A force of nature that doesn't know how to be anything other than what it is. Only more frustrating, maybe, since you feel like you should be able to convince ponies to not want to eat you, but they keep trying anyway.”

He looked up, blinking his blurry eyes. Was she... sympathizing with him?!

“Y-yeah... that's exactly how it feels. Sometimes I swear I'm the unluckiest dragon in the world.”

“Well, that's one way to look at it.”

“What other way is there?”

“In a sense, you are a very unlucky dragon. It's certainly unlucky to keep bumping into things that hurt you or try to hurt you over and over again. Honestly, even scouring through my depressingly large store of memories, I can't think of a single other person who's encountered ponies on completely separate occasions as many times as you have. On the other hoof, in an equal sense, you could call yourself the luckiest dragon in the world. Because even though you stumble into hunt after hunt, getting hurt over and over, you also manage to survive each and every time, don't you? Where another would die the first time, the second time, maybe even the third time at best. Fortune and misfortune can sometimes be two sides of the same coin.” Her eyes shifted over to the window behind her briefly. “An unpleasant but rather clever fellow I once knew liked to say that.”

“Gee, I hadn't ever thought about it like that, Princess. I guess that does make me feel a little better about it.”

“Only a little?”

“Yeah. No offense, Princess, and I appreciate this and all, but no matter what you say, as soon as I leave this room I'm just food again.”

“And that doesn't feel very fair, I imagine.”

“Well, yeah, I mean no, no it doesn't! Why do ponies get to eat everything else and everything else just has to take it? It's just so, so....”

“Arbitrary?”

Spike's very soul clenched up at the word. It was the perfect word. Absolutely perfect.

“Yeah. Arbitrary.”

“There are, of course, some minor differences between ponies and even the most advanced kinds of prey species, but that's barely even the frame on the painting. The broad strokes, Spike, the actual picture, isn't even about food. Perhaps you've noticed?”

“Food isn't the problem. Food's the excuse,” Spike said slowly, feeling grimly triumphant as the Princess of all the ponies smiled and nodded to him like a student who'd gotten a math question right in front of the class.

“Yes. The real problem is that my little ponies aren't able to grasp the suffering of those who aren't ponies, not on a personal level. There can't be harmony between two people unless they can first understand each other. And whether they choose not to or they're simply unable to, my little ponies don't understand you, or anyone else who isn't a pony. So they have their excuses. It's arbitrary, like a line in the sand, but they can't grasp anything else.”

He wanted to tell her about Fluttershy, tell her about the one other pony he'd met who did understand and fought against her own instincts, but something in him held back. There was no way to guess what kind of effect his words would have if he said something careless. Instead, he pointed out the obvious.

“You seem like you understand.”

She shrugged and took a dainty sip of soup from her levitating spoon.

“I have an unfair advantage. Alicorns live long enough to understand many things, in time. And forget just as many things. Time's like luck that way – it takes with the one hoof and gives with the other.”

“Heh, I bet.”

“Of course, it's sometimes possible to live quite a lot of life in a very short amount of time, isn't it? And after a while, after enough ponies, I imagine you've started to listen a bit to that voice that talks to you just before bed, blaming you for everything. Making you wonder if it's not you that's doing something wrong to make the ponies the way they are. If maybe you deserve to be eaten.”

Spike remained quiet.

“But you know that's wrong, of course,” Princess Celestia went on, and Spike's heart nearly stopped beating out of sheer amazement. “You just want to live a life without discord, a life of harmony, simple pleasures, friendship and perhaps a nice little hoard of gems in a cave that you could call your own.”

“I... I don't get it. You're a pony. You're the ruler of all the ponies. Shouldn't you....”

“Remember what I said before, Spike. You are no better or worse than my little ponies, and don't deserve to die any more than they do.”

She said the words so lightly, offhandedly, with almost the same tone Twilight used when ordering her lunch. But to Spike, they hung in the air with the weight of something infinite, burning into his mind with the magical intensity of a prayer or some other mysterious religious ritual. For a very long moment, he simply couldn't believe that she'd said what she'd said, and he kept blinking and waiting for the universe to correct its obvious malfunction.

Nothing.

Oh my gosh.

Hope, that unreliable, backstabbing emotion that ruined his life almost as much as the ponies had, swelled up in him like never before, irrational, dumb wanting to believe that wouldn't take no for an answer. For just a terrible, guilty second, he felt for Princess Celestia a strange twisting emotion in his throat and stomach. Maybe she did care. Maybe everything would finally be okay. Forget the stupid cow soup she was still drinking tiny ladylike spoonfuls of, forget Equestria, Ample Acres, Little Strongheart, forget EVERYTHING. He just wanted to believe that she cared.

Someone to tell him that he was supposed to be alive, that there were good reasons why he was alive.

Friends.

Family.

A mom.

He wanted to believe so much it hurt.

“So... you're not going to eat me? Like, ever?”

If she said what he thought she was going to say, he was gonna hug her. Yep. Never mind that it was totally rude to hug royalty uninvited and all, he'd do it anyway, and thank her so many millions of times. For being sane. For stepping over that line in the sand. For being... harmonious, that was the word, right?

“Oh, please don't take me the wrong way. All lines are equally arbitrary and all art's equally subjective. I may choose not to eat you before we finish this meal together, but then again, I may choose to eat you, too. I may eat you next week, or ten years from now, or I may let Twilight eat you, or have you served as an appetizer for one of Prince Blueblood's little soirees. I may never eat you. I may eat you before I finish this sentence.”

Something in Spike quietly died as he calmed down to a lightheaded feeling of chilly, almost peaceful sense of pure reasoning. Hold off on the feelings, Spike. You'll be able to feel things later. For now, just keep... just keep talking. He didn't deserve to die. She said that. And she knew that. And she... didn't care.

And also....

“But that doesn't make any sense. You said I'm supposed to be no better or worse than a pony.”

“Yes. What part of that doesn't make sense to you, Spike?”

The silence stretched between them like an abyss.

“Um,” Spike said.

“Err,” he tried again.

“Y-y'know...” was his greatest triumph, a whole word and abbreviation of a word stuttered out as the Princess waited and watched, sipping away at her soup, occasionally nibbling on a cracker.

He just couldn't think with her looking at him like that.

Finally, out of the dumb muteness, he came up with something that he could dare to talk about.

“Why did you want to have lunch with me, Princess?” he asked in a tiny voice, reaching down with one hand to fiddle with his tail anxiously.

“Don't look so anxious! It's not exactly a serious matter of state. It's very unusual for my student to take an interest in anything beyond the academic, and after hearing a few reports of your escapades, my curiosity was piqued. While I've read a fair amount, and can guess more still, there's nothing quite like hearing some things first-”

Then she coughed, and he jumped at the sudden sound, the first sound she'd made that wasn't deliberate or ladylike. It was a nasty, wet noise that went on for a few seconds as the Princess quickly levitated a napkin in front of her face. When she brought it down, it was red, and something was wriggling in it before she folded it over. She looked almost ashamed when she was done.

“I apologize, my health isn't at its peak these days. Tell me, Spike, why did you decide to come here instead of living with other dragons? Even with your habit of bumping into ponies in the oddest places, it would've been safer to stay far from my kingdom's borders.”

“A dragon told me this place had lots of gems.” Spike looked down at his food and crunched a gemstone bitterly. “He wasn't kidding, but I didn't think it would get this crazy.”

“So it comes down to food after all, then?” Unaccountably, she seemed disappointed, as though he'd failed a hidden pop quiz. Then she brightened up. “No, I don't think so. The accelerated growth phenomenon is well-documented in dragons so ravenous that they would take unreasonable risks to sate their appetites. I think it's something else. Are you sure you're being completely honest with me, Spike?”

“You just said you might eat me. Why should I be honest with you?” he challenged her.

“No matter what perils we might find ourselves facing, Spike, honesty is always helpful for defusing complicated situations. Take it from an old pony who's seen too many liars come to bad ends. Such as the end of my fork,” she added mock-idly, eyes uplifted to the ceiling. As Spike began to hyperventilate, claws digging into the edge of the table, she smiled and winked. “Gotcha.”

Honesty. Right.

“You're a weird Princess, Princess.”

“Well now! It appears that Canterlot has yet to completely mummify you in its generous supply of courtesies and formalities. I'll tell you what, Spike. Answer me truthfully about my question, and you can ask me a question back. Does that sound fair?”

“I guess.”

She waited.

“It was mostly an accident, I guess. I'm always running... running from ponies... and I ended up running to more ponies. Kinda funny, huh?”

Neither of them laughed.

“And I could try to leave, but....”

Spike closed his eyes, grimacing.

“I like ponies,” he admitted angrily, opening his eyes again. The Princess was smiling a little now, but he couldn't tell if it meant anything. “They're cute, and fun and interesting. When they're not trying to hurt me, I can almost forget everything and just have fun. It's like magnets or something, I dunno. I like everything else about them, just not the... the things they do to eat.”

“Which is, in fact, the dominant trait of pony society.”

“Well, yeah, but does it have to be that way?”

“That's a very philosophical question. I'm not sure if I can give you a straightforward answer on that one, so I'll let you have another, if you like.”

“Oh! The question. Right.”

Spike thought and thought with his blood pounding in his ears.

“How did you turn that crazy Discord guy to stone?”

“Oh, has Twilight's interest in history rubbed off on you? In all honesty, turning a living creature to stone is well beyond my power even if I wanted to try it. But when the Elements of Harmony, six powerful artifacts of friendship that are now lost to time, were wielded against him, they read his heart and chose the punishment.”

“I heard you weren't the only Princess back then, too...”

“I had a sister once,” the Princess said, her voice thick with nostalgia. “She was delicious. Spike, are you alright? You should drink a little more milk with your gems so you don't choke.”

“I... I'm f-fine,” he wheezed, swallowing all the milk in his glass.

“Yes, it was only the Elements, wielded between the two of us, that allowed us to beat Discord in the end. Laughter, Kindness, Honesty, Generosity and Loyalty came together to create the sixth, Magic. The only thing strong enough to vanquish Discord. They took the form of necklaces and a crown, back then. There's no telling what they would look like now. I've never been able to find the ponies that could serve as their Bearers and manifest them.”

“Wait, I'm confused. Are the elements like feelings or ponies or things? Because you make it sound like they're all that stuff.”

“The Elements are physical embodiments of the feelings and ideals that are used to create and maintain friendship and harmony. They're physical things once they're manifested, but to appear, they have to be called up by ponies that embody their principles.”

“But if they're all that powerful, why didn't you keep them?”

“I intended to. The Elements are often... whimsical, and will hide sometimes, even from their own Bearers. The more I think back on it, the more I think that it was inevitable. Cruelty, sadness, acrimony, pragmatism and tact all are recurring aspects of life, the more so the longer you live, and yet they're opposed by the Elements of Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty and Honesty. Did the Elements of Harmony forsake me, or did I outgrow them? Like any line in the sand, it depends on which side your hooves are planted on.”

“Now, I wonder why you asked me such a question of ancient history,” she mused into the quiet as Spike ran out of things to say. “Don't worry, I won't insist that you tell me. Everyone likes having secrets, a little thing they can call theirs. I have Equestria and my little ponies, and don't have any need to swallow a young dragon's thoughts whole. For now, at least.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She levitated a covered silver platter over closer to him.

“Would you like some dessert? The chef really is quite proud of his caramelized quail flambé.”

“That's okay, I-”

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in, my little pony. Oh, if it isn't my flav – ah, faithful student. What is it?”

Twilight looked back and forth between Spike and the Princess confusedly before speaking.

“I'm sorry to interrupt, Princess, but Gilt Veneer says that Shining Armor said that Gallant Courier's returned a few days ahead of schedule, and he wants to present his report on exploitable weaknesses in Griffonia's western border ay-ess-ay-pee. Crow Hopper was going to wait to tell you until later, but since you've had a good half hour for lunch anyway, I thought that you'd want to put your royal duties first.”

She peered over at Spike, chewing her bottom lip.

“So you didn't want him after all? I know he's not grade A+ quality, but I did get him as an emergency food supply, so portability and longevity were more on my mind than getting choice cuts....”

Spike couldn't find the energy to be either offended or disappointed.

“You're incredibly thoughtful as always, Twilight. I suppose we can save dessert for another day, hmm, Spike?”

“I guess, as long as the dessert's not me.”

“Oh, Spike!”

The ponies laughed.

They laughed so hard.

“You'll have to excuse my emergency food supply, Princess, he's very snarky.”

“I find him rather refreshing, actually. Well, off you go, then, leave the wrinkled old nag to the boring work of sovereignty....”

Spike followed Twilight out, a million thoughts buzzing in his head as worked the last specks of diamond dust out of his teeth with his tongue.

“I hope you weren't that rude to her the whole time,” Twilight chided him mildly. “She's the Princess, you have to remember to respect her.”

“Right,” Spike mumbled, thinking about how the Princess's teeth had looked when she'd laughed, perfectly white and matching.

And sharp.

“You must be incredibly full from having two meals in a row. I hope you didn't eat so much you got a tummy ache. Oh, but eating too little would have been so rude to the cooks! You did try to eat just the right amount, didn't you?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure you didn't eat too much? You're being really quiet.”

Spike looked around to make sure they weren't near anypony else, not even – especially not even – the easily-forgotten guards.

“Twilight, can we go somewhere else for a second? There's something important about the Princess I need to tell you about but I don't want anypony to hear.”

“Oh my gosh, it's not about her sickness is it? She's not dying, is she?! She always tries to be so strong OHMYGOSH SHE'S DYING ISN'T SHE TELL ME SPIKE-”

“Twi... can't... breathe...” Spike wheezed out, struggling for air against her hooves as she shook him back and forth in the air like a doll, her eyes huge as saucers and dilated with panic.

“Oh, sorry!”

She dropped him and he regained access to sweet, sweet oxygen.

“I don't know anything whatever she's sick with, but she's fine as far as I can tell,” he said after he got his lungs comfortable again. “She just coughed once during lunch.”

“Thank goodness, I was so worried, even the best doctors in the land can't seem to do anything for her. Okay, Spike, we'll step outside for a second. ...is it good news? ...is it bad news? I mean, if it's about the Princess, whatever it is, it obviously has to be important, and you even said it was important so that makes it double-important so-”

“Twilight.”

“Right. Right. I'll just wait till we get outside.”

Was it a coincidence that the nearest door out took them to the sculpture gardens? Looking back and forth, Spike realized that the windows from the room he'd been in had given a clear view of Discord and the other statues. He wondered if that meant anything, but decided he wasn't the kind of dragon to bother his head about fancy pscholobabble like Twilight seemed to love. The clouds overhead were heavy with rain that didn't quite wanna fall yet, giving things an air of dark, impending doom that fit Spike's mood perfectly.

“So....” Twilight put out as they strolled through the statues.

There wasn't any easy way to say it, so Spike just dived right in there.

“Twilight, your Princess is crazy. And also totally evil.”

Twilight's eyes bugged so far out of her head that they nearly impaled him.

“WHAT?!”

“I know it sounds nuts,” Spike started, then realized too late that any sentence that started out like that was probably a bad idea, and kept going anyway because it was too late to turn back, “but she's totally off her rocker! She was talking about how she'd 'outgrown' stuff like kindness and she wants to eat people like me even though she knows it's wrong! She's not like the rest of you, she gets it, and she does it ANYWAY!”

“You're not even making any sense, Spike! I don't know what you think you heard, but obviously you misunderstood! The Princess is incredibly kind, and wise, and she knows all sorts of things nopony else knows, and, and....” Her face scrunched up in anger, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. “And I'm not going to stand here and listen to this vile slander against her!”

“But Twilight-”

“And you'd better watch yourself, mister, because you're aiming for dropping from number one emergency food supply to number two or three! Maybe I said I'd teach you how to read, but that doesn't give you a freebie to go lying and spreading rumors about Princess Celestia!”

“Twilight, she even admitted it was wrong to eat me and then went and said-”

“Oh come on, Spike, even prey like you has to know that an unbelievable lie isn't gonna do him any good! The Princess would never say such a foalish thing! No, not another word out of your mouth, young dragon. Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it! I have half a mind to make you sit in a corner all day.”

Okay, fine. She wanted to play hardball, he could do things that way, too.

“SHE SAID SHE ATE HER SISTER!”

As Twilight stared silently, mouth hanging slightly loose, Spike wondered if he'd maybe gone a little too hard on that hardball.

“How dare you,” she said after several seconds, her voice low and gravely in fury.

One of her hooves raised up as if to hit him, and he flinched back from it out of reflex. Twilight blinked, her eyes moving from him to her hoof as if she was surprised to see it there, and then put the hoof down. Her expression went from no-holds-barred rage to cold, controlled anger.

“What could possibly lead you to tell these... these terrible lies about the Princess... I don't know, and I don't care, but it's going to stop. Now.”

“I'm telling the truth!”

Spike hadn't expected her to believe him without a lot of arguing, but this was worse than he'd thought it would be. She was acting like he'd just torn up a holy book in the middle of church or something. Twilight was the Princess's personal student, but he'd thought most students didn't even like their teachers that much. The intensity of her reaction totally took him by surprise and left him unarmed, cornered and helpless in something that he'd started thinking he had a chance of winning.

He'd made a bad call. Maybe if he backed up and apologized he could still get out of this with her not hating him. He liked it when she was nice to him and forgot to act like he was just food. And she so obviously needed someone like him around to help keep her slightly less crazy than her normal levels of crazy.

Before he could get the apology out, she was talking again.

“You know what, I'm starting to think this was all just a big mistake.”

No. Oh no. Come on, not after all this, he couldn't have blown it over something so simple, so obvious!

“Maybe I should just put you in a pot with some butter and garlic and be done with it. After all, you don't really appreciate the joys of studying, and if you're just going to misbehave like this it's really hurting not just me but everypony else to try and keep you around as an emergency food supply.”

“Can't you think of me as anything else but that for just a minute?!” he hollered, so frustrated he could just die. Which could actually be one of the ways this conversation ended, come to think of it.

“If you're so smart and know so much because you spend all your time studying instead of making friends, how come you don't get something your own tutor gets?! How can you not get it when even a fraidy-pony like Fluttershy gets it?! I don't have to be food! What is it about eating me that makes your life better, huh?! What does it do for you that you can't get from the kitchen?! Why do you just assume that I'm making stuff up when you know that I wanna live and don't wanna make you upset, but I told you this anyway?! I trusted you even though I knew I shouldn't have! You said you believed in me and I believed you!”

Spike flung himself down on the round pedestal holding up the Discord statue.

“You know what, just do it,” he told her, absolutely crazily, making an arbitrary line in hopes that she wouldn't cross it. “I cleaned up your room, I helped you find stuff, I put up with your checklists for checklists and learned all those stupid grammar things and squiggly freaking lines and silent Es and none of that matters to you more than one argument and a snack? If you're gonna kill me, kill me. Make it all be for nothing. I dare you.”

Don't do it, he begged on the inside.

Please Twilight, have an epiphany or something and go Fluttershy? Pretty pretty please? Maybe realize that you don't want to hurt the cute, awesome little helpful dragon after all?

Please?

“Do it,” he repeated, sticking his tongue out and making a rude gesture as she stared at him.

Don't do it, Twilight.

“Oh, enough with the drama already, would you just get on with it?” a third voice snapped impatiently.

Pony and dragon alike jumped and yelped before turning to stare at....

At....

At what was very obviously Discord, sitting on top of the statue of himself, his mismatched body starkly colorful against the dreary weather.

“You're free?!” Spike blurted, without any idea of whether this was a good or a bad thing.

“Oh, my little dragon, I'm always free as a dandelion seed on the wind! Freedom's up here, you know,” Discord said with a grin, jabbing a talon at his own temple.

“But, but how....”

Twilight was looking back and forth between Spike and Discord. Flustered, she finally pulled out a scroll from somewhere and started mumbling something about diplomatic traditions vis-à-vis anthropomorphic personifications of ideals, looking through it frantically.

“Actually, I've been out of that dreary granite for a minute and a half, listening to you two wallow in, well, my spesh-ee-ah-li-tee,” Discord explained further, tapping with his tail significantly at the cracks that ran the length of his stone perch. Then he leaned over closer to Twilight, hands on his knees, one eye huge and soul-swallowing, the other squinted down to almost nothing. “SOOOO then, my little unicorn, what will it be? Food or friend? Comestible or comrade? Don't keep us waiting! I'm sure Spike is just DYING to know.”

The Other Side of the Bit

“How could this happen?! You were sealed in stone by the Princesses themselves!”

Discord eyed the bamboozled unicorn with faint disdain.

“Really now, is this the level of education in today's youth? I'm so TERRIBLY disappointed! Use whatever passes for your thinking muscles-” He leaned down into an upside-down U shape and rapped against Twilight's head with a sound like a coconut being knocked. “-little filly! Harmony got me in. The lack of it got me out. It's as simple as that.”

“You're welcome,” Spike said pointedly, which made Discord raise one shaggy eyebrow. “So hey, as long as you're out, I hear you're good at making cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain. How about getting us in on some of that action?”

“What do you take me for, a common parlor magician?! Having the avatar of chaos perform on command whenever you snapped your fingers would go against the very essence of who I am, my boy!” Discord scratched his chin with a suddenly-appearing third arm. “Althooouugh, since you mention rain....”

Discord's talon snapped, and suddenly dozens of pegasus ponies fell screaming out of the sky, apparently in the middle of their cloud-managing work. They didn't seem hurt, but their wings were clothespins and their hooves were fitted with oversized lead horseshoes so heavy that they couldn't even take a single step, no matter how they struggled in their pony-sized holes of impact-burst dirt. Discord threw back his head and laughed while Spike chuckled a little.

Okay, so that had been kinda funny, but it still would've been dangerous to the ponies if they'd been really high up....

“Now, now, what am I forgetting? Ahhhh, yes. The cats and dogs.”

Figuring what was coming just a second ahead of time, Spike grabbed Twilight and pushed her over underneath Discord's statue, which offered a little cover from the ensuing aerial onslaught of confused puppies and kittens. Discord had given himself a tiny little polka-dotted umbrella, of course.

The ponies, being ponies, immediately dove in to what looked like a good free meal, heedless of the pathetic yelps and barks and squeaks and meows. Spike closed his eyes and tried not to hear, but he couldn't cover up his ears hard enough.

“Hey, that wasn't funny at all Discord! You've gotta think more about the consequences of the tricks you pull!” he said in his best imitation Twilight voice.

“Ah, but why waste time THINKING when you can be FEELING, eh Spikey-wikey?”

Spike's eyes shut open and he shrieked as he suddenly found himself upside down being spun like a record, Discord's talon impossibly balancing him by the middle of his head. He flailed around until he got a grip on Discord's beard and hung from it dizzily, his bad arm burning in protest of the action.

Meanwhile, Twilight looked up from a mouthful of Siamese kitten, shook the hunger out of her face (along with several stranded whiskers) and assumed a battle-ready position, horn down and sparking as she conjured up sheet after sheet of sharp curvy forcefield aimed at Discord.

“You should have run while you had the element of surprise on your side, Discord! You may have been pretty scary centuries ago, but we ponies have come a long way since then. Right, elite guard of Princess Celestia?”

The encroaching guards who'd been drawn closer by the commotion formed a semi-circle around Discord, looking every bit as grim as they'd always seemed when standing still. Spike gulped at how sharp their hooves and horns looked, and was grateful when Twilight teleported him from Discord's beard over to atop her back so he wasn't directly clinging to the ponies' enemy anymore. As soon as he got over the total disorientation of being teleported to realize that was what she'd done, anyway.

“MY emergency food supply,” she mumbled under her breath.

Okay, maybe not that grateful.

Before Spike could get worried about whether or not Discord could defend himself, at the snap of taloned fingers, the golden armor every guardpony was hulking around in sprouted buzzing propellers, the spinning things sending the ponies far up into the sky that the pegasi had just vacated, screaming.

“I'm sure there's some universe or other where sending a vast swarm of identical guards to overcome a lone nigh-invulnerable individual has achieved productive results,” Discord commented dryly, “but not this one.”

Then he snapped his fingers again, and Twilight's forcefields vanished – along with her HORN.

Spike looked up at the ponies screaming in the sky, then back at Twilight, his feelings conflicted. Finally somebody who could stand up to them! On the other hand, Discord wasn't exactly playing safely, and he didn't want all the ponies hurt or anything....

“What did you do to my horn?!”

“Oh, I just stashed it in the same place you're hiding your sense of humor, dear. And your sense of fashion. And your creativity. And your actually competent script writer.” Discord grew additional digits as he counted his hand the wrong way, instead of counting through fingers from one end to the opposite like a normal person.

Spike snickered behind his hand.

“So hey, since we did free you and all, maybe you can-” he started to haggle, and facepalmed as Princess Celestia burst onto the scene, wings flared and horn glowing.

“Discord, how did you free yourself from your prison, you wretched creature?!”

“Oh, not this again!” Discord rolled his eyes completely around in their sockets until the pupils went from the top all the way to the bottom and back to where they'd been originally. “Look, Princess, I'll be honest here: I've missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but if that's the best greeting you've got I might as well replace your tongue with a smooth jazz accompaniment.”

Twilight huddled up the Princess's side, giving Spike a good view of the Princess's fanged smiling sun Cutie Mark, while the Princess stomped her hoof and gave her mane a brief, angry shake. She opened her mouth to say something else... but only romantic, peaceful saxophone sounds came out. While Twilight and Spike were busy gawking over that, the Princess shook her head again, horn glowing, and the next time she opened her mouth it was without musical interference.

“Enough! What have you done to my little ponies?!”

“Terrible but hilarious things. You know, the usual.” In a puff of smoke and a sound suspiciously like someone stepping on a mouse, Discord vanished and reappeared hovering just behind Celestia, peering at her backside shamelessly with a gimlet. “My word, Celestia, you appear to have put on a few in the past millennium! What haaave you been eating,” he drawled out with a vicious grin.

Whether he'd expected it or not, his new position put Discord in the perfect spot to be bucked, and Celestia was happy to oblige. Spike and Twilight both winced as two golden-shod hooves slammed into the mixed-up creature's belly and sent him flying head over heels out of sight... at least until he came spinning back through the air from the opposite direction, landing on one toe with a graceful ballerina-like twirl, one heel stretching out three times its length to lift head-high in the air.

“So, where shall we begin?” he asked, none the worse for wear. “Shall I finish what I started and turn Equestria into my unfettered sandbox once more? Or should I just lock up all my living toys and find a new playroom for the gentlepony's sport of chaos and mania?”

As he talked, he snapped his fingers, and Spike watched ponies fly through the air at random, shrieking as they were attacking by their own top hats, canes, monocles, dresses and parasols, all of which had grown mouths. A second snap, and a good chunk of Castle Canterlot itself transformed into a huge wooden wardrobe that slammed shut, trapping countless ponies inside with equally-giant coats, dress shirts and winter boots. Meanwhile, the sun appeared to be zooming around a lot more erratically than it was supposed to be doing.

Spike swallowed. Maybe he'd bitten off a liiiittle bit more than he could chew here.

“I won't permit either,” Princess Celestia said with a regally chilly expression. For a second Spike almost forgot the conversation they'd had and felt the same warmth and trust for her that Twilight must have all the time, judging by the hornless unicorn's face. “The Elements of Friendship aren't the only way to deal with you, trickster spirit!”

Her horn glowed even brighter, and out of that golden flare shot countless lassos made of molten sunlight. They wrapped themselves around Discord's arms and legs and torso and neck, and he twisted his spine through several impossible shapes trying to get out.

“Oh, I've forgotten how... huff... grim you could be, Celestia!” he said reproachfully through his struggles. Then he suddenly relaxed. “It's really quite booooooring.”

He snapped with his toes now, and the glowing lassoes turned into ropes of grasping crabs, starting with the parts touching his body and moving back down the lines. Princess Celestia had to terminate the spell before they reached her, and set up a small forcefield of her own over the creatures while they clawed towards her mindlessly and viciously.

“Huh, that was actually pretty cool,” Spike muttered, leaning over Twilight's head to get a closer look at the cute lil crabs. Then he realized that Twilight had turned her head around to glare at him and he smiled sheepishly. “Maybe just a little cool?” he amended. She still looked mad, but forget her, she was gonna eat him!

Discord puffed up... literally, his chest swelled up to triple size. “Oh, we have a fan of my noble works in the audience, do we? Pray tell, what do-”

And then, just as hope for a dialogue was getting reestablished, the Princess had to be a spoilsport again. The magic of her horn reached out to the nearby shadows of the statues and hedges now, molding them like clay, solidifying them into dark cuff and chain shapes that latched onto Discord and stretched him out in the air, leaving him helpless no matter how he wiggled. Tinier cuffs even chained each individual talon, paw claw and reptilian leg claw, so he couldn't so much as snap.

And for a change, Discord seemed surprised, even if Spike couldn't tell why exactly.

“Shadow magic, Celestia? Not your usual cup of tea, now is it? Personally, I like mine with twenty sugars and just the lightest dash of hemlock.” As the Princess loomed over him, he grinned and somehow managed to drop a pair of thick black glasses from within his bushy eyebrow down to his eyes just by wiggling his face muscles. “You wouldn't hit an anthropomorphic personification with glasses, wouldja?”

“Why, Discord... whoever said I was going to hit you?” the Princess replied with a tiny smile.

Discord raised his eyebrows so high they actually kept going off of his face.

Just as it seemed like chaos was doomed and Spike had resigned himself to figuring out a new way to beat the pony meat-eating madness, Princess Celestia stiffened with a strained expression. Then she... didn't so much cough, as explode with blood from her nostrils and mouth, the liquid pouring out darkly red in fast streams. Twilight screamed and rushed to her sovereign so fast that Spike fell off her and caught himself on the ground on his hurt arm, sending shock waves of pain through it. He watched the Princess in alarm through fear-squinted eyes as she kept hacking, bent over with it. After a few moments the blood slowed down to mostly stopping, except for a little dripping from her nose and the occasional spray from her terrible coughs. His eyes drifted to the pool of red beneath the formerly-beautiful, invincible-seeming pony's head. It was writhing with small, sleek, wormlike shapes that moved as chaotically as anything Discord could have made, flopping in the shallow liquid like fish out of water. Twilight didn't look at it, Twilight was too busy crying and clutching at the larger pony, for all the good that did, clearly wanting to help but having no idea how to without a horn.

“Well, what do you know, so that's how alicorns have their periods,” Discord shot out with such crude flippancy that even Spike flinched and then glared at the rude jerk. “Ah, but life is the very best of all teachers, right Spike?” he added in Spike's direction with a leer, shrugging off the dissolving cuffs of shadow. “Some lessons do bear repeating, however. Over and over and over again.” He narrowed his eyes, glaring at the still-helpless Princess, and snapped. A huge white cottony cylinder with a string dangling out of it, approximately the size of a small battering ram, floated in the air. “Let's start with seeing how far we need to cram this tampon to teach you hygiene, Celestia.”

To everyone's surprise, including his own, it was Spike who jumped between the Princess and cotton-based assault.

“WAIT! YOU OWE US!” he yelled angrily at Discord, waving his arms for all they were worth. He didn't like the Princess, but that didn't mean he wanted to see the crazy pony get hurt more than she had to be. It was bad enough watching her tremble and make those awful sounds from her mouth.

One of Discord's eyebrows returned to his head long enough to spin in circles before flittering off again, mothlike.

“How so, my cold-blooded bro?”

“Without me and Twilight, you wouldn't even be free in the first place! That's gotta be worth something to you!”

“Hmm.” Discord spun his beard into an impossibly long and detailed spiral. “Technically true, and technicalities can be wonderfully chaotic in their own ways, like the most beautifully nasty pranks constructed entirely out of red tape.” His eyes flicked down to where one of the Princess's coughs had gotten a bit of her blood on his tail and he stepped away with a grimace. “Eww. Very well, Spike, I'll permit you this one leniency: since you and Twilight both were responsible for the wonderfully pointless, ridiculous, reckless and self-centered argument that loosened the bonds twixt moi and that granite, I will grant you each a favor. Each of you think of one thing you want that I can grant, and only one, and the avatar of chaos shall make it so!” He rubbed his mismatched hands together by the palms, grinning. “And then I shall resume the work of all true artists, by which I mean creation through disharmony in all its fabulously diverse expressions.”

“Don't hurt the Princess!” Twilight begged with tragic, unhesitating desperation, both her front legs wrapped around the Princess's white neck as though she could actually support her.

“Oh, so boring, Twilight, really!” Discord snorted in disgust. “Very well, I was quite looking forward to tormenting our royal dear in a very personal way... but I suppose I can settle for merely making her life's work meaningless by destroying her possessions and her home and her kingdom and her ponies and her laws and everything else that she ever cared about within the span of, well, let's say the weekend. Maybe up to the middle of Tuesday morning if I feel like savoring it.”

Spike wasn't aware of how angry he was until just this moment, when his clenched claws started to stab at his palms. That also brought him into enough alertness to realize he'd been grinding his teeth and lashing his tail for who knew how long now.

Discord was a terrible person, not the playful, fun guy he'd been hoping to get. Or really, he was playful, but being playful didn't stop him from being mean. This was barely any better than fighting for his life against ponies.

Ponies....

He looked around and saw ponies being swarmed by waves of bananas buzzing like bees. Hedge bushes coming to life and stomping on ponies with roots. Pony hooves turning into ice skates, manes into snakes, tails into badgers. Houses folding like giant accordions, rooftops popping off like fireworks, walls wobbling like jello. It was madness. It was chaos.

But it had been madness all along, so one poison was as good as the other to him, right?

Except that he didn't want them to hurt, even if they deserved it.

Dang it.

He looked back at the Princess, who had only just stopped coughing but still looked bleary, pained, and just plain simply not there in her head. Even knowing what she was, he felt bad for her and was glad that Twilight was hugging her. Her wings were visibly shaking, her legs shifted unsteadily to try and find a position to comfortably support their weight that seemed nonexistent, and her breathing was a series of coarse pants that were completely unlike the controlled, peaceful majesty of her usual presence. He felt even worse for Twilight, though – even knowing what she was, and that she might be the mouth that'd be his end sooner or later. Twilight looked like the only thing keeping her from having a complete meltdown was knowing that it would only hurt the Princess even more. And then, of course, there were all the pegasus ponies still stuck in place, whinnying and snorting helplessly and unable to move their too-heavy hooves from their craters. Even if all they'd do when they got free would be to eat something else that didn't deserve it.

He loved all the poor, stupid, evil little ponies.

“Well?” Discord snapped, causing Spike to jump and instantly realize that he'd been missing the avatar of chaos guy talking to him while he was busy 'admiring' all the works of chaos.

This wasn't the way he'd wanted it to go, it wasn't the way it shoulda been, but Spike knew he wasn't gonna get a better chance. The ponies didn't know, but Discord looked like his tiny supply of patience was dwindling, and if confessing why he really was in Canterlot in front of the Princess herself was the only way to get things done, well... Spike, ol' boy, you've done crazier things this month, haven't you?

Spike set his feet in the ground firmly and did his best to look like he wasn't a sucker.

“I wanna know how to get the ponies to stop eating everything that isn't them!”

He practically felt the Princess's eyes shift over to him, narrowing and focusing in their struggle for clarity, brought alert by a surprise that she might think of as no better than... whatever treason was when it was done by food instead of ponies. He didn't mean to threaten her or her kingdom. He just wanted to change everything about it, and she knew why, so she couldn't hold it against him. He hoped.

Discord didn't seem to like that answer. He frowned and grabbed at his still-flying eyebrows, slapping them back where they belonged as he slithered through the air to stick his face within inches of Spike's. Spike smiled nervously and very carefully did not step back.

“And here I thought you were a true connoisseur of the fruits of frivolity.” Discord wrapped his neck snakishly around Spike's own till they were looking each other in the eyes again, his breath a little colder than it should have been and, for some reason, smelling of a mixture of strongly formented vegetables and fresh syrup. “Come come now, can't you see the sheer ENTERTAINMENT VALUE in carnivorous ponies, my boy?! Where's your sense of dramatic irony, eh?!”

“What's ironic about ponies eating everything else?! That's not ironic, that's just dumb!”

Discord withdrew himself back into the air, tapping at his chin thoughtfully.

“Oh, yes, I forgot, a BABY dragon wouldn't have the perspective to appreciate the full maturity and depth of my craft,” he said almost as if to himself, the condescending sneer very subtle. Then his eyes sharpened and refocused back on Spike, and Spike twitched, very conscious of being pinned between the stares of two immortal things. And wait, what had he meant about HIS craft.... “These ponies are truly my greatest masterpiece, Spike! I hope you have an idea of how much I'm humbling myself by even CONSIDERING your request.”

Wait.

Hold on a second.

“What do you mean your masterpiece?! They've always been like this!” The Princess and Discord both were so quiet. “...haven't they?”

“A hooved, flat-toothed herd animal, carnivorous?” Discord snorted. “Please, you little scaly eggplant, they were all daisies and roses and, feh, APPLES until I worked my magic on them.” He wiggled his fingers as though pulling on puppet strings while Spike's jaw hung loose and, somewhere near the Princess, Twilight audibly gasped. Discord blinked. “What? Did I ruin the SURPRISE? Your Princess takes delight in erasing me even from the history books! What a shame, what a shame.”

“That... that can't be true! You're lying, Discord!” Twilight yelled, full of heroic but helpless anger.

“Usually,” Discord replied flippantly.

“The history books never-”

“Do you believe everything a BOOK tells you, Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yes!”

“Ah, I see an elegant solution to our quandary, then.” Discord snapped and conjured up a blank book, quill and ink pot, his left foot moving in a blur as it scribbled impossibly fast. Then he rotated the book over and shoved it to the hornless unicorn.

“Except for fiction,” Twilight replied stiffly, lifting her head primly.

“He... may be telling the truth, Twilight Sparkle,” the Princess said, and something in Spike died a little more. The huge pony shook herself bodily and heaved a sigh, regaining something like her normal control even if she looked too weak to do more than just stand there and cough erratically. “Ponies once ate fruits and vegetables, and never meat. I never sought to suppress that knowledge, but it was so long ago, and ponies are sometimes forgetful. The change came upon us... my little ponies and the alicorns both... shortly after Discord was imprisoned. It was gradual, and nopony knew what to make of it until its work was done. I always suspected his influence, but there was nothing to prove... until now.”

“How could you do something so... so MEAN?!” Spike shrieked. Discord didn't seem nearly as upset as Spike wanted him to look. Spike wanting to hit him. To hurt him. To DESTROY him.

“What, don't you think it's funny? Silly little harmless ponies gobbling up everything in sight, om nom nom! Hahaha!”

“NO! I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING LESS FUNNY IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!”

“Well, I think it's hilarious. You should see the looks on your faces! Priceless! I'm oh so very proud of it,” Discord bragged, giggling and toying with his beard. “As I was confronted with those SPOILSPORT Elements of Harmony wielded by the two Princesses, I realized their love for their subjects was so absolute that I couldn't break it even with all my whimsical might. The face of certain defeat was very inspiring, however. In a stroke of genius, I chose to make my inevitable defeat into my victory as well. I succumbed of my own accord, reserved all my remaining strength for stealthily changing those irritatingly cute little ponies into more suitable subjects of discordance, and voila! Tidy little meat-munching machines with all the superficial trappings of harmony amusingly still intact.”

“But Equestria is a well-developed, diverse and thriving civilization full of peace, and love, and, and singing! We sing a lot and it's fun! Whatever you were planning with our change in diet, it FAILED, Discord!” Twilight pointed out self-righteously.

A cold, unquiet feeling grabbed onto Spike's gut and the back of his head and wouldn't let go, warring with the almost blinding heat of raw molten fury.

“And such haaarmony it iiis,” Discord said slowly, chuckling. “Ponies killing. Ponies eating. Over and over. Without compassion. Without restraint. Things are fine NOW, aren't they? For the ponies, heheheh. Call me again in a decade, in a century, when your borders have eaten up the world. When your ponies have eaten up everything worth eating.” His snaggle-fanged grin was impossible sinister in its pure happiness. “The time'll come, you bookwormish brat, when ponies will have nothing more to eat... except each other.”

“The Princess would never let that happen!”

“Whether you did it like you said or not, that's still the favor I want from you,” Spike asked, clenching and unclenching his claws. He was staring right at the reason his life was the way it was. The monster he'd hated so... the cause of it all... in every pony's gaping mouth... it was Discord. Who he'd freed. Spike hated himself suddenly with an intensity that was only matched by his hate of Discord. “I want to know how to make the ponies like everyone else!”

“Hmph. I must admit, I'm not much inclined to reverse my finest masterwork of vintage vengeance... but methinks that glint of fury in your eyes suits me, Spike my boy,” Discord said, drawing near and dragging a talon under Spike's chin before hovering off again. “Fine, I'll tell you, but I'll only tell you MY way. When ponies contemplate listening to their hearts or heads, the imps of their bellies tell them what to do instead. To retrieve all ponydom's missing empathetic thoughts, all you must do is find the finest dish in Canterlot.”

“What's that supposed to mean?! What does the finest dish in Canterlot have to do with anything I asked you to tell me?!”

“It's a riddle, Spike,” Twilight said earnestly, seeming less wholly freaked out now that the Princess wasn't looking like death warmed over. “Or I guess you could call it a challenge. Discord wants to know what the best food in Canterlot is, and when you can tell him that, he'll tell you what you want to know. Right?”

“Sure, let's go with that,” Discord declared mildly. “You're very hot to trot, my unfaithful non-student!” He snapped and a white dunce cap appeared on Twilight's head. “Although I'm not entirely sure what class it is you're supposed to be taking. I do keep forgetting, Celestia dear, what is your lesson plan for the wee one again? Hypocrisy, Obliviousness and Condescending Platitudes 101, perhaps?”

“Leave her alone!” Twilight burst out, bravely putting herself between the Princess and Discord.

“Goodness, you're even more painfully serious than your mentor. We'll have to do something about that after I've finished humoring the reptile. Oh, and you'd better get a move on,” Discord added to Spike mock-conspiratorially. “You have until sundown before you're disqualified. I found my greatest stroke of genius under strict time pressure, so it seems only fair to spread the inspiration, eh?”

Spike looked up at the sky again. The sun and moon were doing loop-de-loops around each other.

“How'm I supposed to know when it's sundown?”

“I have no idea! That's what makes it so fun!” Discord said jubilantly, cracking up in laughter, hands over his belly and feet kicking in the air.

“Jerk.”

“Well, if you want to just FORFEIT....”

“No, no, I'll play!” Spike clasped his hands together pleadingly, seeing his chance, however measly and pathetic it was, slip away from him. “I'll do it your way, just... don't do anything crazy, okay?” He paused. “Crazier.”

“Chop chop, then.” Discord's hand briefly turned into kitchen knives as they mimed the motion. “The ticker's ticking, hahahahaaaa....”

“I guess I'll head over to the fancy restaurant section of town then....” Spike said hesitantly, looking over at the two ponies closest to getting in his way. “Uh, no hard feelings about trying to revamp your whole society, right Princess? I mean, it was like that before, so....”

“I don't think you'll find any advice Discord gives to be to your liking, Spike,” the Princess said, wiping the last traces of blood from her mouth with a grimace. “But for now, perhaps it's best that you play along and temper his sense of mischief with structure. Go with him, Twilight Sparkle. He'll require somepony to be his escort, and perhaps you can learn something from each other in this trial.”

“Yes, that's right, sort everything into your precious lesson plans,” Discord cut in sneeringly.

Princess Celestia just smiled at Discord silently. It was a strange smile – only half her mouth moved, and it definitely didn't reach her eyes. Discord blinked at that and tilted his head, waiting for a response that never came.

“But Princess Celestia, I can't leave you, you're-”

“I am fine, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said firmly, making an effort to stand with as little wobbling as possible. For a moment there she almost even looked fine too. “It's just a flare-up, these things are expected periodically.” She gave a smile to Twilight in turn, and it was an equally strange one for different reasons, somewhere between genuinely nice and the sarcastic Spike associated with bullies who wanted to pretend to be friendly before they started being mean. There was still a pinkish hue to her teeth. “I've been on this earth for centuries. Trust me when I say that I'm not going anywhere just yet.” She closed her eyes and then opened then again, a subtle shift in her posture making her seem as regal as usual. “Hurry as best you can. One way or another, it seems that the fate of Equestria is in your hooves.”

“We won't let you down, Princess!” Spike was surprised Twilight didn't actually salute, she looked so serious. “Come on, number one emergency food supply, we've got a riddle to solve!” She paused and glanced back at Discord. “Can I, um... have my horn?”

“You know, I thought it would be funny to make you go through a challenge without your primary characteristic as a unicorn,” Discord mused aloud, “but something tells me that I've already done that at some point or other. Past life or alternate universe maybe. It's your lucky day, Twilight Sparkle!”

Snap!

And her horn was back. Just like that, Discord had taken away what defined Twilight Sparkle... other than her OCD, her books and her devotion to the Princess, anyway... and just as thoughtlessly given it back. And with it, given back her ability to turn Spike himself into chop suey in the blink of an eye if she felt like it.

“Great, let's get going,” he growled, hoping that she wouldn't sabotage anything.

So they left the two immortals to talk about... whatever immortal things talked about. Probably politics or philosophy or something. They were off at a brisk pace, dodging marshmallow paving stones and bubbling honey potholes as they headed out of the Castle grounds to the rest of Canterlot, which was looking only slightly less insane than the Castle itself. He hopped down when she teleported him up to her back again.

“We'll go quicker if you let me-”

“I wanna walk on my own.”

“Spike, this is serious! The fate of Equestria-”

“What about the fate of Spike, huh?”

“Oh. I see what this is about.”

Spike said nothing.

“Spike, I'm willing to admit that maybe I went a little overboard threatening to eat you just because you said some obviously untrue things about the Princess.”

Great, she was in lecturing mode again. He hated lecturing mode. It could only be worse if silent Es were involved.

“Even though what you said was awful and untrue, you were right, it was no excuse to just throw all of our hard work on teaching you to read out the window! So I'm sorry I almost ate you. Even though you smell delicious, like cinnamon or something,” she mumbled to herself, almost quietly enough for him to not hear.

Spike said nothing.

“Spike? Spike, do you have anything you'd like to say to me? So we can get past this and focus on what's important, like helping the Princess and Equestria?”

“...is it left or right to that street with all the big name restaurants?”

“Spike,” she said more firmly, nudging him to the rightward lane and putting up a shield as a tsunami of pink trouts rained against them from out of nowhere. “Spike, maybe you'd like to say you're sorry for lying to me about what you and Princess Celestia talked about?”

Spike bit his bottom lip, every muscle tensing.

She could eat him any time she wanted, and had the power to do so.

He needed her to stay safe in Canterlot.

But, more than anything, he just didn't want to fight.

“I'm sorry for lying,” he lied, deciding that the whole Princess thing could be sorted out later, when nearby lamp posts weren't turning into rattle snake tails and the sounds of screams and chicken cluckings weren't Canterlot's major noise ambiance.

She hugged him lightly with one hoof, and he hated himself a little for liking it, then sighed and let the feeling go.

“So you don't mind that I wanna make all ponies vegetarian again?”

“The Princess said it was okay to play along, so that's what I'm doing. And it's the logical thing to do from your perspective,” she replied neutrally. “Hmm, Chateau de Foie does have awfully good scallop-butter biscuits... nah, too middle-class. I wonder if he meant 'finest' as in most expensive, or as in most rare. Or maybe he intended it to apply to difficulty of preparation, there are certain highly toxic oceanic creatures that would be fit the bill in that case.”

“And you don't even care that you're only this way because Discord MADE you?” he asked, ignoring all her overthinkingness, which was a necessary life skill around Twilight. Discord'd probably just meant whatever dish ponies liked the most, he thought.

“Spike, maybe Discord was the original trigger, or maybe he was just lying to take credit for a coincidence, who knows, but either way, ponies have been this way for centuries. It's, it's just normal, okay? The Princess doesn't see anything wrong with it, our entire civilization is based on how delicious meat is!” She sighed like a lovestruck little filly, undoubtedly imagining steak or a burger or something. “And it's soooo good, Spike.” Her voice was almost drunken in its naked hunger.

“That's just the Discord in your tummy talking. Hey, what about that place? It looks fancy.”

Spike was pointing to a two-story restaurant that currently was covered in what looked like a combination of soap and banana cream pies, staff and customers alike running around and slamming into each other in a slippery, dizzy, messy panic. All the chaos couldn't hide the expensive marble pillars, though, or the way the tables seemed to go on forever inside through the ample view afforded by one glass-paned wall.

“Hm, I've never been there before. It looks likely though. Let's recon and see if we can find a chef, they'll know what's the best on the menu for sure. Or at least a maitre d' – that's the fancy name for a waiter at places like this, Spike. It's spelled-”

“M-A-Y-T-R-U-H-D-E-E?”

“Not even close.”

“Whatever, let's just do this thing before Discord starts turning all the gemstones into porcupines or something!”

Try though they might, there was no way they were getting anypony's attention in that building. The staff were freaking out over the customers freaking out, the customers wanted their money back, the ponies in charge didn't want to give any refunds but DID want any damages taken out of the customers' tabs... it was a real mess. For Spike, there was something unhappily, guiltily satisfying about seeing ponies fight each other for a change. But even as distracted as they were, they found the time to eyeball him and lick their lips whenever he got too close, so he did his best to hide behind Twilight while she asked all the questions, using her magic to clear a neat little path in the mixture of soap and pie filling with criss-crossing telekinetic sweeps.

They couldn't even find a readable copy of the menu in all the chaos.

At last, defeated, they stepped out back where Discord's magic hadn't messed anything up yet, Twilight leaning her head against the wall and knocking at it as though she could knock some good ideas loose, Spike watching her with faint concern.

“Ugh, this is impossible! Everypony's so busy blaming everypony else for what's gone wrong that we can't even have a simple conversation! I could understand if they were scared, but that seem just....”

“Mean?” Spike suggested.

She looked at him.

“Yeah. Yeah, that's it. They're just being mean to each other for no reason. It's so petty!”

“I like to think of it as arbitrary.”

“That's a big word. Can you spell-”

“You know I can't,” he snapped, then apologized for it after getting a hold of himself. “Every place we passed was just as bad as this one, we'll never find the best food at this rate!”

“S'all right here if good eats is whatcha want, dig in,” wheezed a squeaky geezer pony as he passed by them, pushing a rusty cart towards the far end of the back where the garbage bins (and attendant giant-sized pipes trailing vaguely downwards) sat.

Geezer pony was very obviously one of the rarest things to see in Canterlot, a hobo pony, most obviously designated by his Cutie Mark, a can of pork and beans. Top hat missing the top, green candy cane-themed tie that was a few sizes too large and a pair of cracked glasses several sizes too small all made up the costume that distracted from the pony's shaggy, stained hide, but what attracted Spike's attention the most were the pale gray bushy eyebrows and long, straggly beard. Why did he feel like he'd seen those somewhere else before?

Twilight took charge, as usual.

“Sir, you should get indoors as quickly as possible, it may not be safe here! Aren't you bothered by the... the uh...”

A pony ran screaming past them, chased by a herd of squirrels bouncing along on their unnaturally extended tails, chattering up a ferocious storm.

“...the everything?” Twilight finished awkwardly.

Hobo pony shrugged and started rummaging through the nearest bin, his head vanishing and making disgusting gobbling, smocking sounds that echoed through the bin's interior.

“Can't say as I how I yam. M'sure the Princess will set it all to rights soon enough.”

“Yeah, she will!”

“On account of her bein' perfect and all,” hobo pony went on mildly.

“Exactly!”

“Aaaabsolutely perfect.”

“Mmhmm!”

“Yesiree, never has her highness Celestia ever let anypony down or done anything to hurt or betray her little ponies even a teensy weensy little itsy bitsiest bit!”

“Well, that's obvious, so I don't see why you need to emphasize it so much,” Twilight said suspiciously, forehead wrinkling.

Spike walked up to the bin and knocked, figuring hobo pony wouldn't be hungry for dragon if he was currently stuffing his face with garbage.

“Excuse me, mister pony? Do you eat a lot of restaurant garbage?”

Hobo pony whipped his now alfredo sauce-covered head up, rolling his tongue around his outer mouth.

“Shore do, sonny!”

“In your opinion, then, what's the best food you've eaten here in Canterlot?”

Oops, looks like he'd been dumb to get hopeful about a pony not wanting to eat him. Hobo pony already had a string of drool slipping out of his mouth as they stared at each other.

“M'not sure, but you're lookin' pretty good to these rheumy old eyes, heheh. Say, missy, is your dragon for sale? Give ya a whole shiny bit for 'im!” And it was, indeed, a very shiny bit.

“I'm sorry, sir, but my dragon's not for sale. You've sampled lots of, um, leavings from this restaurant, surely there must be something that sticks out! Something with an exceptionally well-balanced food chemistry, or sophisticated presentation, or-”

“Just tell us what tastes the best,” Spike demanded impatiently.

“Tell ya what, I'll do you one better. Call a flip with this here exemplary example of currency, and if you get it down to the exact degree of correctitude, I'll tell ya the best thing in Canterlot these old teeth've ever noshed. And if ya get it wrong, I get just one bite out of your whatchahooey, spare food supply.”

“Deal,” Twilight said immediately while Spike, unaccountably, felt furiously betrayed.

“I don't want him to take a bite out of me!”

“Oh, don't be such a baby, Spike, it's just one bite,” the unicorn replied testily. “The sooner we get this done the sooner we can get back to the Princess, who knows what Discord is doing to her while she's so weak! It's the duty of everypony to make sacrifices for their Princess!”

“...s'not my Princess,” he growled, but too quietly for her to hear.

“...and besides, it's only a fifty percent probability, discounting the minuscule chance of it landing on the edge, of course. Do you want heads or tails?”

“I don't wanna do this at all! He probably doesn't know any good food anyway, let's just go ask a chef or something!”

“Which chef, the one flailing around in animated soup or the one screaming at fire-breathing jerked chicken?! We don't have time for this, this obstructionism!” She clasped her head in her hooves. “Look, he'll take tails. Flip it.”

Spike watched the coin like it was the tooth of a hungry pony shining in the sunlight, memorized the way it spun and flew up and down in such a sharp, smooth arc... and very definitely burned in his mind the picture of it landing on heads on the hobo pony's upturned hoof. She had sold him out for a clue, not even a very good one, just a possible one, and she didn't even have the dignity to look ashamed.

“Whelp, them's the breaks, juicy! Now, your rump looks a mite steakish, so if'n ya don't mind....”

Momentarily leg-locked and shaking as he stared wide-eyed at yellow teeth and an opening mouth so dark, so hungry, framed by eyebrows and a beard like tentacles, Spike's lifelong run-away skills broke into things and made him jump behind a disapproving Twilight Sparkle. One furious look at her reproachful face told him that he wouldn't have any help there, so he didn't bother arguing. He just ran off, hoping that she would be too busy trying to do her own thing to chase after him through streets and alleys suddenly unrecognizable due to Discord's weird magical transformations.

Giant pats of butter floating in syrup made okay ice skates, and allowed him to just barely keep ahead of Twilight's yells, periodically jumping in volume after a teleport. Going at breakneck speed made the madness of Discord's version of Canterlot a lot easy to take – it was less like a city gone made and more like a silly obstacle course. That just happened to have life-threatening dangers in it, but that was his life every day anyway, right? The staircases of snapping joke teeth were particularly cool until he got to the last step, an actual bear trap with nasty steel jaws. But his feet hadn't gotten so buttered that they couldn't jump over it, which somehow caused the rest of the 'architecture' to crash down. Maybe just to keep him from having an escape route or knowing a way back. Keepin' that uncertainty high was Discord's gig.

The finest dish in Canterlot. The finest dish in Canterlot.

She was delicious.

A chill ran down Spike from the back of his head down through his spine. What had the Princess and Discord both called it? Alicorn. That was what the answer was, the best thing you could possibly eat. It was alicorn, a winged horned pony. The dish you only got to eat once. What could possibly be better?

But he couldn't tell Twilight. She'd freak and think he was being dishonest or something again. He'd just have to leave her to fend for herself, and she was pretty qualified at that after all, as long as she didn't get distracted by a passing Anything With Words Written On It, while he ran back to the castle. Hopefully before encountering tons of more ponies.

If he was right about this, he could save all the little ponies from themselves, and make everything right, and it would be like a magic happy fairy tale ending just like the ones Fluttershy liked. And they'd be so grateful to him that they'd make him their king, or maybe give him a million gems, and maybe even Rarity could forgive him and he would forgive her and they could hug and snuggle by a fire and....

Okay, Spike, head on the ground buddy. Well, not literally on the ground, 'cause right now it was a bunch of paving stone crocodiles, but you know. They were cute little things despite their sharp teeth and rolling pebble eyes. Not too different from the ponies they were snapping at. He watched the ponies closely as he passed them with dizzyingly spontaneous hops, wondering if Discord's 'pranks' were giving them anything like a sense of empathy for the things they ate. But as far as he could tell they were just scared and mad about being scared. And maybe a little grayer and humdrum than usual. Weren't Canterlot fashions brighter than that, especially for the mares? Oh well, maybe this was the conservative neighborhood.

Okay, so it was a left-right-right, then a kind of half-left... no wait, there wasn't supposed to be an intersection here! And he was pretty sure that mice espresso shop was supposed to be two streets over (and not upside down). His heart pounding in panic at the unexpected concept of being lost in a Discord-warped Canterlot and missing his vague deadline, Spike stopped to look at a street sign, elegant wrought iron.

The sign just had a traced picture of Discord's face on it, his tongue sticking out.

Terrific, because his life wasn't hard enough, right?

He kicked the sign, leaving small dents with his toe claws, and scurried along with an eye to the horizon, trying to find the castle that way. But for all that the weather ponies had been kicked out of the sky, the clouds weren't exactly drifting apart. They were making things so dark and gloomy that it was hard to see past the immediate buildings, and he thought he could even hear Discord's laughter echoing in the low booms of distant thunder.

The stupid chaos guy had seemed like so much fun in the story. Of course, maybe all this would still feel like fun... if he weren't right in the middle of it with all the ponies, feeling like the great carpet of life had been yanked out from under his feet anew every second!

Going by a small bank that he was ninety-nine percent sure wasn't supposed to be there, Spike saw tellers cowering behind desks and giving a trio of black half-masked robber ponies all their bits. Closer inspection revealed this was even stranger than it appeared: one of the robbers clearly had on a nurse's uniform and cap, another one was a wobbly old pony with a cane and inch-thick glasses, and the third was a clown. These were not ponies who would've been stealing normally, were they?

It was like the madness of Discord was in the ponies as well as everything else. Maybe the jerk was telling the truth about the ponies after all. But it didn't matter! It was all in the past, as long as there was a way to undo it, that was what mattered.

As the triumphant robbers ran past him without glancing down to see the morsel at their feet, some bits spilled out from their sacks. A trivial little detail caught Spike's eye, setting his brain abuzz with suspicion, and he picked up one coin.

Heads....

Then he turned it around.

And the other side of the bit was also heads.

Angrily, he dug through the pile. Double heads, every single one. Rigged. The clink of money caught the ears of the tellers, who were already climbing over their desks and looking at him with lamprey-like grins, so Spike scampered off, throwing the money back in their faces.

Was it just that bank? He had to be sure. Spike ran up to a nearby gentlepony with a 'proud to be a pacifist' button who was engaged in hooficuffs with a three year-old dimpled filly, and rifled through the ex-pacifist's pockets. More bits. More double-headed bits. The regal head of what was probably meant to be Princess Celestia taunted him with its outlined faint smile, and he threw the money down and ran.

Following the tellers who had zero problems abandoning their jobs to chase after some munchies, the ponies had caught sight or sound of him en masse. He could hear them – some bellowing as if to scare him into giving up, others cooing like they could persuade him to let himself be eaten. Twilight would have kept him alive, but she wouldn't have kept him safe. Now he was on his own again for this little adventure, no matter how much he'd rather not be.

This was just so like his life. Heads he lost, other-heads he also lost. No matter how he tried, things always turned out sour in the end. He'd hurt Rarity. He'd lost Fluttershy's gift. He'd accidentally screwed over a griffin. Little Strongheart was probably dead.

He deserved better than this.

They deserved better than this.

It was all Discord's fault.

And speaking of which, Discord was pedaling by on a unicycle this very moment.

“Jolly good day to be eaten, don't you think, my little Spikey-wikey?” Discord called out, closing in on one side and keeping apace (which wasn't hard, since his legs were many, many times the length of Spike's).

“I know the answer to the riddle!” Spike burst out, panting extra hard after to make up the expended breath.

“Rrrrreally?” asked Discord, who was now sitting on his head and pedaling with his hands. “Do tell. I'm all e-”

“Do not turn yourself into a bunch of ears, that's just gross,” Spike snapped, causing Discord to blink and chortle a bit at being anticipated.

“Very well! You'd better be succinct, though! The ones up front look quite famished,” he noted, jerking one toe in the direction of the chasing ponies, who were leaving trails of drool behind them.

“It's alicorns! The finest dish in all of Canterlot is alicorn, right?!”

“WrrrOOOOOOooooonnnggg,” Discord sang out gleefully, the little flap of pink flesh in the back of his throat rolling like a tower of gelatin in a tsunami.

“Oh come on, what could possibly be better than that?!”

“I'll grant you, it's high up there,” Discord conceded with a winner's cheerfulness, “but not having alicorn flesh isn't what keeps ponies up at night, their bellies growling with a longing for a midnight snack they can't name. And look, Spikey my boy! The sun is going down! Guess that means you LOSE.”

“It's going down because you just made it go down!” Spike shrieked in a rage. “I even saw you snap your fingers behind your back!”

“I said I'd go you a chance, I never said it had to be a very big one,” Discord responded with a dark chuckle, doing a wheelie around one pony who had gotten ahead of the pack, leaving the pony dizzy and stunned with little yellow birds flying circles over his head. “But tell ya what, my beamish boy – since you gave it such a good effort, I'll give you a consolation prize. How would you like to see how your life would've been if ponies really had stuck to their revoltingly boring vegetarian manners, hm?”

At the same time as he was talking, Discord was snapping toes and fingers, creating random obstacles to block off ponies and random bulges in the street to elevate the two of them. Higher and higher they went – one story roof height, second story roof height, up and up till Spike no longer had any trouble seeing the peanut butter-leaking, flamingo-plumed remains of the castle. And he didn't dare to run any more because there was nowhere to run TO... unless he wanted to hop off of five feet of raised pavement and take what looked like a half-mile drop.

The skies were clear of pegasus ponies, undoubtedly having their own troubles. For the moment, he was 'safe,' if he wanted to define safety as 'being with Discord.'

“Did you really make them like that?” he asked, hugging his arms around himself and shivering at the cold air.

Had to focus on the little stable patch of cobbles underneath him. Looking at Discord's unicycle tricks, or Canterlot below, or the crazy twirling and colliding of the stars now unaccompanied by either sun or moon would just make him dizzy.

“Please, you think my accomplishments are so meager that I need to tell a whopper to receive all due adulation?” Discord snorted and hopped up to a stand, jamming the unicycle in his mouth and swallowed it with a sound like a horn honk. “I am the master of disaster, the brainiac of bedlam, the puppeteer of pandemonium! Even the Princesses couldn't beat me without resorting to that wretched hAAAArmonYYYY.”

“Twilight doesn't even care about it,” Spike said glumly, bitterly. “She's so curious about knowing stuff that I thought she would've jumped on it, but it's like it's irrelevant to her, she didn't even think about it!”

“Oh, I'm sure she'll appreciate it in a strictly clinical, detached sort of way. Long-dead history and all that,” Discord said mock-sympathetically, sneering as he snapped and started playing with a miniature Twilight puppet and miniature Spike puppet, handling the strings with boneless deftness. “What did you expect to happen, hmmm? 'Why my number one emergency snack pack,'” he said in an absolutely freakishly good Twilight voice, “'thank you so much for struggling to save us ignorant, lost ponies from ourselves! Now I have seen the light and will work to systematically undermine my entire society! I must share this deep, spiritual revelation with everypony immediately, especially the Princess who I've idolized all my life and who is sure to get all on board no questions asked!'”

“Maybe... maybe not exactly like that...”

Spike hugged his tail.

“Face it, kid, when you play against Discord, even when you win, you lose.” The avatar of chaos's voice had a nastier tone to it now. “You can hope anew every fresh day, flip that coin of fortune as many times as you like, but every time you'll find that the other side of the bit is also chaos. So howzabout that consolation prize, mmm?” He draped his tail over Spike's back like it was an act of comfort. “Even if you'll never get there, you can at least get a peek and see what you're missing. Better than nothing, wouldn't you say?”

Spike closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again.

“I guess. Go ahead and show me.”

A snap, and colors bubbled and writhed in the sky in front of them like an immeasurably complicated oil painting spontaneously coming to life.

***

“Happy birthday, Spike!”

“Man! First I get a bunch of great presents from my best friends, and now an amazing sapphire cupcake! Oh ho, what a day!”

“Rarity! I need to tell you something, just in case we don't make it! I've always sort of had a cru-”

“I'm comin' for ya, m'lady! High ho Twilight, awayyyy!”

“Don't we have Spike to thank again for this amazing spread, isn't it simply amaaaazing?”

“Little Spikey wikey, who knew that big ferocious dragons started out so cutesy-wutesy!”

“P.S. Obviously Spike did not have to learn a lesson because he is the best and most awesome friend a pony could ask for!”

“I'll rip you to pieces if you touch one scale on his cute little head!”

And then they hugged.

And hugged.

And hugged some more.

Pony to dragon hugs.

Dragon to pony hugs.

Big old group hugs.

A sleeping basket on Twilight's bed.

Dancing at parties with lampshade hats.

Flapjacks flipped on a frying pan... heated with his own dragon fire.

Presents.

Snuggles.

Nuzzles.

Kisses on the cheek.

Tickets to galas.

And some more hugs.

***

After the vision ended, Spike played it back in his mind, going through every scene of lovey-dovey-not-eating-everything-that's-not-a-ponyness in reverse. Really taking it all in, the happiness, the friendship, the harmony of it all. It'd been everything he could've ever wanted or imagined wanting. More, even. He could never have imagined so much of it, such a complete and total peacefulness and joyful togetherness that went beyond compromises and cautious truces and forgiveness, all the way down to a deep-seated sense of belonging together. From the humblest farmpony to the Princess herself, but not just them. The zebras and the dragons and the birds and the otters and the squirrels and the alligators. It was no more 'predator and prey,' it was 'friend and person I haven't gotten to befriend yet.'

Discord watched him expectantly, awaiting an opinion, his shaggy eyebrows waggling.

“That was bullshit,” Spike said calmly.

“Tut tut. Such language. I suppose that's what happens when you don't have a supportive authority figure around to teach you right from wrong.” Discord smiled so innocently. “Or tell you that you're her number one assistant. Or let you sleep on her bed at night. Or give you birthday presents that you won't feel obligated to pretend to like because you don't live in perpetual fear of being devoured at the drop of a hat.”

No, he was not gonna stand for this. Discord might have been an all-powerful, one-of-a-kind immortal magic personthing, but that didn't give him the right to play with a dragon's feelings like that!

“That was totally unbelievable! Why would Rainbow Dash be friends with a bookworm like Twilight?! And Rarity would never mess up her hooves for me, or even go out into the woods, she's way too ladylike for that! And everypony having a bunch of pets that never seem to need taking care of, what's up with that, huh?! And what was with Pinkie appearing out of nowhere all the time?! ...actually, wait, I can maybe buy that one. But the rest of it is junk. How dumb do you think I am?”

“Adequately,” Discord replied unruffled, his smile sharpening a little. “Well, I suppose it's pooooossible that I just fed you a bunch of grade-A Ample Acres hooey just to see you choke on it. Or perhaps your life on the run has left you too ungrateful to even appreciate a good thing when it's handed to you. But the POINT, my dear boy, is that whether you believed it or not... I saw those green eyes of yours widen and shine with longing. Like looking at a present you'll never get to unwrap. Allll gone, Spike. Allll gone. Heheheheeeeeh.”

Spike's eyes narrowed as he looked up at the chuckling embodiment of disharmony.

“You're just making fun of me, aren't you?”

“Really? What was your first clue?” Discorded asked dryly, snapping his fingers and causing acorns to pour out of Spike's ears.

Spike plugged up both sides of his head with flattened palms.

“I don't even know if anything you've ever said is true, there's no proof! I don't even know if you would have given me any help if I'd solved your stupid riddle! It might not even have an answer for all I know! What is the finest dish in Canterlot, huh?!”

“Uh uh uhhhhh.” Discord wagged one talon in Spike's face with all the slow leisure of a wealthy gentleman who knew the world would wait on his pleasure. “That would be telling. By the way, you can take your hands off your head now, I stopped the acorns.”

Spike hesitantly put his head down, and walnuts began waterfalling from his skull to join the small twin piles of acorns at his feet.

“That's not funny. In fact,” Spike went on, getting his bearings back, “no one thinks you're funny except you!”

“Ow. That gets me, right here in my third spare heart. But if you're really not interesting in appreciating my brilliance....” Discord shrugged. “I suppose there are plenty of others I've been neglecting to torment all this time. Have a nice climb back down, by the way... Spikey-wikey.”

Discord vanished in smoke and a dark, echoing chuckle. Fortunately, the walnuts trickled gradually to a stop shortly after that.

Spike looked down and swallowed. One wrong step would make him the brokenest dragon ever.

After some thought and a few tasty cracked walnuts, he wiped the tears of defeat from his eyes and started climbing down. Back to where absolutely nothing awaited him except for certain death... and hope, senseless, cruel, unrelenting.

Hush Now

Five sinister forms, their oil-dark carapaces contrasted by floury white scientist coats, performed mysterious scientific procedures with glowing horns and shining steel tools. Gathered around their subject like priests to a sacrificial altar, they whispered technical jargon to each other in increasing excitement, until, finally....

“Yes! We've done it!” the head scientist changeling crowed out, rearing up in triumph.

Fortuitously, the queen of all the changelings chose that very moment to walk in and inspect her little pet experiment.

“Minions, report! What is your progress on the conversion?”

“The subject's internal sociopsychological mapping has just finished being entirely reversed, your highness!” The scientist stepped aside to reveal Spike, slumbering peacefully on a slab of slime-covered obsidian. “It took longer than we graphed out based on previous interactions with much less cuddly-wuddly, cutesy-wutesy dragons, but the subject has at last given in. He now hates all ponies just as much as we do.”

“Excellent! Arise, my faithful slave!”

“Yes, mistress,” Spike's mouth droned without his volition, an automatic response like a leg jerk after bumping your knee. His eyes glowed greener than usual as he rose up stiff-spined, a reptilian hiss escaping his mouth. “What is your command, mistress?”

The changeling queen gestured dramatically at a large magic crystal, its shine broken up by rapidly-shifting colors.

“Look there! Tell me what you see, my faithful slave.”

What he saw in the viewing crystal filled him with revulsion.

“Ponies,” he growled out, grinding his fangs together bitterly.

'Don't worry, Spike, we'll save you!' the images cried tearfully as they galloped, but it was a lie, he knew it was a lie. Nopony would risk its life for food.

“Yeeeees. And how do you feel about ponies, Spike?” she crooned, stroking the protruding scales along his back sinuously.

“Hate them. They hurt me. They ALWAYS hurt me....”

“And what does a big, fierce dragon like yourself do to things that hurt it?” she purred, twisting her head around his neck so that her lanky hair obscured his sight.

Spike had to think for a moment before the answer came to them.

“I...”

“Go on.”

“I gobble them up,” he said slowly, grinning and sliding his forked tongue over his lips.

His eyes glowed greener still.

“Yeeeees, yeeeeees. You gobble them up. Hahahah. HAHahahaaaahhhh. AHAHAHAHAHHHAAAHAAAHHHAAA!”

Spike screamed as he woke up, then grabbed at his mouth in sudden terror even greater than before. A dream. It'd been a stupid, stupid dream, but the danger was real. The ponies could have heard him. Wait, where was he? The last thing he remembered, he'd been climbing... down... and fallen....

He started to cry a little as the pain from his bumped head worked itself into his awareness. That answered that question. So he'd fallen and hurt himself and been unconscious for who knew how long. It was a miracle the ponies hadn't gotten him. Looking around, he couldn't see much except collapsed building and rubble, probably from that rocky spire Discord'd made. Was Discord even around anymore? Maybe he'd gotten bored. Or been beaten in the meantime.

“HURGLKURGKL!”

Warned by the rapidly enlarging shadow just in time, Spike rolled out of the way of a sudden stream of chunky peanut butter that splattered into a large puddle next to him on the ground. Looking up, he found a white, butterfly-winged weasel vomiting with an apologetic expression on its cute little face, its slender body roiling unhealthily with every heave.

Okay then, so Discord was still free. Awesome. Not.

“Uh... best of luck, man,” he told the weasel sympathetically, and then stumbled to his feet and wandered a few steeps to get his bearings.

The entire place was a mess. Not like an army had come through, just... a mess. Tarnished silverware strewn over the sidewalks, bales of hay stuck in windows, doors half-torn from their hinges, glass broken, paving oozing with marshmallow fluff. Buildings oriented every way but right side up. The few ponies he saw were preoccupied with everything from strangling each other with feather boas to using porcelain valuables as bowling balls to pay attention to him – at least as long as he kept out of immediate sight – and not a one of them exuded that air of snooty dignity that he'd come to find was standard for the sprawling mountain city's residents. Only the basic shape of the land remained intact enough to tell Spike that yes, he was still in Canterlot.

He hated to give up, hated to even admit the idea, but what was he supposed to do now? His biggest hope for countering the pony's hunger crazies had turned out to be the one behind it all, or at least lying to support it. He'd failed the riddle and still didn't know what the answer was, what the best thing to eat in Canterlot was supposed to be if it wasn't flippin' Princess. He was all alone, and even if he found his way back to a pony who wouldn't eat him on sight, none of them were gonna be any help in his quest.

Instead of letting himself give in to despair, though, Spike took the chance to walk the streets and enjoy the freedom of not being chased by ponies for a change. As long as he scuttled from hiding spot to hiding spot and kept his footsteps quiet, they totally didn't notice him, being too involved in their syrup-flinging contests and monocle yo-yo games. Every once in a while, one would tilt his or her head up quickly and sniff the air, and Spike knew well enough to hurry up and get out of town before they caught a good whiff of his scent after that. They were... distracted, not harmless.

Yeah, okay, he was getting back into the swing of things. Maybe he could find Discord and persuade the guy to change everything back, start up another riddle, something. Anything. He'd at least try, and if it didn't work, well, this kind of chaos might be a good starting ground for a real revolution. He'd find some ponies who were the right kind of crazy instead of the wrong kind, like maybe that gray one with the paper bag on her head, she looked harmless... and kinda familiar, actually. He couldn't remember where he'd seen her before, though. Somewhere around the castle? No, that wasn't it....

“There you are!”

“AAHH!”

Spike jumped his own height in the air, and then just stayed there as lavender magic glowed around him.

“Honestly, Spike, it took me FOREVER too – oh, are you hurt?” Twilight broke off, floating him closer to inspect him critically.

“Y-yes,” he whimpered pitifully. “I bumped my head! And you scared me.”

“Oh, hush now,” she said after scanning him over, dismissing his pains as soon as she'd taken stock of them. “Minor head trauma won't bruise the meat. Why'd you run away like that? No one likes a welcher, Spike!”

“I didn't even agree to that bet!”

“Well, you should've!” she countered angrily. “The Princess needs you! Needs us! In fact, she sent out an announcement that she wants to see any prey species with a sapience classification of three point eye eye or higher and above-average mobility aye-ess-aye-pee, and that was exactly three and a half hours and two minutes ago! We don't have any time to lose!”

Spike was used to not understanding most of the stuff Twilight said. That didn't make it any nicer to be thrown on her back like a pile of... a pile of something that came in piles, as she galloped at 'danger mode' speed through the uneven twists and turns of a Discord-mutated city. Her glow of magic around him keeping him in place never faltered, not even when she also used her magic to move aside two mean ponies, a vat of honey and a partridge in a pear tree without even slowing down. Just more evidence of how magical she was... and how hopeless trying to escape from her could be.

Maybe he should feel a little flattered that she thought his contribution as 'food' even counted enough to matter. Actually, the more he thought about that, the more it did make him feel better. The Princess, however loony she might be, had been able to look beyond herself at least a little, to understand how he felt. Maybe she'd tried to put some of that into Twilight, too.

And it was so easy to think of Twilight Sparkle as a hero dashing to the rescue when she was like this. Running through perils, against all odds, striving to make it back to the Princess and save the day. Just like his dream, where he'd seen ponies running... running to save him.

What a stupid, ridiculous thing to dream. Being brainwashed into thinking he hated ponies because they were actually sweet and loved him like a friend. Hah.

Dreams never meant anything real.

“Twilight?”

“Yeah?!” she half-yelled distractedly, shaking sweat from her face after building a staircase of fallen vases and sedans to get past a seemingly-impassable gorge of extra-rare T-bone steaks that had apparently grown the will to fight back and were snapping their bony ends together like jaws.

“I messed up, Twilight! My guess was wrong! I don't think Discord'll let us have another go at it!”

Okay, now that he'd screwed everything up for her precious Princess, he was sure to be inching his way closer to pony food. But it was okay, if she went crazy he could just grab that gutter and climb on it and rely on the peanut butter-puking fairy-weasels to distract her while he made his transition back to bein' on the lam....

“Oh, Spike, I wouldn't expect a baby dragon to defeat something like Discord,” she broke into his train of thoughts with shocking gentleness. “To be honest, it would've been more surprising if you had gotten it right. In retrospect, it was obvious that the Princess entrusted me to find the answer for you and use it against Discord that way, and it's my fault for failing. Don't worry, I'll take all the blame. If, you know, we survive this and everything.”

Spike stared at her ruler-straight mane as it bounced up and down with her movements, feeling a confusing mix of things he didn't really like feeling. Like uncertainty. And... a longing to hug her. Eww, okay, knock that off!

“But I'm just food, you could blame it on me and nopony would even be mad!”

“So? It's not true. I wouldn't lie to the Princess just to get out of a punishment I deserved anyway, even if it only hurt my emergency food supply!”

Oh. So it was about the Princess still. Wasn't that just super.

“Y'know, I think you may need to get out more,” he commented as she dodged past a domino cascade of awkwardly tap-dancing frogs. They were singing, too – actually pretty catchy. Hello my baby something something.

Following the gradually increasing crowds of terrified citizen ponies and barely less terrified guard ponies, they eventually found the Princess's new setup: one of the lower kitchens of the castle that had survived the structure's partial transformation into giant furniture. Curled up next to an iron stove that yawned open ominously like a mouth, the Princess softly issued orders as ponies went to and fro, tending to injuries, discussing Big Serious Plans, lamenting the damage to their city. There was even a nurse pony nagging at the Princess and checking her temperature now and then – the Princess seemed to be doing her best to ignore the attention. Most of them were complaining about not having enough to eat, and as Spike entered into eye range on Twilight's back, their bellies rumbled in unison like wet thunder.

He wasn't the only 'food' around, though. There were a couple diamond dogs kept on tight leashes by an alert guard, and a muscley blue-gray minotaur guy who was sitting in an oddly delicate legs-crossed posture while a light blue unicorn watched over him. Spike knew just enough letters by now to be able to understand the brand on the minotaur's thigh: GRADE B.

“Are all of you guardsponies so dense?” the blue unicorn was saying. “I told you, he simply cannot be trusted outside of my supervision! If the Princess would be so kind as to cast a simple invisibility spell or even a mere illusion, I could keep him in hoof and-”

“Her Rapaciousness has classified any unnecessary magic use around the elixirs as potential contaminants. Even a simple levitation spell within twenty yards could subtly alter the vibration of frequencies contained in them, rendering their potency against Discord questionable.”

“As if they're not questionable in the first place,” the blue unicorn muttered.

The guard raised an eyebrow and she blanched.

“What was that?”

“N-nothing, just a tickle in my throat,” the unicorn replied instantly, giggling nervously and then grimacing as soon as he wasn't looking at her.

“Twilight,” Princess Celestia said then, and it was obvious from the way she looked over that she had seen them earlier, but just had wanted to wait for a good moment to let them know.

The ponies shuffled aside as Twilight walked, head down, to her mentor.

“I'm afraid I have to report my failure, Princess. We – I mean I was unable to figure out the meaning behind Discord's riddle.”

“It was all my fault actually,” Spike said, and quickly regretted it as every single set of eyes in the room stared at him, most with extra anger added to the stock ever-present hunger. “Um. Sorry.”

“I'm sure you both did your best,” the Princess said with a good balance between seriousness and warmth, pausing to cough delicately into a hoofkerchief that the attendant nurse hoofed over with the smooth swiftness of an often-repeated action. “And Twilight, please lift your head. Don't be ashamed to look me in the eyes. You haven't failed. While it would have been interesting to see you succeed, all that you truly had to do was buy us time and distract Discord while I set a backup plan into motion. And you've done so. Discord is adept at bilocation, but also very prone to focusing the bulk of his attention on where his current whimsies lie. I'm not sure I would have been able to brew these without you two keeping him out of my mane.”

She nudged forward a small tray of ceramic stoppered jugs with her hooves. It seemed like a really strange motion, and Spike couldn't figure out why it seemed strange for the longest moment. Then he realized it was because he wasn't used to her... or unicorns, really... using their hooves for things instead of their horns. That had to be the 'contaminant' problem the guard had been jabbering on about.

So, this was their big solution, then. Poison Discord. Typically evil pony stuff. He wondered if they'd be sad that it would mess with the meat. Then again, for all he knew it was a flavor enhancer.

“These are powerful sleeping potions,” the Princess explained to Spike's surprise. “We attempted to use them before now... in fact, what was available of Canterlot's foremost huntsponies, the Wonderbolts, were called in to perform the service. But Discord is too wary of ponies, he knows that they're his enemies, and not even the fastest pegasus in Canterlot can get close enough to force him to drink the potion.”

“So you want to use prey to do it because he wouldn't think they could ever be a threat! That's brilliant, Princess!” Twilight said with near-total adoration. “Nopony could ever think of prey being armed with threatening magic potions!”

Spike got the feeling that he should be insulted at this point, but he just crossed his arms and kept his thoughts to himself, in this crowded room that stank of pony sweat and meats half-cooked.

“But wouldn't that be risky, relying on them like that? Especially with what's at stake!”

“That is what I, Trixie the Magnificent, have been trying to impart unto these simplet – ah, I mean, fine and upstanding guardsponies,” the blue unicorn corrected herself as she saw the Princess's eyes shift to her. Neither the Princess or Trixie changed expression even slightly during the little event, it was really kind of smooth. “Potions crafted by the Princess are too important to be placed in the care, however brief, of dogs, or griffins, or other such simple-minded creatures! There must be another way! Surely we can restrain the monster if only we-”

“Discord is not one for being restrained by anything except the most powerful forces, I'm afraid,” the Princess broke in wryly. Trixie's mouth shut with a click and she smiled at the Princess, but it was the kind of smile that had yelling held back behind the teeth. “While our tools may be unorthodox, I believe it will do us all good to have a little faith. All they have to do is sneak up on Discord while he's preoccupied tormenting my poor little ponies, uncork the bottle and throw the contents in his mouth. I'll take care of the rest after that. I filled the bottles quite full to be sure we had enough, but even just a single sip should be enough to put him into a deep, enchanted sleep.”

No way was Spike gonna ask what was gonna happen to Discord after that. He probably didn't wanna know anyway.

“Okay, I'll do it,” he offered, causing Twilight to crane her neck back to look at him awkwardly. “Discord's a big fat jerk anyway, and he's not... he's not gonna help me with what I wanted,” he said carefully, mindful of all the other ponies around. “So I might as well.”

Plus, it might make the ponies like him enough to not eat him, too.

“I'm glad to have your full cooperation in this matter, Spike. We should begin as soon as – are you alright?”

Spike snapped his yawning jaws back together with a blush. He was being rude. And ponies didn't like food being rude to their Princess.

“I'm really sorry, I'm just so tired... could I sneak in a quick nap first?” he pleaded.

“It has been a long day,” the Princess conceded even as Twilight frowned at him for not instantly doing whatever the Princess wanted without hesitation. “There's no need to push you so hard that you falter from being tired. We'll make attempts in waves, then. The canines first, to pick up Discord's scent, if possible. Trixie, would you mind sending your bull afterward if the dogs fail? His strength could be a useful asset if he can get close enough to use it.”

“Far be it from me to question the plans of royalty, of course,” Trixie said with a thin smile while Twilight shifted the focus of her frowny face to her, instead. “Iron, dear, do you remember what happens when food doesn't do as it's told?”

“Iron Will has the memory of a steel trap enmeshed in countless other steel traps!” the minotaur boomed, causing Spike and most of the ponies in the room to jump at the sudden volume. Only the Princess and Trixie remained unaffected. “If food wants its Grade B butt saved, it has to behave! I'll tie that Discord into so many knots you'll want to dip him in spicy mustard and eat him like a pretzel!”

The minotaur flexed his impressive biceps, followed by his chest muscles, followed by a few demonstrative hoof stamps like he was preparing to charge.

“I'm sure we have nothing to worry about,” the Princess said happily while the other ponies, Trixie and Twilight in particular, shifted around looking rather less certain than their leader.

Twilight sighed and shuffled over to a corner that was only occupied by a sack of something brown-stained and smelling just a little of blood. She fluffed it up like a pillow and set Spike on top of it.

“There. All comfy?”

Eager not to push his luck, Spike smiled widely and shook his head up and down, flopping on his side and folding his arms behind his head. Now he just had to get to sleep in a room full of ponies who were sniffing at him and licking their chops. Yep, that was his life alright.

“Are you sure you aren't hungry? It's pretty late... um, I think, and you haven't had any supper....”

“I got two lunches, it's cool Twi.”

“Alright. I'm going to go see if I can help out here a little while you catch some shuteye.”

He tried to sleep. He really did. And the sack of whatever horrible thing it was actually was pretty comfy. But no matter how he tried, he couldn't get his mind to stop burning up with unhappy ideas. All the bad things Discord could do while free... because of him. Finally knowing why ponies were how they were and it not even making a difference. The Princess and her weirdness.

Was he doing the right thing, helping the ponies out? Maybe he should just give up. Go back to Fluttershy and live with her, or be on his own again. Why did Twilight have to be so nice and so mean at the same time? And what was with her and the Princess anyway?

Then there was Discord's riddle. Did it mean anything or had it just been a wild goose chase? When ponies contemplate listening to their hearts or heads, the imps of their bellies tell them what to do instead. To retrieve all ponydom's missing empathetic thoughts, all you must do is find the finest dish in Canterlot. He'd been certain that nothing could beat alicorn, but that had been wrong. Would Discord have just said any answer was wrong, or was there a real answer there, and would knowing it even help if there was?

“Having trouble sleeping?” the Princess's voice asked from somewhere close, and he jerked up, looking around wildly.

“N-no, I'm not having any... I mean, it's real comfy and all, it's just... I'm sorry Princess, I didn't mean to waste time while your kingdom's being swarmed with carnivorous t-bone steaks!”

He peeked through his eyes while making a good combination of sleeping posture and cowering posture together, noticing that half the ponies were gone and replaced with new ponies, along with the diamond dogs and the minotaur being out. Twilight was... reading a book, really? Of course she was reading a book, and muttering to herself about 'asymmetric warfare' and 'unconventional occupation' and other vaguely military-sounding terms. Bless her dorky little heart, she was trying to read up on a way to beat Discord in case everything else didn't work, and with just the wrong kinda book, too. It wasn't like military strategist ponies would know anything about maniacal magical mutant monsters.

“That's alright, I'm sure it must be hard for you to relax in such a stressful time.”

He tensed as the shadow of one of her wings curled around him, followed by the wing itself. But all she did was sit close to him like that, one wing sheltering but not touching him. It would've been really nice if he hadn't known about her what he knew. He wished he'd never had that stupid conversation that he'd never be able to forget.

“Would you like some warm milk?”

Having the Princess pay so much attention to him wasn't doing anything to make it easier to sleep. Why was she doing all this? Talking to him, acting like he was something besides food. The other ponies were looking at her weird, too. Maybe she was like this with prey all the time? She was so unlike anything he'd expected from a ruler of ponies. Not a crazy tyrant, not a clueless shut-in dupe, not a sneaky politician.

Then it hit him that maybe she was trying to point out how inconsiderate he was being by asking for a nap in the middle of all this and then not even napping, in a reverse psychology-y way. The Princess herself asking him if he wanted a glass of milk... was she just making FUN of him?!

He looked up at her and couldn't pierce that tiny smile or those half-lidded eyes.

“That's okay, I'm cool, really,” he said meekly, hoping beyond hope that she'd just leave him alone now.

Her hoof tapped at her chin.

“Did you know that Discord isn't the only one who has some minor talent at bilocation?”

“Seeing as how I dunno what that word means, yeah, I had no idea,” he replied, immediately wincing as the ponies near enough to hear (thank goodness Twilight was lost in her world of the literature) scowled at him. Kay, maybe that'd been a little too snarky. Tone it down, Spike, you handsome but reckless devil.

“Bilocation means being in two places at once. It's not an entirely accurate moniker when applied to somepony like Discord, who, as a master of chaos, is capable of being in many places to wildly varying degrees, but it's a good approximation. For me, it relates to my ability to project a part of myself into dreams while the rest of me stays here. So you see, I guard the dreams of my little ponies just as much as I guard them as my subjects in the waking world.”

“That's...” Kinda creepy. “Cool, I guess, heheh.”

“I thought you might be comforted to know that, seeing as how you're a very useful emergency food supply right now, I intended to take it upon myself to see that you don't have any nightmares in the next little while.”

Great. Now he wasn't even safe from ponies in his dreams.

And he still couldn't tell if she was making fun of him or not, argh!

“That's really nice Princess, thanks a bunch.”

His best imitation sincere smile faltered under her prolonged stare, however gentle it was.

“And yet we're still talking instead of napping. What to do, what to do... hmm. Perhaps a lullaby?”

Oh. Well, that did sound kind of nice.

“It might drown out the sound of the peanut butter-puking weasels,” he offered with a hesitant smile.

“Huh, and here I'd thought they were ferrets. You learn something new every day, I suppose. Well then, let me see...” she mused, rubbing her hoof around her chin in tiny delicate circles. “When you're as old as I am you learn a lot of songs, but surprisingly few of them in the right dialect for this situation...”

“Please, Princess, there's no need to bother yourself with this triviality. I will sing the beast a lullaby,” one of the guard ponies butted in. He had a voice like a rust and gravel avalanche.

“Why, To-The-Hilt, are you saying that I can't sing?” the Princess rejoined with a pout, faking being wounded.

Mister Guard immediately backpedaled, as all good guards did over petty things.

“Of course not your Rapaciousness! I only meant that you have much more important things demanding your attention during this crisis!”

“I think we can spare a minute or two for soothing the not-terribly-savage beast, To-The-Hilt. But, oh dear... Twilight, do you remember that song your parents sang to you? You taught it to me when you were just a very little filly but I can scarcely remember the words now.”

“Hmm?” Twilight's ears perked while the rest of her remained entombed in the written word.

“The song your parents used to sing you to sleep with as a filly,” Princess Celestia repeated a little louder, amusement coming through past the emphasis.

“Oh... oh! Yes, of course Princess,” she replied quickly, putting the book down and shutting it after very carefully bookmarking her place. “I think you're spoiling him though. Normally he's out like a light! It's probably just nerves. Or maybe guilt from welching on that bet,” she added with a smirk.

Spike growled wordlessly and rolled over so he was facing the wall.

“Spike? Aren't you a little young to be gambling?” the Princess teased.

“Well, technically I was gambling for him as a proxy. He was supposed to let this homeless pony... at least we think he was homeless... get a taste test, but he just ran off instead.”

“I suppose it's become a bitwelch of a reflex for him by now. Nonetheless, no one likes a welcher, Spike.”

“Nrrrfffgggllrrrr.”

After a little more teasing that he didn't bother dignifying with responses beyond grunts and nods, they finally got down to the song. Which was actually a lot more soothing than he'd expected.

Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to bed

Drifting off to sleep
An exciting day behind you
Drifting off to sleep
Let the joy of dream land find you

Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to bed

The duet between the Princess's matronly voice and the younger Twilight's surprisingly silvery tune was amazingly nice, for something they hadn't practiced. Maybe they had done it together before. It felt all wrong in all the best possible ways, singing to him all the lies his heart wanted to believe about how nice ponies were, deep down. Where was the part about murdering and eating helpless critters? This was just a regular lullaby. A really nice... soothing... girly... lullaby....

He heard delicate feminine giggles just before he conked out.

Spike didn't dream any dreams that he remembered. Sleep was total, black, almost smothering. But waking back up was a slower, uncertain thing. Gradually climbing up into awareness by degrees, not really wanting to, but knowing he had to. Yawning and rubbing his eyes, ears already tuning in to the sounds of serious-sounding ponies arguing with each other about serious-sounding things.

He got his sight back in time to see a pair of guards cower and salute after a very light glare from what was apparently one of their superiors. The Princess's unmistakably glowy presence was gone, but Twilight was still here... paging through books with her hooves very awkwardly.

“Useless,” she muttered emotionlessly at one, tossing it aside and moving to the next. “Useless. Useless. Useless, useless, uselessssss...” Her voice had lowered to a creepy hiss, eyes narrowed. And did her mane look frizzier than usual? Yeah, it did. She looked like she needed a break like whoa.

“Twilight?” he asked hesitantly.

“Oh, hey Spike. Looks like our best option is to throw you at Discord with potion in hoof – um, hand – after all. Isn't that great?”

She had the smile of a very well-polished sickle.

“What happened to those other guys? The, you know, waves of dogs and stuff?”

Twilight's left eyelid twitched.

“Ponies kept eating them on the way to Discord. We kept rounding up more, and they kept eating them. It was impossible for the guards to stick with them all the way or they'd blow the creatures' cover.”

“Ponies.” Spike rolled his eyes.

“The Princess is out trying to keep the city from falling to pieces, but I don't know what else she can do at this point. Spike, I hate to say it... but you really can't mess this one up, okay? Because I don't know what we'll do if you do.”

“Besides eat me?” Okay, that kind of sarcasm was probably a bad idea, but he couldn't help it.

Twilight stared, then giggled. It was the sound of a pony coming, ever so slowly and gradually, unhinged. Even the other ponies glanced over at her nervously.

“Probably. You're a very smart little dragon.”

“Get it from the best,” he said for reasons he wasn't sure about, hopping off of his terrible bed and climbing up on her back. “So yeah, let's go save Equestria again, huh? Just like the Princess said!”

“Right... right.” She seemed to calm down at the mention of the Princess to ground her to reality, reaching down to clench one of the last few potions in her teeth and passing it up to him. The ceramic of it felt way colder than it should've, like ice, but slippery even though it was dry.

A brief chat with the guards and they had Discord's last known location (not that that meant a lot, but it was one of those things Twilight needed to stay grounded and at least pretend there was a serious plan instead of a lot of luck and wishing). With zero fanfare, they were off... in fact, the guardsponies seemed to expect them to fail, judging by a few mutters and dark looks. Spike couldn't really blame them. If you spent your whole life looking down on something, expecting that something to save your whole kingdom all of a sudden was a big pill to swallow, even if it was the Princess's own plan.

But it was simple enough. Get near Discord, uncork potion, throw contents into Discord's mouth. Probably while he's laughing like a villain or something.

Spike figured he could handle that.

Ponies try to eat him, sure, not like they weren't doing that already. It was such an ever-present problem by now that it didn't even register as a thing so much as background noise. Most of his guts were still worked up trying to figure out how he felt about his own failed plan, and Discord's part in it, and whether or not he would feel bad if he couldn't save the ponies.

They had sang him a pretty song, at least. He owed them something for that.

“I bet she didn't forget the song, ya know,” he told Twilight after a few moments of silence as she navigated by hoof through a sticky yellow-tan river of honey and barley that dominated one street. “She just wanted you to sing with her.”

“And you say I overthink things,” she quipped dryly, ducking underneath a flying propeller attached to a burning stool. “The Princess wouldn't just manipulate somepony like that, when she says something, she means it! Have you always been such a little cynic?”

“Every time a pony tries to eat me, my heart shrinks one size smaller,” he joked right back, unable to believe he was joking about it even while the words were coming out of his mouth. “So by now it's like... a fraction or something.”

“Darn, the heart is one of the most savory parts once you get a crock pot and – oh, sorry, sorry.”

He sighed and rested his head against her mane. There wasn't any point in saying anything back.

They couldn't muster up any energy to be surprised when Discord wasn't anywhere near the palm trees made of bumblebees that the guards had seen him at. With nothing left except to systematically check out the entire city, they headed to high ground where they could hopefully spot him from far off. Through bunches of very grumpy gray ponies, and topsy-turvy buildings, and streets paved with cheese. They climbed a hill that had been taken over by burrowing sparrows, narrowly avoided run-away circus knife throwers who'd replaced all their knives with sporks, and navigating around up along the stairs of an overlook tower that had been built for tourists, with a cute little 'pay a bit to see the view' machine at the top. The tower had been turned inside out so all the stabilizing parts were on the outside and all the nice smooth stones and footsteps and rails on the inside, so it was pretty tiring. And above it all, the sun and the moon chased each other in circles, barking, while the stars came and went with tweeting canary-like chirps.

“Alright,” Twilight said with a pant more of aggravation than tiredness as they got to the top, clopping her front hooves down with an air of finality. “Let's take a look around and see what we've got. You take north, I'll take south.”

“Yes ma'am, ma'am! Uh... north's thattaway, right?”

She sighed silently and pointed a hoof in the opposite direction from the one he was facing. Spike hopped down and took the indicated direction, putting one hand above his eyes mostly for the appearance of the thing than because it actually helped shield him from the crazy zigzagging sun.

Well, let's see what we have here....

Burning buildings, wrong way up buildings, half gone buildings, crazy ponies, broken pipes spilling bloody gunk all over, smoke, locusts, candied clouds and lollipop rain. Lots of chaos. Not so much Discord specifically. Seeing the expanse of the city laid out before him like a board game that'd been ruthlessly trampled over and every piece broken or askew, he wondered how one little dragon and one little unicorn could possibly make a difference when they'd already failed so hugely before at a much easier job.

No, he couldn't afford to let the ponies down. This wasn't just about a city, it was about their entire civilization, and Discord being the fault of all of it, so anything that took down Discord would get the ponies closer to being the way they were supposed to be. Plus Twilight would totally freak out if he just gave up, and he didn't need that stress.

At what point had he gotten attached to the ponies as a concept that running away seriously started feeling like giving up on himself?

“Anything on your end, Twi?” he asked after a good few more minutes of searching everything he could see till his eyes ached. “So far I've got nothin' over here.”

“Oh, if it weren't for the potion I could at least use my BBBFF's specialty prey reconnaissance divination,” Twilight growled, shaking her head. “Maybe we should find a pegasus, start an aerial-”

She stopped talking as she looked at him, eyes going wide as saucers.

“DISCORD!”

“What?! Where?!” Spike looked around wildly and couldn't see a thing that he hadn't seen before already. “I don't see him!”

“Look up!” she shrieked. He jerked his head up and didn't see anything but the stars doing creepy things to each other in twinkles. “Look up... without moving your head,” she clarified just a little more calmly.

Spike moved just his eyeballs.

And Discord was standing on top of his head. The avatar of chaos looked back down with an innocent smile and flapped his paw-hand in a wave.

“AHHHH! HE'S ON TOP OF ME GET HIM OFF I DON'T WANT TO TURN INTO A CRAZED MEAT EATER!!!!”

Spike ran around in circles, almost falling off the top of the tower a few times before being nudged back by Twilight's magic, until Discord got fed up with his 'furniture' moving and abandoned Spike's head to sit on top of the tower viewer.

“Such a flighty little fellow,” Discord said with a yawn, painting his nails neon green with a whole paintbrush while Spike hid behind Twilight and tried to calm down. “You'd think he'd been in danger his whole life or something.” Discord's lips turned upwards slightly. “Oh, wait. You should probably just steak him now and put the meat to good use, my unegalitarian equine.”

“Steak isn't a verb, Discord,” she snapped prudishly. “And what was with that appearing right on top of us like that? Is this just a game to you? Or is it some kind of metaphor, where you're trying to say that chaos is in all of us? If so, I happen to disagree!”

“What are you talking about? I just happen to think that dragon head fins make excellent toe deodorizers! So, tell me, everypony's just DYYYYINNNG to know... what harebrained scheme do you have to outthink the genius architect of anarchy, my little- GLRG.”

“Bullseye,” Spike said with satisfaction, wiping his hands together as the potion vanished down Discord's throat.

“You were supposed to uncork it first!” Twilight hissed.

“Details, details. What's it matter? It's all going to the same place, right?”

“Oh, how droll. Poison, really? Is THAT the best you can come up with?” Discord hacked a nasty cough and the cork shot out to embed itself in a nearby rock, quivering. “Hmm. Must've overexerted myself with that last boa-badger transmutation, I'm feeling a mite bit-”

And then he fell to the ground, out cold and snoring with a distinctive whistle.

“That was sudden. Huh, oh well. Hey Twi, hand me a big rock or something, will ya? Or you could just do that...” He mimed the force field thing as a guillotine motion at Discord's neck.

“No! That's not part of the plan! You already took a big risk making him swallow the entire container, what if he hadn't coughed out the cork?! We're going to leave him alone in his enchanted slumber and go back to the Princess to report so she can take care of it. Because that's what she said to do. Understand?”

“Alright, I guess.”

Just before following Twilight down, he paused to lift up his heel and give the producer of all his torment (who was looking, against all odds, like a cute, harmless old man-monster thing in his sleep) a good kick in the head. Then he stopped before his foot connected and put it back down. What was the point? It wouldn't help the ponies. It wouldn't undo all the dumb things he'd gone through in his life. Discord was a terrible person who deserved all sorts of terrible punishments, but Spike couldn't muster up any sadistic glee at it. It would've made him too much like a... pony... to do that. Whooping at knocking over buffalo gravestones for the fun of it.

He'd won. Without even trying that hard, really. That was enough.

So Spike left the hurting to others, and went obediently, silently, with Twilight back to the castle. Meanwhile, the chaos that had swallowed up the city showed no signs of slowing down even while its master was taking a nap break. It made him wonder if the Princess even had a plan to fix it all. If she even could.

The Princess was pleased as punch, in her so very mild way, and congratulated them both so profusely that Spike and Twilight matched each other for red blushes over purple cheeks. With Discord subdued, the Princess apparently had her own 'ways' of keeping him in dreamland, and without him stirring up new chaos, the old chaos could be subdued in time by unicorns working together. The castle would be the biggest loss, but as far as the Princess was concerned, 'that dusty old thing was long overdue for a renovation anyway.'

There were no rewards. He wasn't sure why he'd expected one in the first place. Nopony recognized his part in the oddly anticlimactic defeat of Discord – which didn't seem to do anything to make the ponies any less hungry. As the days passed and life slowly got back to normal, Spike got to watch the cleanup and reconstruction efforts from a hotel room window that he shared with Twilight, and the only real difference now was that Twilight at least trusted him enough to let him sleep in the same room. That was progress, though. Tiny progress, but progress.

She didn't let his studies slack. Reading was not optional, and he slogged through it with her help, complaining just a bit more than was honest. He asked her to read the papers a few times when he saw their pictures in it. As far as those rags were concerned, he'd just been a tool the Princess's student had used to throw the bottle. And even the student had just been put in the right place by the Princess, whose potion had done all the heavy lifting.

No glory for ol' Spikey, but glory would've gotten him attention he didn't need anyway. In many ways, he was just glad that things could return to something like 'normal,' even if uncovering ancient history hadn't done a thing to get him a way to change the future. He knew more than he ever had before about ponies, he knew SO MUCH, and it was all useless.

The ponies actually seemed worse, overall. There were a lot of oddly gray ones around now that didn't seem to want to do anything except fight or be silly. Apparently victims of Discord's magic, the ones that weren't hospitalized mostly became migratory hobos that left the city to get into trouble elsewhere. Every once in a while there'd be a 'civilized' one, though, getting into fights in the street, picking pockets, yelling at ponies for no reason before their friends and family dragged them off or pacified them with some bribe or other. It was not an improvement, and several times Twilight saved his life keeping him from being snatched up and gobbled by them as they were walking through the streets.

Nice of them to leave Discord in a permanent snoozefest instead of eating him though. Weirdly nice. So nice that it actually bothered Spike a little, kept him up at nights, wondering why they'd been so merciful. Was the Princess just nice like that sometimes, or was there a reason why she didn't eat him? Of course, it wasn't the only thing keeping him up at nights, either.

The dreams didn't help.

In fact, after trying a few bad-tasting syrup sleeping remedies Twilight dug up, after screaming himself and her awake a few times, he decided to ask the Princess about them. A little of that 'no bad dreams' magic would do him good. And it wasn't the only thing he wanted to ask. If he really let himself, he thought maybe he'd just keep on asking questions until he ran out of breath, the biggest one always being 'WHY?!'

He didn't ask that one because he was a little scared that the answer she'd give him would be even worse than not knowing.

There was a good opportunity one day when things were starting to settle down and the Princess had visited Twilight's hotel room to catch up over cups of baby vole tea. He'd made the tea because Twilight had forgotten to with all the other preparations like dusting the tops of the fan and cleaning under the bed and measuring out the carpet so it was perfectly aligned. As he was pouring the cups, for a second he forgot to think of the baby voles as former living things and not just lumps of flavor – and he remembered that he'd forgotten, and nearly spilled the kettle as he started. He joked about inferior baby dragon reflexes and Twilight laughed it off while the Princess smiled silently and knowingly at him.

As much as Twilight loved to talk, even she had to breathe and, sometimes, even, stop to think when asked a question. It was during one of those little lulls, when the Princess asked her something and she had to go fetch a book to look up the EXACT answer, that Spike worked his way nervously into addressing the Princess.

“So, uh, Princess...”

“Yes, Spike? What can I do for you?”

As her eyes locked onto him, his brain locked onto memories of the nightmares that'd been haunting his bedtime for weeks now.

Discord was yelling. His voice was echoing all around even though there was nothing to cause it, as if his fear was intense enough to make the sound bounce around all on its own. He sounded scared, but he was laughing too.

“Come on Spikey, be a pal! I gave you a fair chance, didn't I?! But SHE doesn't give me any chances! She never lets me have a moment's rest, Spike!”

“I was just wondering about something.”

“And what would that be?”

Discord's mismatched hands were clutching at him, not in threat of violence, but in desperation.

“What kind of a way is this for me to go down in history, eh?! Every story deserves an ENDING, Spike, don't you think?! I can't do anything in this dream world, it's all chaos so there's no way for me to stand out! But that's not the worst, the worst, ohhhh Spike... hahahah....”

Was Discord laughing or sobbing? Maybe both. Not all of his fingers were there; the places where they'd been bitten off halfway or entirely oozed fresh blood, staining Spike's scales.

“Why didn't you just kill Discord? That's what you do to everything that threatens your kingdom, right?”

She raised one eyebrow.

“Threatens? Whatever do you mean?”

“I thought I would be safe at first, I thought she was still so WEAK,” Discord wheezed with a hysterical giggle, the pupil of one eye pinwheeling crazily. Flecks of bloody spit splattered Spike's face through those ragged, torn lips. “It's just a DREAM, you see! You see?! No matter what she does, she can't kill me! And I thought that would make me saaaafe,” he half-sang, letting Spike go to sway vaguely, staring at nothing.

“Discord tried to turn your city into the chaos capital of the world! Plus he... you know....”

“Oh, is that all. As you can see, repairs are well underway and things are getting back to normal. As for that second matter, well. In some ways it's as much an improvement as anything, from my – admittedly arbitrary – point of view. In any case, I'm not one to hold a grudge against a helpless creature, however wretched.”

“No matter what she does, she can't kill me,” Discord repeated. “But I didn't realize that that meant that no matter what she does, I can't DIE! Do you know what that means, Spike?! Spike! You drugged me, where's your conscience, where's your compassion?! Look, I'll, I'll even give you another flip...”

Discord pulled out a bit from nowhere. It was barely legible through the blood on it, but as Discord clumsily turned it over in his mutilated hands, Spike could see that one side was heads and the other was tails.

“See, we'll start fresh. Just wake me up, Spike,” Discord wheedled, tears running down his cheeks and soaking in his dirty, torn beard. “You can have a new chance, you'll find the answer, we'll fix the ponies, whatever you want. Just, please, wake-”

“If you say so,” Spike said with a strained smile. He couldn't ask more than that. Not with the nightmare playing through his brain like a master at piano keys, plinkity plink. “I've been having trouble sleeping lately,” he changed the subject, seemingly. “Do ya think you could do that thing again where you made me not have bad dreams for a little while? I've tried everything.”

Clop.

Clippity-clappity-clop.

The sound of gold-shod hooves against the ground. There was no telling what the ground had been made of before now, but as Spike looked at it, daring to pull his eyes away from Discord's wounded and frantic form, he saw that the ground was all bones. White and yellow, broken and whole, dragon and pony and everything else in the world.

“Oh no, no no no, I'm not ready yet, I can't I can't I caaaaan't,” Discord whispered, his voice sounding weak and deranged, the sound of an old man gone bad in the head and helpless with it. “She's coming again, she never stops! Make her stop, Spike! MAKE HER STOOOOOP!”

Discord raised himself up, waving his arms in the air, and Spike beheld an underbelly that was torn open, spilling out guts and organs, glistening. Discord should have been dead, but this was a place where death didn't have any meaning.

But pain had meaning.

“Why, certainly, Spike, I would be happy to. It's the least I can do for a brave little dragon who helped us all in our time of need. How long do you think you'll be needing my assistance?”

That had not occurred to him.

“Uh. I dunno, maybe, maybe we can try it for a few days and see if it's better after that? I'm really sorry to be all inconvenient and stuff, Princess....”

Spike looked over towards the source of the clops, and saw the Princess approaching, a beautifully white form with a pale rainbow mane, although the darkest, bluest stripe of it also sparkled sharply with starlight. Her tail swayed back and forth like a cat's as she approached, not hurrying – why should she? Nothing could catch her or be a danger to her here.

Her expression wasn't one of a bully intimidating a victim, or a hungry predator, or even that of a majestic ruler looking down on a peasant. It was a motherly expression, wry, soft but stern. Like she was coming to punish a naughty child for his own good. Shame on you, was what her face said. You should have known better. Why did you have to misbehave? Shame on you.

Her snout was covered in blood.

Twilight was back, and unhappy with him for taking up the Princess's time.

“Spike! You shouldn't bother the Princess with such a little problem, she's really busy! I'm sure we can find the right sleeping aid if we keep at it, there's still five more apothecaries to try out in this district alone!”

“Sorry Twilight....”

“Don't be silly, my faithful student. As long as Spike is in Canterlot, I'll be more than happy to help keep his bad dreams away from him. Okay, Spike?”

Somehow, as Spike looked into her royal eyes, he thought that was a threat of some kind, even if there was nothing but kindness in her voice, her face, her smile. Her smile showing off her white, white teeth.

“No, nooooo!” Discord wailed, abandoning Spike to run, leaving a dark trail of blood punctuated with fallen flesh behind him.

The Princess laughed and quickened her pace. It was still slow, though. A playful almost-trot suited to roughhousing with very little ponies, maybe. Her mouth gaped open and her tongue lolled out just a little as she panted less from the effort than from the enjoyment of doing so, her teeth whiter and larger and sharper than they had a right to be in a mouth that slender.

Spike could only watch and tremble and hope she wouldn't turn her eyes onto him.

“Okay, Princess. Thanks a lot.”

“You're very welcome.”

Eager not to get on Twilight's bad side again, he quickly went back to his role as tea-server and let the student and the mentor finish their lesson plan. Today's was about the nature of magically-induced fermentation of a creature's flesh stored in its own innards. An archmage could use the theories involved to literally flip a prey species inside out and then cook it inside itself, creating an instant meal from what had been a living thing just seconds before. Twilight was a long way away from such power, of course. The Princess? She didn't say, but she talked about it with the same casual familiarity that Spike would have used to talk about molting.

That night, as Twilight tucked him into his basket (had to keep the meat unbruised and stored securely!), he tried not to feel like the sides of the basket were reminding him of jaws closing in on him, closing to swallow him forever.

The Princess had said he'd have good dreams, and she didn't lie. As far as he knew, anyway. What would happen if he brought up the things she'd said when Twilight was around? It would be so, so risky, though. And he was comfortable here. Not exactly safe, but he was learning stuff, he'd spelled four new words today, and he was well-fed and had his own bed, sort of. It could've been a lot worse. If only he could just get Twilight to promise not to eat him he might have been content to stay with her, here, in Canterlot, the center of ponydom.

And give up on saving them.

So maybe it was best that she didn't make that promise, right?

The lights went out... all except for the one at Twilight's little study desk. That was going to stay on for a while yet. He could never get her to go to bed on time.

“Maybe it was peacock,” he suggested after a few minutes of trying to sleep.

“Peacock's overrated, the aesthetics of the plumage really don't impart flavor or nutritional value,” she replied instantly without looking up from her studies, the only other noise the scritch of quill against scroll.

That was a kind of game they had now, guessing the answer to Discord's riddle. Not like it mattered. The imps of their bellies were still hungry as ever.

The imps... of their... bellies....

A long-ago memory flashed Spike back, back to when he'd been staying with another pony who'd been as nice as possible. But still hungry. He remembered seeing something insane, something that hadn't made sense, before he'd left.

A mouth. Teeth. Pressing up against the inside of Fluttershy's stomach.

When ponies contemplate listening to their hearts or heads, the imps of their bellies tell them what to do instead.

Spike suddenly hated himself for not seeing it before. It was SO OBVIOUS. He stared through the dimness at Twilight's stomach, but it was too shadowy to see anything. How often did he even look at a pony's stomach? Pretty much never. He was always looking at their heads, their mouths, their hooves, but their tummies?

What if it was an ACTUAL imp?

If it was a real imp, a real thing, that meant that it could be taken out of them, didn't it?

But that didn't make sense as the first part of the riddle, since the second part plainly said the 'finest dish in Canterlot' was what would make the ponies normal again. Unless... the finest dish was the thing that was supposed to get rid of the imps, either by pushing them out or by just poisoning them.

It would be a, a violent bodily rejection of directly opposed substances. Spike had overheard enough of the biological stuff when Twilight talked to herself to be able to guess at the theory. Emesis, that was what it was called. There were medicines, oils and extracts, that you took specifically to puke up poisons. This was just the same thing, except the poison was something that didn't kill you.

And it was in Canterlot.

What was it... what WAS IT....

The Elements of Harmony had been the only thing he knew to beat Discord that wasn't related to Discord's own magic in some way. Ponies had used them, and there were five Elements, right?

No, there'd been six.

Niceness... no, kindness. And Generousness? Generosity. And Laughter, that one was easy, and Honesty, also easy, and... Faith? No no no, it was Loyalty, LOYALTY. What'd been the last one again?

He looked over at Twilight, stared at the gentle purple glow swallowing up her quill, and then he smiled grimly.

Magic.

And then he remembered something else about Discord, a crazy mirage that Discord had shown him. A parallel world, maybe just a dream, probably not real. But still... such a coincidence.

Too much of a coincidence.

“I gave you a fair chance, didn't I?!”

Yeah, Discord. Yeah, you did, you evil jerk. Had to give credit where it was due.

“Twilight?”

“Spike? You should really try to sleep. It's pretty late.”

“I know,” he said, not pointing out that the same applied to her. “I just wanted to ask... have you ever met a pony other than the Princess with more powerful magic than you?”

“Oh, hush now, Spike, flattery won't get you anywhere!”

“I'm being serious!”

“Well... I guess not...” she admitted grudgingly, pausing in her work, her quill floating patiently nearby as she turned to look at him. “But I've lived most of my life in Canterlot and, um, I don't get out much. So that's not really saying anything. What's this all about, Spike?”

He wanted to yell and scream and cackle. His mind burned with the possibilities, with the ideas. He had clues, a new lead, a new hope to be crushed. But he was gonna fight for this one and make the ponies crush it the hard way. Oh yeah.

Six ponies, six elements, and it would be imp-busting time, if he knew as much as he thought he did. It was worth a try, wasn't it?

But he was tired and he didn't want to say things wrong. Tomorrow, he'd talk to her. Tomorrow he would start his revolution up again. Tonight... he had to hope he could get a good night's sleep.

“Nothin', I just wondered is all. G'night Twilight.”

“Goodnight, Spike.”

Spike closed his eyes.

Clop.

Clippity-clappity-clop.

“Sweet dreams, my little dragon.”

Footnote

“If anything, it's been a learning experience having the little guy around, ya know? Sure, he gets into trouble sometimes. Sometimes he even argues with me. It's cute. But Spike's never given even the slightest indication that he'd hurt me. For a wild dragon, he's actually unusually subservient.”

“Maybe he behaves when you're watching, but who knows what he's getting up when you're not around? Take right now, for example. You think he's locked up harmlessly in your room. But he could get out a window or even a vent if he really tried. And he has access to your food, your spellbooks, your money....”

Twilight sighed and shook her head, levitating her baby mice latte for another sip. It wasn't like her BBBFF to be so paranoid. Of course, it wasn't like her to keep live food around for extended periods, either. Unusual circumstances bred unusual reactions, she supposed.

“Well, he's certainly had plenty of chances. If he wanted to do something bad, he would've by now. If anything he seems to have his heart set on getting along with ponies. I only brought him up because he just sprung this thing on me about wanting to go on a field trip to examine the possibility of digestive irregularities in a sampling of ponies throughout the region.”

“He wants to do field research with you.”

“Yeah, isn't it great?!”

“More like suspicious, if you ask me. Has he ever shown any interest in your studies before?”

Twilight scowled as if she could frown away her brother's frustrating cynicism. He looked back levelly, his serious expression rather messed up by how he absentmindedly scratched his jaw stubble.

“Well, no, but maybe he's just starting to get into the swing of things now that we've been through all this craziness together! And he does seem to like being useful.” She smiled, thinking back over the times he'd found the right book for her or marked her place with a bookmark or neatly erased a smudge of ink. He even dusted all those little spots she couldn't bother to remember even existed, like beneath the bed. She was really gonna feel kinda lonely once it finally came around time to eat the little guy. “This isn't like you, Shiny. Since when are you all intimidated by a little scaly morsel we could eat up in a couple bites? I remember that time when I was six and a full-grown griffin came at you, and you just cut his wings and claws off and had barbecue that night.” Oh, how the critter had squawked. Really, the noise level was the only thing she didn't like about fresh home cooking.

“Eh. I'm just worried about my little sis, I guess,” he admitted abashedly, smiling a little. “You've had your head in one book or other most of your life-”

“Hey!”

“-it's true, you know it! But I could always protect you in case anything bad happened. Just in case. And now you've got this baby dragon around, and the thing about baby dragons is that they grow up into big violent fire-breathing dragons. I know you've probably learned a lot about them from books, but it's not the same as being around the real thing. You picked him up off the street. He's wild and he's got a troubled past from what Cad – ummm, Princess Cadence tells me, eheh. How do you know his wild dragon instincts won't come to the fore sometime?”

“I don't, really,” she confessed. “But remember what you said on our first hunt together? 'You've gotta take risks to get the kill.' Well, I also hunt something almost as delicious as meat: knowledge!” Her enthusiasm dulled down as soon as it had sparked, though. “And... and I was wondering if... maybe my thesis wouldn't go better if I had an outsider's viewpoint, you know?”

“Twilight,” Shining Armor started, his tone worn down with the weariness of a long-repeated and long-lost argument.

“I know, I know,” she interrupted, heading him off before he got started. “Alicorn biology's just different, and there's probably nothing I can learn that would be applicable to curing the Princess's illness. But still... either way, it's knowledge gained. Besides, she keeps telling me to stop reading those dusty old cookbooks and experience things outside of theoretical research. This is as good a chance to do that as any, even if Spike's only suggesting it because he wants to turn us all vegetarian.” She snickered behind a hoof.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Are you sure he's not brain-damaged?” Shiny asked sincerely, tapping a hoof to his head. “Or, I dunno, rabid or something? He could be carrying all kinds of diseases.”

“Hellooooo, it's me, remember? Your OCD sister? I had him checked out by a vet and got him shots and everything. I had to threaten to eat his tail a little to get him to stop crying, but it worked out.” She frowned, feeling a growing unease deep inside that she was unable to place a name to. “He kept crying for a ruby lollipop at first, especially when they broke out the big diamond-tipped needles after the regular ones broke on his scales, but....” The feeling turned to near-pain as her stomach clenched on itself and growled so loudly that the ponies at nearby tables glanced over at her briefly. “Augh! I'm starving, I can't even think straight! Waiter, waiter, I know I said I didn't want anything to eat earlier, but can I get twenty-four grass snake fries? Yes, exactly twenty-four, why? Fine, I'll pay a full two servings price for one and a half servings, just get a move on already!” Whining lowly in her throat, she slumped her head against the table and clutched her temples in her hooves. Why was life so HARD?

“Alright, I guess you've got things under control then,” her brother said dryly, sipping up the last of his drink. “It still doesn't feel right to me, but I guess my little sister had to grow up sometime.”

“I grew up a long time ago, thank you very much. Hmph.”

“How's Mister Smarty Pants doing?”

“Grrrr. I haven't even slept with him in – I mean, um... you just hush! Anyway, if it'll make you feel better, I'll grill him about it more and make sure he's not concealing any hidden pony-hating ulterior motives, okay? But I'm sure it'll just be a little tour of the countryside and stopping to meet some interesting research subjeehhh I mean ponies, hahah. Nothing to worry about.”

“Thanks, Twi. Just remember to look at the road when you're walking and not a book, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. And you remember not to overpolish your armor, you know how easy it is for prey to slip out of that choke hold when you're all slippery.”

The rest of the conversation, what little of it there was between snake fry mouthfuls, was taken up by more obligatory sibling bashing followed by jocular but non-sarcastic expressions of sibling affection followed, in due course, by more sibling bashing. Even so, it wasn't even time for lunch yet by the time they parted ways and Twilight trotted back to her now-very-familiar hotel room, to find Spike smiling and looking very still and innocent. It was a pose he struck whenever he'd just managed to stop doing something he shouldn't've been doing a split second before she saw it.

She opened her mouth, to chide, to inquire, to make him feel like the baby he was and yet somehow still needed to be reminded he was. Then she closed it again. Pestering him forever wouldn't make him mend his ways any quicker, and he couldn't have been doing anything too dreadful – the room was still completely in order, neater than she'd left it, even. He was probably just planning escape routes again.

Ever since their adventure together against Discord, she'd been more mindful of how unique he was, as far as prey went. It would be almost an insult to treat him like a cheap daisy sandwich when he was closer to caviare. And his face brightened up so much when she trusted him with the smallest things, made the littlest gestures, even though he tried to hide it so much.

It almost made her able to forget the constant, intoxicating smell of dragon that had long since saturated her living quarters. Like waking up to fresh-fried bacon every day and never being able to eat it. So delicious and so maddening.

He kicked a coaster over beneath her jaw, and the soft clunk noise that made was what snapped her back, blushing and wiping the long ribbon of drool off her face.

“Hey, Spike! I'm back,” she said like the most cheerful idiot ever, purely for the sake of saying something.

“I can see that.” He put on a mock-offended pose, looking very mature, and then messed it up by flopping on the bed lazily, bouncing almost as high as he was tall. “You have fun with your bro?”

“As if I could have anything but fun around my BBBFF. Listen, Spike, I've been giving it some thinking... and your field trip idea actually sounds workable to me.”

He jumped up, his face puppylike in unrestrained joy.

“Really? You mean it? I'll behave, I promise, I won't do anything you don't tell me to do!”

“Hold on, I'm not finished yet,” she cautioned him, wagging a hoof. “Why did you want to stick to Ponyville? We'd get a much bigger sample size from a metropolis like Fillydelphia or Manehattan.”

“Oh, well, ya see, I just thought of some ponies who might be good for... for studying, you know?” He was such an adorably bad liar, smiling so awkwardly, alternating between being too stiff and too flaily. She could practically see his mental gears spinning away till they finally got some traction going. “It's a pretty small town, but it's got a good cross-thingy... cross-piece? Cross-section, that's it! It's got a good cross-section of city ponies and farm ponies and in between ponies. And it'd be way easier to navigate and less expensive than one of those big cities,” he finished with a satisfied nod.

“Manehattan hotel prices are ridiculous,” she agreed to lull him into relaxing before she hit him with the real response. “But that doesn't explain why you want to go on a trip and start having nightmares again in the very place you caused so much trouble in before! I'm not mad,” she comforted him after seeing him start to visibly panic, “I just want a real explanation. Do you have a bunch of caches of stuff stored over there or something? Or do you want to visit somepony and apologize for hurting them? And before you answer,” she went o/n after he started shuffling nervously, “we both know you're smarter than most livestock, even if getting a proper pony schooling has something to do with that. You ought to know how important honesty is in communication by now.”

Spike paused, eyes widening as though she'd said something momentous.

“Yeah... honesty is important, isn't it?” He began to grin for reasons she couldn't begin to understand. “Just like being kind....”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“And loyal.”

“Err, sure?” She raised an eyebrow inquiringly. He was clearly going somewhere with this but she had no clue where.

“And... uh, magical...”

“What,” she said flatly.

“Okay, just hear me out on this one, Twi,” he said hastily, holding up both hands.

Uh oh. It was never a good thing when he said that.

“So, remember back when Discord gave us his riddle....” Argh, she knew it. This had something to do with his obsession with turning ponies into vegetarians, didn't it? He didn't care about her research at all! “And he said stuff about imps in pony bellies? Well, what if they were real imps?” An interesting but completely ridiculous theory, grasping at straws. She was so mad at him she could just, just gobble him right up! “And I think I've got the answer, too!” he jabbered on desperately, quickening his pace as her scowl deepened. “He showed me like an illusion kinda thing about six ponies I know, and remember when the Princesses got rid of Discord the first time, it was with six Elements...”

“How does that even answer his riddle?! It was about the finest dish in Canterlot, Spike!” she snapped, losing her patience. Honestly, she'd taught him better than this. Maybe there was only so much you could do to smarten up a non-pony.

“Don't you see?! It's because the Elements have to have ponies to bear them, and the magic probably makes them taste delicious, so the answer's you! You're the Bearer of the Element of Magic, Twilight!”

She almost banged her own horn with how fast she put a hoof to her temple, grimacing.

“Spike, you're being silly. If I was the Bearer of anything, I'm sure the Princess would've told me by now!”

“But you're the most powerful unicorn in Canterlot!”

“We don't know that for sure, I'm not that good at magic. Besides, I kind of have an advantage with the Princess tutoring me and all. Spike, you're so wrapped up in your obsession that you haven't even thought things through. How do you know Discord showed you a vision of the ponies that could beat him? I mean, isn't that an awfully big coincidence, that you already knew them in the first place? Your memories probably subconsciously suggested them when he hypnotized you or whatever it was he did! Doesn't that make a lot more sense?”

“But I saw one of them! I saw an imp! And I know those ponies, so I know they really do fit the theme! If you go see Fluttershy you'll see, she's the most ridiculously kind pony you've ever met. I swear! And then you can examine her for the imp, and we can use magic friendship stuff to cure her!”

Twilight frowned, watching him twiddle clawed thumbs as he waited for her judgment.

He wasn't lying, she didn't think, but he clearly had so much riding on this that he couldn't see it any other way. Well. Scientifically verifiable avenues first, guesstimates on the relevance of friendship and/or Discord after.

“You say you saw an imp?” she queried carefully, trying not to sound either skeptical or believing. “You're sure you weren't just imagining it?”

“I'm sure! It was like a mouth on the other side of Fluttershy's stomach, pushing out against the skin! Please just give it a chance, you don't have to believe me but give it a chance, I swear I won't let you down. Think about it Twilight, who knows what could happen if we got the Bearer of Element of Magic in the same room as one of the other pony Bearers? Even if you don't care about the meat-eating thing like I do, don't you care about there maybe being an evil magic parasite lurking around in pony tummies?! It could carry all kinds of diseases, I mean it's probably why your Princess coughs up all that gross blood and worms in the first place!”

Twilight blinked, suddenly flooded with self-righteous anger. She counted mentally from five down to one and breathed out. No, she was not going to get sucked into this vendetta he had against the Princess. She was going to remain the mature, detached, rational authority figure, just like the Princess had taught her.

“Spike, you don't have to exaggerate the symptoms of her illness to try and guilt me into doing this,” she said stiffly. “She doesn't cough up worms, that's just disgusting. As for the hemoptysis and bouts of fatigue accompanying strenuous physical or magical exertion, there are a million different possible causes... particularly since we have almost zero documentation on alicorn physiology! I keep telling her to get a proper physical, but noooo, she doesn't want to bother the doctors even though that's what they're there for.”

“But it could be from a nasty magic parasite messing up her insides... right?”

She pulled up a chair and sat, thoroughly engaged in analyzing the problem, if only to debunk it.

“Be logical, Spike.” He scowled cutely, as if he'd thought he was being logical instead of just the silly baby he was. “If everypony has an imp, why is the Princess the only one to show those specific symptoms?”

“Maybe 'cause she's been alive for like a jillion years and her imp's really old and feisty?”

Hmm. That... actually wasn't a bad explanation.

“Alright, I'll give you that,' she admitted grudgingly. “It's not impossible I guess. I mean, you should see what a tapeworm looks like after ten years of gorging on... err, anyway,” she changed tracks after seeing his little delicious dragon face get nauseous, “it's still very improbable. Even if it were true, we don't know anything about these so-called Elements of Harmony except that the Princess needed their help defeating Discord the first time. We don't know how to use them or even make them materialize, and ponies, if they do have such a thing as imps, seem to get along with them just fine. Rocking the biological boat could have side effects we can't predict... we could hurt ponies without meaning to by trying to 'cure' them of something their bodies have long since adapted to!”

“But, but what if curing them could really help their quality of life? I mean, you could apply that same thing you just said to, I dunno, horseshoes or somethin'! I bet the first pony who got nails in his hoof was really iffy about it, but it worked out!”

Twilight hmmed noncommittally, looking over her emergency food supply for any signs that he wasn't on the up and up. All she saw was how much he wanted this, in that transparently trying-to-be-reasonable-and-failing-badly way that a foul might express when discussing the logistics of extra 'grocery' purchases after passing by a candy store window. But what he wanted was... something unnatural. Something foreign to her very way of thinking.

She tried to wrap her mind around it, tried to visualize eating grass and only grass forever, and she shuddered from the wave of nausea that accompanied the mental picture. Still, as an academic researcher, she couldn't let her mere feelings on the matter allow her to reject the idea for potential medical progression. It was risky, but... well, she'd just have to be careful. And if it didn't turn out well – as was almost certain to be the case – then she could at least verify that the theory was wrong, and turn her thesis research to other areas. Chaos magic in particular was apparently almost unlimited in the ways in which it could manifest, after all.

“Alright-”

“WOOHOO!”

“We'll talk to one or two of the ponies on your list and see how it goes,” she sound firmly, trying not to grin at how he capered about on his stubby little legs that would've been just perfect pan-seared with a dark brown sugar glaze. “That is, if I can get the Princess to agree on a week or so off for the field research.”

Spike's spikes almost seemed to droop with his expression.

“Aww... but that's not fair... I mean, c'monnnnn....”

“Did you really think I was going to just bail on my studies without telling the Princess just because you asked me to?” she asked incredulously, huffing.

“Well. No. I guess not.”

She really wished she could figure out what had happened in that conversation the two of them had had to make Spike dislike the Princess so much. Oh well, he'd come around eventually, or he'd make a great few cuts of steak, whichever.

“I'll bring it up at our next lesson. And if she says no, no sulking, mister!”

“Yeah yeah.”

He was unusually obedient through the afternoon and evening, most likely trying to keep himself in her good graces, as if that would help. Fetching things just before she asked for them, cleaning up after his own messes without needing to be told to do so, never a sour look or sassy mutter. Yet Twilight found herself too distracted to really focus her mind. Oh, she got a good half an essay with all due footnotes banged out, and finished up some light theoretical analysis of the dynamic interactions between necromantic quarks and post-mortem extispicy, but she could tell it wasn't her best work. Her heart wasn't in it, and everything was taking just a little longer than it should. Still, she kept to her schedule, certain that she would beat her funk with sheer organizational prowess.

And so at the end of the day, she was left with that odd empty feeling in her stomach even though she'd had seconds for supper plus a late night snack. Spike reminded her that she had a 'thing' tomorrow morning, but didn't nag at her to go to bed before she wanted to, which was a break from their routine. Didn't stop him from tucking himself in, though.

Eventually, as Twilight realized that her eyes were just gliding over words like skaters over ice without letting them sink into her brain, she sighed and closed her book. No sense in working herself into exhaustion, tomorrow she could get a fresh start with a well-rested and level head. She pictured how the Princess would laugh at Spike's completely ridiculous ideas. Really, this was not about Spike, but about the student, Twilight knew. She was trusted to keep potentially dangerous prey around and prove that she could handle the responsibility. And she would. This wouldn't be like that... that other time, with the Princess's kind, loving, POLITE look of muted disappointment eating its way into her soul like she'd just bitten into a chocolate square that had the wrong filling, but only just a little wrong.

Twilight crawled into bed and didn't even take a book with her for late night joy reading. She just stared up at the ceiling, waiting to sleep.

And this was, as always, the hardest part.

Spike's smell filled her nose and the back of her mouth, the little whistles of his breathing and lip smacks grated on her ears like piano keys banged into by boulders. She even imagined, sometimes, she could feel the heat of his tasty little morsel of a body radiating across the room towards her. It was like sleeping in Donut Joe's, with ferret-stuffed eclairs and black-pudding smeared donuts fresh from the oven every hour on the hour.

It was immature of her to have such poor control of herself that she had to lick the saliva from her lips almost every night. She was too big to behave in such a way. Still, she never got used to just the presence of him, there and waiting to be eaten but uneaten. Little jerk wasn't even that grateful for her not eating him, either!

This was wrong, so why did her heart tug at her like it was exactly right? Giving in to him like this. Feeding his, what do you call it, his delusion, his....

Madness.

The best thing to do would be to ground him firmly in reality. He abided by her routines, but didn't enjoy them. No longer fought back so much but certainly would fight if put into a corner. Didn't appear to lie, but clearly still kept things from her. He was in pony society, but as distinct and separate from it as the loaf of quail eye-speckled scrapple she had in the mini-icebox. He couldn't just accept his place in the world. Always fighting, always trying to find an angle, an edge, a reason to believe that....

A sharp pain bit into her stomach, and she winced, rolling over onto it instead of giving in and getting a late night snack. She wasn't a total slave to her appetites, after all.

And as she turned, out of the corner of an eye, she caught the telltale moist gleam of Spike's eyes peering at her with an intensity that would have done any straitjacketed madpony proud.

A little alarmed but not really sure why, she jerked her head over sharply, glaring at him as he immediately shut his eyes so fast that she almost believed she'd just imagined it.

“Spike. Spike,” she said again, with clearer warning in her tone, as he kept faking. The second word got him to look over at her again, looking as awkwardly nervous as she felt. Twilight was overwhelmed with the irrational feeling that they were two enemies staring at each other over an invisible battle line, waiting for the charge. “You should be sleeping. Why were you looking at me?”

“No reason. M'sorry.”

She held his gaze, feeling oddly lightheaded, and couldn't scry a thing from it. He was unknowable, alien, animal. A baby, but for all that....

He had been looking at her stomach.

“Okay then. G'night, Spike.”

“Nite.”

So they both closed their eyes and both pretended to be sleeping. It was so very obvious from the way he breathed, and she suspected she was being just as obvious about it with how she breathed, and neither one wanted to be the one to start a weird conversation again. Imps. Discord. Food. Groundbreaking research. Mysterious artifacts of harmony. Alicorn-specific ailments. It was all too deep for a little baby to handle in anything but the most superficial ways, and too much for her, she knew, if even a sliver of what he guessed at so randomly was true. Still, that was the frightful excitement of it.

She hoped he got to sleep sooner than she thought he did. He'd need it. After all, if they did end up going to Ponyville, the nightmares would come back. And she wouldn't enjoy being woken up by screams and whimpers much, either.

Psychologically unstable.

Not good signs, but maybe understandable. He'd risked a lot to come as far as he had, and risked a lot for ponies... and ended up just a footnote in history, a tool of a tool of the Princess, and unlike Twilight Sparkle, he had no reason to appreciate that. She wasn't sure what could be done about it, but it didn't... it didn't seem right somehow....

Ow, stomach cramp, stomach cramp!

She refused to give in and grab the delicious shrew pretzel rounds on top of the mini-icebox. Absolutely no way was she getting out of bed now. Still, just plain failing to give in to hunger left her so distracted that she couldn't think about anything else. It was a relief when her brain finally finished shutting down for the night.

She made up for it at breakfast, though, while Spike stared with the unabashed disgust only the very young are capable of displaying.

Two days later, she brought up the idea to the Princess, in as lighthearted and 'oh, by the way' a tone as she could manage. The Princess seemed to think it was fine, though! With some stipulations, of course, but nothing worth even a blink over. She even thought it would be fun!

“Out in the fresh air, a little light travel, meeting new ponies and possibly even learning new exciting things about the world... oh, I almost wish I could go with you, Twilight Sparkle,” the Princess had murmured lightly, smiling the smile of a monarch who always was surrounded with just a little bit more decorum than she cared for.

She'd even given Twilight leave to continue the field trip for as long as it seemed necessary for the good of science, a degree of leeway that Twilight burst from proud from being granted. That didn't alter the planned timetable, though. Two weeks was reasonable, more than reasonable. If there wasn't any visible progress after that, they'd call it quits.

Twilight almost brought up the thing about Spike lying so much with regards to the Princess specifically, the words were in her mouth, but she shut it without speaking them, leaving the Princess with an inquisitive look and a raised eyebrow. Princess Celestia wasn't one to be pushy, though, and it was just too awkward to get into. Maybe Spike had a problem with authority figures? But of course, any prey could be forgiven for manifesting unusual signs of stress around the ruler of all ponies everywhere, too. Maybe that was all it was.

She had to admit to herself that, even with all she'd seen of his passion for the idea, she had still underestimated Spike's enthusiasm for the whole thing. He got packed in exactly five minutes flat – she counted! Okay, maybe he'd packed a few of the wrong things and hadn't folded everything right and had zipped up the saddlebags sloppily, but still, it was impressive. A few more minutes sorting things out and tidying up and they were pretty much ready to go. It was a little overwhelming.

Her first hoof was out the door when her stomach gurgled.

“Okay, we are so hitting a bunny head kebob stand on the way out.”

“Eww.”

“Hush, ingrate,” she said fondly, bopping his head with a hoof as she lifted him up onto her back.

“Why are you talking to your food?” a passing noblepony asked bewilderedly, her jangly gold-strung pearl earrings tinkling like wind chimes as she bobbed her head in a series of bewildered expressions.

Oh. Huh, how weird. Why was she talking to her food?

“Just a habit, I guess,” she admitted with a grin and a blush, walking on as the noblepony rolled her eyes and stuck her nose in the air.

“Beats talking to these snooty ponies, I bet,” Spike put in lowly and close to her ear, smirking.

“Now, Spike, don't judge ponies just because they're a little... put off... by my, uh... eccentricities.”

“It's called friendship. Give in. You know you want to. Let the harmony flow through you like molten caramel!”

“Argh, don't talk like that when I'm hungry,” she whined, prancing briefly back and forth between right and left hooves. “Anyway, I've been meaning to ask,” she shifted to a serious tone as they headed out to the street, “are you bothered by how other ponies think of you?”

Spike stared back with such silent but obvious insolence that she felt an immediate, childish impulse to smack him.

Okay, communication error, that one was her fault.

“I mean, the fact that you're still just grocery store bologna when you've done pretty much everything a prey species could be expected to do to stand out. In good and bad ways,” she clarified carefully.

“Eh, it's not any more shocking than it was the first few million times,” he replied, shrugging off the implications flippantly. “Oh look, perfectly nice dragon, MUST EAT HIM. Oh look, that dragon saved my life, MUST EAT HIM. Oh look, that dragon is holding my prize-winning dish hostage, MUST EAT HIM.”

“And now you've helped save Equestria. Sort of.”

“Sort of, nothing! It was all me, baby. Okay, and the Princess. And you.”

“And still....”

“MUST EAT HIM, RAAAWR!” Spike shouted, capering on her back with claws outstretched and mouth open mock-ferociously.

She laughed and everypony on the block stared at them like they were lunatics. Which was starting to see more likely the more she hung out with him. Her desire for a filling lunch interrupted the humor, though, and she broke into a steadier trot towards the nearest halfway decent food stand.

“So you're fine with it?” she went on, pushing the point to be absolutely sure. “You're not doing this so you won't be relegated to, I dunno, a footnote in history or something?”

“Food doesn't even get footnotes,” he said grimly, but with a tiny smile that she wasn't sure she liked. “Except in books about food, anyway. That reminds me, I don't care how good it is for my vocabulary, you are never making me read a cookbook again.”

“But-”

“NEVER.”

“Fine, sheesh, mister delicate. So this isn't about you wanting to be famous, is it?”

“Nah. This isn't even about me at all, ya know?” Something about his eyes made her uncomfortable – to say nothing of how juicy they looked – and she was forced to turn her head back under the excuse of needing to watch the road. “This is about you. All of you. So I'm the one bugging you to do it, but if it wasn't me, somedragon should've. Or griffon, or minotaur, I dunno.”

“It's just research, Spike,” she reminded him. “It's not necessarily going to change the world.”

“Look at the objective scientist, ruling things out before we even started the experiment, heh.”

“I just don't want you to get your hopes up.”

And why was that, exactly? Could it be that she didn't like the idea of him-

Augh stomach cramp stomach craaaaammmmp.

Never mind the good food stands, she'd take the trashy one in an emergency like this.

“You! Hotdog! Every kind of meat topping! Now!” She slammed a hoof on the cart desperately, causing chili and onions and pickles to slosh precariously.

“Errr, okayyyyy,” the intimidated hot dog stand pony said, obediently building a hotdog towering unevenly with toppings with commendable speed. “That'll be two... bits....” he finished slowly as she ate the entire thing in two bits. “You know, you could've just ate the dragon. I hear them's good eatin' with sweet mustard.”

“Hsh fo' mgnshish onee,” she mumbled distractedly through the too-big mouthful of food, counting out the bits.

“I'm for emergencies only,” Spike translated arrogantly, preening his scales.

They continued their journey, Twilight huffing and a little embarrassed as the saddlebags, not to mention the baby dragon, started to weigh her down. Too much junk food binging and reading, too little exercise. Well, that was why this was so good for her. She'd learn to like it. Or at least not hate it so much. Any second now. Mmmhmm.

This would be so much more fun if she were doing it in a jungle. With a pith helmet. Wait, didn't she own one of those?

“Spike, do I have a pith helmet?”

“It's in your closet behind the wind calibration thingy.”

“That's what I thought! Can't believe I didn't think to pack it...”

“We're going to Ponyville, not launching on an epic safari with lions and stuff!”

“But we might need it!”

“For what?”

“I don't know, something!” She sighed and gave up. No sense in turning back now or she'd go totally off the itinerary. Speaking of which.... “Okay, this is the last post box before we get into the outskirts, let me just write this real quick and then we'll be all free of distractions from the healthy yet mildly annoying activity of walking.”

“What's that?” he asked, trying to read over her shoulder as she brought quill to ink and thence to parchment.

“It's rude to read over ponies' shoulders, Spike. Besides, this is a private correspondence to the Princess.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Scritchity scratchity scritch....

“...can't you write any faster?”

“Argh, you made me blot a comma, now I have to start all over again!”

“Oh come on!”

“I am not sending the Princess a letter with a blotted comma! Punctuation is the very foundation of civilized society, Spike!”

“Whatever.”

Scritchity scritch-scratch scratchity scritch.

“All done!” she said happily, signing her name with a flourish.

“Finally.”

“Oh, wait.” She scribbled one last footnote, silently chiding herself for forgetting the most important part of the letter in the excitement of the moment. “There, now all done.”

A quick heat wave spell dried the ink out (good old reliable number twenty-two), rolled the scroll up, sealed it, addressed it and placed it in the bin delicately. Oh, relying on the postal service was such a dreadful nuisance. She wished she could figure out a better way to do these things, some sort of magical wormhole to allow her to send things straight to the Princess. What a nice fantasy that was. Oh well.

That final task taken care of, they stepped up to a brisker pace on their not-so-epic journey, Twilight all the while wishing that Discord hadn't turned the balloon the Princess had given her into a weasel-gnawed heap of refuse. Spike seemed to have no complaints, though, and even had a bit more fun than he should've, sticking his tongue out at ponies and making faces. And then, of course, always snapping back to an 'innocent' well-behaved expression as soon as she glanced back at him. Oh, wild animals, you could never really tame them, just get them to behave... for a little while....

Twenty minutes into it, she noticed him tensing and fidgeting a lot more than even such childish antics would require.

“Hey, you okay back there?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” he said unusually shortly.

She glanced back and saw him eyeballing the horizon and everything else around.

“Looking for anything?” she prodded.

“No. Not really. It's just... I'm waiting for something to go wrong.”

“Huh? We're just on a walk, Spike, relax!”

“You don't understand. Something always goes wrong. Every time I try to do something. If it doesn't go wrong now, it goes wrong later. So I kinda just want it to get it over with.” He smirked at her, his face seeming older than it should be.

“Don't be superstitious, Spike. We'll have to educate that out of you. Everything will be fine, I promise.”

He flopped against the back of her neck suddenly, causing her to squeak.

“I really like it when you lie like that, it's awesome,” the little dragon told her almost lovingly.

She groaned exasperatedly and hung her head, bangs flopping down over her eyes, before straightening up again and settling into her workpony's pace anew. They didn't talk much for the hour after that, because she didn't really know what to say. And, after all, you weren't obligated to talk to your food. In fact, you were weird if you did. So she had no reason to feel bad about being normal. And hungry.

So hungry.

Dear Princess Celestia,

We are embarking on Field Research Expedition #1 and should be out of the city limits by noon today. Anticipating arrival in Ponyville by tomorrow morning at latest. I still think this is all a big wild goose chase, but even geese are pretty tasty once you catch them, so who knows how it'll turn out? Will itemize all expenditures so you can trust me to be as economically responsible as Castle treasurer Tight Twobits! I don't want to waste your time, so I'll only report in if the research makes significant progress. Failing that, I'll be back at the scheduled time and we can cross this one out of our harebrained ideas backlog.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S. And I will definitely keep an eye out for these 'Elements of Harmony' or any unusual magical phenomena related to their so-called 'Bearers,' and make sure to keep them safe for you just like you asked.

Sick

I knew a dumb pegasus who tried to swallow a dragon
She had an ego as big as a wagon
And needed the dragon to catch the lizard
That skittered and flickered her spleen and her gizzard
She swallowed the lizard to catch a fly
I dunno know why she swallowed the fly
With luck, she'll die!

“Hey, that's kinda catchy. Let me try,” Sweetie piped up, while Twilight groaned and rubbed her forehead. The weight her two companions was getting to her more than the weight of what remained of her portable lab gear, by now.

“Sure thing. Just remember it's gotta be a boingy tune ya can whistle while ya walk all smooth and stuff. Oh yeah, and it hazta rhyme, that's really important or it's not catchy. And a one, and a two, and a three...” Spike led the little pony on with a deft wave of his claws.

I know a dumb dragon who swallowed a rock

“Hey, that's not how that goes!” Spike protested.

To help his breath 'cause it stank like old socks

“My breath does NOT – oh, wait, never mind. It was the asparagus fritters.”

He thought was a pony but he's just a lil phony

“Yeah, yeah, you'll see the light soon enough, sister.”

And that's why this 'speriment's a ton of... BALONEEEEEYYYYY!

Spike and Twilight picked themselves up from opposite sides of the road where Sweetie Belle's enthusiastic sound wave had physically smashed them into small indentations in the grass, rubbing at their ears.

“Alright, my little po – I mean, Sweetie and emergency food supply, that's enough singing for today. I don't think it's very nice of you to make up bad songs about this Rainbow Dash pony, Spike. What if she's flying overhead and hears? A food supply to the Princess's student has to behave better than that, ya know. Canterlot manners!”

“Yeah, I guess so. But still!” Spike sprang back up again and glared at Sweetie till the latter stopped sniffing at him with a snacker's idle interest, then hopped back to the vaguely enforced five foot invisible space Rarity had insisted Twilight keep between the two of them at all times. It was getting more vaguely enforced by the minute, too. “You don't know what this means t'me, Twilight. Rainbow Dash is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, jerkiest jerk pony I've ever met, and now we don't need her at all! The other elements could be anypony, anypony at all! Like really nice ponies who won't try to chomp on me as soon as they see me! Ain't it great?”

Twilight shook her head. Poor little dragon would always just have the brains of... a dragon. He was awfully cute when he allowed himself to be openly enthusiastic, though.

“Like I said before, you're jumping to conclusions. What if there's a genetic component? We'd still need to deal with her in that case. And we still aren't even sure about Sweetie, since all the tests on pinning down her exact element haven't managed to do anything more than melt half my thaumaturgical equipment.” She was still rather unhappy about that. It was embarrassing to admit to the Princess, and was SO coming out of her allowance. And Sweetie had been disappointed about not getting a science-defying Cutie Mark!

“Of course, even if you're right, I don't see why you'd be happy about it,” she went on thoughtfully.

“Huh? Whadja mean?”

“Even if you're right, you've saved yourself the trouble of dealing with a pony you have bad feelings for at the cost of a big setback in honing in on the designated research subjects. We can't keep wandering around just asking ponies at random to let us examine them! I won't lie to ya, Spike, we're not doing terribly so far, but if we don't pick up the results a notch soon, we'll be headed back to Canterlot and this project will have to be classified a dead-end.” She chewed on her lip. “I hope not. It would be really bad to disappoint the Princess like that. What if she punished me? What if she took away my late night reading privileges?” The horror. The horror. Twilight was briefly trapped in a world where she had to go to bed without reading a book until she fell asleep with it draped over her head like a cozy tent, and shuddered.

“I don't think the Princess would do that, Twilight.”

“Says you,” Sweetie butted in petulantly. She still hadn't decided to forgive Spike yet, even though she was perfectly happy to come with them to visit her big sister's spa-date friend. “Twilight's the Princess's personal prototype, she knows the Princess WAY better than YOU do!”

“What's a prototype?”

“She means protege. I think.” The mild pleasure of correcting a moldable young mind's vocabulary snapped Twilight out of her personal hell as gently as the wafting aroma of a baby mice latte.

“Yeah, that! I think.”

“Regardless, Spike, you know our schedule.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Twilight's eyes drifted over to the smaller pony trotting tirelessly beside them. Sweetie's mood was perpetually undimmed when she wasn't directing petty vindictiveness over at Spike, who returned it with a halfhearted, sullen self-defensiveness. Their interactions certainly didn't seem to generate any kind of harmony. The opposite, really.

And then there was the matter of the element specifically. Generosity. Rarity's backstory had seemed to click so well, yet when it came down to it, the pony also valued other things, her sense of aesthetics, her manners, her appearance in the eyes of other ponies... had that muted the element, forced it to migrate? The possibility of an infectious or mobile element of harmony was a new idea to cope with.

Assuming that Sweetie was the Bearer of Generosity, she only displayed it so far in limited and highly specialized spurts. There had been that great display towards her sister, of course. And then afterward, her willingness to come along and spend a day or so helping out with their research, with her sister's permission, if only because Fluttershy was a good friend of Rarity's. But any little filly might have been excited at the same, treated it like an adventure, a chance to get out from under familial supervision. As much as Twilight wanted to believe... as much as something in her craved it... there was simply not enough evidence to go on.

That was why this next visit would be the clincher, she felt. If Spike was right and getting Fluttershy (“Totally abso-friggin'-lutely the Bearer of Kindness or you can eat my tail!”) into extended interaction with Sweetie and herself was enough to spark a real manifestation, well, there would soon be something definite to go on besides vague readings and misbehaving equipment. If not... well, the thing with Sweetie could only rationally be considered a fluke, an anomaly. That was statistical outliers for you, they were such teases.

Of course, Spike was insistent in her, Twilight Sparkle, being yet another piece of the harmony puzzle, but Twilight still couldn't get herself to even think about such a crazy possibility. Her entire life had been books, learning, magic, growing up under the Princess. What did she need with friends? She had left her family, left everything... with everything's permission, of course... and now all she wanted was to make the Princess proud. What room was there in her life for something silly like friendship? She didn't even understand how friendship and magic could possibly interact anyway. If you had friends, you had less time to study magic, not more. It was obvious.

Maybe she'd feel better when she learned more about the test subjects. Nothing wrong with a little interrogation, even if it wasn't nearly as helpful as the electrodes that Rarity had very specifically insisted Twilight not use on her little sister on pain of 'being utterly ruined in ways you could never even begin dreaming of.' Of course, she'd made conversation with Sweetie throughout the walk, but so far it'd been pretty limited, with Spike and Sweetie taking up the bulk of the atmosphere with their bickering when Spike wasn't busy hiding from local ponies who recognized him enough to glare balefully.

“So, Sweetie, how do you spend your leisure time?”

“My what time?”

“You know, for fun!” Twilight gave a little hop and hoof clap in an attempt to visually demonstrate the idea of 'fun' briefly, resulting in both the dragon and smaller pony rolling their eyes. No respect for adults, those two.

“Oh. Why didn't you just say that then? I usually go looking for my Cutie Mark with my friends, the Cutie Mark Crusaders! I dunno what I'd do if we ever got them, though.” She frowned, screwing up her forehead to match her down-turned lips as she thought. “As long as we don't have 'em, it's like, 'Hey Scootaloo, how about we try to get our Cutie Marks in climbing trees to hunt birds?' Or 'Hey Apple Bloom, maybe we can get our Cutie Marks in making deep-fried pastrami sandwiches!' But what if they get theirs first?”

“You could get yours first. Or all at the same time,” Spike pointed out.

“I guess, but somepony's probably gonna get left out. How often do ponies usually get their Cutie Marks all at the same time?”

That last was addressed to the adult in the metaphorical room, of course, not the foodstuff. Ah, yes, Twilight was happy to get another chance to educate, but a little upset that Sweetie hadn't even been exposed to the historical treatises of Ponce De Hoof! Rarity'd seemed like such a classy mare, too, it was a shame that she put so much thought into appearance and manners and so little into the truly important things in this world, like learning!

“It's uncommon but not unheard of,” Twilight explained. “The biggest known case was the Great Cutie Minotaur-Wrangling Hunt, where the hunters' foals snuck along behind their parents and got all of their Cutie Marks in one go when the minotaurs got confused and charged in circles until they fell down. A hundred at once, one for every minotaur. Of course, that was decades ago.” She snorted. “It'd be hard to find a minotaur town near Equestria these days, we have to import most of the meat we don't raise ourselves. Shame, those haunch steaks are just....”

Two claws pinched her.

“Ow! Spike, what was that for?!”

“You were drooling again.”

“Well, excuse me for having a little culinary appreciation,” she huffed, wiping her chin and ignoring her flushed cheeks.

She returned her mind to perusing what background information she'd been given. So the little filly had a pair of friends she played with, ostensibly to get their Cutie Marks. There might've been some tinge of generosity to that if it hadn't also been self-interested. Then again, maybe she was overanalyzing. Perhaps everything in a pony's life didn't have to relate directly to whatever element it was they were supposed to be corralling. Or it could start small with youth and grow with age. Or perhaps...

The fact that Sweetie was still looking pensive, head hanging and not even energized enough to bother picking another fight with Spike, caused Twilight to remember that she was the adult authority figure and as such had a responsibility to the little one. She couldn't begin to imagine how the Princess would feel if her 'faithful student' led a mere unmarked filly into depression....

'My little pony....'

Yes. Just as the Princess was so kind to all those lesser than her, she, Twilight Sparkle, had to live up to that example and be kind to young, malleable minds!

She put a hoof on Sweetie's back, although it made walking a little awkward.

“Don't worry, my little pony, I'm sure your friendships will only be even more special after you all get your Cutie Marks.” Okay, Twilight, time to bluff. You can do this. You don't know squat about being friends with ponies, but you know about Cutie Marks! “After all, once you have your Cutie Marks, you'll be filled with certainty about your destiny is and know that who you are is who you're meant to be! That can only bring you closer to your friends because then you don't have all these fears and uncertainties in the way anymore.” There, that sounded believable enough. She liked to imagine the warmth of the sun was the Princess's own approval beaming down on her for not screwing that up.

“Oh, that sounds pretty neat.” Sweetie beamed up at her, bad mood dispelled just like that. “I don't really care what my Cutie Mark is as long as I've got Scootaloo and Apple Bloom to hang out with!”

“I suppose anything that promotes a healthy interplay between the psychodynamics of Cutie Mark generation and self-identity can be deemed psychologically healthy,” Twilight replied with a smile of her own, until Sweetie's face melded into one of vague confusion.

“Yeeesss, let the friendship flow through you....” Spike hissed softly, his tongue sticking out several inches longer than a pony equivalent would have managed, rubbing his hands together in an incongruously sinister way.

“Spike, I am an adult and she's a little filly. We cannot be friends by definition, that would be a gross breach of my role as authority figure and her role as test sub – I mean, child!”

“Oh, I see. So I suppose we're not friends either, then,” Spike huffed, crossing his arms.

“No, we're not and never will be! You're food! I keep telling you that!”

“You're not very smart, are you?” Sweetie asked the dragon chirpily. “Don't feel bad, it's okay. Dragons don't need big brains, they're not very delicious. Now, diamond dog brains, those're great mashed 'tatoes.”

“You keep saying I'm food, but you keep talkin' to me,” Spike insisted with the righteous certainty of a complete dummy. “You both keep talkin' to me,” he pointed out, smirking and lifting his head up a bit at Sweetie's sudden glare. “I think you don't wanna eat me. You wanna be my friend. 'Cause ain't nodragon more awesome than Spike to be friends with.”

“Don't push it, buster,” Twilight warned, pulling some trail mix out of her saddlebags and munching away to quell the hunger pangs. Mmm, salted weasel eyes and dried minotaur backsteak. “I'm talking to you because you're a useful second pair of hooves. Sometimes. Under highly controlled conditions. And Sweetie's talking to you because she doesn't know any better and you keep goading her.”

“Goading her?! She's goading me! All the time! She said she hated me like fifteen minutes ago, you heard her say it!”

“I did say it,” Sweetie admitted.

“Yes, but her aggression is derived from a healthy degree of familial protectiveness combined with new exposure to your bizarre 'ponies shouldn't eat dragons' occultism,” Twilight explained calmly. “It's only natural for her to try and engage you in dialogue when you instigate her with your crazy ideas, since she's not allowed to just eat you. Even though you keep tempting me to change my mind on that,” she added warningly, eyes narrowing. He didn't seem intimidated. Honestly, he was getting worse and worse the longer they knew each other....

Worse. It was worse. Had to remind herself that. Couldn't just let him be himself, the Princess would be appalled and disappointed. Wouldn't she? What had the Princess and Spike talked about that day? Surely Princess Celestia wouldn't confide in anything important to a little baby dragon that she wouldn't tell her own student....

“So, what was your Cutie Mark?” Sweetie asked, innocently derailing Twilight's thought process with all the charm of a bulldozer operated by a decapitated chicken running through a pillow fort.

The vast majority of Twilight's actual capacity to 'feel' simply switched off, her emotions entombed in a comforting embrace of do-not-analyze-do-not-think-do-not-remember-never-ever-ever while she kept on walking. Her expression locked with ironclad ferocity into a perfectly gentle, calm smile that she hoped was reminiscent of the Princess's habitual expression. Spike was looking nervous, though, so she tried lowering the smile a tad. It didn't help. Skittish little gu – skittish food.

Sweetie seemed oblivious.

“Did it hurt when you lost it?” Sweetie went on, nothing more in her voice or eyes than the meaningless inquisitiveness of all small foals to all things that caught their eyes for seconds at a time.

“Oh, that's not really important,” Twilight answered with well-rehearsed smoothness.

“You didn't forget what it was, did you?” Sweetie continued, her voice broaching the possibility with the horror usually reserved for late night ghost stories about the old mare with the rusty horseshoe.

“No. I remember what it was, and as long as I do, it's not important if anypony else knows or remembers. So,” Twilight said as brightly as the sun itself, “what grade are you in, Sweetie?”

It didn't take much to distract a pony of Sweetie's age. Further conversation made it clear that Sweetie was an energetic, inquisitive and friendly little filly who probably got into more trouble than she needed to by dint of her raw energy reserves and lack of mental brakes on bad ideas. So, she was ironically somepony who could get along with Spike perfectly, if she ever got over that ridiculous thing with Rarity... which was really more Rarity's fault than Sweetie's, after all, if an adult took something so seriously, it was only natural for the child to follow likewise. Hadn't Rarity ever read Dr. Slick Fetlock's Anatomy of Youthful Minds?

And this could actually be interfering in the research, too – at least the harmonizing angle of it, if not necessarily the chaos parasite branch of the study. Controlled conditions required as few barriers between Sweetie and displays of generosity in specific and harmony in general as possible. She had to do something about this. Which meant that she was going to have to stand up for Spike as if he were more than just portable and conveniently subservient rations.

It was an odd feeling. She wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

Don't get the wrong idea, Spike, she pleaded with him silently. This was for science.

“Sweetie, you know Spike's really sorry about what he did, right?”

Sweetie stared at her with such suspicious that Twilight might as well have been explaining how there was a concealed pit trap several feet in front of them, then directed her glare to Spike, who immediately tried to look very, very sincerely sad. As always when a child was intentionally trying to look sincere, Spike only managed to look amusingly ridiculous.

“Being sorry doesn't make my sis happy,” Sweetie said cautiously after a moment.

“Only you can make you happy,” Twilight quoted the Princess with perfectly-copied intonation. “If Rarity feels really hurt, then she has a right to feel that way, but that doesn't mean we all have to go hate Spike forever because of it. He's just a dragon, after all, and I wouldn't have brought him on this trip if I wasn't one hundred percent sure that he'll never, ever hurt anypony deliberately ever again.” She put some extra emphasis on that last line to drive the point home to Spike himself, whose eyes watered. Ah, the gullibility of prey species. Maybe saying it would make it true.

“Yeah, I guess. Sorry Spike.”

Err, an apology really wasn't necessary, but....

“Hey, if you can forgive me for making your sister wear a dorky mask, I'll forgive you for thinking I look delicious!”

“Deal!” Sweetie giggled while Twilight stared at the two of them, mystified. Then Sweetie's pupils contracted and she whipped her head over to Twilight. “Can I have some of that snack mix miss Twilight?”

“Sure, Sweetie, here ya go.”

The rest of the route to Fluttershy's home continued to be filled with Spike and Sweetie Belle's bickering... but it was the kind of bickering that didn't have any kind of sincere upset behind it anymore. In her role as neutral observer, emissary of the scientific method and adult supervisor alike, Twilight merely watched them, noting the details of their interactions. She tried to formulate theories on childhood development and exposure to unusual culinary circumstances as a backdrop to the overarching theory on the chaos parasite, but her mind refused to click together right. Maybe it was just because of Sweetie's earlier questions, but something about watching this... it hurt in a way she kind of liked.

That, too, was familiar, but from completely different circumstances, and the inadvertent mental comparison left her mouth dry no matter how much water she chugged from her travel canteen. Then a gentle curve in the road down a few hills lead them to a sight that quite blew away all other thoughts from Twilight's head.

“That... is a lot of food. I mean pets,” she corrected herself, grabbing the handkerchief Spike offered automatically and wiping drool away from both hers and Sweetie's mouths.

“Yeah, miss Fluttershy doesn't like anypony eating 'em though. I mean she won't stop you, but she'll look at you really sad and stuff and make you feel like you have a tummy ache so you stop yourself. Well, most of us stop. Scootaloo really likes to snack on the snakes. I don't like snakes, they're too crunchy.”

“I think snakes are alright, personally,” Twilight commented absentmindedly, eyes roaming over the bears and the cougars and the spiders and the lizards and all other things carnivorous.

They really should have been aggressive towards the other species encroaching on their territory, let alone the ponies, but they weren't. It was fascinating. Perhaps this was a side effect of the Element of Kindness that Spike was so sure Fluttershy had? To what extent could using an Element be conscious as opposed to subconscious? Was intentionally directing such an artifact's power even viable at all? Maybe that was why all the experiments had failed so badly, maybe it was just something you needed to let happen, like, like whatever that thing was that had just happened between Sweetie and Spike-

Twilight almost doubled over from a sudden stomach cramp, eyes watering.

“Twi! Are you okay?”

The nickname seemed all the more presumptive now somehow than it'd been back when there hadn't been other ponies around, especially young, impressionable ponies. All this inappropriate familiarity, argh, it was stressing her out and making her stomach hurt even worse. It had to be all the physical activity, she was so out of shape and not used to eating anything that didn't come from the castle kitchens or an upscale cafe....

“Twi?”

She shoved him away with one hoof, ignoring the hurt look he gave her.

“I've just got an upset stomach, stop hovering,” she snapped, made irate by the smell of his chubby dragon flesh so close to her. It wasn't like she was sick or anything! His eyes teared up, and Sweetie stared silently from the sidelines. Wait, no, this wasn't conducive to... to the research. That was why she felt so bad about it, it was a violation of basic environmental sterility. Her stomach cramp finally loosened up and she gave a sigh of relief. “Um, I guess that wasn't very nice of me, was it? Sorry, I'm sure I'll feel better once we get off our hooves. Sweetie, would you like to run say hello to miss Fluttershy while I double-check to make my equipment's all in order?” What was left of it, at least.

“Okay!” Sweetie scampered, hopping over several predatory mammals along the way and stealing a taste-testing lick from a passing weasel without so much as a pause.

She and Spike ran through the much-reduced checklist of her scientific gear, making sure what little she had left was still in good condition and ready for deployment.

“Hey Twi....”

“Yes, Spike?” she asked, suppressing her irritation at him slowing down the checklist.

“This doesn't hurt you, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean... I just started thinking... if you've all got little mini-Discords in you or whatever, then maybe they'd get mad if you suddenly started thinking about being nice to, uh, food and stuff. 'Specially if you'd had the mini-Discord in you for like tons of years. It doesn't hurt, does it?”

“That's an interesting line of inquiry, but no, I'm fine. It's just a stomach ache,” Twilight replied automatically without really thinking about whether or not it was true. Too much to think about already, she was so tired and hungry, had to isolate the variables instead of getting sidetracked by Spi- by the food's random daydreams. And it was not touching that he actually cared. It was annoying. He was smothering her with his crazy 'don't eat me'ness. “Anyway, item twenty-two, carbon-arc lamp....”

“Still triple A quality,” Spike confirmed happily. “Ya know, I dunno why you even wanted that.”

“I don't remember.” She tilted her head. “Oh well, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it! Item twenty-three...”

“Spike!”

“FLUTTERSHY!”

And with that, the sacred rite of the checklist was broken. Twilight was left to watch the bizarre sight of her emergency food supply running over to an enthusiastic but disconcertingly thin butter-yellow pegasus, the two of them hugging and nuzzling each other fondly.

“Oohhhkaaaayyyyy,” she muttered, quickly turning her eyes back to her equipment so she wouldn't have to deal with the indigestion the sentimental sight was giving her. Item twenty-four, item twenty-five, lalala....

When she felt up to it, she put everything back in the saddlebags and introduced herself to the pegasus.

“Hi, miss Fluttershy? I'm Twilight Sparkle-”

Fluttershy squeaked and tried to hide behind the (obviously) much smaller bodies of Spike and Sweetie.

“-Princess Celestia's student-” Twilight went on, a little confused.

Fluttershy squeaked again, somehow contracting inside herself to shrink.

“-and I'm conducting localized research on a pair of interrelated but distinct bio-arcane phenomena. Do you have a little time?”

“It's okay, Twilight's a nice pony,” Spike encouraged the pegasus, who straightened up the barest little bit.

“Um... I guess I have some time... but where did you find my poor little Spike?” Her voice was just barely audible now, far from the enthusiastic yell of earlier. She hugged the dragon to herself again, causing Spike's eyes to glaze from excessively comfortable snuggles.

“Hey! What does the food get hugs and not me?” Sweetie asked, hurt.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Sweetie, you can both get all the hugs you want,” Fluttershy soothed her, grabbing Sweetie with her free hoof, who giggled and squirmed and spat pink mane out of her mouth.

It was just a bit adorable and more than a bit strange.

“Um, yeah,” Twilight said slowly, fumbling for her sense of professionalism and missing by a good mile. “I actually met Spike while he was making a little trouble in Canterlot.”

“Oh no! Spike! I thought you said you were going to be a good little dragon!”

“Yeah, I lied,” Spike said back with a smirk.

“Not as much as you'd think, actually. He's been a very useful little emergency food supply since we met,” Twilight explained. Fluttershy's thawing demeanor suddenly froze over and for a brief but terrifying moment, Twilight felt like her entire soul was being swallowed by those huge blue irises. What was the problem?! Oh, wait, the 'food supply' thing. Right. Fluttershy was a... special... kind of pony. “I mean, I've basically been treating him like a research assistant and he's done a very good job of it,” she went on hastily, and whatever bizarre spell was in Fluttershy's gaze broke, allowing Twilight to breathe again with relief. “We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him, and from what he tells me, he wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, so I guess I owe you some thanks. So, uh... thanks?”

She knew she was rambling. This was not how it was supposed to go. But at least the strange pegasus didn't have a friggin' wax mask or anything else crazy. It was just going to be tough to remember that miss Fluttershy was a pony who didn't like to eat meat, as deranged as it sounded. A pony who lived with food all around her and didn't eat it. There was definitely something going on here, Spike was right about that much.

“Oh, you're welcome,” Fluttershy said, letting the two little ones squirm out of her grasp as she dropped her head, draping her face in a curtain of hair. “I've been so worried about Spike ever since he left. Rarity just hasn't been the same, and even Rainbow Dash and Pinkie have been very upset... but not, um, for the same reasons as me. I'm glad you've kept him safe. It's not always easy to, to, um....”

“Not eat a stick-to-your-ribs yummy baby dragon?” Spike piped up.

“That sounds about right,” Twilight agreed, and the three ponies laughed gently.

:Why don't you all come in and I'll fix us some tea and things?”

Fluttershy's cottage was as humble and cozy as it'd seemed to be from the outside, all warm wood and gentle curves and doilies. Very unlike Twilight's preferred lodgings, or anything remotely Canterlotian, but it had its own charm once you got over finding fur and feathers in unexpected places. But as it turned out, the tea had no mice, shrews, rats or other meat-based additives whatsoever, and the 'and things' part of the snack was... small salads. Without bacon. Whoever heard of a salad without bacon?!

“Yeah, she's like this,” Sweetie confided in Twilight over the munchies while trying to slip the contents of her salad bowl to a nearby dog – and then eat the dog, who was just a bit too quick to fall for the sudden snap of Sweetie's teeth. “It's why Rarity never does lunch dates with her even though they're friends and stuff. I think they mostly go to the spa.”

“I hope this is alright, I'm not really used to entertaining guests,” Fluttershy apologized.

Twilight smiled and ate a plain, totally no meat in it whatsoever vinaigretted tomato while Spike just watched and smirked like the little sadist he was.

“Oh, no, this is fine! It's... expertly prepared!” Twilight finally said, coming up with a reasonably honest compliment that wouldn't have to address the horrible lack of anything resembling bloody red protein. “I'm not really much of a cook myself.”

“She can make sandwiches and that's about it,” Spike offered completely ignoring Twilight's reactionary glare and causing Sweetie to giggle. “Sometimes I even wonder about the sandwiches.”

“Oh my.”

“You're exaggerating, Spike!”

“Remember that time you had to measure the crust?”

“It wasn't symmetrical! Diagonal cuts are tricky, especially with more than one layer of meat!”

“Oh my.”

“Anyway, miss Fluttershy, I suppose I should get around to explaining why we're wasting your time like this.”

“How could it possibly be a waste of time to be around my favorite little dragon and my favorite little filly?” Fluttershy asked, seemingly with total sincerity. Angel halos practically floated over Spike's and Sweetie's heads. “I'm just glad to see them both again. Sweetie, please stop trying to eat Mister Flufferwhiskers.”

Flufferwhiskers yowled and ran off in a clatter of pans and cutlery.

“I'm glad we're all enjoying ourselves, but this is actually very serious business.” And to show it, Twilight put on her serious business face. Fluttershy squeaked. “Okay, maybe not that serious...” She tried smiling and Fluttershy calmed down. There. “I've come from Canterlot on a research project to examine the possibility of discordant parasites affecting pony psychochemistry, as well as to try to determine the possible existence of the so-called Elements of Harmony, a half dozen old artifacts with similar influences, but positive instead of negative. Have you ever heard of either of these things before my mentioning them, ma'am?”

“Oh no... I don't think so. Unless the parasites you're talking about are lampreys? I've met some lampreys. They were very sweet little guys once you got to know them.”

“Errr, no, I don't think so.” Twilight was once again struck with the feeling of being inside the home of a madpony. Why did this keep happening? It was hard not to start counting Fluttershy's ribs and scream at her to eat a steak or something, for the love of sun and moon. “Spike theorizes that you might be the Bearer of the Element of Harmony called Kindness, because you're apparently so, well, nice.”

Fluttershy blushed and waved her hooves in immediate rejection of the concept. “Oh no! I'm sure there are much nicer ponies than me,” she objected while patting the uneaten dog on the head, seemingly out of pure reflex.

“Mmmhmm. And Sweetie Belle is here because she also appears to be a Bearer, currently estimated as Generosity. Sweetie, stop scraping your salad into my bowl.”

“Sorry!” Sweetie apologized with a huge blush at Fluttershy's hurt stare. “I was just trying to be, uh, generous!”

Twilight sighed. All this contamination. She'd be lucky if she could crank a single decent thesis out of it by the end.

“We're hoping that prolonged interaction can get some sort of spark going to confirm this theory, if you don't have any problems with playing with Sweetie for a while?”

“Of course I don't have any problems with it, that sounds wonderful. Sweetie, since you don't like your salad very much, why don't you help me pick out something from the garden that's more to your tastes?”

“Yaaaaay,” Sweetie said with a huge smile while her eyes turned to Twilight and said 'Help me!'

Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof.

“Maybe you'll get your Cutie Mark in gardening, Sweets,” Spike put in with an evil grin while Sweetie's face contorted in terror. “A great big rutabaga Cutie Mark....”

The garden was a small homebrew affair, clearly just for Fluttershy to use as a supplement for her groceries. Nonetheless, its very existence in addition to everything else going on with the pegasus was a huge clue as to the level of commitment Fluttershy had to her current... lifestyle.

Fluttershy was only a few moments through explaining to the four of them how to check a potato for bad spots when a drawn out grumpy squawk interrupted their gardening lesson. While Twilight, Spike and Sweetie looked around in all directions rather foolishly, Fluttershy straightened up with an assertive snap, honing in on the source of the sound immediately.

“Petra! Is that you? Petra?”

The pegasus hadn't used her wings once since Twilight had seen her... till now. With a skin and bone frame propelled with the almost erratic speed of a locust or a dragonfly, Fluttershy zipped through the air in a few short pushes of her wings, nearer to the where the trees of the Everfree Forest began to encroach on her backyard. Even those few flaps seemed to tire her, she was noticeably panting as she continued to call out questioningly, searching through bushes and shadows.

“Oh no! Petra! You poor thing!”

A foul, burping buGAWK rang through the meadow as Fluttershy took a chicken in her front hooves, lifting it to her shoulder. Twilight stared bemusedly while Spike trotted up closer to the spectacle, followed by Sweetie Belle.

“Is it okay? It doesn't look hur – HOLY JEEZ IT'S A SNAKE MONSTER THING!” Spike interrupted himself, jumping backwards and landing on top of Sweetie, who immediately collapsed from the weight.

“No it's not! It's a chicken! It clucks and has a beak and everything!” Sweetie insisted, squirming and flailing until she managed to get herself out from under Spike in the least efficient and most undignified way possible.

Taking stock of the situation, Twilight smiled.

“Actually, you're both right, sort of. It's a cockatrice – half chicken, half snake! I've never seen one this close before. Fluttershy, are you sure it's safe to hold one like that? I've heard they can turn ponies to stone.” Confound it, she had goggles designed just for such situations... back at Canterlot! She could have taken an extra pair of saddlebags, but noooo, Spike had said they wouldn't need them! Hah, never take advice from your meals-in-waiting.

“Oh no, not at all! Well, they can, I suppose,” Fluttershy consented reluctantly, cradling Petra closer to her chest. “But Petra would never do such a thing, would you Petra?”

Petra glared evilly over Fluttershy's shoulder, and the remaining two ponies and dragon twitched nervously in unison.

“Especially in her current condition! She must have scraped her bottom scales, she's got a bad-looking infection on her tummy. Poor Petra, that looks really painful! Why don't you come inside and sit on a nice soft pillow and we'll get you some ointment, okay?”

Twilight didn't really mind the research being put on hold, since it gave her a chance to examine a rather interesting specimen of a species she'd only read about in books. Sweetie immediately wanted to have a staring contest with the creature, which Twilight forbade, since Sweetie was technically her responsibility and she didn't need to give Rarity any more reasons to go dramatically unhinged, like returning her little sister to her in statuette form. Fluttershy insisted that Petra was completely safe and a 'complete sweetie pie,' but Twilight and Spike wore equally guarded expressions of cynicism at the pegasus's verdict on her ward's personality.

“I wonder what they taste like,” Sweetie asked of the ceiling while they all listened to Fluttershy rummaging in her medicine cabinet in the distance.

“Previous research studies in the area of exotic culinary arts have led ponies to discover that cockatrices taste just like chicken, only with an unpleasant chalky aftertaste. Kind of a shame, really. They seem to have a surprising amount of meat on them.”

“Ya know, it wouldn't kill you ponies to think about somethin' besides your stomachs for a change,” Spike said scathingly. “Especially since the 'food' can hear you talk about it and has magic pontification powers!”

Petra opened her beak to give a serpentine hiss, glancing over at Spike with a dignified but sluggish look of venom, as if to say 'When the time comes for me to kill you all, out of respect, I'll kill you last.' Or maybe that was just Twilight projecting her hungry thoughts onto the creature. It was hard to think with a stomach full of baconless salad, blech.

“I'm afraid I've got some bad news everypony,” Fluttershy broke to them as she drifted back in as silent and graceful and utterly unnoticeable as a dandelion seed. “I'm all out of the special ointment I need for treating Petra's infection and the market's not open today. Don't worry, though, Petra, I know where I can get some more! I already have most of the ingredients here, so I just need to fetch a couple herbs from the forest. It should only take an hour or two.”

“Cool. How can we help?”

“I guess Cutie Mark Crusader herb finders is better than gardeners. A little better.”

Twilight's mock-parental supervision alarm went off shrilly. She didn't even know she had one of those in her head until just now.

“Whoa, whoa, you two, I am not letting either of you go into the Everfree Forest! Sweetie, the Everfree Forest is far too dangerous for a little filly like you, and-”

“I'm not that little!”

“-Spike,” Twilight went on without pausing, “I am not sacrificing my emergency rations for some random forest animal to get their fangs in you. You have put me through too much trouble to not at least get a meal out of you one of these days, mister.” She blinked, then, realizing that Spike and Fluttershy were both staring at her with identical nonexpressions. “What?”

“Well when you put it like that I'm probably safer away from you anyway,” Spike said, blowing a raspberry.

“I'm sorry, Spike,” Fluttershy said with a heartwrenching vocal regret that seemed more properly reserved for live readings of romance novels. “But you really shouldn't come with me to the forest, it is dangerous. Don't worry, I'll be back really soon. And Twilight's certainly not going to eat you while I'm gone, are you Twilight?”

“I dunno, the disrespectful way he's acting-”

Twilight briefly drowned in Fluttershy's aqua-ringed pupils, pits into an infinity of something she didn't know, couldn't know, didn't and couldn't want to know.

“Miss Twilight, you aren't going to eat Spike while I'm gone, are you?” she asked again, much more firmly.

“No of course not, I'd never do something like that,” Twilight responded automatically, blinking and shaking herself afterward. She felt weird. What had just happened?

“Good.” Fluttershy nodded, mane swaying faintly. “Petra, don't you worry, I'll be back really soon. I'm sure you all can keep each other entertained until I get back, right?”

“Yes, Fluttershy,” Spike and Sweetie droned with the automatic apparent (whether genuine or not) obedience of the young to their elders. Twilight almost said it with them, she still felt a little odd in the head.

Wait, could this be Fluttershy's magic? The magic of kindness? Was it ocular-based, like some variants of traditional hypnotism? Oh, she hadn't even gotten time to do any proper experiments yet! She jumped up out of her seat to call to the pegasus urgently, but Fluttershy was already gone. The skinny little mare could move fairly fast when she wanted to, at least in short doses. Frustrating.

Twilight sank back into the coach, rubbing her forehead.

“Spike, Sweetie, has Fluttershy always been able to do that eye thing?”

“What eye thing?” the two young ones chorused, still in sync. They stuck their tongues out at each other, then Sweetie tried to bite Spike's, who dodged back, then they both broke into snickers. “Stop copying me!” they said next, doing it on purpose this time. Then they devolved into air-fighting each other with vaguely rude gestures.

Twilight Sparkle, student to Princess Celestia herself, straight A student... now a babysitter.

Why had she thought this stupid trip had been a good idea?

Oh, right. She hadn't. It had always seemed like a stupid idea. But she'd gone along with it anyway, because Spike just whined and whined and chipped away at her with his infernal optimism and helpfulness! If only he'd been a bad assistant, she could have eaten him weeks ago and her life would've been so much easier. So much easier.

And lonely, a part of her she hadn't known existed whispered.

Ridiculous. She worked hard to make Princess Celestia proud and that was all she needed. She didn't need friends, or talking food that liked her back, or a bunch of pets. She saw Shiny and Cadance every few months and her parents once or twice a year, that was good enough.

She was happy the way she was.

And she could eat Spike any time she wanted.

Her eyes drifted over to the now dozing Petra, with a belly of unhealthy green mixed up with the natural green of her scales. Just a few nasty-looking, flaking streaks of it right now, but no telling how much was on the inside, or how much it could grow if left untreated. Fluttershy was right to hurry if she cared about the creature, which for some strange reason, she did. Things could seem almost entirely alright with your meat on the outside except for a few odd spots, when on the inside, your prey could be dying sick. And most of the time they'd never tell.

Not like ponies.

Twilight shivered and dug in her saddlebags for more snack mix.

“Sweetie, Spike, do either of you want....”

Her eyes widened as she whipped her head around the room. The room that was entirely lacking in other ponies or in little baby dragons.

No, no, how could she be so careless?! They'd been so loud that she'd just tuned out their noise as a background thing, when had they just decided to walk off without telling her?!

“SWEETIE! SPIKE!”

She checked every room in the first floor, then outside, then back in to the second floor. They weren't there. They had just crept off while she'd been distracted for just half a blasted second, like thieves in the night! Spike had been around her long enough to know what the rules were! And Sweetie was a pony, she ought to have a bare minimum of sense! How could they do something like this to her?!

No, this was her fault. HER fault. A milkwater-mild pony like Fluttershy could corral tons of beasts, and Twilight Sparkle couldn't even keep track of a baby dragon and a filly. She was a bad pony, completely irresponsible, and the Princess was going to banish her to a rocky island devoid of trees or hamburgers or anything to read!

“Y-you didn't happen to see where they went, did you?” she asked Petra shakily, who tilted her avian head to one side scornfully and made a plainly fraudulent show of going back to sleep.

How quickly did fear transmute into fury.

She wasn't falling for Spike's little self-serving hoax, and she wasn't Fluttershy, either. Respecting other ponies' property was one thing, but the responsibilities of her position took precedent over some dumb little chicken headed critter's naptime, even if the critter was sick!

Twilight prodded the cockatrice firmly with a hoof.

“I asked you if you say which way they went,” she repeated icily. “Come on, Petra, Fluttershy would be really upset with you if you let anything happen to them just because you didn't feel like telling me! Did they go outside? Did they go to play hide and seek? Did they try to follow Fluttershy?! Well?!”

Throughout the interrogation, she'd been poking with her hoof a little more firmly each time, awakening and grumpying the cockatrice further until they were both glaring at each other with identical irateness, Twilight's teeth clenched, Petra's feathers ruffled. And as she said that last question, it occurred to Twilight that that very probably was what they'd done. If they'd followed Fluttershy, they were probably lost in the woods already. They could get hurt or killed!

It was okay, she had spells for this. She could teleport, she'd just jerry-rig a quasi-quantum navigational echolocation radar that could bounce off the branches and-

As she turned to leave at the breakneck trot of blind panic, Twilight tripped over her numbed back hooves and fell painfully onto her collarbone and jaw. With a snarling groan of frustration, she tried to get to her hooves... and stumbled. A quick look back told her why she was having trouble.

At some point during the one-sided conversation, Petra had turned her hind legs from fetlocks on down to stone.

Struck with horror, Twilight just gaped openmouthed for a second before trying to struggle to her hooves again, lighting up her horn and sending bolts of a crude material-softening spell (ordinarily used to help stale bread) in the direction of her back hooves. The spell didn't do anything. Then again maybe that was good – if she softened the rock till it broke off, she'd be crippled for life. If she wasn't already. It hadn't even hurt or tingled or tickled! How could a predator evolve with such a completely ridiculous means of assault?! It was completely unfair!

Turning her head to look back at Petra accusingly, she was met with non-mammalian eyes that were alien in their intelligence. Aware, but with priorities substantially different from her own. Well-behaved when she wanted to be, maybe, but Petra clearly had no interest in playing her rightful place in the pecking order of prey and ponies, and Twilight Sparkle was, after all, no Fluttershy.

This time Twilight felt the stone creeping up all of her legs equally, and contrary to all reason it felt as slimy and vile and slick as the moisture of Petra's stomach injection. It wasn't just the surface, it was hide and flesh and the bone beneath and all the veins throughout, stiffening and chilling into something that wasn't meant to support life.

In that beautiful, cozy little cottage, next to a cute little blue table with cute little daisies in a cute little vase on it, Twilight found herself as terrified as she'd been around Discord. Then her wits came back to her and she remembered who she was, what she was. Too bad, Fluttershy. Amends would have to be made later, but no way was this featherbrain going to get the best of Twilight Sparkle.

Petra was surprisingly agile at avoiding magical assault... but hadn't anticipated Twilight just using her flashy spells to lure the beast closer to her teeth.

The passing of seconds and minutes went vague for a bit, but her hooves didn't get any better. After some time, and Twilight really wasn't sure how much time, another pegasus burst into the room – but, to what seemed to be completely mutual surprise, Fluttershy was not involved.

“Hey, what're you doing chowing on Fluttershy's pet cockatrice?!” the blue pegasus yelled raspily, while Twilight just lifted her head from the gaping rupture in Petra's neck and licked her lips with guilty satisfaction.

Ugh, tainted meat. She just knew she was going to get sick from this.

Author's Note

Apologies for how long this took! This is actually one-halfish of what was originally going to be a much more plot-heavy chapter, but it was running quite long, and I decided to just cut it off here and get something out to put an end to the long wait I've put you guys through. Next one will be out as soon as I can possibly manage, and extra thanks to anyone who's still patiently following along!

FYI, I am not as happy as usual with this chapter or the next one still in progress, so if anyone actually wants to suggest changes, I would actually be open to making serious edits, for a change.

Fall

“What is WRONG with you?! You can't just go eating somepony else's food!” the blue pegasus yelled, getting right up in Twilight's face and shaking her as though that were the only thing wrong out of the many, many things that had gone wrong today.

A wave of immense guilt filled the unicorn, her guts already churning unpleasantly from both physical and emotional turmoil. She thought about how she'd violated Fluttershy's trust, perhaps irrecoverably, and forced the poor butter-yellow pegasus to venture forth in the dangerous wilderness for no gain whatsoever. She thought about how it would affect Spike, too... of all the ponies he'd met previously, Fluttershy was the only one he talked about with a sense of trust, and it was so obvious why. Could she even lose Spike over this?

A particularly painful roil of her innards made even the angry pegasus raise eyebrows, and thankfully had the side effect of getting Twilight's mind off of all this irrelevant sentimentality. What mattered was that she'd endangered the experiment, very unprofessionally, and now the Princess might not trust her anymore. She might even get sent back to... magic kindergarten! It was entirely possible, nay, probable, nay, CERTAIN that if she failed the Princess in so drastic and blatantly irresponsible a manner, there would be no choice but to banish her back to the dreariness of the classroom, where the teachers thought she studied too much and the other students kept being bothersome by trying to get her to go to parties! It was a fate worse than death and worst of all was imagining that look on the Princess's face. That look of disappointment. She'd only seen it once. Never again. Never again.

“You've got to help me!” she begged, grabbing the pegasus with stoned over hooves. “Please, I've got to make this up to Fluttershy somehow, it's jeopardizing the conditions of the study, and I've got to get Sweetie Belle and my emergency food supply back! They're lost out there and they could be hurt and it's all my fault and the Princess won't want me as her student anymore if I don't take care of this RIGHT NOW! And I CAN'T,” she went on as the pegasus took a breath to interject, “because I'm a CRIPPLE, maybe forever, but that's okay, I can be crippled forever as long as the experiment isn't a total loss, so... so....”

Her words ran out but her mouth kept moving vaguely as her brain steamed and fizzed with empty desperation. She had to say more. What else could she say? Could she draft the pegasus for a search party? Did she have the authority to do that? Would even the mere attempt make her unworthy of the very responsibilities entrusted to her, did the Princess expect her to take care of this herself? It was her responsibility, right? But did that mean that it was wrong to ask for help, or....

“Whoa, whoa, relax kid, you're gonna pant your lungs out if you keep this up,” the pegasus finally said with more than a little amusement, anger softening into mixed skepticism and sympathy. “Look, why don't you tell me what's going on and I'll help. What does the Princess have to do with anything and how do you know Rarity's kid sister?”

Twilight slowed her hyperventilation down gradually, eyes turning to her hooves.

“Oh, yeah, don't worry about that,” the pegasus added, following her gaze. “As long as they don't stone ya all the way, it wears off in a couple hours or something. You're not gonna be a cripple. But still, you shouldn't've ate Pete or whatever its name was. That was not cool.”

Well, that was one problem solved. And just about a million left. Whoo. Twilight sighed and slumped down awkwardly.

“I know, I'm sorry. I'm Princess Celestia's student, Twilight Sparkle. I'm here on a research expedition with my emergency food supply.” A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Uh... you wouldn't happen to be Rainbow Dash, would you?” How many blue pegasi with rainbow manes could there be, anyway?

“Oh, I see you've heard of me.” The pegasus literally puffed herself up, striking a pose with wings flared. One feather drifted loose and vaguely upwards, catching in the modest web of what Twilight strongly suspected was a brown recluse spider. “Have you been following my epic hunts? I keep meaning to get some egghead to publish 'em in a paper or something, but you know how it is when you're livin' large, no time for all that deskwork stuff....”

“Um, yes, that is exactly how I've heard of you,” Twilight said with a smile she hoped wasn't too obviously desperate. “I heard you catch more deer than the next ten Ponyvillans combined!” She had heard no such thing.

“Hah! Try the next fifty!” Rainbow Dash bragged, getting even puffier, if that was even possible. “So you lost your food, huh? What's Sweetie got to do with it and where's Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash lowered her wings and frowned slightly, a shadow passing over her face. “You didn't let them go alone anywhere, did you? Not that that's not totally okay,” she added quickly. “It's just, you know, Fluttershy isn't really an 'other ponies' kinda pony.”

“Well, Fluttershy went into the Everfree Forest to get some medicine.” Twilight tactfully omitted who the medicine was for, figuring that Miss Dash had reason enough to be mad with her already. No sense in burning bridges before you had to. “And I think my food supply and Sweetie – she's volunteered to be one of the variables for this experiment – followed her when I wasn't looking, they just vanished all of a sudden, and then I got... well.” She clunked her very, very heavy hooves against the floor. “You know.”

Rainbow Dash nodded.

“Right! No problem. Stand up, will ya?”

“Um, okay, but I'm not sure if I can walk like WAAAAHHH!” Twilight squealed as Rainbow Dash more or less rammed herself directly under Twilight's body from the side. “What are you doing?!”

“Quite squirming, you're making it harder to fly!”

“Why are you trying to fly with me on top of you?!”

“Look, do you wanna find Rarity's sister and Fluttershy and your food, or not? C'mon, you can be an extra pair of eyes, and nopony's faster than me. We'll have everypony back where they belong in ten seconds flat.”

“That is statistically very impro-”

“Ten seconds flat,” Rainbow Dash repeated firmly, and just like that, they were off.

Twilight had flown before, in balloons, in chariots, she'd even been levitated by Princess Celestia's own magic on a number of occasions. None of that compared to this. Rainbow Dash clearly disobeyed every rule and guideline about safe flying that Twilight had read from classic pegasi aerodynamic literature, blasting past – and in some cases, through – branches and clouds and pine cones and grass and bushes at speeds that were far worse than breakneck, they were breakeverything.

The air was razors, and she learned quickly not to breathe through her mouth (or spend too much air on screaming in terror). She could barely squint through her tear-filled eyes to see anything, and what little she did see was a mad blur of colors that made no sense. Things brushed past them or broke from their passage in a quickly-undecipherable patter of cracks and slaps and whacks, almost too fast for her to tell when or where she'd been hit. And even though she'd maneuvered around to clutch still-petrified hooves around the neck of her 'vehicle,' there was no mistaking that she was on a wild, wild ride that she had absolutely no control over. Through the chaos of air, though, she did manage to catch bits and pieces of Rainbow Dash muttering to herself urgently.

“Nope... not there... not there... maybe here... no, maybe over there... come on, come on, where are ya... quit hidin' on me!”

“Wouldn't-” Twilight tried to say, and choked on wind after the first letter. She tried again, speaking mostly through her teeth. “Wouldn't it help if you went a little slower?”

“Slower? Why would we wanna... go slower?” Rainbow Dash asked, absentmindedly swallowing an unlucky flying insect mid-sentence. At least, it had probably been an insect. Twilight had just seen a tiny black smear in the sky for a split second.

“Because I can't help you scout if you're going too fast for me to see anything!” Twilight got out with, to her satisfaction, a reasonable degree of irateness.

“Oh. Right.”

They stopped so suddenly that Twilight actually flipped upside down over the pegasus's neck hollering in terror. Fortunately the pegasus had quick enough reactions to bolt forward enough to get her seated again before gravity got involved any more than it already was. By a quick glance, they were some thirty feet above the ground, right in the middle of all the branches of the forest. No wonder she hadn't been able to see anything!

“You could use a little self-control, ya know,” Twilight said maybe a little more harshly than she meant to, her mood aggravated by her seemingly boiling intestines and the rapidly-intensifying sting of objects past having whipped against her skin at speeds no unicorn was ever meant to traverse.

“Hey, I have tons of self-control!” Rainbow Dash said back angrily, huffing, her entire body tensing under Twilight in offense. “Uh, yeah, I mean, I am on the weather patrol too, I know more than just getting food,” she added more contritely. “But yeah, not real used to having passengers, sorry. So what's this experiment you're doing with Sweetie and Fluttershy? You're not poking them with electrical things or anything are you?”

“I wish,” Twilight replied with a pout as they glided along at a much more reasonable pace, zigzagging through likely-looking paths and openings in the wild plant life. “But actually we're leaning heavily on psychometrics at the moment. We – I mean I am testing two separate theories regarding the potentiality for the spontaneous manifestation of magical artifacts relating to harmonious interplays of emotion, and the possibility of discordant parasites exerting a psychosomatic effect on the subject's brain through the digestive system. I know, it sounds farfetched, but-”

“I have no idea what the hay you just said.”

“Oh. Well, uh...” How would Spike say it? “I'm trying to find out if ponies can create magical objects of being nice to each other or are infested with bugs that make them hungrier than usual.”

“Huh. Sounds like a buncha weird egghead stuff to me,” Dash said disinterestedly, pausing to snap at a nearby songbird and getting nothing more than a few tail feathers for her trouble. “Are you sure they're out here? I don't see anypony.”

“I didn't hear them in the AAAH I'M SLIPPING!” Twilight interrupted herself, clinching a tighter hold on the pegasus's neck after a particularly steep turn around a large tree.

“Relax, we're fine,” the pegasus snapped back in irritation, flapping down to a barely more controlled swoop.

“Fine?! I almost fell!” Twilight half-shouted, feeling especially vulnerable between guilt over killing Petra, tension over what Dash would do when she bumped into Spike, the stone hooves, possibly being sent back to magic kindergarten... everything.

“I won't let you fall,” Rainbow Dash said almost coldly. It didn't seem like a characteristic tone of voice for her.

“I didn't say you would, just-”

“I said I won't let you fall, alright?!” Dash yelled so loud that assorted concealed wild animals made an assortment of aggravated wild sounds, fleeing in all directions in a radius of branch ruffling.

“Okay,” Twilight conceded, not wanting to fight. “Maybe we should check back at the house, though,” she added after a very awkward pause that had had nothing in it but Dash's pants and wing flaps and the beating of their separate pulses eerily close to each other. “Just real quick, so we can make sure they didn't climb on the roof or something crazy.”

“Yeah, that Sweetie's a little ninja pony sometimes, especially when she's around her friends. Is your food thing a total pain in the flank too?”

“He has his moments. Um... Rainbow Dash, wasn't the house that way?”

“No way, it's totally this way! Right past this tree here and over this rock and... huh, okay, maybe it was over here and...”

Twilight let the pegasus zip around and corkscrew like a madmare for a bit while she kept herself busy trying to think of a magical spell to suppress despairing groans. This was the worst day she'd had this year that hadn't had magical chaos beings in it, by far.

“Man, it's this forest!” Rainbow Dash finally burst out, rubbing her hooves into her head angrily. “It's all twisty turvy and junk! I swear the trees are makin' faces, laughin' at us! But I'm only turned around because you got me thinking about our path the wrong way. Maybe if I got straight up and-”

“BEES!” Twilight screamed, thrusting a stony hoof up at a dark hanging hive.

“BEES?!”

“BEES!”

Rainbow Dash reacted fast enough to avoid colliding with the hive. Unfortunately, Everfree Forest bees were apparently very, very aggressive, and that resulted in another five minutes spent purely running away from insectile buzzing doom.

Safety came at the cost of the complete abandonment of whatever was left of their sense of direction. It was nothing but oddly unfamiliar species of trees everywhere, and creepy critter sounds like mutant frog-owls croak-hooting, and dark shadows with glowing eyes in three separate colors.

They panted together and collected what was left of their wits. Rainbow Dash couldn't exactly cling back on Twilight in their current positions, but she was sure looking like she would if she could.

Don't say it, Twilight.

Don't say it.

You've got enough things between you as it is.

And remember what the Princess told you about your sarcasm issues.

“So... when you said ten seconds flat, you actually meant you were going to get us totally lost in a dangerous untamed wilderness in ten seconds flat, I guess.”

“We're not lost! I know right where we are!”

“Which is?”

“In the Everfree Forest.”

Twilight Sparkle glared at the back of Rainbow Dash's head as the pegasus stared resolutely ahead, willing the air between them to burst into smoldering flames of frustration molecule by molecule. Glared and glared and glared until those blue ears and rainbow-maned head finally drooped.

“Okay, I'm sorry, alright? But seriously, I get, uh, turned around here all the time, it's no big deal unless we run into like a manticore mom protecting her kids or something. Or the nests of eyeball spiders. Or the really big timber wolf packs. Or those vines that suck out your bones and build webs out of-”

“As fascinating as the local wildlife is, can we please focus on a productive search pattern?” Twilight broke in a trifle desperately, hoping to stop her companion before she got to the part that inevitably involved snakes in some fashion.

“Oh yeah, sure. Lessee, if we turn left here and go all zig-zaggy, we ought to cover a good bit of ground without missing anything, right?”

Twilight nodded wearily and they went onwards. Was it her imagination, or was it getting darker? It couldn't be, it was far too soon for evening to be approaching. Then again, the Everfree Forest did seem to behave by its own rules, for all she knew, that included chronology too!

“So how long've you known Fluttershy?” Twilight asked her ride after a while, partially to gather potential research data, and partially to keep the creepy animal noises from freaking her out too much.

“Ever since flight camp. Hey, when Flutters left, she took her medicine with her, right?”

“Her medicine?”

“You know, the tea stuff.”

Oh, right. Tea. Twilight's brow furrowed as she tried to remember... had Fluttershy taken any tea with her, or not?.

“I can't remember,” she admitted. “She was only planning to be gone for a little while, is it really important?”

“No, no, it's fine,” Rainbow Dash said lightly, but it was a strained lightness, like a spiderweb flexing under the weight of a sparrow. “It's totally fine.” There was a momentary quiet, during which Twilight tried to read the facial expression of the back of a pony's head. Didn't work so well. “Sweetie, you out there?” Rainbow Dash called, just a little concern leaking past her bravado.

“Sweetie Belle?” Twilight joined in, considering the risk in using Spike's name and wondering if it were better to forewarn the pegasus or just let her find out as a surprise. Nothing but bad choices.

Calling out for the 'missing' ponies (ironically, most likely less missing than the two of them, by this point) didn't get any results other than an unnerving increased interest from the local critters, so they quieted back down and stuck to searching by sight. Twilight set up a very basic echolocation spell that she was just barely able to manage from her awkward position, bouncing the humming pulses of purple firefly light between tree trunks and vines, finding only things that she really rather would not find in the process. Spiders should not get that big.

“Yeah, we've been hanging around each other for years, she's pretty cool,” Rainbow Dash broke the silence this time, warily, her voice absentminded as she focused the bulk of her attention on keeping them moving through a decidedly unsafe hunting ground safely. “I dunno what kinda stuff you're expecting to get out of her for your experiment, though, she's not magical or anything... unless you count how she talks to critters all the time, I guess.”

“She seems to like to talk to them more than eat them,” Twilight offered. “Like pets. And one of the artifacts I'm looking for is supposedly the embodiment of kindness, so....”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It's dumb though. I mean, she doesn't eat enough. You saw her. Nopony can live like that. I'd get it if she just had a few special pets or something, but it's like everything's a pet to her. I bring her stuff all the time, and she still just....” Rainbow Dash's voice trailed off and she shook her head in wordless frustration. “Even when she eats it, she just looks so sad.”

“I wonder if she's always been this way, or if something changed her,” Twilight mused aloud. “Sweetie, the other research subject, seems to be perpetually... enthusiastic, but I don't know if that alone is enough to qualify her for generosity. But we need more data points and that's just what Fluttershy is. If only I could have talked to her a little longer!”

“She's always been kinda weird. But...” Twilight felt the muscles of the pegasus beneath her stiffen subconsciously. “...she didn't really go crazy over the whole critters thing till she, um, had an accident back at flight camp. She... had a little fall off a cloud.”

“Wow, that must've been terrifying for her! It couldn't have been that high, though. I mean, she doesn't have any scars and she's not exhibiting any visible traits of mishealed bones or any other long term injuries....”

Rainbow Dash's body remained stiff as a board, wings the only thing limber about her as they flapped the two of them between vaguely ominous tree after vaguely ominous tree.

“Yeah, I guess. But nopony could find her for days and days. I dunno the details but they think she hit her heard. I, I was gonna help look for her, but they wouldn't let me. And I had stomach cramps real bad anyway.”

Stomach cramps. Something about that struck a dull note in the back of Twilight's mind, but she couldn't quite figure out why. She managed to snatch a leaf with a small tree lizard on it as they passed it by, and she chewed and swallowed the squirmy little thing thoughtfully.

“So ever since then she's been interested in animals?”

“Yeah. Like I said, not really a other ponies pony.” Rainbow Dash hesitated, the whoosh of her wings the only sound for a second. “The pony who first found her... I dunno the deal, exactly, but apparently she and Fluttershy got into a fight. I saw the pony after, a little bit, and she was covered with bites.”

“I have a little trouble picturing Fluttershy as a bitey little brat as a filly,” Twilight admitted with a nervous giggle.

“Not like that. It was... look, never mind,” Rainbow Dash interrupted herself, tone switching from dark to light in an instant. “Anyway, she takes that drink now to keep her nerves calm and stuff. It's no big deal but she needs it at least a couple times a day or she gets all... twitchy.”

“So, long term neurological problems could be a factor. That's interesting. Maybe I can talk to her physician. Do you know what the medicine's called?”

“Yeah, it's called none of your beeswax. What does any of this have to do with your experimenty stuff anyway? Like I said, Fluttershy's not magic or anything, s'not like she's a unicorn. And just because she acts a little, a little different doesn't mean she's got a bug in her or something gross like that!”

“I didn't mean it like that! I'm just trying to gather background information, that's all. Why are you getting so upset?”

“Oh, I see how it is. You think Rainbow Dash is too busy being cool and catching dragons and cockatrices and phoenixes to have any time to get her friends' backs, right? You think I'd just abandon a buddy, even if she's a total wimp, so you can come down from Canterlot and poke her with your weird unicorn needles and electrogizmos?”

“Sweetie Belle broke most of my electrogizmos anyway! Look, I don't know what exactly is going on with Fluttershy and why you're so edgy about it, but this research expedition is bigger than any one pony. I'm not trying to learn more about Fluttershy because I think she's sick or anything, I just want to get an idea of how she thinks, what drives her to act the way she does. Does she really only eat vegetables all the time?”

“I bring her stuff, you know, jerky, bacon bits for her – blech – salads, burgers, hotdogs, protein shakes... y'know, real food. And that Rarity chick takes her out to restaurants sometimes and makes her order something fatty. But you have to watch her like a hawk or she'll just pick at it and move it around her plate and not eat a single bite.” The pegasus lifted her head up and tilted a hoof up at her brow. “I don't see any more bees or killer vines or anything, I'm gonna try and look up over the trees again, okay?”

Twilight followed Rainbow Dash's eyes, noting a perilous tangle of thorns, five-foot-wide venus flytraps and countless crisscrossing branches thicker than their hooves, the sky itself thoroughly blockaded.

“Those branches look pretty thick. I think it'd be-” Safer. So much safer. “-faster if you put me down first.”

“Awright, but nothing better get you in the half of a half of a second it'll take me to scout around!”

No point in bickering even on something as important as chronological math, such things were clearly beyond the able-bodied but less than studious pegasus.

“Nothing's going to get me. I hope,” Twilight added to herself in a dark mutter, setting up a telekinetic force field bubble around her as she was set down not-very-gently on a patch of mossy rock.

The very instant Rainbow Dash started to drift upwards, a flood of rain struck down through the branches with every bit of the effortlessness that the rays of Princess Celestia's own sun had somehow failed to muster. It was a violent downpour like liquid spearheads, immediately plastering Twilight almost totally to the ground. Rainbow Dash, visible as a blob of blue in the midst of gray, tried to continue ascending for just a moment, and then gave up, landing so fast and awkwardly that she nearly cracked her head – on Twilight.

“Oh, for the love of Celestia's-”

Twilight's glare pierced the rain as the rain had pierced the trees, brief but filled with unspoken promises.

“Uh, Celestia's very nice mane,” Rainbow Dash continued growlingly, causing Twilight to nod approval. “Could this day possibly get any worse?!”

“Don't jinx it! Come on, let's find an outcropping to huddle under or something!”

As nasty as the rain was, Twilight had hopes that it was localized and hopefully short-lived. They might've been practically drowning in air right now, but the day in Ponyville and even at Fluttershy's cottage on the outskirts of the forest had held no such ominous weather. Chances were good that it was just the Everfree being the Everfree, and poor Spike and Sweetie and Fluttershy wouldn't get drenched like them.

Sweetie and Fluttershy. It didn't matter if Spike got wet. It wouldn't hurt the meat. It was fine. It was fine. And if she couldn't help but picture his eyes staring at her, huge and sad as his little body shivered from cold, that was just part pf the problem of spending too much time with him. She should never have taken him on this trip. Or gone on this trip, for that matter.

They did better than an outcropping, although it was at the not insignificant cost of Twilight's previously unscraped kneecaps and Rainbow Dash's previously unbruised fetlocks. Plodding through the rain that quickly fell so hard and so consistently that they no longer felt much beyond their own chattering teeth, they found a nearby cave that was shallow, dry, stable, and most importantly empty of any traces of life. The two of them quickly got very close together in the very back of the cave where the rain could only reach by way of sound, a steady roar like the ocean in their ears broken only by the regular rise and fall of the howling, whistling wind.

“Wasn't even a storm scheduled for today,” Rainbow Dash said after enough silence to make things awkward again (if they had ever stopped being awkward in the first place). “Pff.”

“Everfree weather is wild, like the forest is, remember?” Twilight looked at her equally drenched companion carefully. A pegasus trying to look cool while also being evasive and very, very wet did not, in fact, look very cool at all. She just looked absurd. “You do hunt here all the time, right?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah! It just slipped my mind is all.”

Twilight nodded, figuring it better than saying any of the many things that were on her mind, and sighed, slumping against the back of the cave, dirtying her coat with the granules of muck mixing up with the rainwater, and not caring. She pulled her front hooves up and looking at them, blinking some water out of her eyes even as a seemingly endless supply of it continued to drip from her mane. The petrification seemed like it was wearing off. Already, she was getting some feeling back in her lower ligaments, and could flex her legs more than previously. Petra's dying curse had not been a lasting one.

Fluttershy was going to be so upset...

She sighed heavily, and couldn't even hear it through the rain.

“This is really lame. And boring. Which are pretty much the same thing, right?” Dash called, half-yelling to make herself heard even though they were practically cuddled up against each other. Dash's body did indeed have the streamlined muscle tone of a regular hunter, so it wasn't all fibs.

“Yeah, we're not exactly having a barrel full of laughs here.”

“Wanna tell ghost stories?”

“We can barely hear each other and you want to tell stories?!”

“How's this?!” Rainbow Dash brayed right in Twilight's ear, causing the unicorn to wince, ear flicking back reflexively. “Uh, sorry, this better?” she tried again, lowering her volume.

“Yeah, I guess,” Twilight responded, lifting her mouth up briefly to Dash's ear. “Kinda awkward though.”

“Filly, every single thing about this situation is awkward, but ya don't see me cryin'.” To punctuate the point, Dash shook off her mane. Twilight chose to believe that the fact that that got her even more wet was completely unintentional, for the smallest of self-delusions were the rock-solid foundations of sanity.

Realization struck Twilight like a thunderbolt at the exact moment an actualthunderbolt crashed down unnervingly close to them, causing her to jump so high she almost smacked her head. She had completely forgotten that Spike had said the pegasus had been in his Discord-inspired dream too. The little dragon had just assumed that her placement had been erroneous because of how things had turned out with Rarity, but a sample of one was worth exactly nothing from a scientific perspective. Here she was in a perfect position to psychoanalyze a potential candidate for an Element. And best of all, Rainbow Dash had no escape route.

Not that Twilight could really understand why ponies would want to escape from science anyway.

She couldn't come off too strong, though. Dash seemed like the kind of pony who might take a question personally or clam up if the wrong thing was said. Where would be best to start? Probably Fluttershy, as another prospective Element-Bearer. Eking out any potential contact with other candidates was also important.

“So, you've known Fluttershy for a long time, what would you say her defining attribute is?”

“Wussiness,” Rainbow Dash replied without hesitation.

No, don't grind your teeth in frustration, Twilight Sparkle. That was your fault for asking such a vague question. Proper investigation demanded vocal precision, just like her few unbusted instruments required regular calibration.

“Okay, what about positive attributes, though?”

“Oh. Niceness, I guess,” Rainbow Dash said after a pause. “I'm always having to get her to stick up for herself 'cause she doesn't wanna be rude or loud or anything like that. She'd let a pony walk all over her without me around to show her how it's done, lemme tell ya.”

A pity bragging wasn't an Element of Harmony. Could this pony go even five seconds without boasting? It was starting to get annoying. Twilight pushed aside the irritation as an offense to objectivity and moved on.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. What do you think she'd say about you if I asked her that question?”

“Oh man, what wouldn't she say about me! I'm the best hunter, best flier, best fighter, best wrestler and best everything else you ever thought of in Ponyville or anywhere else!”

“Well of course you are,” Twilight replied with all her steadily rising venom hidden behind a careful smile and a tone of voice she'd learned from the Princess for dealing with salesponies who wouldn't take no for an answer, “but does Fluttershy really care about all that stuff? You're probably friends because of deeper, more personal qualities shared between you two, am I right?”

Deep pink eyes locked onto hers momentarily before shifting away, all of Rainbow Dash's bluster immediately killed in favor of a serious rigidity that left her looking (and feeling, they were so close together) more like a gargoyle watching over a tower than a pony.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. We're friends 'cause we just are, okay?” Rainbow Dash said, her voice wooden and clumsy. “Can we talk about something else?”

Twilight knew what the polite thing to do was, and she knew what her investigations required her to do, and those two things were not the same. She considered how much trust the Princess would lose in her if she came back from all of this empty-hooved. She considered how much trust she most likely had already lost from Rarity by putting her sister in danger, or Fluttershy by killing that stupid faux chicken dinner. She had gone out of her way to be nice to Rainbow Dash even when Rainbow Dash hadn't returned the favor, but this... was too important. She had to discover something important out of this expedition, maybe not for the reasons Spike thought, but she was invested now, darn it!

“Rainbow Dash, I know this is a really strange situation to have a heart-felt talk about your life in, but I could really use any background information between you and Fluttershy that you'd care to give. I mean, did you know, for example, that one of the relics I'm looking for is the embodiment of loyalty to one's friends? You and Fluttershy are two totally different ponies and yet you've been hanging around each other for years. You've kept her from retreating into a shell, fleeing from pony society to spend her time with those animals, even though she's your polar opposite temperamentally. That's pretty impressive loyalty if you ask-”

Dash jerked up abruptly and said something that was drowned out by another boom of thunder.

“What was that?!”

“I said, shut the hell up!” Rainbow Dash yelled clearly, leaving Twilight staring with her jaw hanging vaguely open. The pegasus walked closer to the jagged mouth of the cave, heedless of the rain drenching her face. It took Twilight a very long while to figure out that not all the water dripping down the pegasus's face was from the rain. “Loyalty, yeah right! I'm a pony so loyal I knocked my friend down off a cloud and then stuffed my face instead of going to help her! She could've been smashed a pancake and I just, I just....”

Rainbow Dash shook her head angrily and stomped a hoof, putting such force into it that she powderized the moss directly beneath into a small green cloud.

“Toldja we shoulda talked about something else. Go find your 'harmonious emotion' junk with some ponies who aren't jerks like me. I'm goin' out to find a squirrel or something, be back in a sec.”

“Rainbow Dash!”

It was folly to hunt in these conditions, let alone in a place like this. And Twilight, for her part, would feel substantially less safe without anypony else around. Twilight rushed towards the pegasus, but Rainbow Dash was running off, as much fleeing from her as anything else, right into that nigh-solid mess of cascading water. Only a few feet and Twilight already couldn't see her anymore.

“Rainbow Dash!”

“RAINBOW DASH!”

Twilight let out a scream of rage she couldn't hear through the weather and brought both still-petrified forehooves down on the ground. This was not an intelligent move on her part, causing her to slip and stumble down on her side into over an inch of solid water that was barely distinguishable from the air at this point. Spluttering, spitting mud out of the side of her mouth, she dug in with her back hooves and tried to regain her balance, but only found loose dirt that gave way with all the slipperiness of stereotypical quicksand.

Only by the third try could she actually get to her feet.

And at that point she realized that, in her wild flailings, she'd completely lost her sense of direction.

No, she wasn't lost. It was okay. Don't be scared. She was a well-equipped adult unicorn with years of learning at the hooves of the best teacher money couldn't possibly buy at her disposal. She'd just calm down, take a deep breath – spit out the water she had inadvertently almost drowned herself in by taking a deep breath – and then walk in a slow circle, gradually increasing it to a spiral. She couldn't possibly miss the cave. Even a foal like Sweetie Belle couldn't possibly miss the cave after just a few paces.

“Rainbow Daaash?!” she called out again hopelessly to distract herself from the lump in her throat.

Pace after careful pace she took, trying to memorize the ground by the feel of it under her hooves even though it was all just mud and rock and water. It was just a little rain, rain never hurt anypony. It wasn't like she was Fluttershy after a fall off a cloud as a filly, helpless and hopeless in a strange world she didn't understand. She was Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's personal student, and she wasn't going to let a foul day make her panic and run around screaming like she'd just seen a murderer.

Through the curtains of rain, she bumped into something solid. Something yielding. Twilight stopped and stared, and caught an outline of long mane and the front of a pony, a ghostly thing. Wow, that rain had really done a number on Dash's mane, hadn't it?! She was going to yell at that pegasus so much....

Lightning flashed, and instead of Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle saw Fluttershy drenched in rain, the one eye visible through the mane widened with a shrunken iris. In her mouth she clenched and gnawed on a hooved leg, and through the rain there was just enough visibility to see small tufts of white fur on the nearest patch of it. The rain washed away a lot, but didn't quite seem to be able to reach the grooves between Fluttershy's teeth, still red from worrying at the flesh.

Twilight screamed.

Clear Blue Skies

Unnatural Selection

Clear Blue Skies

The occasional encounter his toes had with fragments of chalky rock in the middle of all that sand at least helped to remind Spike that he wouldn't starve. Minerals were here plentifully, if he wanted to dig to find them. Not right now, though. Not in the open. And not in the day, when the sun was high in the sky.

The ponies loved to play when the sun shone warmly and clear, like a beacon pointing out their prey.

He couldn't really remember how long it'd been since he'd felt grass between his toes. A long time. Going out to the wastelands, to the barren, rocky places, had seemed like a good idea. Less life, sure, but less for THEM to live off of too, right? But it hadn't turned out like that. His great big idea had turned out to be pointless. They were here too, just like they'd been in the forests and the plains and the grasslands, and for some reason they always seemed to think he was a choice hors d'oeuvre. Maybe it was because he was kinda pudgy. Not his fault most dragons his age still had tummies! Totally not his fault. Especially since he was running off whatever he ate in gems all the time. Every day. In hopes of finding an escape, a sanctuary, a hiding hole that never came. He hadn't even seen another living thing he could talk to safely, dragon or anything else, for at least a year, he guessed.

Even in the middle of his brooding, as he trudged wearily through the countless grains of sand, Spike's eyes kept flicking up to the sky. Watching for very specific shapes. The really fast ones, he wouldn't see them if they wanted him, of course. He wouldn't see them until they were already trying to kill him. But most of the pegasi were slow, lazy or simply patient. Like vultures, they preferred to circle and wait. That was good for most of the time, because it gave him opportunities to make himself look like tough meat. Barricade hiding spots, set his back to defensible locations, sharpen his claws very deliberately. One of these days he might even learn how to breath fire. In other ways, it was bad, though, because it made him feel safe. It was when you felt safe that the really nasty ones came at you. You couldn't let your guard down against those warmblooded meat-chompers. Not for a second.

A few birds were around, but nothing pony-shaped. He was okay. Other than dark bird-shapes, it was clear blue skies all the way. He heaved a sigh and licked cracked lips, thinking back to that time he'd found a waterfall. The water had been cool but not cold, with a white, flecky foam that would have put any cider to shame, and there'd been a rainbow stretched across the middle, like a shimmering, multicolored lie about how beautiful the world was.

Waddling over the biggest dune yet, he groaned in immense relief, his forked tongue reaching out almost a foot as he saw that the other dunes ahead were covered in rocky outcroppings. Gemstones could be in them, shade from the sun, and cover from pegasi. It was the best he'd seen in days. He should've gone to the freaking swamp like that river serpent with the mustache had suggested. But nooo, Spike had to be Spike and do his own thing! So rocks were as good as it was gonna get.

A little limestone would go down nice. Dare he hope for some nice crispy geodes, with that satisfying pop as he bit down to their central cavities like crunchy dumplings? Even turquoise was a possibility, but better not to get your hopes up. He'd be happy with a mid-grade limestone and maybe some chalcedony to wash it down with.

The buzzing in his ears turned into voices, and Spike froze with the instincts of somedragon who'd seen even the most minor careless gestures cause death too many times. It didn't sound like the typical high, cutesy pitch of ponies, though. It sounded deeper, rougher. Too harsh even for most stallions, and louder, as though from bigger throats. Daring to hope just the littlest bit, he crept forward with measured steps, bobbing his whole body and making sure his tail didn't impact the ground to tumble so much as a pebble. Three voices, just over the next big hunk of rock. Definitely boys, whatever they were. Griffins? He'd seen at least one herd of mustangs around, and griffins loved their horseflesh.

No, not griffins. Peeking over the very edge of the crumbly granite by skimpy centimeters, he saw telltale scales poking out in triangular shapes. Raising his head an inch more, than another inch, and he was sure of it. Not griffins or stallions or even changelings. It was dragons! He'd finally found some brothers and sisters!

Tears in his eyes, Spike ran forward before he remembered himself and slowed, holding his hands up peacefully as the four reared up against him, fangs and claws readied.

“Hey guys... what's up?” he asked with a nervous smile, but his eyes were all over those yummy-looking geodes. Some of them weren't even cracked yet. Cracking them open was the best part. “Me, I'm just walking around, taking in the sights, you know. All that swell... dirt and stuff.”

“Get outta here, moocher,” the tall red one growled. He seemed to be the leader by his posturing. “This is our stash. You want gems, go find your own like a REAL dragon.”

“Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what I've been doing my whole life,” Spike snapped back irritably. He was normally a lot more laid-back, but after you walked around a bleached lifeless sand pit for a while, it got on your nerves. He hadn't even had anything to drink since yesterday, and the water'd been dirty then. “Not like I need you to help me find something to eat, I just wanted to see what was happening, that was all.”

“Whoa, whoa, looks like we got ourselves a real TOUGH baby dragon here,” the one with blonde hair covering his eyes joked, hands held out as if in apology. “I think I even see a widdle itty-bitsy scar on 'im!”

Spike had forgotten about the whitened scratch on his right haunch. He couldn't even remember what he'd gotten it from. Probably a cactus or something. But hey, if it helped them respect him a little, why not? “Yeah, I got that from a little argument with either manticore or a chimera, I don't remember which,” he said coolly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Blondie and fatty looked convince, but the tall red one just snickered. “Right, and after that you did dentistry on a hydra. S'all good though, I gotta have a LITTLE respect for anyone brave enough to lie to somedragon who could pound him into mush. Here, this quartz is all junk anyway.”

Red tossed Spike a hunk of crystal, which he snapped up with an appropriate level of viciousness, gnashing his teeth ferociously so that he looked like he belonged with this older, stronger (if not too bright-looking) teenaged dragons. Yeah, he was tough stuff, alright. The toughest little wingless baby dragon you ever saw. And nothing was tougher than knowing when to run away, right? That was tough with your BRAINS, not your brawn.

“The name's Garble,” Red said companionably, letting out a belch. Spike tried not to wince. Unnecessary sounds like that weren't a good idea, but whatever, it wasn't like he'd seen anything dragonivorous around lately. “Big brown's Raggle, and the dragon with the dumb haircut's Frock.”

“I'm Spike!” He pulled up a smooth rock and turned their triangle into a lopsided square. It was good to be among dragons again. People of any kind that didn't want to hurt him, really. Numbers were always good, made him feel safe.

“We were tellin' each other stories while we're noshin', lil rookie. You think you can contribute?” Frock asked, flicked splintered shards of minerals into his mouth like popcorn.

“Sure. I mean, I think I know some good ones. What kinda stories?”

Raggle grinned. “Scary stories.”

“Terrifyingly true tales of murder and mayhem,” Garble said, leaning in with what was supposed to be a sinister pose, but his expression just made it goofy. “You know, blood and guts and all that stuff.”

“Aww, I was hoping for a nice romantic com-” Spike started to mumble, then changed his mind when he saw how weirdly they were staring at him. “I mean, blood and guts, yeah, what dragon could ask for anything else! Flying body parts and entrails and screaming stuff. Yeah, can't get enough of it.”

“Eh, I don't think our little rookie knows what it's all about,” Frock said, scratching his jaw and letting a large patch of dried scales fly.

“Needs a demo,” Raggle opined, bobbing his head like it was on strings. His belly jiggled in minor fleshquakes with the movement.

“W-well maybe if I had an example so I know what you guys go for,” Spike suggested hesitantly, hoping it wouldn't make him seem less cool.

He needed to keep them impressed or at least tolerant. They were probably his best hope of survival in this wasteland. Eyes roaming to confirm the safety of their position (something he couldn't help but notice they weren't putting any effort into), he satisfied himself in their viewpoint lacking big blindspots where earthbound predators could creep up on them. The skies were all clear, too. Well, not there were a few specks in the blue, but too far off to tell what they were. Just more birds probably.

“Alright, it was my turn anyway, rookie. It's your lucky day. I'll get the ball rolling and we'll see if you can pick it up from there.”

Garble stretched with a massive series of crackles along the bones in his back while the other two settled in to munch handfuls of gems as they listened. Spike kept his portions small, so he could hear easily without the crunching in his mouth getting in the way.

“Years and years ago, everydragon near the borders of gem-rich Equestria saw a rainbow-colored explosion in the sky. Now, that sounds lame, but this was one intense explosion. Some of them were even blinded by it, and we're talkin' about a species that can skinny dip in lava with our eyes open!”

Spike nodded along, noticing that Raggle had pulled a dehydrated to petrification muffin out of his belly button and was chewing on it with cracking sounds almost as loud as the gems had been. Man, it looked like blueberry, too. His favorite.

“But that was just the beginning. Somedragons were smart and figured it was good to hibernate with their hoards for a while. Others weren't so smart, or so lucky. They would pay the ultimate price for sticking around to see what was next. You wanna guess what came next, Spike?”

“Well, since it's near Equestria, it probably has to do with ponies, right?” he guessed logically.

“Half a point for you, shortie! You were close. It wasn't PONIES... it was pony. Ever since that explosion, dragons just started vanishing day after day. One by one. And the thing of it was, no one could even tell why or how it was happening! Two dragons would be walking along, having a good farting contest, and suddenly one of them wouldn't be there anymore. Poof. Nothing left... 'cept for maybe a lil blood and a faint breeze with the tiniest bits of rainbow colors shimmering in it.”

“Cool,” Spike said politely, though it actually made him feel a little ill. Not so ill that he didn't want Raggle's seemingly infinite supply of bellybutton muffins though. The dragon was moving on to banana nut now.

“Now one day, the dragons that were left got themselves what they thought was a great idea. They thought they'd set a trap. So they got together in a big, vulnerable-looking cave when it was night, and strung up all kinds of boobytraps. Razor wire all over the tunnel openings, leftover claws and fangs seared to the corners of the outcroppings, the works. They sealed themselves in so nice that they'd have to blow it all up with fire just to get out. And then... then they waited.”

“So did they catch the kidnapper pony? I guess it would have to be a unicorn, right, because they can teleport and stuff...”

“Hey, show a little respect for atmosphere, here!” Garble snapped. “I'm tryin' to build the SUSPENSE.”

“Wait, I'm confused. Do you want me to be scared now? Because earlier you wanted me to be all RAWR and stuff. I mean, whatever, it's a great story.”

“Raggle, hit the rookie with one of your dumb year-old muffins.”

And that was how Spike got a fresh black eye and a muffin to eat. Unfortunately it was bran, definitely the bottom of the muffin food pyramid.

“Now, as I was SAYING... they waited, and waited, until rosy-fingered dawn-”

“Gay,” Frock chortled, his hair flopping in rhythm with his amusement.

“Shut up,” Garble said with such casualness that Spike was sure it was something that he'd said to the other dragon many, many times before. “Until rosy-fingered dawn peeked through the tunnel and started to light up the cave like a really pretty but still fairly scary maze and stuff. The dragons knew that if it didn't work, they'd have to leave, and nodragon wanted to move their hoards, because what a pain that is, am I right?”

“Right,” agreed every other (very hoardless) dragon in the vicinity.

“So tensions were running up to the max in there. You know how it is when you cram a lot of dragons in one cave. We're lone warriors, our tempers get kinda ruffled. They started to have a little argument as daylight spilled in more and more, and eventually they got to tail wrestling. And then... dragons started to disappear.”

“Even though their traps had been just freakin' perfect, man, with deadly spikiness and sharpness over every inch of every entrance, as soon as they looked away... boom! Another dragon, gone. And still that shimmer of multicolored air.”

“Bet they were freaking out,” Raggle said, eating three muffins at once in a massive chomp while Spike contented himself with some more stinkin' subpar quartz. “Wusses, hee.”

Spike's eyes snapped back to those black dots in the sky again, completely without any prompting other than his own well-honed paranoid instincts. They were definitely bigger. Maybe birds. Probably birds. But headed this way, gradually. Worth keeping an eye on.

The other three hadn't looked up since Spike had been here.

“Yeah, they were freaking for real, screaming at each other and spittin' out their best fire at thin air. But it didn't stop! One by one... until there were only two dragons left. A great big red one, kinda like me, handsome with a well-defined snout and all wiry with muscles-”

Raggle rolled his eyes while Frock made a gesture that Spike had never seen before but was pretty sure was rude.

“-and one tiny little fat baby dragon. Purple.” Garble grinned down at Spike, who was starting to sweat nervously.

“That... that's quite a coincidence...” he managed to say with a matching grin.

“Yeah, sure is, ain't it? And they decided they'd just stare and stare at each other so nothing could GET them with the other one watching,” Grabble said, bowing himself into an upside-down U shape, eyes widening as his face got closer and closer to Spike's. Somehow, his breath smelled like nacho cheese even though Spike was totally sure there was no nacho cheese anywhere around here.

“So they stared and stared and stared... until... WHOOOOSH!”

Spike jumped at the noise.

“Hah, little guy's scared!” Frock said with a laugh.

And he was scared, but mostly because he was worried about them attracting attention by being so noisy. He checked up on those dots again. They were still just dots. With wing outlines, but hey, everything that flew had wings so that didn't tell him much. He could probably see them a lot better if the sun wasn't in his eyes.

“The little purple dragon,” Garble hissed meaningfully, “was gonnnnnnne. Right while Big Red watched. BUT. Something was different this time. This time, in the victim's place, a pegasus pony was there, hovering in midair with the hum of ripped up air still around her, her rainbow-colored mane and tail still spitting out colors behind her.”

Aww, so it wasn't a unicorn then. “I've never heard of a pegasus that fast before,” Spike commented skeptically. Pegasus could get really fast, as fast as a dragon could fly, but so fast they couldn't even be seen? That, he found hard to believe. But it was just a story anyway.

“Hey, peanut gallery, shutcher yapper! AT-mosphere,” Garble said firmly while Spike made a show of being respectful as the other two waggled their claws in the air mockingly. “So Big Red stared into that pegasus pony's eyes, which were totally even redder than his scales, red like the blood she'd left all around the cave. Her coat was the purple of a storm cloud and she had a matching cloud symbol on her flank, complete with a little rainbow. They stared at each other, him with his fangs gritted tight, ready to fight, her with just this little confident smirk, like she knew there was nothin' in the world that could beat her. There was still a bit of scaly skin hanging between her front two teeth.”

“'Your traps were lame,' she told Big Red. “'Tell ya what, I'll let you go so you can think up better ones. I'm the awesomest hunter in Equestria's airspace, and I expect my prey to be at LEAST half as awesome to keep me from getting bored.'”

“'That's a pretty good idea,' said Big Red, 'but you know what's even better? The HUNTER becoming the HUNTED!' And just like that, he let out an awesomely huge blast of fire right above her head, straight into the weakened pillars of the roof they'd set up beforehand. Tons of rock crashed down on the evil pegasus and crushed her into mush! But... even as Big Red walked away, he could still see a little rainbow flickering above the rock pile. And if anydragon has the guts to go there and se it, there that rainbow remains to this very day, a gravestone for the fastest, most murderous but definitely not brightest pegasus that ever was.”

His story apparently concluded, Garble stared at Spike, waiting for an appropriate reaction.

Spike frowned, using his tongue to dig splinters of quartz out from between his fangs. “I don't know, do scary stories usually have the good guy winning? And the way he did it seems kind of like a deus ex machina.”

“There wasn't any machinery involved, you dimwit!” Spike ducked a swat from the irate storyteller. “And I swear every word of that is true. You know how I know? Because I'M Big Red. I'm the last survivor of the great rainbow wind massacre.”

“I haven't ever heard of any rainbow wind massacre,” Frock said.

“Well, that's what they call it, okay?! Get off my case, the bigger dragons just don't like to talk about it because of how scared it makes 'em and stuff.”

“Guys, I think there might actually be some pegasus ponies right here, if you look....” Spike pointed with a claw at the shapes, which were just now getting close enough that he thought he could maybe see hooves sticking out below the main shapes.

“Relax, even if it is, there's not that many of 'em,” Garble said with a shrug, giving a split second glance to the potential danger. “Three for three, and one of 'em looks tiny. If they're dumb enough to hit us we'll just bash their heads in. Right, guys?”

His buddies nodded and laughed and ate more muffins/gems, while Spike kept his worries to himself. They were older than he was. Stronger. They seemed to know where they were going. He was probably just being a big old fraidy dragon.

“So, you got a story that can beat mine, rookie?” Garble asked, poking a claw at Spike's belly.

Spike swatted it away. “Well, I dunno, maybe. Your story did get me thinking back to something that happened to me once....”

“Well, let's hear it then!”

“Yeah, tell us your life story, snotnose!”

“Hahah, snotnose, he does look like a snotnose, don't he.”

Spike sniffed haughtily. “Like I was saying, it got me thinking back to something that happened to me once. I saw a rainbow....”

“OooOOOoOOOh!” all three older dragons jeered at him. He just rolled his eyes.

“I saw a rainbow back when I found this neat waterfall in the middle of the woods. It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, and I was really thirsty, so I dove in for a drink and a swim.”

“This doesn't sound like a very dragonesque story if ya ask me,” Frock said.

“At-mo-sphere,” Spike said very deliberately, while Garble grinned and nodded his approval.

“Go on, rookie.”

“So I dove in and... hey, guys, those things in the sky are definitely pegasus ponies, maybe we should take cover or something.”

“Where?” Raggle asked, as they all looked around vaguely in the wasteland.

“Good point.”

“Relax, little guy, we'll protect you from the big bad flying ponies. Didn't I just tell you I beat the fastest pegasus in the world? Come on, if your story's got a point, I wanna hear it. Get to the good stuff.”

“I dove in and when I opened my eyes underwater, I was face-to-face with jillions of SEA PONIES!”

“No way,” Frock and Raggle said.

“Yes way! Well, maybe not a JILLION, but definitely at least a baker's dozen,” he amended, causing a brief argument to break out between the other dragons about how many a baker's dozen was. Which was rough, because they didn't even know what a regular dozen was.

“Are you sure you didn't just see a bunch of seaweed or something that looked like ponies? I heard sea ponies weren't real,” Garble said suspiciously.

“Seaweed,” Spike said with great dignity, “does not try to eat me. There they were, pink ones and purple ones and green ones and orange ones, all ready to rip me to shreds, their tongues wiggling like worms on hooks! At first, I panicked, 'cause they were all around me and there was no way to shore that wasn't through a sea pony. But then I remembered something I'd heard once, one faint thread of possible survival that kept me clinging to hope, even while they stared at me hungrily with their dark, fishy eyes and talked about how much fat to meat to bone percentage my brisket was!”

“Yeah, so what'd you do? Tell 'em you'd taste terrible? Haw haw!”

“Well, yeah, but that one never works,” Spike admitted while the other three nodded sagely, probably having tried the same thing in their time. “But what I remembered was that there was this myth about sea ponies loving music! To soothe the savage beast, you know?”

“I dunno, music never chills me out, and I'm as savage as they come,” Garble said, stealing a muffin from Raggle.

“Well, that's what I heard, anyway, so I decided to try it,” Spike went on stubbornly, determined to finish now that he'd started. “Only because I was so freaked out at the time all I could think of was this stupid little number I just made up on the spot... with fake words like shoop-bee-doo and asking them not to eat me and stuff.”

“Sounds stupid.”

“I dunno, Raggle, might come off better if we had a tune to put it to,” Garble said smirkingly. “Come on, Spike, let's hear it.”

“Uhm.” He flushed. Suddenly fear of being eaten by random pegasus ponies was warring against equally-strong fear of embarrassment in his head. “Well, it's been a while, I don't completely remember....”

“Just do an approximation,” Garble said with sinister cheer. “Unless it didn't really happen, of course, in which case you don't gotta....”

“It did so happen! Alright, fine! Here goes, then. But remember, if it sounds dumb, it's cause I was making this up off the top of my head while underwater and surrounded by ponies who wanted to eat me.” He puffed up his chest with a breath and sang as well as he could remember.

♪Shoop-bee-doo-shoop-shoop-bee-doo
Oh, please don't eat me sea ponies, all my meat is tough
Gristly on the inside, and my scales and bones are rough
And I'm probably poison or at least fattening (FATTENING!)
I don't wanna die to sea ponies and that is why I sing
Shoop-bee-doo-shoop-shoop-bee-doo♪

They couldn't even keep straight faces without cracking up for the first measly verse. He sighed. It'd been pretty good work for impromptu, he'd thought. A nice, jaunty tune that was easy to keep pace with while scared out of your mind, and the words were simple enough that they were pronounced easily enough even underwater. He couldn't even begin to imagine how they'd react once he told them about the sea ponies dancing in chorus lines.

Then he did another cursory checkup on the sky, and felt icy fear tickle his bones to contrast the warmth of embarrassment. The three pegasus ponies were getting a lot closer, and starting to take up the circling formation of flying ponies that had spotted a good meal.

“Errr, guys...”

They were still laughing.

“GUYS!” he yelled loudly enough to be heard.

“Oh my aching sides, that was the worst and best thing I've ever seen, hahah,” Garble said, wiping tears from his eyes. “What's the matter, shrimp?”

“Seriously, those pegasi look interested in us, we should be doing, I dunno, something!”

Garble finally took him seriously, shading his eyes with a hand as he peered up. “Yeah, I getcha. They're in scavenging formation... uh, I think. The big one in front's flying all weird.” He snickered. “Look at that, guys. The big one leading the other two. You call that a circle? She must be retarded or something.”

And it was true, while the three ponies kept to a rough circle that drifted ever closer, the biggest of the three ponies was definitely adding some creative topsy-turviness that made the whole maneuver unnecessarily complex and awkward-looking, tilting out to one side or the other, sometimes even doing loop-de-loops randomly.

“Might still be mean though,” Frock said. “You can't underestimate retards, they got that retard strength when they're mad because they dunno that they're not supposed to be that strong.”

“Um, I'm not sure it works like that,” Spike piped in quietly, almost feeling sorry for the pony as it barely avoided a midair collision, even though it probably wanted to feast on his sweetmeats. Well, his allmeats, really, he'd never seen a pony that was picky.

“Prolly has bird stink in its eyes,” said Raggle.

“Hahah, that sounds about right! Hey, gimme s'more of those muffins.” Garble shoveled half a dozen in his mouth and chewing while still looking upward, spraying granite-hard crumbs everywhere. “Okay, Spike, we hear ya. You're our little recon man. They probably don't know dragons and think we're about to keel from heat exhaustion. I bet that retarded one can't tell a dragon from a wyvern in the first place! Let's just get up and keep walkin' at a lively clip, make sure they know we're still alive and ready to kick their pathetic cutie marked flanks if need be.”

“Why can't we just fly?” asked Frock in a whining tone as he tried to pack as many gems as possible 'to go' as he could in his two arms.

“Because we'd just be closer to the pegasi that way, nimrod,” Garble snapped. “What, you wanna go up there right next to 'im? Maybe go up and say hello, shake their hooves, invite 'em to a sleepover? I bet they'd love you between two big chocolate crackers.”

Spike was privately relieved that they weren't going to abandon him, but still felt obligated to contribute ideas to the group. “We could always fly high up above them so we had the advantage of higher ground. I mean, you'd have to carry me, but still....”

“Good idea, short stuff.”

“Thanks!”

“But not gonna happen. Fatty over here can't catch that much wind, and I don't feel like exerting myself that much.”

“Raggle doesn't catch wind, he dispenses it,” Frock called out.

Raggle demonstrated, causing Spike to groan and hastily sidestep over so he wasn't directly behind the brown dragon.

These dragons might not have been the saltiest crackers in the box, but Spike was grateful to find that at least they didn't talk a whole bunch while being actively hunted by pegasi. Things got quiet as they trekked over the sands and nibbled what snacks they kept on hand, leaving a small trail of breadcrumbs and gem shards behind them. They made a point of looking up and glaring at the circling three ponies every few minutes, but though they walked and walked and glared and glared, the ponies kept circling, kept following. Getting closer with the lazy, almost accidental patience of soap bubbles drifting in the air.

“So where are we headed, anyway?” Spike asked after what felt like a good hour of waiting for the ponies to make a move or go away.

“Everfree Forest.” Garble's tone was tight with annoyance, he clearly wanted to do something about the ponies but wasn't sure if he should or not. The other two looked up to him and followed his lead with mindless obedience, too confident in him to even be afraid like Spike was. Spike wished he had that kinda faith in anydragon. “See, Equestria's got tons of gems, everydragon knows that. But it's also got tons of ponies.”

“Like superfast rainbow pegasi.”

“Yeah. So, I had this idea to build up some dens in the Everfree, nearer to Equestria but using the woods for cover. Close enough for gem hunts, far enough that ponies don't hunt us. Pretty good plan, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Spike wondered if he ought to turn around and walk right back in the opposite direction. Every step he took was taking him closer to a nation full of dragon-eating monsters. But he was taking those steps with friends, right? Or at least companions.

“We just have to watch out for a pony town, they call it Applesomething, that's between here and the forest,” Garble went on. “It should be easy to spot though, so we can circle around it.”

Then Garble stopped dead, causing the other three to bump into him and each other in sync, like dominoes.

“HEY, YOU BUZZARDS! GO BACK TO FLIGHT SCHOOL!” Garble yelled at the sky in defiance. “YOU WANT SOME A' THIS, HUH?!” He jerked a thumb at Raggle, who spat out a stream of flame as big as Spike had ever seen from a non-adult dragon.

Still in an approximation of their circle formation, the ponies flapped up higher to avoid the flame, then dove down to their previous position. Actually, a little closer than that, even. They were close enough by now that Spike could tell that the biggest one was blonde with a gray coat, the slightly smaller one purple, and the smallest matching in color to the big one.

Wait a minute.

He squinted.

“Guys, the regular-flying ones have horns!”

All three larger dragons froze dead and glared up.

“NO WAY!”

“NUH UH!”

“YOU'RE FULL OF IT, ROOKIE!”

Everydragon knew what a pony with wings and a horn meant. The thing that even a full-grown dragon wouldn't want to tangle with. Alicorn.

“Th-they're not even usin' real wings!” Garble spat out after a moment's further inspection, his voice hysterical with disbelief and laughter. “Look! The tard's a pegasus, but the other two are using some kinda... hang glider things with feathers stuck on 'em! That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen!”

While his companions hooted merrily, Spike watched in silence, noticing how the 'wings' on the other two were often surrounded by faint magical glows that matched glowing horns. Either adjusting the artificial wings for angle or creating puffs of wind right below. They had it down pat, too. Even the little baby one didn't falter in its movements, although he thought he could tell the scrunched up expression of intense concentration on its face. The only real pegasus of the bunch was, in fact, the worst flier. That made him feel really sorry for it. With a random outburst of curiosity, he kept inspecting until he was pretty sure he had their genders all figured out. They were all fillies. Well, if he was gonna die, might as well know what was eating him. Never hurt to plan for the worst. Were they a family of some kind? It had to take dedication to use magic to fly in the sky with a pegasus, especially when you were still growing. Ponies were people, too.

Terrible, horrible, scary murderously evil people, but still.

People.

After some prompting, he got them all moving again. There wasn't any talk about finding shelter for night, and as the air began to cool, Spike couldn't help but yawn, wondering how much further they intended to go. Their longer legs made walking so much easier – he had to take several steps for each one of theirs – but so fragile was his acceptance in the group that he didn't want to seem weak by asking for a ride on anydragon's back.

They would look out for him, right? He'd looked out for them. He'd kept an eye on the ponies when nodragon else had cared enough to. And sang that stupid song. They owed him for the song. And, deep in his heart, Spike knew that he really just wanted a place to belong, where he could feel safe and accepted. Family. Friends. Home. This didn't feel quite... right... but it was close enough.

It was getting pretty dark, the sky a musty purple-sapphire, when Spike noticed Raggle stopping and standing still a good few teenage-dragon paces behind them.

“Hey, you okay?” he called out nervously. It was too dim to see the ponies now, except as black blots that he imagined were in the wrong places half the time.

“Gotta squirt.”

“Better hurry it up, Raggle, we ain't stoppin'!” Garble said loudly, keeping to his word.

Garble was getting pretty ticked off at this point at the ponies still hanging around. Spike rushed to get back in place, throwing glances behind him at the boulder-like silhouette of Raggle every few seconds. It didn't seem bright to split up, even for short distances, like that, not in the dark with ponies probably nearby, but what could he do? When nature called, it called, and the others weren't going to listen to him.

He felt the breeze pick up, cool and sharp, just over his head, and his heart jumped into his throat as he felt the trajectory headed towards Raggle, accompanied by a huge shadow that he would have mistaken for an enormous bat if he hadn't known better.

“RAGGLE!” he screamed in a panic. The time for stealth was totally done. “LOOK OUT!”

The stream of hissing urine on sand stopped, and Raggle looked up blankly, muffin crumbs falling from his mouth. He instinctively moved over to one side, but not fast enough. The blackness swooped onto him, knocking him over, and then past him up into the sky. It was followed by two others, with the corkscrew-flying pegasus in a distinctive last place. As they sheltered in the night sky again, out of reach, Spike heard them giggling with the delicate, gentle, slightly high glass bell-tones common to female ponies.

Two streams of flame burst into the sky from behind Spike, near-blindly, but aimed enough to get in the same basic direction as the attacking ponies.

“SONUVA-” Garble swore, then cut himself off, stomping over. “Did we get 'em?! Spike, did you see?! Raggle, man, what's happenin'?!”

Spike could only shake his head dazedly, unable to see practically anything from the aftereffect of flame cutting it so close to his vision, so suddenly against the night. He blinked until he could see the outlines of Frock and Garble helping Raggle to his feet. Raggle seemed stunned, but lacking major injuries. No big hoof bruises or bite punctures.

“We're gonna rip those little things to pieces!” Garble snarled, waxing full in leaderly rage. “I can't believe they just swooped down like that outta nowhere!”

Spike considered mentioning that if they had stayed together, that might not have happened, but after getting enough night vision back to catch the expression on Garble's face, he kept his mouth shut.

“Yeah, we'll teach 'em a lesson! Stupid retard ponies think they can get away with messing with dragons!” Frock chimed in, slashing at the air.

“Guys...” Raggle rumbled, blinking and looking around. “M'fine.”

The other three got a good look at him. Raggle wasn't just mostly unhurt, he was totally unhurt. The ponies hadn't so much as nipped or clipped him. But why? Why would ponies just feint an attack like that? There was no point, the dragons would be on their guard now. Totally not good hunting technique, right?

Then Spike realized.

“The muffins,” he told them.

They turned to stare at him.

“They took the muffins!” he yelled, waving his arms in the air in annoyance. “That was what they wanted the whole time!”

Raggle looked himself over, dug a hand into his bellybutton, then nodded at Garble and Frock in agreement. “Yerp.”

Two clock ticks worth of silence was broken by the Garble bursting into relieved, hysterical laughter, quickly followed by Frock, Raggle and eventually Spike.

“I can't believe it! They were trailin' us all day and night... just to get some BAKED GOODS! Hahahahah!”

It felt good to laugh.

“Your muffins aren't even dat good!” Frock told Raggle, who roared his amusement.

“An' da ones left were half moldy too!” Raggle added.

The three larger dragons, arms over each other's shoulders, collapsed together in giddy relief, while Spike walked his way over, still giggling.

“Ah ha... ah ha... hahah... haaaaa...”

“Can you believe that?!” Garble shouted out into the night, his tone still tight and fierce despite its amusement. “I mean, I mean, three ponies who can't fly straight, after our MUFFINS! Man, you can't make stuff up this sad! That one in front was the best, too! The stupid one was the only one with wings and it couldn't even really fly! It flew like a, a-”

“...a derp de derp,” Raggle said with a grin, turning his back to them to finish his bathroom break.

“YEAH! A HERP DE DERP!” Frock crowed in agreement.

“That's right, hah! Hey, Derpy Derp, you want us to teach you how to fly?!” Garble called into the night-blank sky. “Tell ya what, every mile you fly without ramming your ugly face intuh somethin' we'll give you another muffin! Maybe bonus muffins if you ever manage to figure out what a straight line looks like! Hahahah!”

Spike saw the shadow again, but this time it was three of them all at once, and from an angle away from him so he felt no breeze. He opened his mouth to shut, but they were faster than he was, and the other ones were too busy yelling at the sky and laughing to notice for themselves.

For a second time, Raggle's bladder relief was interrupted, but this time, he didn't fall down. Instead, he turned around slowly, his mouth wide open for a second before he spoke, the sound seeming to come from deep in his throat.

“Guys...” he croaked, and Garble and Frock shut up as they saw, with Spike, the series of brilliant red lines slashed across Raggle's stomach.

Spike knew that kind of wound. They were thin, but the blood was leaking out fast almost immediately, like they were enormous paper cuts. It was the kind of wound that was made by pegasi who sharpened their hooves to use the edges for cutting as they swooped by, an advantage that allowed them to injure without stopping or getting a firm grip in a target that could interfere with their own movements through the air. The blood waterfalled down Raggle in a torrent and the fat dragon burst open, a terrible stench accompanying his entrails and other organs as they flopped out onto the desert sand.

Garble and Frock screamed and took to the air, spitting fire in every possible direction.

Spike ran up to Raggle and tried, despite his disgust and terror, despite the fact that he could barely breath this close to it, to pick up Raggle's ruined insides and scoop them back into his inside where they belonged. But they were heavy, and slippery, and it was dark, and Raggle was flailing around and hollering and he didn't know what to do, he didn't know what to do.

The shadows came back. Two of them went immediately for Raggle's entrails, picking them up in hooves and teeth, chomping and slurping up fluids and giggling as they dragged the ropey meatstuff up into the sky with them. The third one, the pegasus, twirled unevenly around Spike like a moth confused by a candle flame behind glass. At one point she flew so close and at just the right angle that he got a good view of her eyes, one looking crazily in a different direction from the other one. Then the rest of her passed by, a mild gray flank with a bubbly symbol on it, and a blonde tail that whipped past his face delicately.

“MUFFIIIIIINNNSSS!” she called out happily, muffin crumbs falling out of her mouth and onto Spike and Raggle, her voice full of innocent pleasure in a hunt where she had no idea of what the prey was feeling, or just didn't care, either way. She scooped up what was left of Raggle's stomach, still full of barely-chewed muffins, and bit through what kept it attached to the rest of him with a zesty growl, then flew up into the sky, laughingly victorious.

Spike couldn't see Frock and Garble, but he could hear them screaming still, and he could see their fires, directed everywhere in the sky but where the ponies actually where. He looked over to Raggle, who was dead, eyes going to that fixed state, breath long since gone. There was nothing more he could do for Raggle.

He looked back up. The other dragons were all fright and anger, but not getting anything done. And the ponies?

The ponies could be anywhere.

All that food was probably enough for three ponies, but they could just be a scouting party for a larger group, and that meant they'd want more meat. Spike was suddenly glad that he hadn't ate any of the muffins, his stomach, full of just rocks, churning violently.

Mouthing a tearful apology to Raggle and the others, Spike turned and ran into the night.

Friendship was great.

Spike might have even gone so far as to call it magical.

But having an escape route was even better.

Fire from Heaven

Spike wasn't so dumb that he waited for the train to stop in the middle of its destination, surrounded by ponies. No, he pulled his aching, tired and starved little body out of the sacks and threw himself off when the train just started to slow to a safe pace. Even though the grass was the kind of ridiculous green that he knew was probably caused by pegasus-controlled rainclouds, the ground wasn't nearly as soft as it'd looked, and he got his breath knocked out of him as he rolled and rolled – eventually losing all his momentum at once thanks to an inconveniently-placed tree stump. The wind knocked out of him, he still had the presence of mind to crawl behind a good tree while he got a hold of himself and inspected his side. No bruising, awesome. His head still hurt a bit, though, and he was starved and thirsty.

The hunger was the worst part. Spike considered his stomach officially a traitor organ now, because it was so petty to want something as a few gems after everything he'd gone through. He didn't know where to find more gems. But he did know that he'd dropped off at the edge of a lightly-wooded area, with enough cover to hide but not so much that he'd get super lost. So he walked into it, figuring that between the trees and added distance between him and the train tracks, he'd be relatively safe. Once he'd gotten the lady of the land or however it was said, he could figure out where to grab a meal and a drink.

Even with things as bad as they were, there was a certain relief to him that lightened his footsteps. Back alone again. No friends, but no enemies either. Alone wasn't so bad, after all, he'd spent most of his life that way, and he'd turned out pretty sweet, right?

Right.

Spike didn't need nobody.

Especially not big fire-breathing members of his own species or brave buffalo princesses. Nope, just big ol' liabilities that'd get him in trouble.

The woods were pleasant to the point of being suspicious. The sun was warm but not too hot, there were pink and pale blue flowers all over, bees buzzed around pollinating without threatening to sting, birds chirped their little songs. It set him on edge. Spike kept seeing a pony hiding behind every tree and bush. It wasn't until he realized that he was grinding his teeth that he stopped in the middle of his walk on the way to nowhere and really took stock of himself.

He was safe here. He had to relax. A day ago, he'd watched Stonehoof's leg get ripped off, he'd been betrayed and almost died. But that was yesterday. Today was a bright new day, and he was going to put all that behind him. If he let those stupid ponies control his life and make him live in fear all the time, it was like barely being alive at all. Forget the buffaloes and forget the dragons. He'd just been passing through, and bad things completely unrelated to him had happened at the same time. That seemed to happen a lot, actually, especially with ponies, but it wasn't his fault or anything.

It wasn't his fault.

Although his head couldn't seem to leave those memories of blood and death and screams alone, Spike told himself he would move on from it. He steadied himself, took a breath that puffed up his chest, and resolved to enjoy his little stroll as much as he possibly could. Sunlight was good for cold-blooded creatures like himself. If he just forgot that he was somewhere in the middle of pony territory, he could feel those warm rays invigorating him, enjoy the tickle of grass between his toes, even whistle along with the birds. And if his notes were a little wobbly sometimes because he kept flashing back to Braeburn's green eyes or Raggle's guts spilling out on the sand, the birds didn't seem to mind.

Seeing a little tubby squirrel nibbling an acorn from a low branch, he waved to the little fellah, who startled him by waving back.

Okay, that was seriously adorable.

He grinned and continued on, satisfied that where there was such abundant life, there had to be plenty of fresh water and food of some kind. He'd make do just fine. So certain was he of this that, a few trees beyond, he paused to wave back at the squirrel again, just out of appreciation for being acknowledged by another living being that didn't want to mess with him.

The squirrel was only half there now, a little bit of its flabby, tawny stomach drooping out bloodily between its two legs, still stuck in a sitting position. Its tail waved gently in the still-ironically-pleasant breeze. Spike stared in open-mouthed horror, every bad memory of the last few days coming back to him and crying out to him, he wasn't safe, he wasn't safe at all, he was never safe and they would never leave him alone. Whatever it was by now, it seemed less like ponies and more like an everywhere-existing invisible cloud of DEATH that just hated him and everything around him.

Spike turned and ran at a light jog, a pace he was sure he could keep up for a while. He didn't slow down for a long time, and his heart didn't stop pounding for even longer. All this sunshine had death in it. Predators. Ponies, or worse... was there anything worse than ponies? Basilisks or manticores maybe. When he came to a pleasant little brook that ran over picture-perfect smooth gray stones, he paused to check the water. A few small fish swam by. Fish couldn't hurt him. As far as he knew.

He lowered himself and drank deep gulps, then splashed his face. The water felt good, tasted clean. Everything was okay now. The squirrel had just been caught by a hawk or something. That was all. He was okay.

Opening his eyes, Spike saw a pink pony's reflection behind him in the water, looking at him with huge blue eyes and the biggest grin he'd ever seen on something that wasn't a skull.

All things considered, it was totally understandable that his scream came out sounding like something from a little girl.

“HI!” the pony chirped as he turned to run and fell backwards into the stream, scrambling against loose stones and pebbles. “Can I eat you?!”

Spike scrambled back into the water a few feet before getting up, still walking backwards slowly as he stared. “...has anyone ever said yes to that question?” he asked, partly as banter to keep her busy while he made his escape, and partly because he kinda wanted to know.

“Nooooperoni! But I thought you might be the first!”

She giggled and hopped – really, bounced in an almost perfect half-circle trajectory – along after him, all four hooves managing to land on stones far too small for them without her balance getting off by even a little bit. The abruptness of the movements reminded him of a grasshopper, and she seemed about as alien as a bug even compared to other ponies.

Okay, keep your head in the game, Spike. A crazy pink pony is after you, and you have no idea where you are, but there are lots of trees, and trees mean cover. If need be, he could even climb them, since a hoof-footed creature would have difficulty following him. And this one looked like she had a short attention span. He couldn't outrun her straight out, but maybe if he kept ducking behind trees he could lose her....

She bounced along after him, leering and swerving her head sharply from side to side after each tree dodged, her thicket bush of a mane flying all over the place as she did so.

“Hey, don't run away! That toughens up your yummy bits and we can't have that! If you don't settle down, young man, I'll just have to sic Dashie on you!” Somehow she managed to make the threat sound like motherly nagging. Spike wished he knew his mother. She was probably a big enough dragon to stomp this freaky pony flat.

The only positive was that, in all this, the pony wasn't going fast enough to catch him either, even though she easily could without getting out of breath. It was like she thought it was a game or something.

Well, he could play games.

“Wouldn't it be more fair if you gave me a head start?”

He SWORE she actually stopped mid-bounce in the air, right at the apex of the bounce, and fell straight down, her mane swooshing up and then down again. “Fair? Nopony ever told me hunts were supposed to be fair. I just go to where the twitchy twitches say the food is and NOM NOM NOM.” She peered at him suspiciously, stream water-blue eyes narrowing. “Are you sure you're not tryin' to trick me?”

“O-of course not, heheh!” He backed into a tree, looked it over and found it lacking in branches to assist with a good climb. Maybe if he dug his claws in real tight... but no, the bark was all crumbly. “Us dragons don't have the brains to trick people, we're real dumb,” he fibbed, looking over the area for any possible escape routes. Nothin' but trees without a branch within ten feet of the ground, drat.

She seemed satisfied by that. “Okay, good! I guess I can give you a liiiiitle itsy bitsy head start, but you have to promise to hide someplace fair. No hiding in a beehive or anything! I mean, I like bees, but I can't eat too many of them at once or it hurts my tummy. What do you think they're saying when they're buzzing inside me? Maybe 'heeelp meeee,'” she squeaked in a high pitch, “or, or or or, 'tell my wife and children that I love them!' Except I think the worker bees are all girls so it'd be hubby and children, wouldn't it? I like hubby. It's a fun word. Hey, why aren't you hiding?”

Spike stared and stared, trying to figure out if she was serious or not. Had this pony escaped from a mental institution or something? Maybe they all got this crazy over time from eating bad meat. It would explain so much.

“I... can't hide till you close your eyes and count to ten, right?” he suggested, trying to test the sheer limits of her craziness.

“Oh! Okay...” She closed her eyes! “One macarooooni, two boloooogna, three mascarpooooone....”

Wow.

He couldn't believe that had actually worked. Score one for the Spikinator!

He ran back to the stream, grabbed the biggest rock he could find, got within a few feet of the mad pony and threw the rock at her head with all his might. With a nasty THUNK followed by an incoherent groan, she fell down, bleeding all over her face. She wasn't moving. Trembling, he picked up the red-smeared rock, holding it up overhead again. Should he just... finish her? She was breathing, but looked to be out pretty cold. He'd been lucky to get in a good shot like that, it probably wouldn't work twice once she was awake.

Bashing the pony's brains out would be the smart thing to do. The logical thing. She'd been ready to kill him, after all. Self-defense!

But maybe she wouldn't wake up for a while, or be so dazed that she couldn't track him down anyway. He certainly wasn't gonna stay around here any longer than he had to. Already, a huge nasty bump was welling up at her temple. She was probably concussed.

There was no reason for him to take unnecessary chances.

None whatsoever.

Still, he couldn't do it. Sighing, he dropped the rock and ran off at a good ninety degree angle from the direction he'd originally been running to, just in case she'd taken note of it. There was at least one other pony in the area, whoever 'Dashie' was, so he had to get out of here pronto. It was a big piece of woodland, though. Every time he rounded a hill, figuring he'd see the edge of it, there were just more trees. After a few minutes, Spike started to worry about getting lost, then he realized how stupid that was. He didn't want to go back to the train, did he?! It didn't matter where he ended up, as long as there wasn't anything trying to eat him, and a good water supply, and a nice spot to dig for minerals.

Even when he was far enough off from the pink pony to feel sort of safe again, he still felt on edge. Like a bad spirit was watching over him. He started to imagine... bird eggs, first whole, then smashed when he glanced back. More critters dead, with just bits and pieces of fur and skin and bone left to ooze on the tree branches. Strange snapping sounds, like tree parts breaking all at once, rapid-fire. It was enough to make Spike wonder if the woods were haunted, no matter how pleasant they looked.

It was good to find another stream, or maybe a branch off from the first one, whatever. He drank more, careful this time to look around him every few sips. No ponies were gonna sneak up on him this time.

“Hey, little fishy fish,” he murmured at a sleek blue specimen that, unlike the poor squirrel, didn't reply back, just swimming its little fishy way downstream. Fishing was an option if it came to that....

Then he saw a fish head, just the head, same type of fish as the earlier one, float downstream too, blood diffusing into a delicate pink in the water. His insides knotted together as he watched the topside lifeless eye float out of sight. Okay, maybe fishing wasn't for him. Most dragons weren't big on seafood. They looked down on berries and fruits and stuff even more, but what did they knew, anyway? He was a rebel. A rebel that didn't particularly feel like helping anything bleed, since he saw that so much without wanting to as it was.

Branches began to snap again in that weird way, crackitycrackitycrack. This time the sound was pretty close, and, eyes darting around, he managed to catch it in action. Weak branches were getting ripped off, but he couldn't see anything doing it. The trees looked weird as he stared at them, was that sweat in his eyes? Blinking and frantically trying to follow the path of broken branches as it swerved around, he realized that the strange warping of shapes was something in the air, a shimmer that tunneled along with the broken branches. It was circling around him in a rough spiral, closing in.

He'd just decided that it was time to start running again when the water next to him exploded twenty feet into the air, making an immense roar for something so shallow. Spike felt like he practically caught that much air himself, jumping up in shock, but he muffled his shriek with both hands before it could get too far from his mouth.

Standing in the water was a pegasus pony with a coat the same mild blue as the pink pony's eyes, and a mane like a violently-contained rainbow. She glared at him with unmistakable hostility, not just the usual happy hungry that he was used to seeing from a pony, but a real grudge.

“Caughtcha, ya chubby little loser,” she snarled, droplets of blood and foam flying from her lips. “Think you can get away with hurting one of my pals, do you?!”

Some tiny part of him took note of the dark storm cloud mark on her flank, punctuated with a rainbow lightning bolt. A memory of a probably-dead dragon whispered to him. Her coat was the purple of a storm cloud and she had a matching cloud symbol on her flank, complete with a little rainbow.

“Y-your eyes aren't red,” was all he could think to say. This stream didn't have any big rocks.

“What? Are you making fun of my looks?!” She stomped a hoof so hard the water soaked her leg entirely as she stepped closer. “Why would my eyes be red?!”

“The dragon said your eyes were red, that's all!” Rambling didn't seem like the ticket to a quick get away this time, she was just getting madder. But he just couldn't stop himself. “Rainbow mane, storm cloud and rainbow cutie mark, and red eyes like blood. That's what the survivor of your last big attack said. That was you, right, killing all the dragons? And I'm really sorry about your friend, I didn't mean to hurt her, it was totally an accident!”

“How stupid do you think I am?!” He very carefully did not answer that question, although the temptation to make a sarcastic reply was almost overwhelming. “So you ACCIDENTALLY threw a rock at her face, huh?!”

Spike had an idea. “I didn't THROW anything, she just fell! Her eyes were closed and the footing was slippery!”

Oh yeah, Spike, you were honing your silver tongue like nobody's business. If he couldn't run, and he couldn't fight, then he could talk his way out like a maniac. He wasn't exactly sure how cognizant the pink pony had been or what she'd told this 'Dashie,' but it was as good an excuse as any since she'd had her eyes shut at the time.

The pony hesitated, her wings dipping a little low before flaring up and out again. “Yeah, well, maybe it's the way you said it, and maybe not, but I'm not takin' any chances with you, buster. So you met that stupid pimply wuss I let live, huh? Did he regale you with stories of the awesomeness of the great Rainbow Dash like I told him to?”

Rainbow Dash. Okay, Rainbow Dash, he could handle her. Maybe. The blood smeared on her mouth meant that she'd been eating. Maybe even been the cause of that squirrel's death for all he knew, she certainly seemed to move fast enough for it. And she had an ego. She wasn't hungry and she wanted her pride stroked, he could do that. If only she gave him enough time to talk that she forgot to be mad about the other pony, he might be able to get out of this alive.

Spike considered whether to tell her the truth or not. He decided that a new cause of outrage that wasn't directly linked to him might be a better distraction than anything else.

“Actually he said he killed you in an avalanche or something like that,” he answered truthfully, and immediately wondered if he'd made a mistake as he saw her lips curl up, her teeth clench and her purplish eyes narrow in rage.

“That overgrown snake! The only reason I let him live in the first place was so everyone outside of Equestria could know how amazing my hunting skills are! And you're telling me he's going around saying he got the BETTER of me?!”

“Um... maybe....” Yeah, this had probably been a bad idea. “But he still made you sound super scary and powerful and fast and stuff! And he wasn't kidding, either! I mean, I couldn't even see you when you were flying around just now!”

Rainbow Dash immediately relaxed and started preening a wing nonchalantly. “Yeah, I am pretty great like that. I can fly circles around dive-bombing falcons, grab the food from their claws and make off like a bandit while pointing backwards and laughing at them.”

“Must be kinda boring, being so much better than everyone else,” he tried out, watching her expression carefully. He'd guessed right, she calmed down, nodding in agreement. “Nothing to push your limits, right?”

“Yeah, I haven't had a real challenge in hunts since I was a little filly,” she admitted. She eyeballed him, gaze scanning over his legs, and she sneered. “Not like you have anything to offer, but it's about the principle of the thing now. Sorry kid, I like ya. You've got spunk. But prey doesn't get to make my friends bleed and live to tell about it.”

Yeah, right. Ponies would back each other up, while all the prey just stabbed each other in the back or ran to save their own skins. How wonderful did it have to be, to be a pony? Always with other ponies to back you up, always with that certainty that you were at the top of the food chain. Lucky ponies. Even though she'd basically delivered him his death sentence, the way she'd rationalized it made him respect her for it. She was probably a more loyal friend to her fellow ponies than he'd ever been to anyone else.

Even if she was still, like all ponies, a total psycho.

“Look, I know you're not gonna let me go. That'd be stupid, and you're not stupid.”

She fluffed her wings and raised her chin slightly at the stoking to her ego. Heh. Did she know she was this easy to manipulate? Then again, if he could move so fast that nothing could ever outrun him, he'd probably be pretty puffed up, too.

“So how about a sporting chance instead?” he wheedled, doing his best to come off as trustworthy and, hopefully, to interesting to just kill right away.

“Awright, I'm listening, but keep it snappy.”

Snappy! Right. He was gonna have to work fast here. “Hunting isn't just about speed. I mean, I know you obviously know this, but you've got to be clever, too, right? You need to know all about hiding places and ambushes and camouflage.”

“Yeah, so? I know all that stuff.” She didn't come off as certain as she'd been a second ago.

Spike repressed a smirk. “So let's make a little...” Game was too immature for this one. But gambling was pretty much the same thing, just dressed up to appeal to people who didn't want to admit to having fun being silly. “Let's make a little wager. Gimme a chance to hide. Best out of three, to make sure it's really about skill and not just luck. If you can find me two out of three times, you get to eat me. If I can hide long enough for you to give up two out of three times, you let me go.”

“Huh.” The pony thought it over, finally nodding. “Sounds alright. Okay, shorty, I've got your number. Best out of three it is, then.” She smirked and licked the last remnants of drying blood from her mouth. “There's just one more thing, though.”

“Y-yeah?” Okay, his voice had not just cracked in terror when he said that.

“I still owe ya for Pinkie. So instead of me closing my eyes and you probably throwing a rock at me like the douchey little thing you are, I'm knocking you out. When you wake up, you get to hide. Good luck, sucker.”

“Uh...” He started backing away, even though it was completely impossible for him to outrun a regular pegasus, let alone this maniac.

Rainbow Dash didn't give him much time to second-guess things. In a split second, like a flash of lightning, she was gone, and he only just had time to register that fact before something hoof-shaped impacted with his face and he blacked out on the spot.

Spike woke up with the worst headache he'd ever had except for that one time he'd drank a whole mug of beer thinking it was cider, staring up at a leaf-framed sky that was still pretty blue. Just like the pegasus, in fact – the perfect camouflage for her. She could be anywhere if she'd had the sense to tie her tail back, and even while he was trying to figure out whether she was that cautious or not, his stomach growled at him mercilessly.

“Oh, shaddup,” he growled back at it, stumbling to his feet. Ow.

Take stock of yourself, Spike. In an unknown location with at least one active enemy, whereabouts currently unknown. You can afford one slip-up, but no more than that. No telling how long he'd have before she started hunting. Where should he go to ground?

Dig a hole and hide in it, maybe, although it would be obvious if she flew close enough to the ground to see the fresh-turned soil.

Or he could climb in a tree, though her ability to demolish foliage seemingly as an idle side effect of her sheer speed left that one iffy.

What he needed was a medium between the two. A bush! That was it. He needed a bush that didn't give him away, one that was flexible enough to bend instead of break, and thick enough that she wouldn't want to just fly straight on through it.

Finding a good bush took way longer than it should have. Like, a RIDICULOUSLY long time. He found bushes smaller than him, bushes that were too open, bushes that were too dense, bushes with thorns, bushes with poison ivy, bushes with spiderwebs. Bushes just the right size, shape and composition to hide a Spike? Not so much. And with every second out in the open, just walking around like a dunce, he felt himself sweating more and more from nervousness, expecting the teeth of a pegasus to snap at him any second. Who was to say she wouldn't get bored and just eat him while she had the chance, especially if he didn't look like he was going to make it interesting? And that pink one could still be out here, too. Who knew how many other ponies, for that matter? Rainbow Dash had made it sound like he was inside Equestria now, and the scenery sure seemed to point in that direction – so far, these woods were like a park where one of the regular joggers was the Grim Reaper. Equestria was pony homeland, not just an embattled frontier like Appleloosa. And even Appleloosa had been... overwhelming. Just, too much. Too much for a little dragon like him, no matter how strong or smart or charismatic he was (and, admittedly, that was probably less than he liked to think, too).

He remembered watching branches snap and not seeing what had made them snap. He remembered the way the water had gushed up. He remembered Garble's story, and how Garble had lied about the happy ending. He remembered the squirrel and all the other little dead things.

Had to hurry. The absolutely nothing that was happening was giving him way too much time to work himself up into a fright, and the bird songs seemed like dirges no matter how happy the notes were.

At last, with Spike's stomach busily eating a hole in him while his skull threatened to split apart, he came to a bush that seemed perfect. It was about four times his size, with the dark green leaves small but very thickly clustered, and plenty of hollow space inside. There were even tons of other bushes that looked just like it all around to serve as decoys. With sweet, sweet relief, he crawled in and curled up, almost crying at how happy he was. There, she'd never find him! He'd get to live another day! Another day... lost in the pony homeland... in perpetual terror... without anything to eat....

Man, sometimes he really hated his life.

Still, he'd made out alright. The ground was a nice cushion of grass and partially exposed earth, the leafy enclosure was perfectly impenetrable from all angles yet somehow still filtered in enough light to see, and he could even stand up and stretch if he took care to not jostle a couple of the more in-the-way branches. Yeah, this was a good hiding spot. Spikinator two, ponies nothing.

Then as he sat there in his leafy safety, doing nothing became his enemy again. Minute by minute. His head getting better only gave him fewer distractions. They hadn't actually agreed on when it would be appropriate for Rainbow Dash to give up any one of her three chances to find him. What if she pretended to give up just to fake him out? What if he mistook a non-signal of surrender for the real thing? What if she just kept on looking throughout the entire woods until she found him?

He didn't know how much of Garble's story had been true, but he knew she was the fastest thing he'd ever seen. Could she still process things visually while going that fast? If she could, it would be impossible to hide from her if she thought to go directly through bushes or just plain went fast enough that the branches bent and showed him.

How big a deal was it to hurt a pony in their homeland? Would other ponies come out hunting him?

How long could he go without food, anyway? He'd tried eating regular rocks once. It sucked, and more importantly, didn't give him enough energy to do important things like saving his own hide.

What if she actually started to burn the forest to find him? It seemed like a crazy, unthinkable thing to do, but then, he'd just recently met a pony who'd seriously hoped he'd say 'yes' to being asked to be eaten, so his boundaries on what he thought ponies were willing to do were only getting more and more generous on a daily basis.

Perhaps it would be like the squirrel. So fast he wouldn't even know he was dead, just a few bits of him left. Or maybe she'd use her momentum to pound him into a bloody pancake like a super sonic battering ram. Rainbow Dash seemed to be one of those nature-happy ponies who liked to eat their meals raw. Some part of Spike was especially scared of that. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. He at least wanted to be prepared and cooked and eaten properly, if he was going to be eaten at all. It was far too easy to imagine her just setting in with her teeth, chomping greedily.

If she wanted to take her time, there wouldn't be anything he could do about it.

The soil seemed to be irritating his scales. He imagined his breathing disturbing the leaves, and almost hyperventilated after trying to hold it in for too long. Hairy black ants started to crawl over him, nibbling experimentally with their pincers, and he couldn't do more than twitch to try to brush them off. A wasp flitted around in and around the bush, never stinging him, but coming close enough to make him freak out from minute to minute.

Every once in a while, he heard the sound of branches snapping quickly, one after the other after the other, but always in the distance. Never up close. Just close enough that it could become up close at any moment.

After a while, he had to use the bathroom. But he couldn't leave his hiding spot, so he just dug a very small hole by inch-long claw strokes and used that. He covered it up as much as he could, but that wasn't as much as he would've liked. It stunk. It was the smell of a dragon so afraid he'd rather soil himself than risk being found by a blowhard pegasus with a chip on her shoulder.

He breathed in and out the warm, dirty smell of his own weakness, his inability to fight on equal grounds with creatures who always had the upper hand in one way or another, and his eyes followed the wasp as he felt ant after ant give him a taste test. His scales were more than enough protection, but the fact that they were even trying was enough to want to squish them all in a tantrum. Which was exactly the kind of petty emotional display he couldn't afford to give in to.

His tail started to cramp up. He didn't know why, he'd slept curled up like this plenty of times. But it was cramping now, and it really hurt. Using the slowest, most careful movements he possibly could, he started massaging it, trying to get the stupid muscles to loosen up. Just relax Spike. Everything will be okay. You'll make it through this, even if part of your body feels like it's in a red-hot vise that's getting tighter and tighter every moment.

Tears rolled down his cheeks, but he didn't make a sound.

The birds continued to sing as if ponies weren't just as happy to eat them, too.

Between his tail, the ants, the smell and the wasp, something had to give. He decided on it being the wasp, and blew at it gently, hoping to get it to buzz off to the rest of its waspy day. It just fluttered closer and he caught himself hissing in aggravation. Spike blew harder, then harder, as its little black segmented form bobbed up and down, the leaves shaking a little bit from it.

“Ah HAH!”

And his world became pony. He could see right down her moist, pink gullet as breath the smell of dead things filled his nostrils and warmed the front of his face. Her eyes were still purple, not red, but he could trace the little red veins at the edges of her huge irises. She was panting, but from the way she held her body, confident and straight, it was out of excitement, not tiredness.

“You're mine,” she snarled with the satisfaction of someone claiming a long-sought trophy. Or victim. “No one outsmarts, outruns, outflies, outfights or outhides the great Rainbow Dash!”

“Congratulations, you totally outsmarted a wingless baby dragon in one round of hide and seek,” he shot back, covering over fear with sarcasm. “That probably makes you the smartest pegasus ever!”

“Well, I don't know about smartest but... hey, are you mocking me, squirt?” Her voice had switched mid-sentence from something almost friendly to a growl that barely seemed like something that could come from a pony's throat, sweat dripping down her narrowed eyes that were thrust ever closer to his.

“Maybe a little.” He grinned into that nasty breath, hoping she wouldn't lose patience and eat him right there, wondering what else he could use for a hiding spot. His mind was drawing a big fat blank.

“Hey, this is life or death here! You're supposed to take the Great Hunt seriously!” she screeched, rearing up to slam her front hooves on either side of him. He fell down and flinched back into the soiled earth. “I'm the best, you got that?!” Thick yellow droplets of spit flew from her mouth to land on his face. “Better than squishy little PREY like YOU could EVER be, and don't you FORGET it!”

“Yeah, because you're a pony and I'm just a dragon, I know,” he whispered hoarsely, holding back the whimper clenching his throat. She looked about ready to kill him right now.

“What?” Her face actually relaxed... a very little. “No, because I'm RAINBOW DASH, buddy, and no one beats me. 'Specially not a shrimp like you. You're gonna die because you're inferior to me in every possible way, and become fuel to feed my legend. You should feel honored, really.”

Spike had never actually felt the kind of intense hate her felt for this pegasus before in his life. It was spontaneous, intense and entirely unexpected, like a switch inside him had been flipped. It was like all the nasty parts of Braeburn had been squished into a single pony-sized ego, with all the nicer bits filed off, leaving only roughness and pride and violence. She seemed totally unaware of his rising loathing, even preening a bit.

Impulsively, he lunged out with both claws at her face. In an instant that was too fast to see, she'd flown back several feet, hovering in midair as the breeze of her mighty wing flaps froze him like the middle of winter. Rainbow Dash didn't even give him the dignity of acting like he was a threat; she just smirked at him with superiority, like some little kid that had been caught pilfering from the cookie jar. He might as well have tried to swat the sun out of the sky.

“Hey now, if you wanna skip rounds two and three and go straight to the kill-” she clicked her teeth, “that's just fine by me.”

The courage that he'd found in hate immediately broke down and he found himself having difficulty not begging for forgiveness. She really could kill him any time she felt like it, and what could he do about it? “Y-yeah well, you're just covering 'cause you don't think you can catch me again,” he said quickly, trying to keep his voice from shaking and almost succeeding.

“Psh, whatever. You go on and hide again, Loser McShrimpadoo.” She flicked her tongue against a hoof, wetting the sharpened edge so that it caught the sunlight. “I'll be waiting.”

He got to his feet and started to walk off, looking vaguely in every direction for anything that looked promising, anything that could hold an idea for his survival. It was just trees and bushes and grass, and they wouldn't save him. They'd be the background to his death just like they were to the deaths of every other little creature that lived within them. Spike glanced back several times, but Rainbow Dash never moved from the bush where she'd found him, front hooves crossed over her chest, hovering with half-lidded eyes and the smuggest little smile. She looked less like a pony, even a pegasus, than she did like some half-there spirit of air that existed to mock him and lure him to his death in the middle of nowhere. Which was pretty much the case, really.

Of course, Spike reminded himself firmly, where he was didn't matter anyway. When you didn't have a home, family or friends, everywhere was nowhere. All equally meaningless. If he was gonna get eaten here, it wouldn't be any scarier or less scary than if he were to get eaten someplace else.

But he wasn't going to give up.

Trudging mindlessly uphill through carpets of fallen leaves and vines that taunted him with the cheeriness of their cute little white and yellow flowers, he considered his strategy for the next time around. He couldn't afford to lose the next one, it was best out of three. So he couldn't just rely on dumb luck or hope that things would go his way. He needed to stack the deck as much as possible, even if it messed with the 'spirit' of this so-called Great Hunt of hers.

Maybe he did deserve to die. He was a pathetic, pudgy little thing that couldn't fly, couldn't breathe fire, couldn't read a book. About all he knew how to do was fix a pretty decent sassafras gumbo, a recipe he'd picked up from a perpetually-sloshed zebra beatnik poet. Yeah, THAT was sure a valuable life skill! If he died, no one would miss him, no one would care, except maybe Rainbow Dash, in the sense that she'd have another reason to brag about what a good hunter she was. He wasn't going to give up, but in the face of an opponent so dedicated, so fast that he couldn't even see her move through the air, it was hard not to feel inferior. Like this was maybe how things were supposed to be.

But no, he'd wondered that back in his last encounter with ponies, too, and it'd been stupid then and it was still stupid now. So she was the fastest thing he'd ever not seen. So what. That didn't mean she deserved to kill him! Just because he wasn't useful and no one cared about him didn't mean he deserved to die, darn it!

Stumbling his way down the hill he'd ascend, Spike's eyes latched onto a dark crevice between too craggy outcroppings. It was really dark. Dark like a cave. Could be just a trick of the light, but... yeah, the closer he got to it, the more sure he was that it was a cave. It had a funky smell to it and there was something rustling deep inside, but whatever it was, he figured it couldn't be as bad as Rainbow Dash, so in he went.

About fifteen paces in, wiggling back and forth between jutting bits of rock that seemed determined to squeeze in every possible direction with as little consistency as possible, he figured out what the fluttering sound was when he heard squeaks with the flutters. Bats. Well, maybe they'd be a good distraction. He kept going, even when they started to get fussy and swarmed at him, even when he felt something warm and moist he probably didn't want to think about too much squelch between his toes. One hundred and thirty-two steps later, he hit the back of the cave – or at least as far back as he could fit without any tools or light to see by. There he stayed put, breathing in the smell of bats, listening to them rage in their rodenty little ways about him imposing into their home, letting the darkness swallow him up. Darkness swallowing him was the best possibly thing that could swallow him today.

Yep.

“Come on guys, please be quiet,” he whispered at the bats as they continued to squeal and flurry around in aggravation. “I need you to be quiet so the ponies won't eat us. Okay?”

Whether they understood that or they just figured out he didn't mean any harm, they eventually quieted back down to their previous level of squeakiness. If there had been just a little light to see by, Spike supposed he might have been terrified of them. It sounded like there were dozens, maybe even hundreds of the little things. But he couldn't see at all, and his imagination was too busy thinking about a sky-blue pegasus to fill his brain with anything about flying rodents.

If he were a pony, he'd probably just eat all the bats and enjoy having the cave all to himself. Of course, if he were a pony, he wouldn't need to hide in a stinky old hole in the ground in the first place.

Spike shuddered. Even briefly imagining what it would be like to be one of them sent his tummy into a tailspin and made his head feel like hollow ice. Why would anyone want to live like that? Treating everything not like you like a meal. Hunting down things, hurting them, killing them... just for a bite to eat, day in and day out. Sure, he could see himself eating some poor critter if he really had to, and Spike knew that some dragons did more than that, but to be constantly hunting, constantly killing to get what you needed to survive, that seemed like a living nightmare to him. And he definitely wouldn't enjoy it if it came to that!

As a thought experiment, because cowering in a bat cave in the dark gave him plenty of time to kill, he tried to picture things the other way around. He pictured himself grown, strong and lithe, with big bat wings that cast a huge shadow against the ground, enough to envelope trees. He saw himself cutting through the air with deadly grace, a meat-eater that knew no mercy, chasing after the panicky clop of hooves. Rainbow Dash, wingless and with an expression of abject fear, running from him, trying to use raw speed to get away, but she wasn't fast enough, how could she be? She was just a pony.

She'd trip up at some point, poor land-bound thing that she was, stumble against a root, maybe crack a fetlock against a rock. And that was when he'd swoop down and take her, jaws opening wide, swallowing her hole, feeling her last scream hum in his mouth as he bit down and that warm, warm blood spilled out....

In another world, that could've been him....

His stomach rumbled loudly, and he spat blindly in the dark even though he knew that wasting moisture wasn't a bright idea. He didn't want to be like that. He didn't even want to get even with the ponies. He just wanted everything to... stop. And then they could... what, hold hands and sing songs together while he baked them all some amazing vegetarian gumbo? Whatever. He didn't even have a realistic idea of what he wanted except to have a good, solid week go by without his life being in danger.

The uncharacteristically glum musings were interrupted by a distant howling sound that made his ears perk up. He shuddered a little at the sound, it was too angry to be the wind, but practically too wild to be anything living that he knew. Then, as it repeated itself and got louder by tiny degrees, he recognized Rainbow Dash's voice, hoarse beyond belief. Screaming.

She was screaming out threats, promises of violence, telling him in exacting detail how many one hundred and twenty percent awesome aerial maneuvers she could use to shred his body with sheer wind force without even laying a hoof on him. The cacophony, a song of a soul in Tartarus, got louder and then softer and louder and softer. As though she were zigzagging around with only a vague idea of where he was and nothing more than that.

Even though everything in him said he should just stay up, have a nap or something until nightfall, Spike couldn't help himself. He had to see. He crept out to the front of the cave, the bats long since departed with all the fuss the pegasus had kicked up. Through the deepest, darkest shadows possible, he squinted to that sharp claw of daylight where the outside world was in all its danger.

That golden shard showed him a landscape that seemed a lot less... tree-y... than before. Suspicious, he took another step closer to get a better view. And then another. And another and another, when he wasn't spotted, until he was almost leaning out of the cave's mouth.

The woods had been devastated. It looked like an intensely localized meteor storm had showered down on the area. Most of the trees were in splinters, the bushes uprooted, the grass now just a nasty mixture of dirt and ripped up pale roots. Spike surveyed the destruction, realized that it was because of him, and from the sound of her yelling, because she still couldn't find him.

He couldn't help but laugh.

She honed in on his laughter and was there in quicker than it took him to finish the third chortle, but he was ready for her, bringing his head up to meet her glare with matching dislike. This time, her sides were heaving from exhaustion, not excitement. This time, she looked genuinely frazzled.

“FOUND YOU!” she crowed, and he made a rude gesture.

“Please, I let you because I got sick of waiting for you all day! I was hiding in the back of that cave, you never even checked it out!”

“I... but... but you... BLARGH!” she screamed in his face, waving her hooves in the air between them like it had done her wrong and she was gonna beat the wrongness out of it. “That's no FAIR, you never said you could hide underground!”

“You never said I couldn't.” He smirked and watched her face go red as she struggled for words to make herself look good and failed to find any. “That's one you, one me. We're even. You know... it's been a long day... we could just call it a draw....”

“What?! A draw is like kissing your sister!”

“I don't have a sister.” He paused. “Um, as far as I know.”

“The greatest hunter in Equestria does NOT do draws! Fine, I'll give you this one, but, but only because I feel SORRY for something so weak and PATHETIC as you. Now go hide again! I'll find you so fast your eyelids will explode.”

“That doesn't even make sense,” Spike commented disdainfully, turning and walking off at an unhurried pace as she cussed at his back.

He was in charge now. All him. How could he have ever thought for even a tiny second that a pony like that could be so much better than him, worthy of EATING him? All this effort just to kill a baby dragon. Hah. She was pathetic.

Spike hesitated, stopped and looked back.

“You know,” he said to the exhausted mare, whose wild mane was even more wild than ever, plastered all over her body by sweat, “no matter how this turns out, you're kind of a loser.”

“What.” It was spoken more like a threat than a question.

“If I win, I'll have survived the 'greatest hunter in Equestria, Rainbow Dash.'” He mimed the quote marks with his claws, and grinned at how she ground her teeth together. “But if you win... you'll have beaten a tiny little flightless, fireless baby dragon. In best out of three.” He laughed. “What kinda pathetic legend is that gonna be to make you famous?! Rainbow Dash, Killer of Babies! HAHAH! Why don't you brag about all those squirrels and stuff you killed too? Rainbow Dash, Slayer of Bunnies, Rainbow Dash, Vanquisher of Sparrows-”

“Shut your face.”

But he couldn't. He was on a roll. “Rainbow Dash, Squisher of Earthworms! Oh, and by the way, if I end up in your 'legend,'” and here he added the air quotes again, very mockingly, “make sure you get my name right. It's Spike. S-P-I... um, I think it's -C-K after that but I'm not totally sure. I'm sure,” he added with a huge eye roll, “I'm probably the toughest thing you've ever hunted, anyway.”

She was so angry that she actually couldn't talk. Spike waited and nothing came out, just a few whistling grunts and half-spoken syllables that choked in her throat. So he shrugged and turned around to find his third hiding place, feeling immensely proud of himself. Well, grats Spike, you finally talked down a pony. Now, if you were gonna die, at least you could die smugly – which was probably the best way to die, other than at a ripe old age. Even the growl of his stomach somehow seemed celebratory now.

That was how dragons rolled, baby.

Rainbow Dash had really torn the place up. For as far as he could see, everything was just ruined, broken wood and torn plants and splatters of soil everywhere. That meant he'd have to walk a bit more than usual to find a good spot, unless he wanted to just bury himself. But that seemed like a bad idea; since his last spot had been a cave, she'd be certain to check the ground more thoroughly now.

And his first spot had been a bush, couldn't do that again. What did that leave? A tree or water. If he could find a nice, murky pond covered in lilypads and stuff that would be perfect, but as much as he jogged around and looking the place over, even crossing the earlier two streams a few times, he couldn't see anything like that. So Spike settled for the next best thing: a nice hollow tree.

Termites? Sure. A creepy-looking puffy orange mold? Yeah. Annoying little splinters? Soooo many annoying little splinters. But it hid him perfectly once he snuggled down inside it from up top (even if he had to scare off a resident woodpecker), and he figured that even if it broke, chances were good that it would break in a way that would let him keep on hiding in the broken off cylinder. He wasn't a tree expert or anything, but most of the trees Rainbow Dash had broken were broken at the weaker tops or at the roots, not the foundation where the wood was thickest.

Waiting was always the hardest part, except for all the other parts.

That telltale sound of wood breaking, crackacrackacrackaCRACK, was on him a lot faster than he would have liked. He held his breath when it got really close, close like the sound of thunder in his ears, and only let it out silently when it got distant again. But she was closing in on him, it seemed like. Checking out tree after tree. He closed his eyes and prayed to anything that could save him to save him, and tried not to listen too much more no matter how bad the sounds got.

Then he didn't really have a choice, because a massive crackle ripped through the wood he was actually hiding in, sending him tottering inside it down to the ground. He bruised, and bit his lip painfully hard, but didn't make any noise, and the main body of the tree didn't break.

Then it occurred to him that there was absolutely no reason why he couldn't just sneak off while she was busy looking in the other direction, and he slapped himself across the face for not thinking of it sooner. Obviously he didn't have to play the 'game' to its finish! It wasn't even a real game, it was just some joke to appeal to this loser's massive ego! Screw her, he was outta here.

Spike waited until the sounds of destruction took a sharp veer away from him, and then started to crawl out of the tree from the top, intending to head for the exact opposite direction from the pony. There wasn't anything wrong with cheating at something you never wanted to do in the first place. Maybe ponies thought that being HONEST about being total monsters made everything okay, but it didn't. Whatever it took to win was okay in Spike's book, and anything else was for suckers. If you didn't play them, they'd play you.

Or the people you thought were your friends would play you.

Sighing wearily, Spike took a moment to brush himself off and flick the remaining termites away before he started creeping along as serpentine as any snake could hope for.

Then the cracking turned towards him. His eyes widened in panic, and he tried to get back to cover, but he hesitated between his old tree and another one that was nearby just a second too long, long enough to clearly see the trail of snapping branches in the air coming straight for him.

She'd seen him. It was over. He was gonna die now.

He didn't want to die, but his body was frozen up anyway. No matter how much he was screaming inside, he couldn't get his legs to move.

What few trees were left right nearby more or less exploded into splinters, their branches flying in every direction, at the force of her passing. Along with the sound of more forest being annihilated came that whistling chill of too-sharp wind, wind that was almost painful even for Spike with his dragon's scales. But instead of stopping suddenly as the pegasus appeared in front of him, like last time, the air turned into this weird... suctiony... feeling, and the splintering of wood turned into a sound amazingly like the world's biggest wine bottle being uncorked.

Spike blinked and rubbed watering eyes, staring in amazement at what was in front of him. Swearing and snarling, struggling with a ferocity that would have been terrifying if it hadn't been caught up in something so silly, Rainbow Dash was stuck in the hollow tree he'd just left. She'd misjudged her flight angle and landed right in it from the bottom side, tearing through the wood and then plugging herself in between wood cracked but still strong.

She couldn't fly like that, he realized... her wings were totally paralyzed at her sides. And she was bigger than him, so she couldn't crawl out as easily. She tried – oh, she freaking TRIED – but it was obviously that she'd expended so much raw force in her charge that there was no way she was getting out easily. He watched her struggle and pound on the pulpy, white bug-ridden wood with her hooves, watched the wood hold, traced the flow of blood from splinter-gouged skin down her sides and legs.

“I found you! It still counts, don't you tell me it doesn't count, I FOUND YOU!” she screamed at him, going so far as to bash her head against the wood. It didn't do much other than give her some more splinters that she didn't have scales to protect herself from.

“'Greatest hunter in Equestria,'” he quoted with a straight face, though he felt blackly, hatefully giddy inside.

“SHUT UP! I WON, YOU LITTLE JERK!”

“So what? It's not like I'm gonna wait for you to get out and let you eat me, duh. You think you're hot fire from heaven, filly? You ain't nothing but a fart from Tartarus.” He snapped his claws.

He dared to actually walk up to the tree and roll it around a little with a good push of one leg. When he looked at her again, she was upside down, and staring at him with such intense, wide-eyed hate that he decided it would probably be a good idea to step back. She was just a monster. Like all ponies.

It really would be such a good idea to... it would be so easy to just....

“When I get out of here I'm gonna find you and eat you in three bites,” she said breathily, her voice a painful-sounding rasp from all the yelling she'd been doing, her eyes sunken and half-covered by sweat-soaked rainbow mane. “One for your stupid fat tail, and one for your chubby body, and one for your stupid smirking face! WE HAD A DEAL! I BEAT YOU FAIR AND SQUARE!”

“I don't care if you won. Like I said, you're still a loser.” After eying the trunk and feeling certain that it wasn't going to break, he sat down on it so he wouldn't have to look at her. It was hard to pull himself away from the conversation, because that would mean he'd have to move on to the next scary thing that would try to kill him. But he couldn't look at her, it was like looking at a vengeful spirit writhing in its own blood and sweat. A vengeful spirit of air, the whirlwind come to life in a rainbow of colors.

“I AM N-ot...” To his shock, her voice cracked in the middle of the word, just like a kid's would have. “I am not a loser,” she snarled softly, struggling again to get out.

“Yes you are. You're a loudmouth who bullies things weaker than you. Helpless things that couldn't fight you even if they ever saw you coming.”

“Hey, I don't bully! This is hunting, that's totally different!” She sounded almost desperately offended. His ears twitched at the strange note of weakness in her voice. “I'm the fastest, most agile, most amazing hunter and I always will be!”

“Whatever, Rainbow Crash,” he mocked her, and for some reason that made her go so utterly quiet that it made him really nervous. “Anyway, like I said, I'm just a baaaaby dragon.” He drew out the word, twisting it sourly. He'd never really felt like a baby, even when his memories and thoughts had been so muddled as to be barely more than a critter's, but now he enjoyed rubbing his youth and small size in her face. “Even if you get me after this, so what. Why do you even care so much when it's not even a real test of anything?”

She didn't reply, and he thought the conversation was over, so he got up and started to walk off at a pace that was fast enough to not be careless, but slow enough that it didn't seem running away.

“You hurt my friend,” her voice came, low, when he was a tree and a half away.

Spike stopped and looked back at the tree, although he wasn't really angled to see her face anymore, which was probably for the best anyway.

“A little while ago, a pony hurt one of my friends,” he told her, rubbing one claw against its opposite in a flickity-flick repeating roll. “The pony hurt my friend really bad, worse than I hurt yours. So you know what I did?”

“You kicked the pony's butt, right? Duh!”

Spike lifted his eyes skyward, grimacing at seeing the blue sky, the same color as Rainbow Dash. Well, Rainbow Dash before she'd gotten dirty and bloody and sweaty and termite-ridden. “I saved her life.” He left out the part where she'd backstabbed him after because that wasn't anyone's business. He liked how it had been up to that point, anyway. “And yeah, I had to hurt that pony to do it, but I didn't forget all about my friend just to go chasing after the pony for revenge.”

Rainbow Dash mumbled something that sounded like 'revenge schmevenge.'

“Where'd your friend go, Rainbow Dash?” he asked her, and he could tell he'd hit the mark by the way she went statue-quiet again. Somewhere around, there was a bird still singing in a living tree, and the sound of it was painfully clear. “You took your pink pal to the hospital or whatever they do around here, right?”

“I... she said she was fine, okay, so I let her go by herself! There's nothing wrong with that! Stop trying to guilt trip me you little fat newt-thing!”

“Yeah, I bet ponies with head injuries are just swell at that self-diagnosey stuff.”

He winced at another explosion of flesh and hooves against wood as she struggled to break free and, again, failed totally. The tree only wobbled from one side to the other the tiniest bit.

“Totally no chance that she could be hurt worse than she thought, right?”

“Shut your face, kid, I'm warning you.”

“Or what? You'll kill me? Like you're gonna do anyway, because your stupid pride can't handle losing at hide and seek to a baby?”

“Shut up! You suggested it in the first place you jerk!”

“Maybe she got lost. Maybe she passed out on the way and hit her head on something again. She could be dead right now,” he said, amazed and a little horrified at the words coming out of his mouth, the sheer black hate, but it felt so, so good.

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH YOU BRAT!”

“WHY DON'T YOU SHUT YOURS?!” he screamed right back, diving over right in front of her and glaring straight into her face. “WHY DON'T YOU PONIES EVER JUST SHUT YOUR STUPID MOUTHS AND LEAVE THE REST OF US ALONE?!”

They glared at each other with mutual hatred, shaking with it, sweating with it, unable to blink, unable to form any more meaningful sentences than what they'd already said to each other. He knew she would have killed him by now if she'd been free. But she wasn't. He could see her wings flexing against the wood, so helplessly, so hopelessly, as pathetic as any prey before a pony, her wings against the wood.

With a sound of sheer animal fury, she lunged forward with her head an inch, snapping her teeth at his face. Spike jumped back, delighted at the reversal of their previous positions, yet somehow also bitter and unhappy about it. But she deserved it. She deserved worse. She was a terrible, monstrous thing that deserved....

The hatred drained from him, leaving only tiredness and tears in his eyes. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash didn't look like a monster. She just looked like a trapped, embarrassed, anxious thing, unable to beat him, unable to express herself, unable to even admit why she was so upset. A termite was crawling on her nose, and she was trying really, really hard not to make ridiculous scrunched up faces from it. In the sky, she'd been unbeatable. Now, she was just... so sad, and so weak, and so silly.

Like a fat little dragon without fire or wings.

“Don't even think about bragging to anyone about this, shrimp. As soon as I get out of here, you're dead,” she promised him, abandoning heat for ice. She shook her head and blinked, her own sweat blinding her eyes.

It didn't even matter. Couldn't she see that it didn't matter?

Of course not. They never could.

“Goodbye, Rainbow Dash,” he told her without malice, and walked off through the mutilated trees and torn up sods of grass.

The Mask

“Okay, it should be after the next two turns. Are you sure you want to do this?” Twilight asked her little meal-in-waiting for one last time. “We could still turn around and start off with that friend of yours, the pony with all the pets.”

She felt Spike taking a deep breath and squaring his posture into as good an approximation of a formal stance as his juicy little body could manage while riding her back.

“No, I've gotta do this first. I've gotta apologize. If she hates me anyway, then at least I know she hates me.”

“Oh, come on, I'm sure you're just being-” Twilight paused to stare pointedly at a passing earth pony who was glaring at her dragon with an expression of visible, almost personal aggression. “Keep 'em moving, buddy. Anyway, Spike, so you've got a reputation as a bit of a wild animal around Ponyville, so what? You are wild. Well, were, anyway. If worst comes to worst, I've got a little set aside from the main travel budget to pay for any damages.”

She was trying to keep an optimistic framing on things for the sake of science, even though her heart was more inclined towards Spike's own level of gloom'n doom the more she traveled through the countryside around this town. They had met plenty of hostile ponies, ponies who either recognized Spike or who had heard of him, and she had had to invoke the Princess's name explicitly more times than she really was comfortable with just to keep his little neck from getting snapped.

Yet for all that, they hadn't seen any sign of the ponies Spike had been most afraid of encountering. No rainbow-maned pegasi, no hyper pink earth ponies. She had small claw marks on her back from the last time he thought he'd seen a blue pegasus following them, but it was all for a good cause. As was her unexpected windedness from carrying a baby dragon and saddlebags full of traveling supplies and utterly necessary (and astoundingly heavy) scientific equipment. Whew, she was incredibly out of shape. Just one more reason why this trip was a painful but necessary thing. At least she could alternate with physically carrying things and using her magic to levitate them, so her back muscles got a break while she worked her brain muscles and vice versa. How all the earth ponies hauling carts and carriages along these roads managed, she'd never know.

Spike had gotten quieter and quieter once they'd gotten a ways away from Canterlot, unresponsive to her well-formulated and totally fair grammar pop quizzes or her efforts at starting up some good natured back and forth theorizing on the possibilities implicit in chaos magic-based pony mutations, undiscovered parasitic life forms and invisible magical artifacts. Much as she liked to trick herself into believing otherwise sometimes, she knew that Spike just didn't have the educational background to be a real research partner. No, he was a go fetcher at best. A very good go fetcher, though, even when tired from getting a predictably bad night's sleep. With lots of dumb, blind hope and enthusiasm to make up for his lack of scientific knowledge.

They turned the last corner and there it was. The Inn.

“Y'know, it seems a little less... well-kept... than you described,” Twilight noted as a tumbleweed blew past her.

The Inn was clearly closed. Black drapes hung from every window, clashing with the color scheme. The bushes had been left to grow wild and fight it out with each other and the weeds. A white picket fence gathered dust and grime in a delicate taupe coating, and the patio furniture was stacked against the building's walls. The construction actually was incredible, an impressive combination of Canterlot-approved Baroque philosophy and Ponyville's down-home charm, all done in the finest materials. Maybe a month or so ago, it would have been perfectly serviceable as a vacation home for any Canterlot noble. But these facts only served to make the overall visual impact even more depressing. It was a wedding cake rotting, a museum painting gone to mold. Only in the early stages, there was no sign of obviously irreparable decay, but to have even gone this much downhill spoke to very serious business problems.

She was ready to abandon hope of their first research subject entirely before she saw signs of life. A few of the windows on the bottom floor spilled light out, barely visible through the drapes.

“Well, looks like somepony's home, at least. I hope you prepared your groveling stance,” she joked, trying to keep her own spirits up while Spike squirmed and twisted around, a terribly frightened and uncomfortable little dragon indeed.

It was really kind of admirable how he still wouldn't back down, even though... even though... okay, now she couldn't stop thinking about how it was lunchtime and she hadn't had much of a breakfast. She paused and let Spike soak in his full of the oppressive ghost town atmosphere while she dug in one side of her saddlebags for the veal jerky and scarfed it down.

To her amusement, Spike reached up to the door with his fist at the same moment that she reached with her hoof, and they both ended up knocking in unison.

“Hello? Is anypony home?”

A reply came very quickly, but it was not exactly the one Twilight had been ready for.

“Go away!” a voice yelled, a wavering sob choking back at the end. Those two words had packed enough emotion, even through the door, to make for a great soap opera scene.

“That's her!” Spike whispered in Twilight's ear furiously, jumping up to his feet.

“Miss Rarity? I'm sorry to bother you, but this is an official scientific inquiry authorized by the Princess Herself. I promise we won't take too much of your time! Could you please open the door?”

Bitter, witchish laughter spilled out, causing Spike and Twilight alike to flinch back a bit.

“Another prankster, REALLY?! Was it not enough that you foals brutalize my life's work in your news rags?! Come up with a more believable ruse next time, you cretins! Nopony would believe that the Princess could ever need anything from a HIDEOUS, HIDEOUS pony like me!”

Twilight and Spike shared a look.

“Exactly how badly did you hurt her, anyway?”

“I don't know... I just swung my claws at her and ran....” Spike's eyes actually welled up with tears. “Rarity, it's me!” he yelled. “I know you probably hate me forever, but I just wanted to say I'm really, really sorry!”

There was a silence, and then the door opened without any sound of hoofsteps prior to that, as if they were to be greeted by a ghost. Standing in the dim doorway was a stark-white unicorn with a terrifying wax mask covering half her face like a vast and overflowing boil. Spike and Twilight, once again in unison, shrieked and stumbled back, the former falling down to the ground.

“You see?! Am I not an abominable display of the grotesque even with my deformity shielded from the cruel gazes of onlookers?!” Rarity insisted, her actions somewhat contradicting her claim as she struck a seemingly instinctive pose so that the sunlight would sparkle in her gorgeously curly, midnight-purple mane. “Don't try to deny it. But why, WHY did you have to bring that... that guest... back here?!” she asked, pointing a trembling hoof to Spike while directing her eyes to Twilight.

Conscious of her failure to exhibit suitable professionalism, Twilight took a breath and straightened up. This was a rockier start than she'd been prepared for. Nowhere in her notes did she have anything relating to crazy deformed ponies with masks. Not a single thing. She was torn between being upset at life for throwing her the curve ball and being upset at herself for failing to prepare for ever eventuality.

“Well, like he said earlier, Spike has come to apologize to you. And I have come because we have reason to believe that you, personally, may be critical to exploring new boundaries in interventionist pandemonic theurgy, as well as equally-misunderstood spellcraft related to alicorns like Princess Celestia!”

Rarity looked between dragon and student, her expression somewhat clouded by the mask but still one of clear suspicion.

“This... this isn't another cruel joke, then? Of course not, you wouldn't have brought him back if that were the case. I have half a mind to, to braise you with star anise and leeks right now, you little brute!”

Before Twilight could object or Spike could throw out another of the many apologies he'd been working on, Rarity turned back inside.

“Sweetie! This is a moment of such great drama, you're missing your cue, sister dear!”

“Oh, right, sorry!” called a younger voice from further inside.

Organ music blasted out through the building and plastered Twilight's mane to her neck, a foreboding melody recognizable as the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, every bit as grim and dramatic as Rarity.

“Well, if it is for the Princess, as you claim, I suppose I can withstand any company, no matter how barbaric,” Rarity said without turning back to them, her words low and icy. She stopped and turned her head back. “Are you coming?”

“Oh, uh, okay.”

Twilight and Spike walked in awkwardly, not made any more comfortable by the organ music, which was starting to get a little iffy in presentation but no less loud. Rarity started chiding the organ player on technique, while Twilight took in what sights there were to see. The interior was much like the exterior. Full of gorgeous furnishing, all left pointedly untended to, as if the household was in mourning.

“As you can see,” Rarity went on, her voice dry as a fine wine, “my customers have been somewhat lacking of late.” She turned towards them in a movement fine enough to be that of a ballerina, a small, unhappy smile curving her lips. “I always invested so much into improvements for the Inn, always tried my best to make guests and employees alike happy. And this is the result, as you can see – no spare bits to weather temporary dips in revenue. They all told me I never should have been a businessmare. And now I wear the proof of that on my repulsive, repugnant, repellent and revolting face.”

“Miss Rarity, this research is very important to me and the Princess. Maybe I can offer you some compensation for participation, enough to help you with some cosmetic surgery, if you'd be happier that way...” Twilight suggested, trying to talk loud enough to be heard over the organ without yelling rudely in her hostess's face.

Unfortunately the organ appeared to have won.

“How dare you! Observation of my contamination, you say?! I may be the ugliest mare for miles around, but I assure you, miss whoever you are, that I am not contagious, nor am I to be made a spectacle of!”

“She said compensation for participation! And I'm sure you don't look at that bad anyway!” Spike yelled, having given up on being heard with any less volume than top-of-his-lungs. “Miss Rarity, probably everypony would love you if you just took your mask off! However bad it is, it can't be that bad! And if it is, I'm really sorry and I'll do anything to make it up to you, I swear!”

“Oh, you don't think I have a right to feel sad, after you came into my life and ROO-EENED everything I worked my whole life to achieve?!”

Spike waved his hands frantically.

“No no no! I mean-”

Okay, she'd had about enough of this.

“Do ya think you could stop playing the organ for a second?” Twilight called out in the direction of the background music.

“You want seconds?! OKAY!” squealed the organ player voice with a filly's enthusiasm, starting up from the beginning again, only somehow even louder.

“Oh, for the love of...” Twilight muttered while Spike and Rarity half-fought half-apologized to each other.

A moment's concentration, and she magically jammed all the organ keys with a pleasingly final clash of mix-matched notes. There, much better.

“Heyyyyyy,” the filly organ-player whined, trotting down the hall and into view. “I was just getting to the best part!” Rarity's sister was young, roughly Spike-sized, and not very closely resembling her sister except in the coat. Certainly not in her bearing, which was very cheerful and lively for somepony playing dramatic background music for a horribly mutilated relative. “Hi! We're closed right now, did you want... YOU!” she interrupted herself, jabbing a hoof towards Spike in the exact same way Rarity had done earlier.

Ah, yes, now there was the family resemblance.

“I'm gonna kick your butt all over Ponyville!” she screeched.

Aaaand it was gone again.

Twilight's reflexes on setting up protective shields had been very well-polished by now, and the charging little unicorn bounced back with a sulky glare.

“Sweetie Belle, we do not attack visitors' pets,” Rarity chided her sibling, placing a hoof on the little pony's back. “No matter how vicious and dangerous they may be,” she added with an eye-slitted look over at Spike, who was blinking back tears again. “Now, what exactly can I do for you, miss....”

“Twilight Sparkle. Like I said, I'm conducting a localized field research expedition on chaos magic, potentially Discord-derived, as well as exploring possibilities on the spontaneous generation of magical antiquities, specifically positive emotional feedback-based accessories.” Twilight reached up to adjust her glasses in a scholarly way, then blushed and put her hoof down when she remembered she didn't wear glasses. “Ahem, all I need is a few hours of your time to conduct a series of tests, nothing invasive or weird.”

“Accessories? What sort of accessories?” Rarity asked, tilting her head and trying to look less intrigued than she seemed to be.

“Well, in terms of purpose, these Elements of Harmony, as they're called, are enchanted anti-disharmony artifacts. Their appearances seem to be variable, but the Princess mentioned something about jewelry, gems and precious metals being involved typical manifestations...”

“Really now. That sounds... very nice, actually,” Rarity conceded. “But why did you bring him here? I take it you are aware of his violent and unprovoked attack against me?”

“And I'm really sorry,” Spike said again, and would probably be saying as his only conversation addition for the rest of the day, by the looks of it. “I didn't mean to hurt you that bad, I swear!”

Hm. How much truth should she risk? Staring at that half-waxen face wasn't doing anything to help Twilight's nerves. But if she focused on just the pony half it wasn't so bad. Rarity was rather pretty, too, it was a shame.

Bah, Spike deserved the credit. And blame, Twilight added to herself as she held back the urge to grab some jerky from her bag. She had to look like a representative of the Princess, this was a pony who would notice rude behavior.

“Well, I've classified Spike as an emergency food supply, but actually this was partially his idea. He's told me a lot about how generous you are, more than anypony else he's ever met, and seeing as how one of the Elements of Harmony is Generosity, we thought you'd be the best place to start.”

“Y-you did? You said that about a hideous old mare like me?” Rarity half-whispered, a single tear sliding down her unmasked cheek, glistening in the light of candles that seemed to be lit purely to make the place seem more gothic. It was so perfectly done that Twilight was more than half-convinced Rarity had shed the tear on purpose for dramatic effect.

“Y-yeah, I mean-” Spike started, but he didn't very far into his attempt at a touching moment of reconciliation before the younger sibling broke it up.

“Even if you did, that doesn't make up for hurting my sis and making her cry, like, a ton!”

“Sweetie Belle! A lady does not cry, she weeps! And it was not a ton.” Rarity hoisted her nose higher in the air, eyes nearly shutting. “It was barely a trickle, if you must know.”

“She moans 'why oh why' into her pillow at night! What're you gonna do about that, huh?” Sweetie had her nose crammed right up against Spike's. “What could you possibly give my awesome big sister to make up for all the trouble you've caused, you... you delicious-smelling but still very bad dragon, huh?!”

“I don't know, okay?!” Spike wailed, grabbing the pony's shoulders and shaking her. “I didn't mean it to be like this! I'll do anything to fix it, I swear, just gimme a chance!”

Meanwhile, the two adults in the room had shifted closer to each other as they watched the young ones interact.

“Ah, the melodrama of youth,” Rarity murmured. “Aren't they just so over the top?”

Twilight just stared back at the other unicorn, struck speechless.

“I don't dare ask what madness caused you to adopt such a vile, dangerous little beast as him, but so long as you know the risks, I suppose it's alright,” Rarity went on. “Is his presence required for these little experiments of yours?”

“Oh, no, I mean, he's kind of doubling as my assistant, but I can keep track of everything myself if you'd be more comfortable that way.”

“I believe I would.” Rarity heaved a sigh, one that was surprisingly not that drawn out or loud. “It would be nice to be able to give somepony something useful again, even if all I have to give is my time. Sweetie Belle, be a dear and play with Spike for a bit while the grownups attend to matters of science, will you?”

Sweetie wrinkled her nose.

“You want me to play with this jerk?” Then she brightened. “Wait, are you doing that polite yoofeemism thing again where 'play' really means 'kill and eat?'”

Rarity looked over at Twilight questioningly, who shook her head, eyes rolling. If she had to suffer, everypony had to, dang it!

“No dear, I'm afraid 'play' just means 'play.' Please? Do it for me?”

“Fiiiiine.” Sweetie Belle smirked rather evilly while Spike fidgeted. “Kay, how about this game... count out all the ways you know how to slay something... one, stick a lance into 'im, two, boil 'im inna pot, three.....”

Rarity beckoned Twilight down a hall, leaving the would-be-food and the child to their, err, 'playtime.' Twilight considered that maybe leaving those two alone wasn't so smart, but it really was the best way of getting a sterile environment for examining Rarity. This was for scientific advancement, a goal definitely more important than that baby mice latte she was really craving right about now. Darned semi-rural road trips and their inconvenient lack of coffee shops.

“So, she's a pretty, uh, lively one, isn't she,” she joked by way of a conversation starter. Rarity felt too much like a creepy ghost pony when she wasn't actively engaged in talking, and following the masked mare through a neglected and unfamiliar building was definitely enhancing the creepy.

“Sweetie's such a gem, she goes into things headlong, you know. All or nothing.”

“Can't imagine where she gets that from.”

“Indeed. Ah, here we are, the former smoking room. Perfectly roomy and vacant, as empty as my aesthetic prospects and social life. Deservedly, so, of course. Will this be suitable?”

“Err, yeah, it looks fine, thanks. Let me just get a few things set up here....”

Muttering to herself, Twilight unpacked her extremely well-organized and much-compressed portable lab gear, all of the beakers, and burners, and flasks, and tubes, and funnels, and pipettes, and tongs, and goggles, and rubber mats, and clamps, and pincers, and knives, and electrodes....

“Err, are you really going to need to use all of that?”

Twilight came out of her cheerful unpacking fugue to find Rarity staring at the setup with a bizarre degree of nervousness.

“Oh, probably not. But I guess we should start off with the more psychological end to get things off on the right hoof, huh?”

“The, ah, psychological end, you say?” asked Rarity as she poked one of the electrodes like it was something slimy.

“Mmhmm! You see, we're currently theorizing that extreme displays of the relevant harmonic virtues will generate a counter-wavelength to the one that the theoretical chaos magic operates on, basically canceling it out. Besides that, we're also trying to determine the extent of parasitic influence on the subject's physiological makeup, particularly regarding interactions with uncompromised individuals.”

“Parasitic?!” Rarity reeled back, baring her teeth in disgust. “Now see here, I don't know what that dragon told you, but aside from my horrible injury, I am in the very zenith of health!”

“Ah, but what if other ponies also had this problem? You wouldn't know because you'd be just like every other pony!”

“I... I suppose... but still....”

“Oh, relax. If the theorized parasite exists at all, it can't be any worse than the magical equivalent of a tapeworm.” Seeing how Rarity's expression was anything but one of being comforted by the explanation, Twilight hastened to move on lest her subject lose her eagerness for participation. “Anyway, Miss Rarity, you've had a long and exciting life as a businessmare. Can you tell me what led you to open an Inn for prey, and why you recently chose to close it?”

Rarity started to speak, then went quiet, dipping her head slightly in thought. Twilight was immediately unnerved by the way the shadows of the room played over the half-mask, and backed up a bit closer to the comforting embrace of her loops of wound-up electrode cords. Being traumatized was one thing, but why did Rarity have to be so creepy about it?

“Since I was a filly even younger than Sweetie Belle is now, I'd always thought that there was something... wrong... with how we treated them, you understand,” Rarity began to explain slowly, picking each word with care. Twilight's ears perked. With an opener like that, it was easy to see how the dragon had gotten so wrapped up in the Inn's mistress. “I mean, of course we have to eat them, that's just how things are, but, well, it's just not... sporting, you know... how we go about it.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight sneaked a hoof into her saddlebags and grabbed her notepad along with a small ink pot and a quill. Time to practice those stealth note-taking skills.

“I mean, they're never really given much of a chance, are they? They have no idea what life is like for us. They live brutish, short lives, the lives of wild, uncivilized things. As you've doubtless seen with Spike.”

Twilight nodded and grunted agreement, provoking her on.

“I remember, one time, I was walking by a butcher shop when I was very young,” Rarity continued, seemingly lost in introspection. “It was advertising fresh kitten steaks. They were in great big cages, peering out of the windows with sad little eyes, and I knew that they had nothing to live for. Empty lives, the lives of all meat. We had three of them for dinner, there was a buy two get one sale and father simply cannot resist a good sale for the life of him. Even though they were delicious, even though my stomach was full, I felt so....”

“Mmmhmm?”

“I felt so empty inside,” Rarity whispered, rubbing at her mask with a hoof. “Like something important was missing. Have you ever felt like that, Twilight?”

“I'm not sure.” Twilight snapped her memories shut like a trap, moving back on to business. Science. No good would come of letting things get personal. “But let's not make this about me. We can't complicate the environment with too many variables or this will take a lot more than one day to get through.”

“Of course, of course, all in the good name of science, yes? I apologize. Anyway, after that, I realized that what I truly wanted was to just give those poor little creatures a taste of the good life. The pony life. Even though I had my own wants, my own dreams, their little lives were so much duller, and they needed these things more than I needed the life of a... well, never mind those old foal's fancies, anyway. They could learn what it was like to live their lives in style and self-assurance, you see? Not kittens, of course, or mice or common songbirds, but some of the more well-developed ones, the griffins and even some of the brighter diamond dogs. We already keep some of them as pets, why not go one step further? What could it hurt, I ask you? At least, that was what I thought at the time,” Rarity added before Twilight could get a word out, her voice darkening. “And in the present moment it is, in fact, very apparent what it can hurt.”

“So you spent your life giving prey unique opportunities to immerse themselves in pony society because you felt bad for them, uplifting them to our level temporarily. And now you've kind of had that thrown back in your face because one of them got out of control. I'm sorry,” Twilight said sympathetically. “I know Spike is too.”

“I gave him something beautiful, something he could never have otherwise, and far from being grateful, he threw it away and made me into this monster that you see before you!” Rarity burst out furiously. “But I can't truly hate him for it, he's just prey, like all of them, and he can only act as prey can act, isn't that right? I can no longer continue to delude myself. I couldn't face anypony anymore, after what he did. My life has been spent throwing pearls to swine. The others are right to mock me for it.”

At this point, the polite thing to do would be to offer to put Spike down as a balm to the reputation of Rarity's business. But Twilight's tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth when she tried to ask. It was probably just Rarity's mask making her nervous.

“Are you... is it really that bad, with the mask off?” she asked, hesitant but morbidly inquisitive.

“I'm hideous,” Rarity replied quietly.

“I'm really sorry.”

“It's perfectly alright, dear. Not your fault. Now, then, do you have any more questions for me?”

“A few, but nothing as deep as the earlier stuff. Let me see....”

Twilight quizzed the hostess on her diet, her daily schedule, her level of physical activity, her general moods and basic physical anomalies and ailments. When put together, all the facts added up to a picture of a totally normal pony, all things considered. She was healthy, ate regularly ('mostly bitter salted herbs, unboned fish and black bread these days, you understand, dear'), got plenty of exercise. She didn't show any symptoms typical of traditional parasitic infestation such as low energy levels or dangerous divergent appetites – at least, not compared to any other pony. All of it was as Twilight had expected, but she'd had to ask these things anyway to make sure of the baseline they were starting with.

After that it was on to the attempted Element of Harmony manifestation phase. Based more or less purely on Spike's assumptions that Rarity was the Bearer of Generosity, Twilight first set out to induce a generous state of mind in her subject. They talked of holidays where giving gifts freely played a major part, like Hearts and Hooves Day and Nightmare Night and Hearth's Warming Eve, and reminisced of different presents they'd gotten for family members and friends over the years (at least, Rarity had had friends to give presents to... Twilight, not so much, unless you counted the Princess or her former babysitter).

Then, when the mood was right and Twilight had the subject plugged in to every body and magic-monitoring device under ten pounds known to ponykind, they moved on to the physical act of giving. Passing an expensive ceramic vase back and forth did absolutely nothing. With the possibility of the return-giving nullifying the whole act, Twilight then asked Rarity to give her something permanently. She'd meant the flowers in the vase or something, but Rarity obligingly hoofed over a beautiful set of topaz earrings.

“It's the least I can do for you after you dragged the poor little dragon back to me and made him apologize,” Rarity said with a wry smile.

“But... but my ears aren't even pierced!”

“Well it's high time you jumped that hurdle, don't you think, dear?” Rarity commented with a deftly-raised sculpted eyebrow. “Oh, the summer hues are all in vogue these days, and with the contrast to your stately lavender coat, you would be simply tres chic!”

“Welllll... okay... but still....”

“Come, my dear, you must accept! This isn't even part of the experiment anymore, I simply shan't allow you to refuse! I will be mortally offended if you say another word against it!”

“Alright, alright.” Twilight caught herself giggled. This was very unscientific of her! Very unscientific indeed! Stay objective, Twilight Sparkle! She peered over at the readouts as the magic she fed into dozens of quills allowed them to capture Rarity's physiological stats from body temperature to heartbeat to thaumaturgical aura and scritched them out on long loops of scrollwork. Far more work than the passive magic radiation compass she had as a backup, but also far more specific, and specificity was the very soul of truth! “Let's see, did that... wow.”

“Oh, oh my, did something exciting happen? Do let me in on it, are we expanding the bound'ries of classical thought even as I speak?”

“Errr, no, actually.” Twilight scratched her cheek and smiled sheepishly. “I was surprised because nothing happened at all, even after all that display of generosity. It was just... interesting, how completely the current physical evidence is repudiating my theory. I mean, I would've expected at least a blip or something, but we've got nada here.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yeah. But, don't worry! So maybe you're not the bearer of any sort of magical artifact, that doesn't mean you might not still be infested with ancient chaos magic!”

“What part of that statement is supposed to cheer me up?!”

“The part where you help further our understanding of ponykind? Hold on a second, let me get the probe assortment out and we'll just-”

Rarity's eyes narrowed.

“I think we're done here.”

Oops. Twilight was seized with mild panic at having blown her research study so thoroughly so rapidly. The very first day of research gone like that! What would the Princess say?! How had it gone so wrong? Had she said something to make Rarity uncomfortable somehow? Thinking back through recent memories, she couldn't bring anything to mind that would cause the subject to shift in amicability so abruptly.

“Wait wait wait, I'm sorry, I'll do something else, we can't stop now, there's still so many tests to try out...” Twilight rambled as she tried to block the doorway without looking like she was blocking it. She felt oddly like Spike right now. Sweet, juicy, chubby little Spike. “You can have your earrings back!”

“What's wrong with them?!”

“Nothing, I just meant-”

“Room service!” Spike and Rarity's sister yelled out with perfect coordination, making both the older ponies jump.

Dragon and filly rolled in a squeaky-wheeled tea cart laden with a steaming tea pot, packets of tea, cups and small triangles of bacon sandwiches. It was all sloppily put together, crumbs spilling onto the top of the cart, food arranged on the plates unevenly at best, but for all that was not a half bad effort from two kids. They also had found, somewhere or other, a roughly-fitting tuxedo for Spike and maid's uniform for Sweetie, fancy clothes that only partially hid the light bruises, scratches and sweat the two had from undoubtedly fighting with each other with low-key violence before they'd set upon this bizarre idea.

“Sweetie, dear, I thought I told you to play,” Rarity said, sounding as bewildered as Twilight felt.

Twilight nibbled on a sandwich. Surprisingly decent, apparently the ingredients had all been in an ice box and they'd just needed assembling.

“We are playing! We're playing servant. Would you care for a spot of tea, m'lady?”

“Be that as it may, you know you're not supposed to use the stove without supervision!”

“I didn't! I just used my magic to heat up the water!”

“Ohhh... yeees, I can see that now,” Rarity drawled out with a faint giggle, inspecting the blackened bottom of the teapot. She sighed and adjusting her slipping mask back to its usual posture. “I suppose we might as well enjoy the meal since you both went to such efforts to prepare it, right, Twilight?”

“Mmmhmm,” Twilight mumbled through her second sandwich, the bacon crunching delightfully in her teeth. She couldn't help it, having Spike around all the time made her appetite go nuts! She could almost imagine cracking his cute little bones just like bacon in her mouth....

“So, what is it like studying under the Princess Herself?” Rarity asked as she propped her hooves up under an ottoman pushed over by her sister. “You know so much of me and I barely know anything about you, it's left me feeling quite disarmed!”

Twilight's lips curved into a fond smile before she was aware that that was what they were doing, a Pavlovian response to remembering all the lessons and essays and wonderfully fulfilling homework assignments. And the other times, too... teatime in the garden, spontaneous walkabouts while they shares opinions on centuries-old architectural traditions of the city, the field trips to the museum. And the summer hunts! Oh, it'd been so exciting, analyzing all the skeletal muscle ratios of caught game Shiny had decapitated while the servants fretted over whether or not the Princess had chipped a hoof.

“Well, not to brag or anything, but it's really nice. I've learned so much from her I couldn't put it all into words in one lifetime! Of course, there's plenty of spellcraft, but the Princess likes to place emphasis on sociology in her lesson plans. She also really approved of my scholarly interest in the philosophy of objectivity and how it applies to the scientific method, so we've been applying that to a lot of things lately.” As she talked, she noticed Rarity leaning in just a little bit, eyes a bit more intense than usual. There was a definite energy, a sort of hunger there, that Rarity'd been lacking earlier.

“More tea, Twilight?” Pity there weren't any mice.

“Yes, Spike, thank you.”

“Butter with your sandwich, Rarity?”

“Oh, just the barest smidgen, Sweetie Belle. You know how dreadful all the sugar is for my diet. So, you're her sole student, then? You make it sound like such a personal experience.”

“Well, early on I attended her school for gifted unicorns, but she didn't actually teach there, of course. I graduated a while back and have pressed on with my independent studies since then. Studies like this one... why, if we can figure out how to get a handle on this whole Generosity thing, it could make big, big waves in the scientific community! You could even be famous,” she added with a smile, gambling on Rarity being the sort of pony who'd be interested in a spotlight.

For a second, it seemed like she had her, but then Rarity's head drooped, her curls framing the mask artistically.

“As if anypony has a use for a hideous hag like me....”

“That's not true, you're really pretty!” Sweetie insisted, filing one of Rarity's hooves. “I bet if you took that mask off everypony'd agree too. Right, Spike?” she added with the kind of poorly-concealed molten hostility that only children and mortal enemies displayed.

Spike's silent smile was a watermelon slice of shiny fangs.

Rarity heaved a sigh.

“Thank you for your opinion, Sweetie Belle, but I'm afraid you're a little bit biased in that regard, being of my blood and all.” She waved a hoof in a way that somehow managed to be both vague and elegant. “Now then, while this has been a very pleasant distraction, I really shouldn't waste too much of Miss Sparke's time. You two go play elsewhere while we get back to the humdrum of this little magical experiment, alright?”

“But there's still tea left!” Sweetie protested.

“And some bacon,” Spike added helpfully.

“Yeah, bacon! Wait.” Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “Who wants just bacon? We need to go find some more bread to put it on! And butter! And thyme or something! Rarity likes thyme!”

This started up an argument between the two on what spices belonged in a bacon sandwich, which lasted till well after the two had pushed the cart shakily back out the door and continued onward out of earshot, presumably towards the kitchen. Twilight listened until the sounds died out, then looked over at Rarity, who had a sad, gentle little smile on her face.

“She seems... very eager to help,” Twilight put in.

Rarity shrugged.

“What can I say? The darling loves to spend time with her big sister. Sometimes it seems like all she does is give me any spare time she's got, when she's not off with her little friends trying to earn their Cutie Marks. And you seem to be keeping Spike on the straight and narrow, I must note. Don't forget though, you may think you've tamed him, but he's a wild dragon at heart. Don't let him... hurt you.”

“My brother said the same thing before I went on this trip,” Twilight revealed, keeping her tone as mild and neutral as possible to balance out the sudden and surprisingly ugly grating tension that'd leaked into Rarity's. She put a hoof on top of the masked mare's, who twitched. “I know he did something to you that he'll never be able to make up, but he really understands that he made a mistake. He doesn't want to hurt ponies. And from that look he gets whenever he brings you up, I think apologizing to you is something that's been on his mind for a long time.” She laughed. “Listen to me, getting all serious about the opinions of my backup rations. It doesn't matter what he thinks, anyway, he's just food! You look like a beautiful pony to me, Rarity. Whether your mask is on or off.”

“Then why do I feel like, like some repulsive spot trampled into the rug,” Rarity whispered, leaning back in her chair.

“You know, maybe that's the problem,” Twilight thought out loud. “Maybe your ability to synchronize with your innate harmonic resonance is being impeded because you're not expressing a prerequisite degree of self-awareness that would enable the reification process. A textbook case of psychosomatic negative feedback!”

“Ah hmmmm. I'm going to pretend I understand the majority of the words you just used,” Rarity said carefully while Twilight flushed, “and you're going to tell me what, theoretically, we should do about this. From a scientific perspective, of course.”

“Of course.” Twilight took a moment to compose herself and plan a rational way of dealing with her test subject's squeamishness, closing her eyes and rubbing hooves at her temples. She felt like she was still missing something in her interactions with the pony. Oh, if only she'd read more books, she was sure she'd know the right scientific procedure to analyze harmonic potentiality! It was really frustrating how some ponies put something as petty as their personal space above the wonders of discovering new knowledge. “Let's see, what if we just used a basic glamor to try and get you feeling less self-conscious? No more machines, no more poking and prodding.”

“That sounds... nice.” Rarity smiled hesitantly.

“Maybe you could tell me about a good memory, something that somepony gave you, or that you gave somepony....”

“Another trip down memory lane, is it?” Rarity's eyes narrowed, and at first Twilight wondered if she'd offended the finicky pony somehow again, but then she smiled. “I think I can come up with something sufficient to the task at hoof.”

Rarity was almost too obliging, picking her words with the intricate purple prose of a romance novel, describing a visual shorthoof of a long-ago birthday party with such attention to detail that Twilight felt as if she had lived through it herself. Creating the glamor to match the words was subject to endless scrutiny and nitpicking by the masked pony, who had a very particular sense of aesthetics that would brook no argument. When Twilight tried to brush past details, impatient to be making the most of her schedule, Rarity rebuked her – gently, but unmistakably – and there was nothing for it but to smile and apologize and try again, do better, make it more like her memories.

“Think nothing of it, dear!”

“Oh, you almost had it that time, but perhaps a trifle more...”

“Come come now, are you even trying? I'm kidding, of course, you needn't glare at me so!”

“Goodness, is that how they do birthdays up in Canterlot? Truly? I had expected much more, ah... never mind, no, pleeeeaaase continue.”

Twilight began to find her mind darkening with frustration even as their surroundings lit up with an ever more beautiful glamor. It was not a literal reproduction of the party, of course, but a reproduction of the party's most important elements, all brought together and emphasized with physically improbable proportions and lighting techniques. The balloons were pinker than pink could be pink, the small cake more ornate than its size should have been able to withstand, the presents great puzzles to the eye of geometrical mazes of foil.

And yet Rarity would not be appeased. Something was always... off.

Argh!

Did this vain, shallow pony even realize how important this was?! It was Twilight's first ever real research expedition outside of the environs of Canterlot. She had to prove to the Princess that she was a good student, not just frittering away bits and study time on sightseeing! And her theory, her foolish, foolish theory, based on a half-mad, two thirds undomesticated baby dragon's ravings all hinged on this wishy washy emotional nonsense of getting Rarity to feel generous. This wasn't scientific, this wasn't scientific at all! But it was all she had, mad experiments from a mad dragon's diseased brain at the mercy of a mad masked pony. And Rarity was making it so unnecessarily hard.

The change happened, like lightning, sudden and without provocation. Rarity leaned over, gesturing with a hoof to show how the angle of the candle smoke could be 'just a tad more curlicued.' She tripped over a piece of furniture that had been quite obscured by the bottom of an illusionary balloon, stumbling and catching herself harmlessly... but her mask fell off. The wax made an anticlimactic little thwup against the floor, the part directly impacting denting and flaking off a little like dandruff. Rarity froze, horrified, mouth and eyes paralyzed wide open, and Twilight just stared, equally a loss.

Rarity was... beautiful.

Perfectly, flawlessly beautiful.

And Twilight Sparkle found herself filling to burst with a rapidly rising tide of bitter rage.

“Rarity,” she said flatly, eyes half-lidded, trying to keep her voice from shaking, “you look fine.” In the immensity of her distraction, the glamor winked out of existence, leaving them in the suddenly mundane-seeming room with its expensive furnishing, fit for a mare with equally expensive tastes. Expense mane condition, expense perfume, expensive makeup on the face nopony ever saw! “In fact,” she went on, her voice rising without her meaning it to, “you look more than fine, you look great! Is this what all the fuss is about?! Spike didn't do anything to you, heck, you look better than I do!”

There was a moment of dead silence, broken faintly by the sounds of Sweetie Belle and Spike getting into trouble several rooms over.

“Is that some kind of joke?”

“Uhhh,” said Twilight.

“Are you mocking my hideous DEFORMITY?!” Rarity screeched, jumping forward, jamming her face against Twilight, who found herself pinned against a wall by the sheer proximity of the other unicorn. Not to mention the almost physical force of all that expensive perfume.

But it was Rarity's eyes that held her, quivering azure like an angry sea. Those were the eyes of a pony as angry as Twilight herself was. It wasn't fair. It wasn't even logical.

“I can barely stand to look at myself in the mirror after what that, that vile beast did to me, and you make light of it?! How could you be so CRUEL, Twilight Sparkle?!”

“Rarity, there is nothing wrong with your face!” Twilight yelled right back, pushing her face back against Rarity's until they were on an even level in their postures, mutually upright and glaring hate. “I can't see anything wrong, anything, I swear! Certainly nothing worth closing your whole business over and putting a mask over your face for!”

“OH?! What do you call THIS, then?!” Rarity jammed a hoof at her left upper eyelid, and Twilight's gaze followed the gesture. There was just the tiniest, barely perceptible marking there, a well-healed scar that was only by the faintest degree of discoloration able to make its presence known. And something about Twilight's face must have given away seeing it. “You see?! YOU SEE?! I'm HIDEOUS, just like I told you!”

Rarity broke down into hysterical sobs, long, drawn out, hyperventilating sounds were so intense they barely seemed possible of emerging from a mere pony throat, covering her face with her hooves. She muttered things between her sobs, the words far from understandable, but the tone of self-loathing was pure and rich and utterly intuitive. Twilight was torn equally between empathy, disgust, anger and sheer confusion.

She didn't want to see this Rarity pony suffer... she just didn't understand it.

It was just a tiny scar!

“Hug her or something,” Spike hissed.

Twilight jumped and looked over to see the baby dragon looking at her with an odd, tense kind of... expectation. It felt a bit like how she thought she'd been looking at Rarity in the experiments before things had gone completely off the rails. She glanced over at Rarity, still in thorough histrionics, and then back at Spike skeptically, who hardened his look into something like a glare.

“Okay, okay....”

Reaching over to hug the perfectly-ordinary-not-ugly-at-all mare, she was rebuffed, pushed away blindly while Rarity only sobbed harder again.

“Oh, just leave me be! Leave me to fester in my shallow grave of woe and regrets!”

Twilight gave Spike her best 'Well, what now, genius' look. This was pretty much all his fault, she decided. Gobble him up in three, four bites when she'd met him and this would never have happened, but no, no, she had to be prudent and save him for a blasted emergency! And he just looked back like she'd done something wrong, the impudence!

“Muh, muh, my mask, where's my mask...” Rarity asked tremulously, groping around on the floor. “I can't stand to think of ponies seeing me like this... what would they think, what would mother and father say, they would be so ashamed, oh, ooohhhh....”

Sweetie Belle had also come in at some point, probably with Spike. Unnoticeable before only because she'd been – very uncharacteristically – quiet, eyes full of tears that wouldn't be shed. The little filly picked up Rarity's mask and hoofed it over to her ravenously grateful sister, who put it back on immediately, fiddling with the angle with trembling hooves.

“I wish I could give you something to make you feel as pretty as everypony else thinks you are... as I think you are...” Sweetie mumbled, sniffling a bit out of sympathetic grief. “But I guess that'll do till I can find something better.”

A suspicion in the back of Twilight's mind twitched, a mostly unformed thing, like the vague shadow of something deep underwater moving, diffused and buried apart from conscious thought and analysis by far too many layers of tiredness and resentment and worry and that ever-present sharpened appetite she got around her emergency food supply's tasty smell. Letting that hunger settle deep into her stomach till it bit, annoyed at its presence even at a time like this, she looked over at Spike again, staring into his wide, shiny green eyes as they also shone with tears. He didn't return her gaze. He was too busy looking at Rarity fix up her mask to get it on just right. Regretting things that words couldn't make right.

She felt like she was still missing something in her interactions with these ponies.

Feeling lost and rather extraneous to the whole situation, Twilight let her eyes roam over the room again, over her ultimately useless equipment. All the acids and bases and electrical conduction and thaumaturgical measurements and measuring and weighing and analyzing. So much junk, dead and lifeless trash. Except for the magical radiation compass, of course, quivering slightly just from the presence of three unicorns in the same....

Wait.

That wasn't just a quiver.

She teleported over to the compass, heedless of the nervous starts of the other three occupants of the room, staring at it intently. Yes. There was no mistake, there could be no mistake at all! This was wonderful, just wonderful! A real breakthrough! The Princess would be so proud!

To be sure, she levitated the compass over, first nearer to Rarity, and then to Sweetie, both of whom stared at the floating disc with identical expressions of mildly offended bemusement. Twilight watched that precious little needle spin and spin and settle. Oh yes, it did. Her mouth curved into the grin of a pony who had gotten just what she'd wanted for Hearth's Warming, and she teleported over to Sweetie to grab her in a one-hoofed, possessive hug.

“Eep!”

“Err, Twilight dear, the 'moment' is rather over as it were, and I must say I think it a little inappropriate of you to be quite so familiar with my little sister....”

“Rarityyyyy,” Twilight sang, turning her head over to look at the fellow adult while still squishing Sweetie against her, who squirmed in silent protest. For some reason Rarity flinched back. Really, you'd think a heartwarming scientific breakthrough smile was something scary, sheesh. “Your sister isn't secretly an alicorn by any chance, is she?”

“Of course not, why on earth would you ask such a ridiculous question?!”

“Because if she's not, then I'm pretty sure she's the Bearer of Generosity.”