A #1 Assistant's Bad Day

by ThePinkedWonder

Rating: everyone
Tags: Spike, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 5581

Spike fought to salvage Princess Twilight's bad day. Even if it pushed him to his limit.

When Princess Twilight Sparkle suffered "one of those days" that pushed her to her breaking point, Spike worked to salvage the rest of her day. He was driven to ensure what the stressed Princess of Friendship still needed done would get done, perfectly.

However, once the bad luck that plagued Twilight started targeting Spike, his self-appointed mission threatened to push him to his own breaking point.

The idea for this story was requested by wonderkid125 and is the first of my two 5th-year anniversary stories of opening my account on this site. Man do time flies...

Published 2023-12-19 20:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-12-19 20:40:01 UTC

Spike's mission

Spike has endured many an eventful – occasionally even life-endangering – day. Therefore, peaceful days like this can feel akin to heaven despite being more common. Sure, as Princess Twilight Sparkle’s faithful #1 assistant, a clawful of chores still awaited him, but those would be dealt with later.

For now, Spike could laze about in his bed with his nose buried in his newest Power Ponies comic. The sun shone welcomely through his room's window. A tall, cool glass of blueberry juice, his favorite, stood ready for duty beside him on the floor.

Though, when Spike peeked at his cup, it was only a quarter of the way full.

“I’m low already? I better get some more.” He pushed himself out of bed. He stretched his arms while blowing a deep, satisfying yawn. With his cup in claw, he left his room and wandered down the hallways of the shimmering crystal Castle of Friendship. Why the majestic palace felt bigger on the inside is a question so mysterious, even the research-obsessed Twilight forwent attempting to deduce the reason. Spike even chuckled at how any future castlemates might get lost a few times.

A nearby door threw open in magenta magic. Twilight stomped through the newly open doorway. A sour scowl and frown adorned her normally cheerful face and her eyelids bitterly drooped over half of her eyes.

“Hi, Twilight, how–”

*Slam!*

Shakes from the slammed door, almost fearful, vibrated the entire castle. An anguished groan from the door-slamming alicorn followed.

“–Are you doing?”

“Awful. Between how a package I’m waiting for is still running behind, ponies pestering me to solve petty problems between them because I’m the Princess of Friendship, and I misplaced my quintuple-back-up checklist-writing quill earlier…ugh!” Twilight slammed her frustration-packed forehooves in a heavy, castle-shaking stomp. “Nothing is going right today!”

“I’m sorry your day’s been so rotten, but at least the stuff you wanted me to do will be done on time and perfectly. Just the way you like it.”

Twilight’s scowl eased ever so slightly. “I’m glad to hear that. At this point, I might scream if one more thing goes wrong.”

“Then there will be no screaming with me around, and there’s the evening picnic with me and our friends tonight to look forward to.” Spike raised his head, brimming with pride. “Just let your #1 assistant take care of business while you–"

Twilight stomped toward her room further down the hallway. She flew open its door and slammed it once inside, coaxing additional shakes from the castle.

“–Go lie down in your room or something?”

Twilight’s bedroom door opened back up. She peeked her head out. “Oh, could you stop by the post office before it closes, just in case my package is there? If it is, could you open it and check if everything inside is there and working? It’s really important that you do.”

“You got it.” Spike hurried back into his room. After he set his cup in its previous spot near his bed, he scooped up a quill and a checklist of his unfinished tasks. "Pick up package and check inside," he mumbled as he wrote his new task down on the list in question. “But, what’s in–”

*Slam!*

“–Your package? Oof, calling that a ‘bad mood’ would be an understatement. I gotta do the stuff she wants perfectly to cheer her up.” He gazed at the checklist. “Let’s see…I’ll whip up some cookie dough, then get the cupcakes at Sugarcube Corner for the picnic while the cookies bake.” He went to his dresser and nabbed a bag of Twilight’s bits. “Then I’ll go to Quills and Sofas to buy her…whatever-she-said-backup checklist quill.”

With cheerful hums under his breath, his checklist and bag of bits in his claws, Spike strode into the Sugarcube Corner bakery and to a counter holding a covered turquoise box. The sweet scent of nearby cakes, cupcakes, and pies kissed Spike’s nose, but he couldn’t flirt back. He had a mission of improving an alicorn’s day to finish.

“Hi, Mrs. Cake. I’m here to pick up the cupcakes Twilight ordered. Are they ready?”

“Hello there, deary, and yes, they are in the box in front of you,” Mrs. Cake answered as she trotted in and out of the bakery’s lobby through a saloon door. She carried a varying number of boxes full of cupcakes and/or cakes on her head or back with each trip. “I even just finished decorating them.”

“Great!“ Spike peeked inside the box. More kisses from the scent of cupcakes inside, each one coated in pink, thick, delectable swirls of icing launched an unwanted, yet not unpleasant, attack on Spike’s nose while watering his mouth. “Hmm-mmm! I can’t wait to try one! I’m sure Twili…wait, there are 15 cupcakes. Twilight only ordered 14.”

“I baked an extra one by mistake so I tossed it in, free of charge.” Mrs. Cake rubbed her cheek as a wave of nostalgia tickled her. A sheepish giggle eked from her mouth. “Now that I think of it, didn’t I do something like this back when Princess Twilight was still a unicorn?”

“Oh yeah, you did. Heh heh, what a day that ended up being.” Spike leaned to the cupcakes. “Uh-oh. Just like back then, there’s some extra icing on a cupcake beside what I think is the extra one. See?”

Mrs. Cake peered at the cupcakes. To her eyes, they all seemed to hold an equal share of icing. “Um…they look fine to me. Are you sure they aren’t okay as they are?”

“To me, yeah, but you know how nitpicky Twilight is and she’s already having a bad day. Can I borrow a spoon or something for a second?”

“I…suppose.” Mrs. Cake picked up a butter knife with her teeth and laid it beside Twilight’s box of cupcakes. After taking the knife, Spike scraped off a bit of icing off a cupcake.

“No, I think I removed too much. I better adjust the other cupcakes to match it.” He went on to repeat this six times on every cupcake. Only a dab of icing in the center of them survived the cupcake-trimming.

“There we go! Twilight should be fine with these. To be safe, I should take the exact number of cupcakes she ordered, so can I leave the extra one here?”

“If you want, but you cou–”

“Thanks a lot, Mrs. Cake! I’m off to buy a replacement quill for Twilight! See you later!” Spike covered back up the box of cupcakes, placed his list and Twilight’s bag on the box, and carried them out of the bakery.

“Oh dear.” Mrs Cake shook her head in pity at the departing dragon. “Spike’s a sweet kid, but he might need to spend less time with Twilight. He’s trying so hard to be perfect, he didn’t even consider keeping the extra cupcake for himself.”

With the box of cupcakes and a newly bought red quill joining his checklist and Twilight’s bag of leftover bits riding on top, Spike wandered down the castle's hallways. He had visited three separate stores before he tracked down a red quill. Twilight requested a red one, so the available colors at the first two places were a no-go.

“Who knew red quills were so popular? But now that I have the cupcakes and Twilight’s new whatever-she-said quill, she has two less things to worry about goi–oh no! The cookies!”

Spike sprinted down hallways and finally reached and dashed through a doorway leading to the kitchen. Uninvited smoke climbed from the oven. He immediately set the cupcake box, quill, bag of Twilight’s bits, and list on the kitchen table, then dashed to the oven and opened its door. Hard, dark-brown, half-burnt cookies lying on a pan greeted back with another poof of smoke into Spike’s face. Coughing from the smoke’s assault ensued.

“No! They’re…*cough cough*...all burnt! Going to three places for that quill took too much time! I should've come back sooner!” Spike bit his claws, battling to ease his budding nervousness. “Sugarcube Corner doesn’t sell the homemade-style cookies Twilight wanted, so I can’t go there for more...wait a sec.” His strained eyes and face surrendered the stress clamping on them. He could simply bake more cookies. “Heh, I almost panicked over nothing.”

His new plan set, Spike brushed the burnt cookies off their pan and into a trash can. He grabbed a bag of flour, sugar, eggs, baking soda, and other cookie dough ingredients. Step by step, he went on to skillfully mix and blend ingredients into dough, placed bits of it onto the previously mentioned pan, and set the pan into the oven.

“Okay, that takes care of that.” He skimmed through his list. “What’s next…mop the libr–wait, I forgot about that package Twilight’s been waiting for! I better go to the post office while the cookies bake…then again, It wouldn’t take too long to mop, so I’ll just do that now.”

After one last go-over with his mop, Spike wiped his forehead, ridding himself of sweat that had gathered. The library’s sparkly clean but moist crystal floor shone bright.

“Whew. Library: clean. Now what’s next?” He looked through his list with one claw while carrying his mop under one of his arms while walking toward one of the library’s doors. “I should go–whoa!”

One of Spike’s feet slipped on an extra-wet section of the floor and he fell squarely onto his back. His list floated harmlessly to the floor. However, his mop, thanks to the momentum from the fall, flew to and smashed into one of many bookshelves lining the library’s walls. An avalanche of books crashed to the floor from the mop vs. shelf impact.

“No!” Spike sprang to his feet. He covered his mouth in horror, his pupils constricting. “Not the books!”

“Spike? What was that?” Twilight asked from inside her room. “It sounded like something just fell–which would fit how this day has gone so well. Especially if it were my books.”

“Uh, y-you did? I-I didn’t hear anything!” he yelled back.

“Could you check just in case? You sound like you are near where I thought I heard the sound.”

“Uh, I-I can!” Spike pushed a ladder, which had been left in the library prior for book-reaching purposes, in front of the partly empty bookshelves. Creeping step by step, screaming caution, he swiped a few fallen books and set them on the lowest shelf one by one, in alphabetical order. “I’m looking, but everything looks fine, especially your books! Maybe your bad day made you hear things!”

“Oh. I guess I’m just more stressed than I thought. Thanks for checking for me.”

“No problem! You just rest in your room while I make sure what you still need done gets done.” Spike set a book in the last open spot on the lowest bookshelf.

With his assurance successful, Spike finished replacing the remaining books to their resting place, utilizing the ladder to reach higher shelves. After the last book was set, he double-checked to ensure each book was in its correct place, then nodded once his examination was complete.

“That was close. I’ll put the mop and bucket back–”

A scent wrapped around Spike’s nose. His mouth widened–the smell in his nose was a burning one!

“Not the cookies again!”

Spike retrieved the list still on the floor and zipped out of the library, very fortunate to avoid slipping on wet spots again, and dashed down hallways and to the kitchen. The oven emitted more uninvited smoke. Spike immediately opened the oven’s door, waved away more smoke, and facepalmed at the newest half-burnt cookies.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I forgot about them! At this rate, I’m going to turn Twilight’s bad day into a horrible one! Some #1 assistant I am!” Spike unleashed an anguished groan. Still, hope remained. “Wait, I can fix this. I’ll just bake more cookies and set a timer this time, so I won’t forget, no matter what.”

Spike whipped up a third round of cookie dough, shaped it into disks on the pan, and set the pan in the oven. After which, with his checklist in claw as well as Twilight’s bag of bits that were still on the kitchen table, he went to his room and set his timer for fifteen minutes.

“Good job, Spike.” He patted himself on the back, literally. “Nothing’s gonna go wrong this time. I should have enough time to go–” Spike stopped himself and chuckled. “Oh no, I’m not leaving the castle until those cookies are done.” He stretched his arms upward and let out a yawn. Lingering fatigue from mopping the library demanded rest. “Could go lie down while the cookies bake though.”

Submitting to his weariness, he climbed onto his bed and laid his list and timer beside him. He averted even a slight chance of another screw-up by not daring to leave for the post office before those cookies were done.

As he lay peacefully, Spike’s eyelids grew heavy. Dreamland proceeded to whisk him away to its domain.

Spike’s eyes slowly opened. His awakening, blurred view gradually cleared–but what he just did became crystal clear.

“No! I fell asleep!” He turned to his timer beside him, which repeatedly blinked 4:45. That thing just had to choose this time to show its rare habit of freezing on its own. Or perhaps he accidentally paused the countdown while rolling in his sleep.

However, there was no time to ponder or whine. The dragon leapt off his bed, instinctively grabbed his list, and dashed to the kitchen. Maybe less time passed than he feared.

Alas, for the third time in one day, smoke rose from the oven. Spike opened it and threw out a batch of, this time, fully burnt blackened cookies, internally kicking himself. He prided himself in his cooking and had only burnt something once prior to today.

Now he had done it three times in a single day. A maddening combo of frustration and disappointment in himself dilated blood vessels in his eyes; he was poised to fail Twilight. Luckily, he remembered something he wished Twilight remembered to do more often: he sucked in deep, calming breaths.

“It’s okay, Spike, it’s okay. I just have to bake more cookies. Twilight didn’t smell the smoke from her room, so she won’t know I burned any.” Spike whipped up a fourth batch of cookie dough and again shaped it into disks on the pan. He peeked at his list of tasks–he had no time to lose.

“Great, I forgot about the apples Twilight wanted. But if I only go to Sweet Apple Acres and hurry right back ASAP, I won’t burn the cookies again.” Spike leaned his head down. His fists clenched. Raising yet crushing pressure of letting down the pony he loved most pounding in his heart forced his fists to shiver. “Just this once, I gotta be perfect for Twilight. She needs me.”

Still resisting his doubts, Spike hurried out of the kitchen. He elected to leave his list behind in the kitchen for the moment.

Sweat running down his cheeks, Spike arrived at Sweet Apple Acres and hurried to its barn. Applejack waited near her barn’s open door with a bucket packed with apples beside her.

“There you are, Spike. I was ‘bout to take these apples Twilight wanted to the castle myself.” Applejack pressed a hoof on her cheek and leaned to Spike, who fought weak pants in between his breaths. “And, why are ya so tired? You didn’t run all the way here, did you?”

“I’m…pant…fine. I’ll take this bucket of apples back.”

“Right now? Sure ya want to rest for a few minutes first?”

“I can’t! I’m running behind on stuff Twilight wanted me to do as it is. She’s having a bad day, so I gotta help her feel better by doing what she needs done the way she likes it–on time and perfectly.”

“But she wouldn’t want ya runnin’ ‘yerself–”

“Can’t talk more, gotta go! Thanks for the apples!” Spike grabbed the box of apples and ran off, fighting more pants. One of his eyes twitched.

As Spike faded from Applejack’s view, he passed the approaching Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity; he was uncharacteristically unaware of even Rarity’s presence. The three mares traded worried glances, then walked to the barn to Applejack, whom stared toward the retreating dragon, wearing a worried frown.

“Applejack? What’s up with Spike?” Rainbow asked.

“He seemed to be awfully stressed,” Fluttershy said.

Rarity stared toward where Spike took off. “Should we go check on him? I have a bad feeling about this.”

“We should,” Applejack answered. She blew a sigh and added, “This is feelin’ a mite too close to when Twilight freaked out over being ‘tardy’. Y'all know how that ended.”

Spike ran back into the kitchen with the bucket of apples in his grasp, his list riding on the apples inside. He set the bucket on the floor and heaved deep, heavy pants, again wiping his sweat-ridden forehead.

After a minute of pants and his energy sufficiently recharged, Spike lifted the apple bucket. “Okay, apples are taken care of. Wait, why does it feel like I’m forgetting something?”

His eyes caught a possible answer to his sinking, puzzling sense of dread. The pan bearing the unbaked cookie still rested on the table. “What?! I never put them in the oven?!”

He ran toward the table, but his feet tripped over each other and he fell forward. Apples flew out of their free-falling bucket and scattered through the air; some crashed onto the table, not sparing the cookie dough pan and tore through some of the disks of dough. Other apples either uneventfully landed on the floor, but a few rammed into plates on a counter and knocked some onto the floor. On impact with the floor, the plates fatally shattered. Their dying pieces scattered every which way.

“No!!” Spike shouted, his bloodshot eyes pushing limits on how large they can grow. “The apples! The cookies! The plates! What have I done?!”

“Hey, Spike? Is everythin' all right?” Applejack asked, trotting to the kitchen’s doorway. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow trailed behind her, all wearing concerned frowns. Said frowns only deepened once they noticed and surveyed the wrecked kitchen.

“Whoa. What happened in here?" Rainbow asked.

“I…I…” Spike’s mind shut down. It struggled to reboot. This just wasn’t fair. He didn’t want much. He only yearned to complete the tasks the pony he loved the most entrusted him with, so her unfortunate day would improve. She would have done it without fail if it were the other way around.

But instead, Spike burnt cookies three times, forgot to put the fourth batch in the oven, then ruined even that batch with flying apples while breaking plates in the process. Even if he cleaned off the apples and tried to bake more cookies, he couldn’t repair the broken plates.

Worst of all, another memory cruelly surfaced inside his rebooting brain. It was a task Twilight claimed was really important: check the post office for the package she had waited days for. By now, the post office was closed.

Despite Spike trying to will them not to, tears leaked from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Applejack found their words stolen and hooves frozen. Rarity, though, approached the distraught dragon and laid a friendly hoof on his shoulder. “Spike-wikey?” she cooed. “It will be okay, I promise. If necessary, I will make sure Twilight under–”

With the worst timing possible, Twilight trotted into the kitchen, likely to personally check the sound of plates shattering. “Spike?! Everypony, what was–”

Spike whirled around to Twilight. As tears further rained, he shouted, “Something else going wrong today?! Well, it did! I ruined the apples you wanted, kept burning our cookies, broke some of your plates, and even forgot about that package you asked me to check on!”

“Huh?” Twilight asked with a bewildered frown. “Hold on, Sp–”

“I tried so hard to do what you asked me to do perfectly so your day couldn’t be as bad, but I failed miserably! The few times I did help you must have been a fluke, because I’m really just a big failure!”

“Wait, Spike, just–”

“Don’t bother telling me to go to my room because I’m already going! That’s where a failure like me belongs!” Spike sprinted out of the kitchen and between the stunned mares. A slam from a door echoed throughout the castle.

Twilight vacantly stared in the direction Spike fled, her mouth agape and body paralyzed. To herself more than to her friends, she murmured, “What…just happened? Spike?”

Applejack placed a hoof on Twilight's back. “Twilight, we need to talk.”

He failed.

Spike lay on his bed, his face buried in his pillow. Maybe as a way to be a friend, his pillow masked his weeping and absorbed his still-flowing tears. He had his chance to make Twilight’s bad day just a little brighter…and blew it. Choked. Failed. He seldom blundered even one of his chores. But today, the worst day it could have happened, he failed multiple times and broke plates to boot.

Worse still, he yelled at Twilight for his failure. At the very least, he could do one thing right by going back to apologize to her, as well as accept his imminent scolding with grace.

“I…*sniff*...screwed up bad this time. I gotta go find Twilight.”

*knock knock knock*

“Spike?” a gentle voice full of tenderness asked from behind Spike’s closed door. “If it’s okay, I want to talk to you. Can I come in?”

Spike shot his head up toward his closed door. “Yeah, you can come in.”

The door slowly opened in magenta magic, revealing Twilight. Her eyes were puffy and unusually moist. Her ears were drooping to the side and the corners of her lips were sagging in a frown.

“Twilight, I didn’t mean to yell at you and I’m sorry about the app–”

“No, Spike, you don’t have to apologize.” Twilight stepped through the doorway. “I do.”

“You?” Spike rubbed his head puzzlingly. “I don’t get it. I’m the one that made your already bad day worse. I thought you would be upset or at least disappointed.”

Almost with shame, Twilight walked across the room and sat beside Spike on his bed. She curled a caring foreleg around him, cradling him to her chest. The alicorn’s fur pressed against the dragon, as if her fur tried to comfort him too. “After seeing you cry and call yourself a failure because of me, I’m only upset at myself for failing you.”

“Huh? You failed me?”

“More than you know. It wasn’t fair that you felt like you had to fix my bad day. Even if it had been your job, it would have still been too cruel for you to feel like a failure from errors caused by trying too hard.” She looked downward at him and, with their eyes locked on the other’s eyes, added, “No matter how many mistakes you may make, you will never be a failure to me, Spike. Anypony that dares tell you otherwise would answer to me. I would not tolerate even Princess Celestia saying it.”

Spike huffed dismissively. “Come on, you’re just say–”

“No, I’m not! Listen, in place of giving some speech about your worth that you’ve probably heard before, I’ll tell you something new. When Shining Armor first left home to become a Royal Guard, I cried in my room for hours.” A warm, affectionate smile curled on Twilight’s lips. “But despite you being too young to comprehend the situation, you nonetheless crawled to me. You even refused to let Mom or Dad take you away until I finally stopped crying.”

“I did? I remember hearing about how you cried, but I didn’t know about me trying to comfort you.”

“Yep! If you don’t believe me, Mom and Dad would vouch for me.” With Spike still cradled in a foreleg, she gazed toward a photo of herself and Spike watching on the latter's dresser. In the picture, she had one of her wings wrapped around Spike while they both wore bright, carefree smiles. “You have always been by my side, ever faithful, and I will always be by yours. If you outlive me, my spirit will do its best to watch over you. I’m so sorry for wallowing in my own misery so much, I never considered the pressure it might have put you under. Having one bad day is no excuse for being a bad friend–no, bad sister.”

At the final sentence he heard, Spike’s already moister then usual eyes watered further. “No, you’re not a bad friend and definitely not a bad sister, Twi. You were just stressed, but it wasn’t like you didn’t care about me. Besides, I could have told you from the start that I’d do the best I could instead of going crazy trying to do everything perfectly. If I did, I probably would have done as well as I usually do–a lot better.”

“Hehe, well said. Look at you learning that on your own.”

“Heh heh, what can I say?” Spike replied, his usual, cheerful smile making a triumphant comeback. “Your #1 assistant is getting older.”

“More like my brother is getting older, but did you forget that I’m the one that drives themselves crazy to be perfect? Now you must pay for stealing my job.”

“Pay? How?”

Twilight smirked. “By taking this!” She strengthened her foreleg’s grip around Spike to pin him firmly against her chest. Her other foreleg’s hoof reached for and playfully, yet relentlessly, ground onto her younger adoptive sibling’s head. Over and over.

“No! Not that, Twi! Stop!”

“Only if you promise to never call yourself a failure again! Do we have a deal? Huh, huh?”

“Deal! Deal! I promise!”

“Then your payment is accepted.” Twilight lifted her hoof off Spike’s head and freed him from her foreleg and chest. “But in all seriousness, I learned something too. I need to be more careful to not put you under so much pressure again, bad day or not.” Twilight stood up from Spike’s bed and added, “But the good news is that the day isn’t completely ruined. We still have the cupcakes you picked up. There’s even enough time to finish at least some of the things I wanted done before the picnic.”

“I’m on it,” Spike said as he formed a confident smile. “Let me–”

“Actually, let me handle everything that’s still left to do.”

“You want to? Well, you would be less likely to make anything wor–”

Twilight shook her head. “No, that’s not the reason. You have been my #1 assistant for years, so I want to be your #1 assistant for a while.” She lifted her head, reminiscent of how Spike did earlier. “You just direct me on where to go, and I’ll do the rest. You can even add whatever you want to the list I gave you that you want done for yourself.”

“Really?”

“Rea–”

“Uh, can we have assistant duty too?”

Twilight and Spike turned toward the doorway. Four familiar mares all stood just outside it.

“Apologies for eavesdropping,” Rarity said, “but Spike helped us out a lot too, especially me.”

Applejack asked, "So, can we be his #2 assistants?”

“Yeah!” Rainbow raised a hoof in the air. “We owe him one!”

“That is, if it’s okay with him,” Fluttershy meekly said.

“Ooh, can I be an assistant too?” A new voice asked. Pinkie Pie lowered her head from the ceiling, upside down, into view from the doorway. How she could hang herself upside down like that, or what made her come on her own accord, is something her friends (usually) know to never ask. “Sorry I’m late for this big moment, but I feel the same way as the rest of you. I even have an assistant hat hidden for ‘assistant emergencies’!”

Spike chuckled. Why not allow it? “Well, who am I to deny the requests of my assistants-to-be?”

“Then let’s get to work, girls! I think I saw that list y’all were talkin’ about in the kitchen, so let’s skedaddle there and grab it.”

As the evening sun happily shone in the orange evening sky, Spike, Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow, and Pinkie (wearing a white hat AKA her "assistant hat") had reached the top of a hill. Thanks to Spike’s new #1 assistant and five co-#2 assistants, all the remaining tasks Twilight wanted done managed to be finished just in time for their long-awaited picnic.

Spike looked through a list in his claws. “Blanket?”

Rainbow laid down a checkered red and white blanket on the waiting grass with her teeth. “Blanket!”

“Pillows?”

Twilight, who was already carrying seven pillows in her magic, laid each one down onto the waiting blanket. “Pillows!”

“Cupcakes and cookies?”

With her magic, Rarity floated plates holding cupcakes and cookies from a wagon, being pushed by Applejack, onto the blanket. “Cupcakes and cookies.”

“Then I’ll get the–”

Twilight raised her hoof. “No no, Spike. We are your assistants right now.”

Rainbow pointed to her chest. “So whatever still needs to be done will get done, by us.”

“Heh heh, if you insist. So, sandwiches?”

Fluttershy picked up plates with her teeth holding sandwiches, one by one, from the group’s wagon and laid them down. One sandwich contained gems, while the others bore hay, daisies, and lettuce. “Sandwiches.”

“Cups and juice?”

Pinkie grabbed, with her mane, a bowl of blueberry juice and empty cups – the latter in a single stack – from her back. She gently set them on the red blanket beside the sandwiches. “Cups and juice!”

"Apples?"

"Twilight floated apples from the wagon and laid them with the cookies, cupcakes, and sandwiches. "Apples!"

“Then that’s everything. Spike balled up his checklist. “The only thing left to do is eat, and we don’t need lists for that.”

The friends spread out and lay or sat on their pillows by their respective plates, cups, and food. Twilight poured juice into all the cups.

All the while, Twilight sat beside Spike on his right, though it’s normally Spike that sits on Twilight’s right.

As if on cue, the sun fell past the horizon and the moon rose in its place. The orange sky shifted to a dark blue night sky; previously hidden stars decorated the sky. Twilight gazed upward at the above star show. “For how bad this day started for me, it ended as a pretty good one.”

“If anything, it would have been worse if it had started well,” Rainbow added while biting into a cookie.

“How?” Rarity asked.

Rainbow turned to Spike. “If it had started well for her, we might have never thought to do this long-overdo assistant thing for Spike.”

Twilight mirrored Rainbow by turning to Spike. “Hehe, put that way, the beginning of my ‘bad day’ was a blessing in disguise.”

Applejack bit into her sandwich. “Then I hope I’m next for such a day. Who knows what other friendship lessons I still gotta learn.”

“Princess Twilight, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” A grey crossed-eyed pegasus, carrying a mailbag, crashed near the group. She shook off her daze from her “meeting” the ground and pulled out a brown box from her bag.

“Oh, that must be the package I’ve been waiting for!” Twilight levitated her package to her. “I can’t believe you came all the way out here to deliver it to me personally. I thought you would have left it at my castle.”

“It wouldn’t have been late at all if I hadn’t… made some errors when your package arrived at the post office last week. My boss was livid and ordered me to deliver it to you directly before the day ended, or I’d be fired.” The mailmare smiled sheepishly. “I hope you’re not too upset with me. Sorry.”

The Princess smiled in understanding. “It’s okay. I’m no stranger to recent mistakes. Even if you were under orders, I still appreciate you coming to give it to me.”

“I’m just glad I finally found you. Now my job is safe, for now.” The mistake-prone but well-meaning pegasus flapped her wings and flew off into the sky.

“Spike,” Twilight began as she set her package in front of Spike, “I know we’re your assistants right now, but you could open my package to see if everything’s working. That is, if you still feel you need to do something.”

“Sure.” Spike ripped open the top of the box and looked inside.

Protected by bubble wrap inside the box was a sparkling platinum trophy. Of Spike.

“What’s this?”

Pinkie smirked slyly and answered. “Oh, that? Just a little something we all pitched in to have made for you weeks ago.”

“It was all Twilight’s idea,” Fluttershy commented. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah! Is this really for me?”

“Yep! Why did you think I wanted you to be the one to open it? Oh, is it working?”

Spike pulled his new trophy closer to his eyes. On its pedestal were engraved the words “great friend, great brother, best dragon.”

For the second time, tears broke themselves free and ran down his cheeks. As his sister and friends all smiled in his direction, only one answer offered its services.

“Perfectly. Just the way you like it.”