“ Oh be quiet. You've got nothing to be proud of. You steal everypony's things, terrorize the town, and use me as a weapon against my own friends! Which, as horrible as it is, I can almost understand because you're a dragon and all. But this! This is a crime against fashion! Oh no. You are not getting this gemstone! This was given to me by my dear friend Spikey-Wikey ... the kindest, sweetest, most generous dragon ever. And it is too precious to me to give to a greedy old beast like you!”
He stopped.
As the tiny ponies stampeded in terror below...as he sat atop a mountain, his hoard surrounding him and all his foes defeated...as the greatest prize lay in sight, guarded only by a single pony he held captive...memories flooded into his mind.
They were his own, but they felt alien. The pony, his prisoner, it towered over him. He gave it the treasure, the gleaming red fire ruby, of his own will. He wanted the gemstone badly, he hungered for it with an empty stomach, but he gave it. Because she asked. Because he loved her. He’d do anything for her, make any sacrifice for her, and had sworn to himself to protect her no matter what.
From anything.
Gently the world returned. He looked at the unicorn he loved, held tight in his tail. There was terror on her face, mixing with tears of rage. Beyond her, the beautiful town she called home smoldered, reduced to ash and ruin. Her home, her business, had been erased. Her friends attacked.
By him. The would-be protector.
He carefully set her on his scaled palm and set at the base of the hill. She didn’t wait a moment before fleeing - no thought was paid to him save to escape his presence. With her magic she clutched the gem tightly and he could see that she would have spent her life in vain to protect it from him.
He turned to the mountain and climbed, scaling it and passing to the other side in minutes. He ran though the crags, leaping and slithering, fleeing his shame. The smell of flame never faded, the furnace in his core reminding him every moment of the ruin he had wrought.
He didn’t stop until the gentle mountains of his home were invisible memories, giving way to harsh, cold crags. He found a new land, one covered in an age’s worth of snow and ice, the valleys and plains long abandoned and the sea empty save icebergs. Small ruins, more ancient than those he half-remembered, led him to a larger castle which stood against the elements and ages as defiant as the mountains round it and rose like a towering monument from the hilltop peak it was built into.
It was a lonely place.
He crawled inside, the gates giving way. The halls, grand to the ponies whom had built it, were enough for him to move though with care. The walls were bare, the stained-glass windows shattered relics, save one which stood in the grandest and tallest of chambers, one large enough that even he could move with ease.
His body, stronger than the earth, more terrible than any storm, was weak. His rampage and retreat had wearied him - there was nothing to do by lie down in the abandoned land and dream of giving the gemstone to the unicorn.
As he collapsed on the resolute stone, his weary eyes fell upon the one remaining window. It was the frailest thing in this powerful land, yet it stood with a warmth and power unmatched by the beast before it - for all his flame and fury, he was weak and unproud.
But the stained glass unicorn, frailer than a snowflake, shone in the last embers of the sunset. Her pose regal, her jewelry majestic, and her Azure gaze resolute.
He closed his eyes and dreamt nothing.
Hunger bore him from his sanctum after three days, his empty gullet overpowering his misery. His body ached - stone was a poor replacement for a bed of gold and crystal.
On terrifying claws he walked down the ancient road from his castle, passing through the suggestion of a town - tiny walls and streets remained, but no life, no sound, no warmth. The wind and snow continued as it had since he had found this land, biting only as deep as his invulnerable hide. His hunger pressed him on, towards the mountainsides. Where nature had begun he continued, digging into the caves into the earth with ease - what was stone and rock to him? He was greater than the mountains, greater than the hills, greater than anything he could behold.
He dug deep, the bounty of the world filling him.
The crust was an empty shell, a warren of stripped tunnels, but he dug as deep as only a dragon could and found gems and gold in great number. He ate with greed, soon filling his stomach and silencing his hunger, then continuing. The feast brought joy as he crushed gleaming diamonds and glittering emeralds, drinking deeply of rivers of molten metal and bathing in magma. His scales felt old and he scratched and raked them, beginning to shed. They did not fall quickly and clung in great sheets, soon causing him to lose interest - time would finish his work.
His maw silenced, the other pains in his body sprang forth. His shoulders ached greatly, the feeling of pressure almost unbearable. Something under his old scales yearned for freedom but could not yet escape. His heart burnt, but not from his molten blood - something ached inside, deeper than he could feel but spreading to his core. The pain angered him and he lashed out at the living stone, battering the ceiling of his carved caverns and shattering the hillside. With a mighty heave he tore the earth asunder and emerged from a new chasm to the surface.
He stood in the cold, the earth he had just rent churning black smoke into the air behind him. He beheld hills and mountains, forests and rivers, the endless sky and the clouds above.
They were his.
From atop the ancient castle he gazed over the morning-lit land he ruled.
His perch was atop a modest hill that jutted out of the side of a mountain, but the stone building atop it towered over the crags and allowed him to see for leagues. Where he cast his gaze he could focus close enough to catch the rare songbirg or animal. Save the scar from where he broke the earth to feed there were few signs of life - he was almost alone in his territory.
His wings strained under his rotting old scale, waiting to burst forth. He waited eagerly - he had traveled by claw every acre of his kingdom but yearned to see it from the air. He clawed and bit at his back, shedding more and more scale, but his armor defied him.
Returning his attention to his lands, he caught sight of something odd.
Tiny specks of color stood against the white and grey of his forests, distant yet vivid. Several others brought his eye to the coast where a small wooden ship stood against the blue-black waves. As he peered the shaped drew into closer view - ponies.
He laughed as he leapt from his castle perch, the fall to the earth below unthinking. He had leapt from the heavens without injury before. As he raced across his lands he burbled with pleasure - the ponies who dared his lands would soon know his wrath. He would break them an demand their treasure, then send them into the world to spread word of his power. None would dare his lands save the foolish and brave, both of which would fall before him.
They saw him coming - he did nothing to hide.
He heard their neighs of terror - he loved them.
Like the end of the world he bore upon their small forest camp, where they had gathered around one of his ruins. They scattered as he shattered their tents and burnt their supplies with green flame. Some few earth ponies drew swords to attack him, a pegasus flew to cut him with shining wings, but nothing would stop him. A swipe of his paw brought the pegasus crashing to the snows below and a sweep of his tail mauled the earth ponies.
He roared and they fled towards the shore.
He let them go, taking their wounded but leaving their tools. They had been digging in the ruin and his wrath rose - they had dared to steal from him? Once they had been given hope, he roared again, his wings bursting from his back and unfurling with enough force to send crushing gales though the heavens. He took to the air, soaring and building the winds to a mighty storm. With a last great flap he sent the hurricane towards the ship, toppling forest and pony alike. The ship was thrown from the beach as ponies clung to rock and tree to survive, the timber vessel ending upon the distant shoals in splinters.
Lazily he took to wing again, sliding through the air towards the beach where the ponies had gathered by their other encampment. He landed before them and roared as they fell in terror.
Save one. A unicorn, aglow with magic. It stood against him and lashed with sorcery against him, stinging his hide no worse than a pecking crow could.
His mind cleared.
He should not be doing this. He knew ponies, he had been friends with them. They had raised, nurtured, protected, loved -
As his snout was struck by lightning he howled in sorrow and took to air, fleeing. While he had control of his mind he had to get away, he had to protect them the only way he could - by leaving them be. He found way to his home, the walls that shielded the world from him, and slunk inside.
The stained glass window watched, the judgement of its eyes the first bite of pain he’d felt that day.
His hoard, gleaming in the light of his nose-sparks, called to him. He ate until his mind faded, he collapsed upon it, and slept.
Time passed quickly while he slept.
After the first meeting with ponies he’d dreamt for days. He’d awoken and found them gone, their tracks heading in a direction half-remembered. He was grateful, grateful they had gone.
The next time he’d awoken the moon had passed from full to shadow. He learned that when he ate greedily his slumber stretched on. When he hungered, he would wake - and soon lost track of time. It may have been a season when the next ponies arrived, four in number.
He remembered them now, remembered to avoid them, but they sought him out. They had sought battle - with shield and arrow and wing, and with magic. He fled, he fought to drive them off, he battered them to the point of near death, but they persisted for five days before vanishing in a burst of magic. He’d kept from harming them permanently and kept his hoard safe from their looting.
Days later, ponies returned in great number, almost all of them unicorn.
Knights with sharpened horn, magicians with raging spell, they fell upon him like insects. They filled his valleys, camped upon his peaks, and guarded the chasm to the earth where he went to feed. It took days but they slowly corralled him into the castle and soon he dared not leave for fear of his hoard being plundered.
For a time his walls stood unassailed, but with a single eye he could peer through windows to see they were simply laying siege. The time where he was offering mercy had long passed - now he was at theirs. Their numbered were great enough that he could only dare peek from his hold - escape by air was impossible.
But he could not bring himself to flee through the earth.
He needed room to dig and the only space was the great hall he slumbered in, where the glass unicorn, his only true treasure, sat in penultimate frailty. To dig would destroy it and that he could never do.
Atop a diminishing bedding of gold and gem he lay and waited.
“ Wow, it’s really cold here!” said Sweetie Bell, walking besides her sister. Both were dressed in the warmest and finest winter-wear, their breath trailing behind them.
“ Indeed - it’s rather unlike Spike, don’t you think?” said Rarity, looking around the frosted trees as she trotted up the icy road towards where the Equestrian Guard had set it’s camp. “ He’s always loved warm areas - and anypony who uses up the entire towns supply of hot water every time he took a shower would simply be miserable in such a climate.”
“...do you think he’s okay?”
Rarity didn’t even need a moment to think.
“ Of course, darling.” she said with a smile. Her answer was sure-sounding. “ My Spikey-Wikey’s more than a match for these ruffians, gallant as they may be. He’s just being gentle - do you think all these adventurers could really hunt a dragon without anypony being killed?”
“ Some of us do this for a living, lady.” a gruff looking earth pony in a horned helm muttered from nearby, where he and a number of compatriots had gathered around a small fire.
“ Shame on you, then.” Rarity snapped back. She continued her prance up the hillside and paid them no further heed. They were not the reason she was here - no, the warm, shining heart shaped gem she’d set as a broach on her winter cloak was the reason.
Spike.
She’d carried it since she’d last seen him, once as a treasure and now as a burden. She hadn’t known the dragon that had attacked Ponyville had been Spike, or she would have asked him to stop. But he’d done that on his own - something a rampaging dragon would rarely do.
He’d fled to the snowy lands the ponies of old had lived in in shame.
It was not her fault but it hurt like it was. She’d spent almost every bit she had searching for word of him, eventually finding out that an archaeological expedition had been attacked. Adventurers had began to trickle to the frozen lands, seeking the dragons treasure - and soon the Equestrian Guard had been sent as news of a full-grown adult dragon had returned.
But curiously...though nothing could harm the dragon...it feared unicorns and magic.
It had taken quite a lot of time to travel there - Twilight could have simply teleported Rarity there, but she’d been working on a spell to counter Spike’s transformation. As bad as Rarity had felt, Twilight Sparkle was far worse - she blamed herself for not knowing more of the dragon she’d raised and not being able to stop it.
And now...as the ancient, battle scarred castle came into view...Rarity knew what she’d have to do.
“ Hold, ma’am.” said one of the guards, trotting over as she strode into the camp. Preparations for war were long underway - armorers toiled, unicorn soldiers drilled, and wizards prepared great wards and sorcery. Everypony was bundled up against the cold, be it in woolen cloaks, guards uniforms, or patchwork blankets. “ I’m sorry, but the threat of dragon attack is far to great - I have to ask you and the filly to leave.”
“ Oh, I’m perfectly safe, I assure you.” she said, fluttering her eyelashes and Sweetie Bell stood close behind her, looking scared. “ I know this dragon and he’d never harm a hair of my beautiful mane.”
“...ma’am, we’ve doctors in the lower camps who can help you with your delusions.” said the guard in a droll tone. “ And I will make you leave if you don’t now.”
Rarity gave a little sulk.
Her horn glowed. So did the clothes worn by everypony in the camp for a moment before they were attacked and hogtied.
“ I may only be a townspony, not some mare-of-war, but to you clothed yoo-hoos I might as well be Spikey-Wikey himself.” she said in a haughty tone. “ Sweetie Bell, would you mind staying back?”
“ No problem.” said the filly, running behind a table.
Rarity took off at a trot, passing by the entangled guard and making her way across the stone bridge to the castle. The scent of brimstone filled the air as she came to the great archway that led inside, the blackened halls dark and lifeless.
“ Spike!” she called.
It took only moments for the enormous purple dragon to appear, though he moved slowly down the towering hall towards her. He held his head low and his eyes were mournful - yet he never looked away from her.
“ Good to see you again.” she said with a smile, not intimidated by the adult dragon before her. “ Ooh, and those wings!” she said, noticing the emerald wings clenched against his sides. “ Those are rather majestic on you, Spike! I’m not much of a fan of green in general, but you do make it work.”
“ ...I’m sorry.”
His voice was quiet, yet it rumbled through the air and mountains.
“ No need to be, Spike.” she said, trotting over to him and nuzzling his snout - and staining her pure coat with ash from his rotting scales. “ Hardly any of this is your fault and you’ve done a remarkable job not hurting anypony. I imagine that had I become your size I might have sat on somepony on accident!”
His eyes brightened.
“ And now, we’ve a long journey ahead of us and it’s best to get started soon.” she said, gesturing out of the castle. “ Twilight’s been worried sick about you and has been working her hooves to the bone preparing a spell to turn you back - if, of course, you want to change. I can certainly see how you’d like to stay this size.”
“...I wanna be small again.” he said, the rumbling whisper shaking the clouds above. “ B-but I want to do a thing or two first when we get back.”
“ Of course, darling.” said Rarity with a smile, gesturing again. She saw him look back into the castle. “ Oh, I suppose you’v assembled a rather fine hoard, haven’t you? Mmm, it may be tricky to move it.”
“ Um...no, I’ll leave it.” He followed behind her, moving as slow as he could as to not overtake her. His next words were obviously meant to be heard by nopony, spoken only as a breath, but they passed just far enough from his great mouth for Rarity to hear.
“ For you.”
Her tears did not freeze upon her cheeks.
Their return had been quick - a flying dragon is almost as fast as a pegasus - and Spike had simply carried Rarity and Sweetie Bell in a wagon borrowed from the adventurers. It only took moments after landing on the outskirts of town for Twilight to appear, so relieved to see Spike she’d levitated herself to nuzzle his cheek without even thinking of it. Spike had been stunned to know he’d been gone almost a year - and that Twilight had a spell that would return him to normal and another to stop him from changing again.
He’d asked for three days before she cast it and vanished into the mountains.
Twilight had feared he’d fled again - Rarity knew he hadn’t. He’d asked about the Boutique on the flight and had been saddened to find she hadn’t repaired it, instead spending her money on finding him. That evening, he returned with an armful of gemstone that he piled in the yard behind the ruined boutique for her.
The next two days turned the pile into a mountain of gems, gold, silver, crystals, and the treasures of the earth rarely delved by ponies that dwarfed all of the buildings of Ponyville. He’d more than repaid her, having brought a treasure as great as the hoard of the oldest dragons.
On the evening of the third day, a burst of purple light brought him back to the size of a baby dragon.
“ Wow, it worked!” he said in amazement, looking at his pudgy little body he remembered. His mind had cleared in an instant, his old memories rejoining the cloudy last year. He was himself again - save for a pair of green scaly wings on his back.
All of his friends and a good chunk of the ponies of the town had assembled to watch and cheered for him.
“ All right, Spike! Welcome to the world of fliers!” laughed Rainbow Dash, clopping him on the back as ponies filed around him.
“ We missed ya, ya little lizard!” said Applejack with a wide smile. “ It’s just not the same around the orchard without you pinching out best stock.”
“ Who?” who-ed Owlowlcious, fluttering overhead. Spike waved.
“ And now, happy birthday, Spike.”
He froze. Was it really his birthday?
“ Year to the day.” said Twilight, trotting into view with a levitated package. Everypony around backed away nervously. “ And don’t worry, this is part of the plan to keep your dragon-greed-growth in check - while you wear it you won’t have to worry about that. Or being late.”
“...huh?” Spike looked at the smiling unicorn, confused.
“ ...and it’s not a book.” she said, raising an eyebrow and smirking at him. She dropped the box in his paws. A little reluctantly he opened it and found a gleaming golden watch, the hours of the day carved into different gems - at the times he most liked to eat them as snacks, he noticed. Putting it on there was a whoosh of magic - and nothing changed.
“ So I just wear this and thats that?” he asked, looking over the watch. It fit snugly and looked pretty cool. Many a pony around looked jealous - and he didn’t feel the need to pillage, which was also cool.
“ Thats that.” said Twilight with a nod. “ But thats not your only present.”
Rarity trotted into view, the necklace with the fire ruby twinkling upon her neck and another package levitated besides her.
“ Happy birthday, Spike.” she said, giving him the package. He tore it open to find a...book. On math.
“ We switched presents.” said Twilight nervously. “ But I did enchant the watch.”
“ Oh, okay!” laughed Spike, but his laugh was cut short as Rarity leaned over and kissed his cheek. He blushed as she smirked - and the wings on his back shot out.
“...awkward.” said Rainbow Dash with a cough, looking away at the same time as all the other pegasi.
