"Oh darling! It's simply beautiful! Beautiful! Like nothing I have ever seen!" the white unicorn crooned. Her voice was like music. Like something slow and soft that just flowed so gracefully, so gently you could barely be sure it was moving at all.
"Then... uh... then you like it?" Spike's voice was expectant, riding on the edge of explosive happiness, but his eyes still scraped at the ground as a deep blush made his skin light up like a paper lantern.
"Why Spike! I adore it!" the object of the young dragon's affection exclaimed in that sing song voice he loved so much. "There's no need for you to even ask such a silly question! I treasure everything you make for me! Each and every thing that passes through those cute little claws of yours is a masterpiece!"
"Aww... well it did take me a long time," Spike replied, his head raising now in pride, wide eyes glowing. "I think I must have stayed up all night working on this one, but when you said you wanted my help with that necklace, I knew I had to give it my all. I couldn't let you down. Not again." His head drooped back down to the floor. They were in Twilight's library, books stacked methodically around the wooden panorama of the tree's interior.
"Spike? I have no idea what you mean! You could never let me down!" Rarity's voice was soothing now. Her velveteen words echoing about in Spike's head, but sadness had overcome him now. In the pale blue light of midday streaming through the windows Spike could see tears forming in his reflection off the magnificent sapphire that he had shaped for her. It was sitting in a gold setting which was affixed in the center of a flowing red hat. He had seen hats like those in one of Twilight's books; one of the only ones he enjoyed reading, "The Prince of the Burning Sands". The ponies in that book looked amazing. He was used to the standard flair and pomp that was Canterlot aristocracy, but these ponies were breathtaking in their silken robes and beaded saddles, precious jewels trailing like glowing raindrops as they ran over the moonlit dunes. And they wore those hats; "turbans" Twilight had called them. Spike had then suggested the idea to Rarity who jumped, quite literally, at the prospect of a new, exotic line. Then Spike nearly fainted when Rarity had suggested he choose and cut the jewel that would sit at the front and center of the turban. He chose a sapphire. So soulfully blue. Just like Rarity's eyes.
Now little blue gems were forming in his own eyes, though he didn't know why this time. Eyes fixed upon the jewel then Rarity as her lips pouted, interning his sadness and maybe even understanding it even though Spike himself didn't. His claws clicked together as he forced himself to make eye contact with Rarity. Even if he burst into tears, lost his balance, did any number of regrettable things he had to at least look at her. He owed her that much.
"Oh Spikey Wikey! My dear, sweet Spike... Spike... Spike..."
"Spike!" he heard the familiar yell cut through his mind like a clarion horn, and the dream- half memory and half something else entirely- was over.
"Spike! What are you doing? Are you paying attention? Spike! Were you sleeping? Please tell me you weren't sleeping!" Twilight's voice echoed with desperation and panic. In all, the dragon-now-lab-assistant was quite used to it. Sometimes it seemed as though every new week brought something to drive his friend into these fits of fear. Even when she wasn't beset with a test or an update on her findings on magic and friendship she seemed to find something to worry about. Those times were the worst. At least when Princess Celestia performed the evaluations things stayed reasonable; fair and practical. When Twilight evaluated herself however, failure was always lurking close like a timberwolf on the hunt. After all no pony was harder on Twilight Sparkle than Twilight Sparkle.
"No! No! Of course not Twilight! I was just um..." He looked around the tables they had set up: notes, quills, inkwells, open books, and a myriad of tubes, flasks, and graduated cylinders with burners alight underneath covering the wooden surfaces looking much like a glass city. Spotting a stirring stick he grabbed it, grinning. "I was just looking for the crystal stirrer you had attuned last night."
The purple mare turned her head around, looking at him dubiously.
"Didn't you just ask me to get it for you?" At this her eyes narrowed. "Or... was it something else you wanted instead." He gave a broad, comical grin.
"Spike..." And here it came. "You know how important this experiment is! I know you're tired, but all we have left is today, and it can't wait! If the diaphanous skin from the peril plum pods are allowed to sit too long in the somnispore solution it'll all crystallize!" She paused. Her eyes open in preemptive horror. "Crystallize!"
Crystals. Jewels. Why did that seem so familiar? Had he been dreaming about them again? How long had he been asleep?
"Okay?" Spike said, shrugging while violently trying to force back a yawn.
"No! Not okay! Professor Beakerman loaned me half of his laboratory so I could conduct this experiment, and do you remember all the trouble Golden Harvest went through to help us pick the mushrooms? You know how much she hates the Everfree Forest! If anything goes wrong- anything!- I'll have wasted all of their time and work! It will have all been for nothing! The Canterlot Journal of Magic won't publish my experiment without the results, and they'll think I'm just a big novice! A novice, Spike! I'll never have a chance at publication even if I replicate the experiment again! All this work, Spike! All that research, and planning, and mushroom picking!" Her nose crinkled up as she shuddered, suddenly taken back to the dirt of the Everfree Forest.
"It's okay Twilight! I'm fine! The experiment will go just..." but Twilight couldn't be stopped.
"The magical community will never take me seriously! And I know the professor had his own experiments to run, but I didn't listen to him, Spike! I just kept begging him until he let me borrow his equipment! He'll blame me for interrupting his studies! He'll think I'm ungrateful and ungenerous! Generosity is one of the pillars of friendship! He'll tell Princess Celestia I was greedy, and there won't be anything I can say! He's a professor at the University, Spike! Who do you think she'll believe!"
But by now Spike was on his feet tidying up; his form weaving in and out of the tables and little glass towers as a contented but sleepy smile passed over his face. Eventually he had collected everything Twilight could possibly need and deposited it all neatly in front of her.
"Don't worry so much! We planned it all out and made sure everything's in its place. Not to mention you're writing down everything every step of the way. If something goes wrong you'll know exactly what it was. And hey! If you start to get overwhelmed we can call Pinkie Pie in to help! She's great in a pinch with potions!"
"It was just that one time. I highly doubt she could mix the right sixteen chemicals at random again!" but now she was smiling and gave her friend a hug. "You're right though. Everything is where it needs to be. The flames are all burning at the right temperatures. The room's humidity isn't too high. I measured the correct quantities five times before we began. I even have some spare mushrooms if the first phase doesn't produce enough gas."
"Yup!" Spike said smiling. "I guess you can say that you've got this experiment down to a science." And with a short giggle the two returned to observing the brewing chemicals.
Yellow froth here; a hint of gas there; perfect placidity elsewhere along with at least a dozen other variables Twilight had set up kept the pair's attention for the next few minutes.
"Spike! How's number four?" she inquired, horn alight while a pencil levitated over a similarly airborne clipboard, waiting and ready to confirm or disprove her hypotheses.
"Bubbling!" Spike promptly answered as Twilight made a mark on her lab notes.
"Now number six!"
"It's not doing anything!" he enthusiastically called back even though they were quite close to each other, not warranting a raised voice, but the excitement of helping Twilight always brought out this mood.
"Perfect! Exactly as I expected!" said Twilight, her voice gleaming with happiness. Spike on the other hand quickly sobered as he noticed something across the room.
"Uh... Twilight? Number nine's boiling over," he said looking at her expectantly regardless of her head being turned away.
"What?! No! That's not right at all! The heat must be off! Or the airflow! That's it! Are all the windows closed?" she barked, her hooves frantically tearing through notes.
"They're all closed." Spike answered, though his mind was less occupied with why this particular mixture was failing and more on the strange, glowing semi-liquid semi-gaseous miasma billowing out onto the floor. Biting a claw nervously, he glanced around only to see the same thing happening to three other nearby flasks.
"It's getting all over the floor! That can't be good! I think I'm gonna take them off the burners." and with that he began stepping towards the overflowing flasks, carefully dancing around the quickly forming puddles.
"No! You can't interfere, Spike! The experiment must be allowed to run its course so we can analyze the data and learn why those solutions failed, and... wait. Did you say them? More than one of them are doing the same thing?" but even as she turned around to check she could begin to smell the poisonous gas vomiting forth into the air. Spike now was confused and not just from the fumes. Sure the experiment meant a lot, but a mess on the floor didn't seem like the end of the trouble for this stuff. The strange, thick foam just kept bubbling out like it would never stop, and the smell seemed to attack not only his nostrils but gouge deep into his being, making him feel like a balloon filling with water. At once everything began to slow down. The motions of his hands blurred. Twilight's screaming muddled into a garbled mess. And the world pitched this way and that, so all he could do was let his feet leave the ground to fall or float wherever he should land.
"Spike! No! Get away from that stuff! Don't breath it!" She tried to clear the air; open a window with her magic, but the stench was too powerful. Desperately she raced across the room to help him, but he was already falling backwards.
"Okay, Rarity... I'll try to do better next time," and with a crash the dragon careened into the table behind him sending the menagerie of chemical apparatuses down to the floor; some shattering others simply rolling as they continued to spread their poison. The resulting crash generated a cloud that enveloped Spike in an opaque shroud of yellow.
And perhaps the clouds that obscured Twilight's mind were cleared the sudden horror, for as tears streamed down her face her horn began to glow white, a wicked gale blasting the smoke back to the windows which instantly shattered. Soon the room was clear again, the only evidence of the disaster being the overturned and shattered flasks along with Spike who lay unconscious in the middle of it all.
For Spike though he just continued to fall. Down, down into a land that seemed to have neither ground nor sky. And if he wasn't so acutely aware of the fact that he had no wings, he might have thought himself flying as the warm, wooden brown of Twilight's library faded to black, then to dulcet, dark violet.
Author's Note
First chapter. Many more to come, hopefully.
