Dear Spike

Chapters

Dear Spike
Dearly Beloved
Dearly Desolate
Dearly Divided
Dear Dreamers: Twilight
Dear Dreamers: Rarity
Dear Dreamers: Fluttershy
Dear Dreamers: Celestia
Dear Dreamweaver
Dear Dissent
Dearly Disgraced
Dearest Hope
Dearly Forsaken

Dear Spike

Dear Spike,

I really don’t know how to start this. I can’t even fathom how to say this just the right way. Then again, is there a right way to say this? I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be able to fathom ever even thinking what I’m about to say, let alone put it to paper.

I suppose I’ll start by saying that I really don’t want to do this. We’ve been together for two years sorry, three years. Just checked. I guess the stress is starting to get to me. I’m frankly surprised I remember my own name these days. Sorry, need to stop talking about myself. This is about us, isn’t it? Three years. Feels like a lifetime ago. Feels like several lifetimes ago I had to look down to look you in the eye, and oh you were adorable. But you’ve grown up. We both have.

I’ve really loved most of the time we were have been together. You really have been a great coltfriend. You’ve been very kind, loving, and more than a bit charming; everything a mare could hope for. I always loved those winter nights when we’d just cuddle up at my house. Remember how you always said that it was because dragons hate the cold and that I was warmer to cuddle with than Twillight? I suppose that was just an excuse until you could bring yourself to ask me out on that first date. I could see through it even then, but I decided to humor you. To be perfectly honest, when you were still a hatchling, that’s mostly what I was doing: humoring you. Keeping your little dreams from breaking. What kind of heartless monster makes a child cry, anyway? I assure you, though, what I’ve felt for you for the past few years has been quite real.

That’s why it hurts me even more to say this, Spike: I can’t do this anymore. We can’t do this anymore. There can’t even be a ‘we’ anymore. I am so, so sorry.

Please understand, I really don’t want to do this, but it just isn’t working out. The writing on the wall was as clear for you as it was for me, but like me you’ve probably just been lying to yourself, saying that our problems would just go away with time. They won’t, Spike, and even if they would, we can’t wait for them to.

You’re growing older, Spike. Your dragon nature is getting worse growing more pronounced. When you were a child, the simple act of getting a birthday present set off your hoarding instincts. Now, it takes even less than that. You know that better than anypony else, and it’s been obvious. I’ve seen that pained look on your face whenever you have to force yourself to not steal anything that strikes your fancy. A few months ago, I saw you outright reach out for that earth emerald you not five minutes before said that you’d love to taste. I couldn’t even give you anything more than a kiss for our last anniversary, I was so afraid what would happen if I actually gave you something valuable substantial. To be brutally honest, sometimes I’m scared that somewhere, deep inside, you consider me part of your hoard, some treasure that you want to hide in a cave. I know that’s unfair and I know it’s irrational, but I can’t help but wonder what you really see when you look at me: marefriend or property.

That alone is bad. That alone is difficult to deal with. I really think we could overcome it if we tried, but we can’t. We can’t afford to.

With you, I can be many things. I can be honest, I can be kind, I can be loyal, but do you know what I can’t be? Generous. I cannot give you a single thing without the nagging fear that you’ll wreck half the town again, maybe even kill somepony. You’re my coltfriend; you’re one of the most important people in my life. I can’t afford to be generous with you, even the tiniest bit. I’m even starting to get hesitant to be generous in general, and it’s weakening my connection with my Element. It almost won’t even work for me anymore when the girls and I practice. The Elements of Harmony are the last and greatest line of defense against great evil, and if one doesn’t work, the rest are useless. This is putting the entire nation at risk, maybe even the entire world.

So by order of Princess Celestia and a heavy, grieving heart, our relationship is officially over.

I am so, so sorry.

With love,

Rarity

“Oh, Spike…”

Twilight looked up from the letter to see the same scene she’d come home to. Spike was curled up in his bed and crying his eyes out, his claws digging deep into his mattress, in their wrecked bedroom. Books had fallen off their shelves as if by an earthquake. Ashes littered the floor, though she could see some bits and pieces of photographs in the remains; an alabaster coat there, a hide of purple scales there. A heart-shaped fire ruby was lying across the room from Spike, with a dent in the wall to show how it got there. To say that it looked like a rampaging dragon had trashed the place would be both an understatement and entirely accurate.

“Spike, I’m so sorry,” she said softly, trotting up to him and draping a wing across his back.

He shrugged the wing off and turned away, curling up into himself. The change of position only made his gross sobbing louder in her ears. She felt her own heart crack and splinter with each passing second.

“Spike, please talk to me,” she pleaded, laying down next to his bed.

“What is th-there to talk about?” Spike stammered with a loud sniffle. “I’m a dragon that c-can’t keep his filthy claws to himself, and my marefriend couldn’t even be herself around m-me. End of story...”

“Spike...” She sighed and shook her head. “This isn’t your fault. You have hoarding instincts, yes; it’s no less natural than herding instincts in ponies. Pony society just... well, we’re not used to accommodating or dealing with dragons, is all.”

“Just because it isn’t my fault doesn’t make it hurt less,” he mumbled. “It wasn’t my fault I was born a dragon... it wasn’t even my fault I was born here, or that I fell in love with Rarity.” He let out an angry hiss and flailed around in his bed until he laid on his back, his crying eyes glaring at the ceiling. “And it wasn’t even my fault she broke up with me! How could Celestia do this to me? Do this to us?!”

“Spike, please understand!” Twilight begged, wrapping her forelegs around the larger lizard’s neck. “You read Rarity’s letter, and it’s true. Her Element barely responds to her anymore. We just can’t afford to put Equestria in danger over this!”

“We? We?!” Spike snapped, turning his head to glower at her with his reptilian eyes. “What do you mean we? Who is we?! You and Celestia?” He shoved her off of him and snorted smoke out of his nostrils.

Twilight backed away, instinctively flaring her wings as she avoided eye contact with her friend. “Spike, listen to yourself; you’re being paranoid!”

“Don’t lie to me,” he snarled, getting on all fours and crouching down. “I can tell when you’re lying, Twi. You’re not that good at it.”

Twilight bit her lip and said nothing, but a quick glance at Spike’s tear stained cheeks and seething gaze swept her resolve away like so much dust. “What do you want me to say, Spike? Yes, Celestia told me she was considering this,” the alicorn admitted. “She... she said she was going to order Rarity to break up with you so that you would blame her and not Rarity, and Rarity wouldn’t blame herself. She was really torn up about this; it was practically eating her alive! Celestia and I couldn’t just sit by and let Rarity drive herself insane trying to figure out what to do.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Spike roared, his tail lashing behind him and sending several more books crashing to the floor.

“I thought Rarity should tell you herself!” she yelled back. “It wasn’t my place to tell you that!”

“Oh, it wasn’t your place to tell me you were going to end my relationship with the only mare I ever loved, but it was definitely your place to end it?” he snorted, climbing down from the bed and standing upright. On all fours, he was the size of a pony. Upright, he towered over them. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, her own eyes narrowing.

“It’s just like you royals to mess with the lives of your subjects,” he spat. “Not even your subjects, but everypony around you! Pfeh, I should have seen it coming! Remember that time you almost got the whole town to kill each other because you were late for a weekly letter to Celestia?”

“Shut up!” Twilight spat, blinking back the water building up behind her eyes.

“Oh, does that hit too close to home?” Spike taunted with a smirk, crossing his arms as his tears began to dry. “Face it, Twi, you were made to be a royal by a royal. Do you really think Celestia moved you to Ponyville without knowing about Nightmare Moon and the Elements? She set you up! You’re only living the life you have because Celestia pulled your strings, you puppet!”

“I said shut up!” she shrieked, stamping her hoof on the ground with a resounding boom. When she opened her eyes again, she found the room awash in white light. She blinked and looked down to see he legs bathed in an ethereal glow. “No, no, can’t lose control!” She started to panic as she struggled to suppress her magic, screwing her eyes shut as if they were arcane floodgates.

“You never had it!” Spike spat. “How does it feel, Twi, to know that most if not all of your life is completely out of your power? Even after you became a princess, you’re still Celestia’s faithful little student. What do you think it feels like to me, being your ‘number one assistant’ for all these years and still having to answer to you? Being stuck in this library because nopony will ever trust me on my own? Being stuck in a town, in a society, in a country where I don’t even belong?!”

Through the swirling of her magic and her heart pounding in her skull, she heard sobbing aside from her own. She opened her eyes to see tears running down Spike’s face anew. He didn’t brush them away, or cringe, or even acknowledge them. He stood tall and glared at her as if she were the only thing in existence. As if all there was in that room was his question and her answer.

“I don’t know what it feels like,” she gasped as the ashes and books around her whipped up into an arcane tornado. “I’ll never know what it feels like. But I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t ever mean to hurt you! I just want you to be happy, Spike. Please believe me...!”

“And if I do believe you? What then?” he asked, his legs starting to quake but his form unmoving against the books that battered his hide. “What are you going to do about it, Twi?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, covering her head with her forelegs and sinking to the floor. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know! But I want to help! I really do love you, Spike; we all do! I just don’t know what to do...!”

“There’s nothing you can do. I don’t belong with dragons, and I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere!” Over the howling wind, she could faintly hear him crying again. She looked up to see him on his knees in a mirror of her own position, his arms over his head as tears streamed down his face anew.

“Spike…” Twilight screwed her eyes shut and breathed deeply, trying to still her beating heart and calm her raging mind. Her rampant magic slowly but surely dissipated as she reigned it back in. Books fell to the ground one by one with a chorus of thuds as ashes fell down on the pair like snow. She opened her eyes again, panting from the strain, and got to her wobbling hooves. She shakily trotted over to the grieving dragon’s side and stroked his neck. “Spike, it’ll be okay.”

“N-no it won’t,” he sobbed, clinging tightly to her fur in a hug and burying his head in her lap. He forgot his own strength and the sharpness of his claws and drew blood from her back, but she didn’t protest. “If Rarity c-can’t love me, nopony ever will. I’ll be alone forever.”

“Spike…” The alicorn sighed. “I could say how it’s normal to feel that way. And it is. All species tend to think that their first love will be their last. But your situation is special; I know that. I don’t know what I can do about it, but… I can promise you that you’ll never be alone.” She leaned down and wrapped her forelegs around him in a tight embrace of her own. “I’ll always be here for you. I promise I won’t ever leave.”

Twilight let out a surprised gasp when Spike shoved her away, his strength sending her plot skidding across the wooden floor. “That’s different, Twilight. You raised me,” he growled half-heartedly, sounded like he wanted to be angry but was just too tired to be. “A very special somepony, though, a mare to call my own? I can’t have that. I can never have that. I’m so much like a pony now that I can’t even hope to get a dragoness. And when I get older… when I get bigger… I’ll be lucky if I even have any friends besides you.”

Twilight felt her heart shudder and crack. “Spike… please believe me when I say I want to help, but I just can’t think of anything. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I’ve heard that a lot today,” he mumbled as he got back on his hind legs. He wiped away his tears with the back of his arm. “I… I think I better go talk to Rarity.”

“Spike, she’s hurting right now, too. The last thing either of you need right now is to see each other,” Twilight said, getting between him and the door. “Give yourself and her some time to recover.”

“Twilight, I didn’t ask for your permission,” Spike growled, his tail whipping behind him irritably. “I am going to see Rarity, whether you like it or not.”

“To do what? What do you hope to accomplish? Your relationship is over, Spike. All you’re going to do is rub salt in the wounds. Please, be reasonable!” Twilight looked up at his cold, hateful eyes pleadingly.

“Reasonable?” he repeated with a snarl. “You are the last pony who gets to decide what’s reasonable and what’s not, you neurotic wreck.”

Twilight glared at him and flared up her wings. “I’m not letting you leave, Spike.”

“Get out of the way before I hurt you.” He flexed his fingers and bared his fangs, letting out a serpentine hiss.

She didn’t budge. If anything, she grew more rigid. “I order you to get back in bed, Spike. As long as you live under my roof, you will live by my rules.”

“Then I just won’t live here anymore!” he snapped. “There’s nothing keeping me here. I’ll just go live in a cave somewhere like a dragon is supposed to do. You have your stupid pet owl to do all your dirty work, anyway!”

Twilight’s jaw opened and closed, no sound coming out as she silently screamed in her mind. “B-but, you can’t-”

“Oh yes I can!” he roared in her face, blowing her mane like a gust of wind. “You aren’t my mother, Twilight! You’ll never be my mother, no matter how hard you try!” He swatted her to the side with a swing of his hand and stormed out of their bedroom. With a slam of the front door, he was gone completely.

Twilight lay silent for a long time. She didn’t even make an attempt to get up and go after him. His words rang in her ears and paralyzed her as surely as if he had wrapped her in his tail and squeezed.

She eventually brought herself to get back on all fours, her legs trembling and her eyes watering. She looked around the trashed bedroom. There were books everywhere and ashes strewn about, much like how she’d found it. Just as messy, but infinitely more empty.

Her gaze fell on Spike’s prized possession. Or what was left of it. She saw the remains of his and Rarity’s fire ruby on the floor in a dozen different pieces. Among the crimson shards were the scorched remains of a half-destroyed photo. All that was left was half of Spike’s smiling face and the Los Pegasus skyline, from a vacation with his beloved a lifetime ago.

“…what have I done…?”

Dearly Beloved

The walk through Ponyville seemed both much shorter and much longer to Spike. Short because his growth made his strides much longer; longer because ponies kept giving him nervous looks and he couldn’t stand it. His anger must have been plain, but he wasn’t exactly trying that hard to hide it. Every footstep was a stomp that left small craters in the dirt and turned grass into pulp. Every lash of his tail sent a shockwave like a strong gust of wind. Every snort of his nostrils sent out a plume of smoke so hot it burned his own nostrils, let alone make any pegasus unfortunate enough to fly through it yelp in pain.

The tears that certainly weren’t streaming down his face had nothing to do with it. Not at all. He wasn’t crying. Of course he wasn’t. He refused to. Why would he? He would just go talk to Rarity, she’d be more than happy to tell Celestia to shove her orders where her sun didn’t shine, and everything would be back to normal. Right.

“Ow!” a familiar voice that sounded like his claws against a gem yelped above him. “Okay, who’s the wise guy who lit a fire under my-?”

Spike looked up to lock eyes with none other than Rainbow Dash. Or rather, Second Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, after her recent promotion in the Wonderbolts. She was lazing about on her favorite cloud in her downtime, as per usual. She was doing that a second earlier, anyway. A gust of searing smoke up her plot had her locking glares with the younger dragon.

Her anger quickly gave way to fear. Of what he wasn’t sure, nor did he care.

“Oh, um… hi, Spike,” she squeaked out with a grin that looked so forced it looked like she would sprain something. “Er… having a nice day? No, wait, stupid, um, nice weather we’re having, right? Thanks to the weather team, and all that. Uh, right?”

His claws flexed. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked with a nervous chuckle, desperately looking at anything but him.

“The letter. You knew about it,” he repeated with a snarl. “You girls tell each other everything, don’t you?”

Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head. “Well, not everything…”

“More than you ever tell me!” he snapped, small gouts of flame spurting out of his nostrils. “You never tell me anything! You’re too busy saving Equestria and leaving me behind and alone and not knowing if you’ll ever come back…!” He screwed his eyes shut and tore at them as if he could dig out the tears before they fell. It didn’t work. When he opened them again, Rainbow Dash was gone, and so was her cloud.

“Figures,” he spat, raking the claws of his foot into the dirt as he continued on his way. He’d drawn the stares of about half the town, but he didn’t care. They only cared because they were afraid of him. None of them actually cared about him. Nopony cared. Nopony but Rarity.

Stewing in his own loneliness and frustration numbed the rest of the trip to him. Everything else was so much sickeningly happy and colorful blurs until he reached the Carousel Boutique, his home away from home and his bed away from bed. Used to be; hoped it still was. He didn’t know what he would do if it wasn’t.

Spike rapped on the door gently. Didn’t want to sound too desperate. Didn’t want to sound too angry. Didn’t want to sound like anything he was actually feeling. So he didn’t look like it either, he hastily wiped away whatever tears had managed to slip onto his cheeks with the back of his hand.

He probably should’ve expected it, but he was still somewhat disappointed and frustrated that Sweetie Belle came to the door. She’d come into her early teens, though she wasn’t quite the incoherent, hormonal mess that most teenagers were. Yet. Her normal bouncy confidence was gone, and in its stead the look of a mare troubled.

“Thought you’d come by,” she mumbled, pulling away a lock of her long, curly mane out of her face. “Rarity’s been crying in her room pretty much all day. Knew it had to be about you, but she won’t tell me anything about it.”

Spike’s rage deflated like so much hot air and his heart sank right down into his stomach. “It…it is. Can I see her?”

“Am I allowed to know what happened first?” Sweetie asked, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “She’s feeling so bad that she actually let me cook breakfast this morning and said it tasted fine. I’m worried out of my mind here, Spike.”

He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “We… well, she broke up with me. I don’t really think I should say any more than that.”

Sweetie Belle’s ears flattened. “I should’ve guessed as much. Come on in.” The door glowed pale green with her magic aura as she stepped to the side to let him through. He crouched down and stepped through when she added, “Just please don’t push her if she says no, okay? I really think you two are a great couple, but I don’t want you two to hurt yourselves trying to save a lost cause.”

“She won’t,” he said simply as he climbed the stairs on all fours, slithering around the bend. He didn’t hear any crying coming from Rarity’s door as he approached. It wasn’t until he pressed his ear to it that he heard muffled sobbing inside. He frowned, his eyes starting to water himself before he took in a deep breath, steeling himself.

He knocked on the door gently only to be greeted by, “Go away! I said I don’t want to talk about it. Please don’t worry about me…”

Spike cringed. Taking another deep breath to steady his rapidly beating heart, he said, “It’s me, Rarity. I want to talk to you.”

“S…Spike?” There was a pause that felt like a small lifetime to him. “I…I really don’t think we should. I just want to be alone.”

“Rarity-” He stopped himself mid-snarl, getting his temper under control. “Rarity, I know you’re lying. You outright told me that Celestia ordered you to do this. She had no right to do that to you. She had no right to do that to us. Please, just open the door…”

The lock clicked open and the door glowed with a soft blue light. It gently creaked open, moving out of the two lovers’ path.

Spike stepped inside warily, casting his eyes about the all too familiar bedroom. Spent tissues were strewn about like paper shrapnel across the floor. The bed wasn’t made; far from. Rarity wasn’t even tucked in under the normally meticulously flattened covers like a letter in an envelope. She was just curled up around one of her pillows, the sheets in disarray, probably seeing their first ever wrinkles since they were bought. Her rear was to the door, but the gravity of two broken hearts in the same room crushed any amorous thoughts he might normally have or comments he might normally make.

Rarity shifted to face him with none of her normal grace or poise. She moved less like a Canterlot elite socialite and more like a corpse rising from its grave through no will of its own. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks glistening with fresh tears and the pillow she rested her head on stained with old ones. Even though she looked at him, it felt more like she was looking in his general direction so she wouldn’t feel rude. “Sorry about the mess,” she mumbled. “Haven’t really felt like picking up after myself today.”

“It’s fine,” he whispered, crawling up to the foot of her bed and closing the door with his tail.

Rarity shook her head and sniffled. “No. No, none of it is fine. None of this is, at all. I am so sorry, dear.”

“I know you are.” He leaned in and nuzzled his cheek against hers. So soft and warm, her fur was, though slick with tears. “But you don’t have to be. It isn’t your fault. Celestia and Twilight put you up to this. You don’t have to listen to them, Rarity. They have no right to mess with our lives like this.”

Rarity sniffled again and wiped away a few more tears with her forelegs. She was silent for a long while. Too long.

“Rarity… what’s wrong?” he asked, reaching to hold her cheek.

Her upheld hoof stopped him. “Spike… I suppose I didn’t make it clear enough in my letter. I was already thinking of… ending it before Celestia gave the order. I only didn’t because I was so scared of hurting you. I’m glad she put her hoof down; it spared us both a lot of pain, trust me.”

Spike’s heart retched and ached as he pulled his hand away. “You… you what?”

She held his hand in both her hooves and looked up at him with a desperate look in her eye. “Please, Spike, you have to understand. I love you very, very much. I still do. But it just wouldn’t work out between us.”

“But…but why?” He held her hooves tightly in his own hands, careful not to hurt her all the same. “We already talked about this. We both decided we don’t care what other ponies think, and you don’t want foals anyway! We can make this work!”

“That’s not it,” she said, looking down at his hands and her hooves. “I still wouldn’t care what other ponies think. They could stare and slander their little hearts out, and I’d never care. But doesn’t what I think matter, Spike? Isn’t what I feel important?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, his grip loosening.

“Spike… I tried to let you down gently before, but…” She wrenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “The fact that your dragon instincts are showing isn’t the problem. It’s the fact that I know I’m the only thing keeping them from getting even worse.”

Spike blinked. He no longer felt like he was there. The world was color and shape without meaning. Sound was noise without sense. It was all just a bad dream. He would wake up and forget. He had to.

“I can’t handle that sort of pressure, Spike,” she cried, her voice cracking and her forelegs shaking. “I can’t handle the thought of knowing that if I ever mess up, that if you ever lose control of yourself again, it’ll be all my fault. I can’t live that way, Spike! I can’t spend my life watching over you like a ticking time bomb!” Tears ran down her face anew, dripping down onto her pillow to join tears long departed. “I just can’t!”

His claws gently ran across her hooves as his hands fell limply to his sides. “No…no, this can’t be real.”

Rarity sobbed as she forced her eyes open to look into his, though it was doubtful she could see much but colored blurs. “I am so…so sorry.”

Spike looked down at his hands, his fingers, his claws as tears of his own fell down onto them. He simply stared. Not hooves. Could never be hooves. Could never be blunt, always be sharp. Always had to be careful not to cut, not to rend, not to tear. Always careful, always vigilant, always dangerous.

“Spike…?”

He didn’t need to think about what he did next. Thought was no longer a factor. Thought was pointless.

He brought his arm up to his maw and sank his teeth into it. Scales bent and shattered and flesh ripped and bled.

He was awake. He was very much awake. He was awake and bleeding. It was all real. It was all terrifyingly real.

“Spike!”

Rarity’s shriek of alarm sounded miles away. Years away. Not same time, not same place, just not there but for some reason he could hear it. He stumbled back onto all fours and rushed out the bedroom door, his tail lashing and smashing something wooden, but he didn’t care. He just had to get out, had to leave, had to be alone.

Out the front door. Away from the building. Away from the street. Away from the town. Time was beyond an abstract; it was nothing. It was just a blur of color and a chorus of meaningless, pointless voices of faceless ponies and wasted time.

He lashed out at a tree and nearly rent it in two with his claws.

All of it meaningless.

He slammed another with his tail, the wooden titan creaking as it tilted and its roots came up with it.

All of it pointless.

He let loose a stream of flame, searing with rage and hate and despair that engulfed whatever was before him, and he didn’t care what.

All of it a waste.

Spike’s chest heaved as he looked around. He was in the Everfree Forest. He was in the Everfree as it began to burn. Fire, his fire, crackled and cackled in his ears as it consumed the homes of dozens of animals and promised to consume hundreds more. His doing. His fault.

All a waste because it all lead up to him being alone.

The primal roar that rang out through the fledgling forest fire was far worse than the cry of an animal simply wounded.

Dearly Desolate

Soft fur running through his fingers. Sweet perfume filling his nostrils. Supple lips pressed against his. Warm breath against his neck with each break. Purring moans chiming in his ears. Blue eyes looking into his, when they could bring themselves to open them.

Rarity. Heaven. Two words, same thing. His Rarity, his alone, forever.

He held her tighter. Ran his hand down her back. His hand found her flank. She gasped, though clearly pleased. He felt her lips against his neck. He kissed hers in turn, burying his face in her mane.

Sounds changed. Feelings changed. Felt water running down his neck. Tears. Hers; could only be hers. He could hear her sobbing. He held her tighter, tried to ask her what was wrong, but no sound came out.

There was a loud crack. Her bones creaked and snapped like plywood.

There was a loud tear. His claws pierced her skin like paper. Blood flowed down his hands and arms like water.

He pulled away and tried to scream. No sound. No sound except her crying as she bled, her limbs twisted and spine crooked.

There was a new sound: crackling. The crackling of flames consuming tinder. Green fire engulfed her hooves, slowly turned her body into ash, which blew away on an unseen wind.

He began crying, but sound was a privilege he was still denied. He reached out, but didn’t dare touch her. She pulled away, looking up at him with pained, desperate eyes as the flames climbed her neck.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“Rarity!”

Spike awoke with a start, his eyes snapping open. His head swept from side to side, his eyes frantically looking everywhere around him.

No Rarity. No anyone. Just trees and curious animals hiding in the shadows. He couldn't tell what time it was; only that the sun was up, from what little light pierced the thick canopy. Time meant little that deep in the forest, anyway.

As the sheer terror of his dreams subsided, the crushing depression of his reality sank in. He was alone in the Everfree Forest. He was alone in the Everfree Forest after snapping at his caretaker and running away from his marefriend, the two ponies who cared about him the most, and left the rest of the girls without even a goodbye. Motherless. Loverless. Friendless. Only thing left was his own life.

Spike shifted to get to his feet, but a shot of pain through his arm made him yelp. He looked down to see his bite wound’s dressings had turned from a lively green to a sickeningly deep red.

He shuddered and gingerly pulled at the vines, which were so wet with his blood that they had the strength of spaghetti noodles. They snapped off easily, and he moved on to tugging at the leaf gently. He shuddered in pain and disgust when it made a sickening squelch as it peeled off. Beneath was a much less vivid mold of his fangs than what he’d seen the night before. The blood had coagulated and the wound had started scabbing, though it was still deep, inflamed, and ached down to the bone.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,” he berated himself again as he picked up the branch he’d torn off yesterday. He plucked another large leaf off of it and wrapped it around his arm, plucking some vines off of the tree he was sitting under to bind it again. Everything he knew about first aid was screaming at him to clean it first, but he had no access to water, let alone a washcloth or soap.

He finally pulled himself to his feet, picking up his branch. “Which way did I come from?” he wondered aloud, looking around the grove. He was drawing a blank. He couldn’t even pick out his own scent from the smell of smoke that wafted through the air, so that means of figuring out where he came from was out. He couldn’t see the sun, so he couldn’t even tell which direction he was going.

Lost. He was well and truly lost.

His stomach let out a low rumble, as if to remind him that it could get worse. Alone, lost, wounded, and hungry in a forest not known for its huge amounts of gemstones.

“Dead dragon walking,” he mumbled to himself as he started walking. Direction didn’t matter. Destination didn’t matter. He only cared that it wasn’t Ponyville, if Ponyville hadn’t burned to the ground. Even if it hadn’t, there was sure to be a death toll. All because of him.

He lashed his tail out against a tree, shaking it all the way up to the branches and scattering some birds nested there.

He got back into the rhythm of wandering again. Dodge branch, walk around tree, trip over root and curse, rinse, repeat. Time wasn’t an issue. Without a clock, it ceased to mean much. All he knew was that time was moving past him, invisible and yet no less powerful, like the occasional gust of wind that swept through the trees and across his face. His only sign that time was passing at all was his stomach getting louder and louder, clawing at him and begging to be fed more and more insistently. It got to the point that he reflexively grabbed his stomach to dull the pain.

The pain was alien. It felt like a beast raking at his insides and snarling at him, yet a crushing emptiness in his gut that demanded to be filled. He’d never gone hungry before. He was never left in want of food back home.

He shook his head. “Not home. Don’t have a home,” he reminded himself. Food would be the least of his problems if he couldn’t find water, anyway. His tongue and lips already felt dry, almost painfully so.

As more time passed, his eyes began to wander from his aimless path to the animals that watched him as he passed by them. Thoughts soon followed. Facts. Dragons were mineravores, at least primarily. They were built to get nutrition from gems. Equines were also built to be herbivores. Primarily. They were also capable of eating meat, based on evidence that primitive equines sometimes ate small birds and rodents. Most ponies didn’t like to talk about it. Their teeth were made for grinding, though. A dragon’s teeth were much sharper. Much more suited for eating meat. So in theory…

Spike shook his head and gave it a smack with his free hand for good measure. “No, no, not going there!” he spat, gritting his teeth. “No matter how hungry I get, I am not doing that!”

“Do what? I’m not a mind reader. Please, don’t leave me in suspense!”

Spike gasped and whipped around to see Discord lying on his side on a suspiciously couch-shaped rock. He could vaguely remember a rock being there, but it definitely wasn’t that shape a second earlier. Then again, Discord. Sense and logic were at an all time low wherever he showed up.

“What are you doing here?” Spike growled, flexing his claws and snorting out smoke.

“No need to be so hostile,” the spirit of chaos said, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “I was just told to find you, but I figured that while I was in Middle of Nowhere, Everfree, you and I could have a little chat.”

Spike huffed and turned back around, walking away. “There’s nothing to ‘chat’ about, Discord. Buzz off.”

Discord popped into being in front of him, sitting in an armchair with a clipboard in his hands. Before Spike could respond, he was swept off his feet by a leather couch one might stereotypically see in a psychologist’s office.

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, kid,” Discord said, pointing his pencil at the dragon. “There are a few things to chat about. For one, I want to get your side of the story about what happened. Ponies are amusing, but not the most reliable sources of information, you know?”

Spike snarled and climbed off the couch, kicking it over for good measure. “Why do you care?”

Discord wrote something on his clipboard. “Tsk tsk tsk, signs of hostility. Not the best way to kick things off, don’t you think?”

Spike responded by swiping a claw at the psychotic serpent, though Discord was gone before he could get the satisfaction of making him bleed.

“Come now, you know physical violence won’t hurt me, and you know I’m far too persistent to just leave,” Discord said behind him, still sitting in his chair as if nothing had happened. “All I want is for you to tell me what happened from your perspective.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Spike spun around and spat a fireball at the trickster god.

Discord snapped his fingers and turned the fire into a flock of butterflies before it got more than a foot away from the dragon’s face. “Listen kid, I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but leaving it bottled up isn’t going to do you or anypony else any good,” Discord said wearily. “Tell you what: I fix up that busted arm of yours, and you cooperate with me. Sound good?”

“I don’t want your help,” Spike snarled, glaring at the unwanted visitor. “I don’t want anyone’s help. I just want to be left alone!”

“Do you?” Discord asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Because it seems to me that you’re terribly lonely out here. Nopony to talk to at all, no home to go back to; it’s enough to break a person like a twig, sooner or later.”

Spike felt his heart almost stop. “N…no home to go back to? You mean Ponyville is…?”

“Oh no, Ponyville is fine… for the most part,” Discord admitted. “Your fire is quite interesting. Water doesn’t put it out due to its magic nature. Twilight Sparkle had to suffocate it with a magically created vacuum field. By then, several houses had caught fire, including Fluttershy’s. Any animals that hadn’t died from the fire or the smoke were choked to death by the vacuum. Quite tragic; Fluttershy is still crying.”

Spike’s heart didn’t sink so much as it collapsed in on itself, turning into a gaping hole to escape what he’d done. “Did anypony get hurt?” he managed to choke out, his eyes glazing over.

Discord was silent for several seconds. Discord having nothing to say was never a good sign. “Only one. Rarity ran into the forest after you when you left and she got caught in the fire. Thankfully Fluttershy was in the neighborhood and pulled her out. She’s in critical condition due to smoke inhalation and still out cold. She’ll probably make it, but in all likelihood she won’t breathe normally for the rest of her life.”

Spike collapsed backward on his rump, though a cushion was there to break his fall. He wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes were staring blankly at the ground, the tide of guilt threatening to pull him beneath its waves and crush him. “All my fault,” he said, his voice cracking as tears streamed down his face. “This is all my fault.” He curled up, his hands over his head and his snout tucked between his knees as he sobbed uncontrollably.

“Really now?” Discord asked, slithering around the prone dragon. “I don’t find that true at all. Well, at least not completely. You messed up, yes, but who’s really to blame here? As near as I can tell, Celestia and Twilight pushed Rarity to break up with you without even talking things over with you first. That’s pretty terrible, don’t you think? If they hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.”

“Shut up,” Spike choked out, looking up and glaring at Discord.

“I know you think so. You told both Twilight and Rarity as much,” Discord continued, floating through the air in front of Spike. “It was Celestia’s idea in the first place, if I remember right. Seems like she screwed you over pretty thoroughly, didn’t she?”

“I said shut up!” Spike screamed, pouncing forward with a roar and taking another swipe at the draconequus. It was about as effective as the first time, with Discord only reappearing a few feet away.

“Oh why are you so angry, I wonder?” Discord asked aloud. “Perhaps it's easier to say the truth than it is to hear it, hm? I don’t claim to know the answers. That’s for you to decide. I’m only here to ask questions. And my last question is this: Do you want me to take you home?”

Spike panted through his sobs, glaring at Discord through his tears with his teeth bared and his claws flexing. He tried to keep his legs from shaking, but they refused to stay still. His entire upper body felt like it was made of lead. “No,” he finally answered, collapsing to his knees, his anger gone from a flame to a simmer. “No, I…I can’t. I don’t belong there. I don’t belong anywhere. There’s nothing left for me there.”

“If that’s what you want to believe,” Discord said with a flip of his bird claw and a shrug. “I’ll return and tell the girls that you don’t want to be found, but that you’re still alive and well. Though the ‘well’ part may be stretching the truth a bit. You haven’t eaten all day, have you?”

Spike’s stomach was more than eager to answer with a loud, hostile growl and sharp pain that made him grab it with both hands.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Discord chuckled. He snapped his fingers and a sack the size of a watermelon appeared in his lion paw. He tossed it over to the dragon, and out of its mouth spilled several sparkling gems. “If you ration them enough, they’ll last you a few days. You might want to work on securing your own gem hoard in the meantime.” The draconequus spun around on his heel and waved over his shoulder. “Tata!” With a snap of his fingers, he was gone.

Spike kneeled there, staring at the bag full of precious food. Food he didn’t get for himself. Food he had to rely on Discord of all creatures to give to him. His pride told him to keep walking and forget it, that he’d find food on his own and show all of them that he didn’t need them.

All it took was another rumble from his hungry belly for his pride to buckle and collapse, Spike digging into the bag and ravenously wolfing down gems. Still alone, still lost, still wounded, still parentless, still loverless, still friendless, but at least he was fed. At that moment, it was good enough for him.

Dearly Divided

The air stank of pain heavily veiled by disinfectant, though everything around her looked white and sterile. “Clop clop” went her hooves on the tile while the clock responded “tick tock” without fail. Tedious conversation; she drowned it out a long time ago. Though the room was warm, she felt cold; beyond cold. It was a numbing chill that ran past the bone and down to the heart. It deadened her to the simmering burning in her nostrils from the disinfectant, the maddening monotony of so much white, the aching of her hooves as she paced back and forth. She’d be thankful if it didn’t make the pain of her shattered heart all the more vivid.

“Twilight, you’re gonna wear a hole in the floor at this rate.”

“I know, I know, Spike. You don’t have to-”

Twilight caught herself with a small gasp. She snapped out of her stupor and looked at Applejack, who was looking at her with a worried frown and a pitying look in her eye.

“Sorry,” Twilight mumbled, avoiding eye contact. “Just… Spike used to say that to me all the time. Guess I forgot where I was.”

“It’s okay, sugarcube,” the farm pony assured with a small nuzzle, tearstained cheek to tearstained cheek. “We’re all having trouble copin’. Ah can hardly believe this is happenin’, myself.”

Twilight swept her eyes across the room. Rarity was center stage, still blissfully unconscious in her hospital bed, her alabaster fur still smudged with ash and her underside marred by light burns. Light compared to how badly all the other victims were burned, anyway. Not even a tenth of them were in the ground yet.

Fluttershy was at her side, her head in Rarity’s lap. Catatonic would be the only appropriate word to describe her. She just stared blankly up at Rarity’s sleeping face, unmoving save for her rising and falling chest and her blinking teal eyes. She ran out of tears to cry a while ago.

Angel lay atop Fluttershy’s head, curled up and completely quiet. He was the only animal that the poor pegasus had left. He was one of the few animals that managed to escape the fire and the vacuum field. The rest left for greener pastures, but he stayed. He’d given up trying to snap his caretaker out of her stupor a long time ago.

Pinkie Pie was slumped in a chair to the side, lax and listless, her boundless well of energy finally dry. The curl to her mane was gone, the normally bubbly mass of pink lying as flat and lifeless as she was. Her eyes were only half open, staring at nothing in particular. Her hind legs idly kicked through the air as if she were on a swing set while she said not a word.

Rainbow Dash sat next to the party pony, fidgeting in her seat and glaring into space. She went from draping a hind leg over the arm of her chair, to sitting normally and leaning forward, to tapping her hoof on the floor, and on and on and on. She gave off the feel of an animal trapped in a cage. Bags sagged under her eyes more than any of the other’s from overseeing the rainstorm her team put together last night.

“I don’t think any of us can believe what happened,” Twilight sighed, sitting down on the floor. “I…I still can’t believe Spike would do that.”

A load groan came from Rainbow Dash as she draped herself over both arms of her chair, her hind legs flopping in Pinkie’s lap. Pinkie briefly looked up, but otherwise didn’t respond. “I do. I saw how angry and hurt he was. Just… ugh, I knew I should have said something!” she growled, burying her face in her hooves. “Just, what do you say to that? ‘I’m sorry, but we need to keep the world safe and you just happen to be the one we have to throw under the carriage to do it, no hard feelings’?”

“We did what we had to do,” Twilight mumbled. “We had no idea that things would turn out like this. How could we?”

“Twilight, Ah know yer just tryin’ to do what’s best for the country and Spike, but Ah said it before and Ah’ll say it again: we shoulda tried somethin’ different before bringin’ down the hammer,” Applejack said with a sigh. “At the very least we shoulda told Rarity to talk to him first.”

“We couldn’t afford giving them much time and you know that. It could have taken years to resolve, and Equestria can go at most six months without some ancient evil or foreign dictator sprouting up to try to take it over. Besides, we could all tell that things just weren’t working out between them,” Twilight said, a bit more animated. “I just thought that it’d be best for them to cut things off now. The longer we waited, the more it would hurt, and the longer Equestria would be vulnerable.”

“Well, you thought wrong, and now tons of animals are dead and Spike is missing,” Rainbow Dash spat, flipping to sit upright again. “Aren’t you supposed to be the egghead here, princess? Where’d all your smarts go when you had to come up with this stupid plan? Oh, right, you didn’t, you just stashed them in a corner because they got between your lips and Celestia’s fat plot!”

“What did you say?!” Twilight snapped, flaring her wings.

“Rainbow, way over the line,” Applejack said, getting between the two.

“So? You know it’s true. This was all Celestia’s idea, and if any pony in this whole wide world would know that it would backfire, it would be Twilight. But no, she went ahead and had to agree with her precious mentor like a good little brownnoser!” Rainbow Dash shouted, flaring her wings back and climbing out of her chair. “Now look what happened, Twilight. A huge chunk of the Everfree Forest burned to the ground and hundreds of animals dead. Tell me, was it worth it?”

“Rainbow, Twilight had no idea that-”

“Oh, look who’s talking!” Twilight scoffed, cutting off Applejack. “The good little Wonderbolt cadet who’s willing to do anything to be Spitfire’s successor is calling me a plot kisser? The only reason you haven’t slept your way to the top is because half of the ponies between you and her are stallions!”

“Okay, Twi, that was just uncalled for. Both of you just-”

“You take that back!” Rainbow Dash flapped over past Applejack and into Twilight’s face, pressing both their foreheads together as she snarled.

“Why should I? I meet my friends hoping to get a little sympathy, and all I get is another shouting match!” Twilight pressed her forehead back against Rainbow Dash’s. “I did what I thought was best, end of story! What do you want me to say?”

“A ‘sorry for lending a hoof in killing all of Fluttershy’s friends and landing Rarity in the hospital’ would be nice,” the pegasus growled back.

“Lending a hoof in- are you nuts?” Twilight gawked. “It’s not my fault that Spike lost his temper!”

“What do you call stabbing him in the back and twisting the knife so hard that he ran away from home?” Rainbow Dash asked, voice dripping with venom.

“You’re overreacting!”

“He was pretty much your son, for Celestia’s sake!” Dash shouted, exasperated. “I don’t know much about foal raising, but I’m pretty sure the last thing you do is mess with your kid’s life like he’s some sort of doll!”

“I know a lot more about raising a child than you,” Twilight spat with a flap of her wings. “And I didn’t exactly hear you objecting when I told you all about this the first time!”

“That’s because I-”

“Shut. Up.”

The pair of squabbling mares froze, the fur on the back of their necks standing on end. They looked to the suddenly talkative Pinkie Pie, who was glaring at them as she slid off her seat.

“We’ve already lost enough today,” she said evenly, trotting toward the pair. “Fluttershy lost almost all of her friends, Spike ran away, and several families lost their homes. The last thing we need is for you two to start playing the blame game.” She stopped in front of the two, her eyes boring into them like knives and sending chills up their spines. “I strongly suggest you stop playing, or I won't be held responsible for what happens next. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am!” they squeaked in unison, both their wings slapping to their sides.

Applejack sighed in relief. “Thanks, Pinkie,” she said with a grateful smile.

Pinkie just gave the cowpony a passing look as she turned around and retook her seat without a word.

Applejack deflated somewhat, but shook her head as if to shake it off. She took in a deep breath and looked at the pair. “Look, girls, Ah know we’re all stressed out. Rainbow, Twilight just lost her kid while tryin’ to do right by him and Equestria. Twilight, you know how protective Rainbow gets when it comes to Fluttershy, and that poor mare’s just lost more in one day than most do in a lifetime. Ah know how temptin’ it is to look for somepony to blame, and Ah can’t really keep y’all from doin’ that. But please, can we not fight about it until Rarity’s all better and Spike is back home safe and sound?”

Twilight looked away from the farm mare’s pleading eyes, bowing her head. “Sorry, Applejack. You’re right; we shouldn’t be fighting right now.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash mumbled, “sorry, AJ. And… sorry, Twi; I went way over the line.”

“You went over the line so far and so fast you did a Sonic Rainboom,” Twilight said flatly, looking up to the pegasus. Rainbow to her credit looked genuinely sorry, her ears folded back and looking up at the alicorn with a bowed head. “But I did too. We can start assigning blame later and hopefully without as many personal attacks and insults.”

“I personally think that the insults spice things up a bit, but that may be just me.”

Twilight snapped her head toward the source of the voice. Discord had appeared in the corner of the room, lounging on a lawn chair with a bucket of popcorn in his lap.

“You’re back!” Twilight rushed up to the draconequus as questions poured out of her mouth. “How’s Spike? Where is he? Is he okay? Is he hurt? When is he coming back? He’s caused a lot of pain today, so he better come back to-” Her deluge was cut short when her lips were magically turned into a zipper and pulled tightly shut.

“Give a god some time to respond, geez,” Discord said with a stretch, his lawn chair turning into an armchair. “Spike is doing fine. Well, he’s alone, away from home and everything and everypony he loves, and wracked with guilt over everything he’s caused, but that’s a given. He’s also volatile, violent, and refuses to accept help even when he needs it. So, basically, he’s still a teenager. He isn’t coming back, though.”

“What?!” Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack said in unison. Well, Twilight tried, anyway.

“At least not yet,” he added. “He says that he doesn’t belong here or anywhere for that matter, but in my professional psychological opinion-”

“You’re about as qualified as a shrink as a pyromaniac would be as a firepony,” Rainbow Dash mumbled.

“Touché,” Discord conceded. “All the same, I think that’s only part of it. I think the rest is that he just isn’t ready to face all the destruction and pain his fire caused.”

Twilight glared as her horn glowed, turning her lips back to normal. “He’s going to have to come back sometime. He has to answer for all of this.”

“Says the very mother he feels alienated and betrayed by,” Discord said flatly. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Would you rather he come back now and completely break under the weight of all the bodies being buried, or come back later when he’s sounder of mind and could conceivably bear that burden?”

The alicorn frowned and bowed her head, but said nothing.

“I know, I know, you hate it when I’m right. Most do. Just give the kid some time to find what he’s looking for.” He looked over to the unconscious Rarity and her silent companion. “How’s Fluttershy doing?”

“She stopped crying after you left,” Pinkie Pie piped up. “She’s still quiet, though.”

Twilight tracked Discord as he slithered through the air behind the yellow pegasus. He laid his paw lightly on her back. One of her wings twitched, but otherwise she didn’t respond.

“Are you sure you can’t do anything for Rarity?” Applejack asked. “You can bend reality like it’s made of rubber, for Celestia’s sake!”

Discord sighed and looked over his shoulder. “I’m leaving this one to the professionals. I trust myself to perform magical surgery even less than the nursing staff here does.”

“Look, Discord, I know you’ve done some really horrible things, but I’m sure you can pull off one tiny little spell to make her better,” Rainbow Dash pleaded.

“For one, it wouldn’t be one ‘tiny little spell.’ There is no spell for everything suddenly getting better. I’d need to individually address everything wrong with her. Two, the urge to turn her lungs into balloons or otherwise make things worse is still there. You can’t break centuries of habit in a decade. The less I tempt myself to mess with mortals, the better,” he explained. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go bring Celestia and Luna up to speed. Hopefully they won’t make things any worse than they already are.”

“Somepony pinch me, I actually agree with Discord on something,” Rainbow Dash said, warily looking at the draconequus as if she weren’t sure if he was a bad hallucination or not. She let out a yelp when a Discord copy appeared behind her and did just that. “Hey, paws off the cutie mark!”

Discord smirked. “Tata,” he said before vanishing into the aether, leaving the girls to their own devices once more.

Wanting to keep away from the specter of awkward silence, Twilight said, “It’s getting late; visiting hours are almost over. We should all probably go.”

“I’m not leaving until the nurses throw me out,” Rainbow Dash snorted, trotting up to Fluttershy’s side. “Besides, Fluttershy is staying at my place. I can’t leave without her.” She sat down next to her long time friend, though the yellow pegasus didn’t respond.

“Ah’m not leaving either. It’s spring, so not as much to do around the farm these days,” Applejack said. “Ah don’t have anywhere to be, and there’s nowhere Ah’d rather be than here.”

“Pinkie? What about you?” Twilight asked, looking over to the pink mare.

Pinkie just mutely shook her head, her eyes fixed on Rarity, all ice and threat from her gaze gone and hurt in their stead.

Twilight sighed, her ears going flat. “Well, I should get going. I need to help Canterlot allocate funds to the relief effort, and keep officials and nobles from grabbing onto this for whatever twisted aims they might have. This is going to be a nightmare.”

“It already is.”

Everypony in the room’s ears shot up when they heard Fluttershy speak again. It was soft, even for her, but they definitely heard it. She made no indication that she’d repeat that feat anytime soon, though.

Twilight’s ears flattened as she looked to each of her friends in turn. “Stay safe, everypony… talk to you soon.” She charged her horn, and with a flash, the hospital disappeared and she was in the middle of her royal quarters, many miles away in Canterlot palace.

She looked around. She rarely visited her room in Canterlot in favor of remaining Ponyville’s librarian, but it was apparent that the staff kept it clean and tidy so that it looked like she’d never left. It was decorated with her colors of purple and magenta and midnight blue, her cutie mark embroidered on every surface they could get away with. Everything was made of silk from across the sea, or wood from the jungles south of the Badlands, or the finest gold and silver and marble plucked from the depths of the earth.

The sunset outside her balcony rendered all of it so much trinkets and baubles with its beauty, if only for the fleeting thought that Spike may be somewhere watching the same twilight.

Dear Dreamers: Twilight

The world was splotches of deep red and pale green and lush purple with veins of brown. It was cool and wet, though she felt like she was lying on the lumpiest mattress in the world. She couldn’t place the scent around her, but it smelled sweet and serene and relaxing.

It took her hazy mind a while to realize that she was lying on and surrounded by fruit. Fruit as big as she was, oddly enough, but it was still fruit. The confusion at how big they were was fleeting at most. She focused on moving upward and climbing out of her odd surroundings.

The journey upward as she pushed off of fruit of all different colors passed in a haze without the boundary of time or distance. Eventually her head surfaced as she beheld the world around her. There wasn’t much of a world to see. Silver walls nearby blocked most of it off, though she could see what looked like a marble ceiling hanging miles above her head. She heard talking. It boomed in her ears and yet sounded distant and garbled, like it was happening underwater. The voices were familiar, though.

She clumsily climbed over the terrain of fruit and reached the rim of the silver walls. She got on her hind legs and peered over the edge on the tips of her hooves, perspective suddenly swimming into focus.

The walls around her weren’t walls at all. It was the rim of a silver bowl of grapes, sitting in Celestia’s personal chamber. It had to be; lush red carpet, polished mahogany furniture, paintings from across the eras adorning the walls. Every little detail was in sharp focus.

The little details didn’t matter much compared to the giant Celestia lying across her favorite violet cushion a mile away. Or, more accurately, a normal sized Celestia lying across her favorite violet cushion feet away from a very small Twilight. The alicorn’s lips were moving, but the sound was still garbled. She had another silver bowl by her side, and every few seconds she levitated up a grape and popped it in her mouth.

“Celestia!” Twilight called out, trying to wave to her mentor. “I’m over here! I don’t know how I got here, but I’m sure if we can get to the library we can-”

She stopped and froze as a loud creak and groan roared behind her. She turned her head to see a grape nearby caught in a violet magic aura. With a deafening crack, it snapped off and floated into the sky.

Her eyes followed it to see a giant purple flank not that far away with her cutie mark emblazoned on it. Twilight, another Twilight, was sitting on a cushion next to the bowl where she was, idly snacking away as her indistinct voice chatted with Celestia, wearing the full princess royal armor. She started laughing, the sound booming in Twilight’s tiny ears, before she popped the grape in her mouth with a little flap of her wings.

Twilight’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Oh no. Oh no no no no no, I need to get out of here!” She hopped up and took flight. Or at least she tried to. She flopped forward right back into the sea of grapes. She scrambled to her hooves and tried again, to similar results. “Come on, wings, work!” She looked over her shoulders and her heart fell when she found that she had no wings. She was a unicorn again.

Twilight flinched when she felt and heard her doppelganger pluck up another grape nearby with a loud creak and snap. “Celestia!” she yelled at the top of her voice, peering over the edge of the bowl. “Celestia, you’re eating with an imposter! I’m over here!” She tried to charge up her horn to teleport away, but her horn refused to respond. Her mentor didn’t seem to hear her; she just kept talking as she pulled another grape from her own bowl. “Celestia!”

She gasped when she took a closer look. The grape that Celestia was raising to her lips wasn’t a grape at all. It was a struggling, writhing Spike, helpless in the alicorn’s magic grip. Celestia didn’t seem to notice him, or his screams.

“Spike!” Twilight hopped up and put her front legs over the edge of the bowl, trying desperately to pull herself over. “Spike, I’m coming!” She kicked her hind legs furiously as she strained to scramble over the wall. Time was running out. Celestia had already paused from her talking and was opening her mouth.

With one last push, Twilight managed to pull herself over. She tumbled down onto the carpet in a heap, but didn’t waste time in getting to her hooves and galloping toward her mentor. “Celestia, stop, please!” She let out a gasp when she felt a force tug her upward, a glowing violet aura tinting her vision.

“Looks like one rolled out,” her own voice boomed in her ears, suddenly clear and sharp. Twilight didn’t look back, but let out a sigh of relief when Spike’s ascent halted, Celestia distracted.

“It should still be good. Three second rule and all.” Celestia shrugged and popped Spike into her mouth. She rolled her snack around on her tongue for a few moments before an odd look crossed her face. She parted her lips a bit, showing Twilight Spike’s look of terror as he held on to her teeth.

“Help me!”

His only two words rang sharply in Twilight’s ears as Celestia closed her lips and swallowed. A small, unrecognizable lump traveled down the alicorn’s throat before vanishing completely.

Twilight stared in horror, her jaw slack and her struggles gone. Her heart beat loudly in her ears as everything become so much color and noise. She could only see that look of pleading fear on his face, burned into her mind’s eye. “No…”

Everything came back into focus when she felt a rush of warm, fruit-smelling breath rush past her. She looked over her shoulder to see her hooves sliding in past her double’s lips and teeth to rest on her tongue. She could see down her own gullet, wet and tight and dark, slick and glistening with saliva.

“No, no please! Don’t!” She kicked against the imposter’s tongue in vain. If the doppelganger knew, she didn’t care. Twilight hyperventilated as she looked ahead of her again, watching Celestia continue to talk, completely oblivious, through the alicorn’s teeth. “Celestia!”

The princess’s teeth snapped shut. The world went dark. Twilight could quickly feel her prison tilt backward as the tongue beneath her writhed over her, tasted her.

“Please, don’t…!” Tears came to her eyes as she tried desperately to hang onto the alicorn’s tongue. It was too slippery. She was starting to slide backward. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

There was a loud gulp, and she was dragged into the abyss.

Dear Dreamers: Rarity

She shifted, her side sliding against the luxurious carpet beneath her. Her companion cuddled in closer against her stomach as if he were afraid she’d leave, though an assuring hoof through his ridged back stilled him. The warmth of the crackling fire before her and the dragon child beside her was beyond relaxing, beyond paradise.

Rarity looked down at the relaxed Spike; still young, not yet ravaged by the worries and vices of age, not quite a child anymore but not quite an adult. She’d always expected scales to be cold or slick or slimy in her youth, but when she got closer she found that wasn’t true at all. She could practically feel the fire burning in his lungs, beneath the skin. It made him very warm; very… huggable, to use the cleanest word possible.

She curled around him as much as her spine would allow, resting her head against his with her cheek against his neck. “I love you, Spike,” she whispered, giving his head a little kiss.

“I love you too, Rarity,” he mumbled back, curling up and wrapping his arms as far as he could around her middle, cuddling up to her belly.

Rarity hummed happily and was about to close her eyes when she noticed something around his neck. “Spike, do you have something around your…?” She lifted her head up and saw a golden collar around his neck, their heart-shaped fire ruby embedded in its center. A similarly golden chain was attached to it, which lead to… her neck?

Her front hooves snapped to her neck and felt around. She felt a metal collar around it as well, the chain clinking with every move she made. “Spike,” she gasped, her voice high in pitch with fear. “Spike, wake up!”

“What is it?” he asked as he stirred, looking up to her with half-lidded eyes.

“Do you know how these collars got on our necks? You know what, never mind, just help me get it off!” she pleaded as her horn glowed and she tugged at the chain, desperately pulling at it while trying her best not to choke her or her boyfriend.

“Why would you ever want to take it off?” he asked, the glow of the fire sparkling in his emerald eyes and his dreamy smile. “I’m yours, aren’t I?”

“Darling, I appreciate the sentiment, but this is really too far,” she said, panting from the strain of pulling at the chain. “Isn’t gold supposed to be one of the weakest metals?!”

She gasped when Spike held her closer in his strong arms. “But… I’m yours…” Her eyes went wide and she went still when there was a flash from the fireplace and a surge of heat; the flames turned from a dancing red to a raging green that leapt from their pit and spread around the room. The fire burned in the dragon’s eyes, bones popping and flesh squelching as he grew, still holding her tight as he quickly dwarfed her like a foal dwarfed a doll. “And you’re mine.”

“Spike, let go!” She pushed against his chest with her hooves, the heat around them quickly becoming unbearable. “We need to get out of here!”

“We’re fine right where we are. We have each other, don’t we?” Spike asked, his voice growing more gravelly and warped and his eyes reptilian. He quickly filled up the room, looming over her as he held her in his claws; the roof and walls creaked and groaned with the strain of his size.

“Spike, let me go!” she shrieked, kicking and flailing against his iron grip.

The dragon’s eyes narrowed. He snorted out a puff of smoke from his nostrils and roared, “Fine!” The room turned to ash around them in an instant just before it burst open from his size, revealing that they weren’t in town, but in the forest. Every tree was engulfed in flames, and smoke quickly filled the air along with the squeals and screams of the dying.

He did as he was told and let her go. The collar around his neck had grown with him, but the length of the chain hadn’t. She fell for a few seconds before stopping with a snap, the collar crushing her throat like a gilded noose without breaking her neck.

“Spike, no,” she gagged, raking at the collar with her front hooves while her hind ones flailed for anything to stand on. “P-please, help me!” Every second that went by filled her lungs with more smoke as she dangled from his neck like a pendant.

He looked down at her, not with hate or loathing, but with pain and heartbreak. She saw tears running down his cheeks, glistening in the dancing fire’s light. Yet he did nothing.

Her energy quickly ran out. Her scrambling legs and hooves fell to her side, lifeless, twitching. She willed them to move, but they didn’t respond. The crackling of the fire faded from her ears and the heat slowly died down against her fur. Her ear twitched as she dangled helplessly; she could swear that she could hear the steady beeping of a heart monitor in the distance.

Still looking into those emerald eyes, she closed her own, and the darkness overcame her.

Dear Dreamers: Fluttershy

The soft click and clack of her own hoofsteps rang gently in her ears as she walked the uneven, uncut stone. No echo was made against the cavern walls. The sound of her presence just vanished, devoured by the shifting shadows of the cave. Tall spires of rock rose from the floor and large spikes hung from the ceiling. Each dripped water from their tips like saliva down the fangs of a monster. Their shadows flickered and moved as if illuminated by candlelight, though there was no source of light down there in the depths.

Sight wasn’t an issue for Fluttershy, though, despite the lack of a light source. She didn’t question it, just like she didn’t question how she got there or what she was doing there. Context and meaning were both forgotten, as they so often were in the realm of dreams.

Fluttershy looked nervously around the seemingly endless cavern, her legs getting shakier with each step. Sweat started forming on her fur despite the deathly cold air and stone around her. Alone, no grass, no trees, no stars… just darkness that she could swear was moving.

Her surroundings gradually changed as she went through her journey into the depths of the earth. Gemstones lined the ground and high spires as the air got warmer. The jewels glittered in the dark like stars in their own right, filling Fluttershy’s vision with pinpricks of light like the night sky.

“Is anypony here…?” she whispered into the shimmering dark.

“Spike… anyone… help me,” it whispered back.

“Rarity?” Her ears perked up, searching for the source of the noise. Before her more lights came to life in a cluster, glimmering in the distance like the fires of Canterlot on the horizon at night. “Rarity!”

She galloped through the forest of stone spires as fast as her legs could carry her. Their shadows twisted and slithered more violently the closer she got to the beacon in front of her, but she paid them no heed. They were only shadows, no matter how much they writhed.

Fluttershy stumbled over herself when the stone floor beneath her turned into the edge of a mound of gems. The sharp edges raked across her fur and skin. Sapphires, emeralds, rubies, garnets, diamonds; all crunching and tinkling under her hooves as she struggled to right herself.

She heard a rasping cough above her. She snapped her head up to see Rarity atop the mountain of jewels, her alabaster fur blackened with soot as she hacked and gagged.

“Rarity, I’m coming!”

Fluttershy scrambled up the slope, sending down a cascade of gems with every haphazard step. She tried to flap her wings, but they were frozen to her side with fear. She didn’t know how far away it was or how long she climbed. All sense of time was gone and Rarity’s distance warped frequently.

As she neared the summit, the tinkle of gems tumbling down the slope behind her turned into a wet crunch beneath her hoof. She gasped and looked down. There were no gems, no diamonds, no rubies; beneath her instead was a mountain of corpses. Squirrels, deer, raccoons, birds… her friends, many she raised from their childhood. She recognized all of them, and the life was gone from all of their eyes.

She screwed her eyes shut and took in shallow breaths, trying to calm herself down. When she opened them again she was greeted by a wave of heat and smoke. The spires of stone were gone and in their place trees engulfed in green flames, bathing the macabre mountain in emerald light.

“Help, please…”

Fluttershy looked back up. Rarity was coughing harder through the haze of smoke that filled the air. She was close enough to see the unicorn’s eyes; Rarity was struggling to keep them open, the light and life in them slowly but surely fading.

The pegasus took a deep breath and continued her trek. She did her best to ignore the squish of lifeless flesh or the snap of bone beneath her hooves, though the sounds echoed in her ears, louder than the roaring blaze around her.

Smoke burned in her lungs. The smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils. Flames licked at her fur. Heat immeasurable washed over her. Still she trudged through her personal Tartarus atop the broken bodies of her friends, every moment feeling like a compressed eternity, every snapping bone another crack in her heart and soul.

At last she reached the summit, a broken and barely breathing Rarity at her hooves atop the heap of bodies. “Rarity, it’s going to be okay,” she whispered, holding her gently in her forelegs. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Fluttershy…?” Rarity coughed and hacked, curling up in pain. With a ragged gasp and a shiver, she fell still, her eyes going dark.

“Rarity? Rarity!” She shook the unicorn, her eyes hazing over with tears. No response; not the slightest stir. Through the heat of the roaring fire, Rarity was as cold as the grave. “Rarity, please!” Fluttershy took in a deep breath and locked her lips with Rarity’s, blowing deep into her to try to bring her back.

The mouth to mouth turned into a kiss when Rarity started pressing back. The heat dissipated. The smell of burning flesh vanished. The smoke dispersed. All there was, all that mattered, was Rarity. The soft feel of her fur against Fluttershy’s; her brilliant blue eyes when they fluttered open; the warmth of her breath in Fluttershy’s mouth. Everything went from horror to rapture in the space of a few moments. She didn’t question why; she didn’t want to know. Wondering might take her back to the living hell she was trapped in only seconds before.

Fluttershy could swear that she saw a winged shadow flit across the corner of her vision, but she paid it no mind. Rarity was safe, and they had each other; among all the terror and heartbreak and pain, she at least had that sliver of a silver lining to hang onto.

Dear Dreamers: Celestia

The Canterlot palace gardens; she was no stranger to them, by day or by night. Lush green grass trimmed to perfection, hedges both natural and artistically sculpted, perfectly aligned brick pathways winding around the various sculptures and statues made of a menagerie of materials… she knew them quite well and often loved to visit them in her dreams. The sights and sounds and smells around her in her dreamscape were a mismatch of her favorite aspects of the garden from each season. The wind was blowing with a chill that made her feel alive, the flowers were in full bloom and their fragrances permeated the air, the trees were decorated in the reds and oranges and yellows of autumn, and the sun bore down on it all with a soothing warmth. One didn’t get to be thousands of years old without learning to lucid dream with fantastic accuracy.

And yet things felt off as Celestia took her customary dreamtime stroll through her perfect garden. She couldn’t place it. Her steps were cautious and her brow furrowed as her eyes swept warily across the garden. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. The hedge maze, the Griffon-Equine War memorial, Discord’s statue-

Wait.

Celestia cantered over to the aberrant statue. It wasn’t even in the pose of fear and terror it was when the current Element Bearers sealed him away. It was once again in its defiant, smiling, singing pose that he struck before she and Luna had put him away the first time.

“What is this doing here?” she wondered. She concentrated, leering at the statue and willing it to vanish like it had done in the real world.

Despite her best efforts, it remained. She had no control over it.

She swiveled her head around, looking across her dreamscape. “Reveal yourself! Dream tampering by anyone aside from Princess Luna is a felony,” she ordered, her voice ringing out across her mind. No answer.

She turned her head to scour her dreamscape when she let out a gasp. Directly behind her was a new statue, and behind it was a landscape of dead grass, withered trees and overcast skies. The statue was of King Sombra, leering down at her from his perch, his stone eyes full of hate. Etched into the base was the epitaph “Your Faithful Student.”

Celestia caught herself when she found her hooves pedaling backward. “I know someone’s here!” She whirled around to find the garden she was looking at just a second ago also withered and dying. “Show yourself!”

“Teacher?”

All warmth drained from Celestia’s body. She didn’t dare look behind her, but she couldn’t help herself. She turned back around; the statue of King Sombra was gone. In its place was Prince Sombra, in the flesh, a colt too young to know the evils of the world. “S…Sombra?”

“Teacher, wasn’t I a good student?” he asked with a sob, trotting toward her with wobbling hooves. “Didn’t I learn everything you taught me?”

“Sombra… I…” She scrambled for what to say, but no words came. Those pleading amethyst eyes held her own, kept her from looking away.

She blinked, and Twilight stood before her instead, a unicorn once more, though those eyes remained unchanged. “I did everything you asked, didn’t I? Then why did you ask me to hurt Spike?”

“This isn’t real.” She shook her head rapidly. “This isn’t real; just a dream. Just need to wake up.” She closed her eyes and concentrated, tried to return to the waking world, but her efforts were in vain.

When she opened them again, Spike stood before her, back when he was a child. Tears ran down his face and his claws were clenched into shaking fists, his emerald eyes looking up at her with pure anger. “Why did you betray me? What did I ever do to you?!”

Celestia backpedaled, her chest heaving and her mind racing. The landscape became a swirling sea of colors blending together, her control of her dreamscape broken. All that remained, in perfect focus, was Spike as he grew to his current age and body.

“This is all your fault!” Spike roared. No, not Spike. The thing growing in front of her spoke with all three voices in tandem. It grew beyond the real Spike’s size, into a full-blown dragon, and mutated. Twilight’s wings sprouted out of its back and Sombra’s horn out of its forehead with a sickening squelch of shifting flesh. Still, it kept growing.

Celestia continued to back away, her mind frozen from fear. “Luna,” she gasped, her lips suddenly feeling very dry. “Luna, please, help me. Make this nightmare stop…!”

“All I ever wanted to do was to please, and all you ever did was hurt me! Use me!” it screeched. Its irises burned red like a furnace with rage and the whites of its eyes green with envy and greed, violet energy pouring out like smoke with the power of hate. Darkness and shadows seethed from its form like steam and clung to it like a cloak as it dwarfed both the princess and her castle.

She closed her eyes once more and stopped her scrambling hooves. She stood up tall and straight as she looked up into its eyes, deep pits of malice and hate and pain that they were. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean for things to end the way they did. I just wanted what was best for you and Equestria! I wanted you to be happy!”

Its lips parted, and past its glistening fangs she could see an emerald light brewing deep within its throat.

“I. Hate. You!”

Celestia stood her ground as the green flames rushed to meet her, washing over her in a tide of searing heat and pain.

She wasn’t in pain for long.

Dear Dreamweaver

Luna slowly opened her eyes as she brought herself out of her trance. The waking world swam back into focus as she left the dreaming one. She was in her bedchamber, laying in her bed that could easily fit three ponies. The moon’s soft glow flowed in through the glass doors to the balcony outside her room, bathing it in its faint light. The blacks and dark blues that colored her bedchamber devoured the light, while the jewels and glitter on the tapestries and furniture reflected it, making her room her own private night sky.

“So, how did it go?”

Mostly private.

“Were you waiting here this whole time, Discord?” she asked, looking up at the draconequus. He was standing on her ceiling upside-down and playing with a yoyo that also completely disregarded gravity by falling up with each flick of his wrist.

“What? I thought you would be happy that I managed to be patient for once in my life,” he huffed.

“I do not fancy the idea of you watching me while I’m sleeping,” she said with a glare.

“If you have problems with how I operate, write it down and put it in my suggestion box,” he said with a wave of his hand, conjuring a wooden box in front of her with the word “suggestions” scrawled on it in sharpie.

“There’s no slot for me to put anything in,” she said with a raised brow, looking it over.

“Exactly.” He snapped his fingers and the box vanished. “Now, please tell me how things went; the suspense is killing me.”

Luna let out a disgruntled huff. “Not exactly as planned. I was able to doctor Twilight’s dreams easily enough. Her mind needed very little prompting to descend into a nightmare about her own guilt and shortcomings, and it ran with the constructs I planted in it.”

“So you went with the self cannibalism dream we discussed?” he asked with a grin. “I must say, the whole eating herself thing was quite inspired. You and I should write scripted nightmares together more often.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said dryly. “As for my sister… well, I’d almost forgotten how strong her mental defenses are, even against my influence. I couldn’t set up the dream I wanted for her.”

“That’s too bad; that one was going to be so fun, too,” he pouted, twirling the yoyo around like a lasso. “I had to think really hard to come up with the part where she swaps spit with herself.”

“A mental image that still disturbs me,” Luna deadpanned with a shiver. “I ended up turning her own mind against itself. Celestia has taken to bottling up her emotions until they ferment and grow, even over centuries of time. So I let loose her guilt and regret.” She sighed and recoiled a bit into herself. “I wish there was another option. It was… it was extremely hard to watch her suffer like that. It was hard to watch Twilight suffer, for that matter.”

“Watching the ponies you love suffer always is. Always worse when you cause it, I imagine,” Discord said with a solemnity that made Luna pause. That’s when Discord hit himself in the eye with his yoyo and all of his dignity flew right out the window. “Gah, stupid thing!”

Luna chuckled weakly. “I know… I’ve seen my loved ones suffer plenty over my millennia of life.”

“We both will in the near future until this whole mess is over with,” he said as he rubbed his wounded eye and his yoyo dangled limply upward. “Fluttershy is still practically a zombie, last I checked.”

Luna bit her lip. “About that… while I was dream walking, I took the time to drop in on the dreams of the other Elements to see how they’re faring.”

“I guessed as much; you were out of it far too long to change just two dreams,” Discord said, putting his paw on his hip as he resumed his yoyo flicking. “How are they doing?”

Luna looked out her window to the plains to the south, towards Ponyville. “All of their dreams are restless to varying degrees, and I tried to help as best I could. Rainbow Dash dreamt of giant versions of Twilight and Spike fighting over Ponyville and carelessly crushing her and all her friends. Applejack dreamt of the others turning into wolves and tearing each other apart while she was chained to the ground and muzzled. Pinkie Pie sensed my presence and forced herself to wake up before I could see her dream; still not certain how she managed that, but then again how does Pinkie do anything that she does? Rarity is dreaming in her coma, largely about Spike back when times were good and about the fire. Fluttershy…Fluttershy had it the worst. I’m not really sure how to say this.”

“You sounded like you had a confession to make, and I’m not hearing one,” Discord said with a cocked eyebrow.

She sighed and shook her head. “Fluttershy was having a nightmare that involved the fire, the broken and burning corpses of her animal friends, Rarity slowly dying in front of her… I had to do something. I couldn’t just leave her like that. So I hastily rifled through her mind and pulled out the closest desire that her brain could associate to the situation. The problem is that I think I may have uncovered something that Fluttershy buried quite a while ago.”

Discord tossed his yoyo out the window, sending it falling into the sky. “Those are words that cannot possibly lead to anything good. You have my attention.”

“How do I say this?” she asked herself, putting a hoof to her chin. “I think I may have brought up old romantic feelings that she’d buried under layers of denial and self doubt.”

“It’s Fluttershy; everything about her is under layers of self doubt,” Discord sighed.

“Touché. The problem is that said romantic feelings are for, well… Rarity. I didn’t linger long enough to explore the underlying causes and psychological ramifications,” Luna admitted. “When I realized what I did, I fled before I could cause more damage.”

Discord groaned and flopped down onto the floor in a heap, his head in his hands. “Great. Just great. I already arranged for Cadence and her hubby to come down here to help us sort this out, but now she has to deal not with just a spat between lovers, but a love triangle. You know, you’re very much like your sister in that the more you try to help, the more you make things worse.”

Luna cringed, holding in the urge to shout at him for his impudence in the royal Canterlot voice. “My… apologies. I just didn’t want to leave Fluttershy in her own personal cell in Tartarus.”

Discord got to his feet and brushed himself off with a sigh. “Sorry, sorry; that was uncalled for. I know you were just trying to help, and I really do appreciate it. Fluttershy means a lot to me, you know? It’s really been killing me that I can’t just snap my fingers and make things better again like I’ve done with the rest of my problems for thousands of years.”

“That’s because you’ve never had a friend before. Quick fixes seldom work when it comes to friendship,” she assured with a small nuzzle. “I feel much the same about Twilight, so I can sympathize. I can’t express in words how much I worry that the weight of the crown is consuming her as utterly as it’s consumed my sister.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head; we can make things right again if we put our heads together,” he said with a chuckle as he reached out and patted her head. “Dear lord, that was so saccharine I think I’m going to puke.”

“Pat my head again and I’ll fashion your gonads into metal-plated wind chimes,” Luna said without a hint of mirth.

“Oh how I would love to see you try,” Discord cackled, pulling his paw back all the same.

There was a knock on Luna’s chamber door. “Luna?” came the very weak voice of Twilight from the other side. “May I come in?”

“And that would be my cue to leave,” Discord whispered. “Have fun!” With a wink and a snap of his fingers, he vanished.

Luna blinked in confusion before shaking her head. “Come on in, Twilight,” she called back.

The heavy doors creaked surprisingly softly as Twilight pushed them open and peaked inside. Darkened bags drooped heavily beneath her violet eyes. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Not at all; I was just taking a break from my dream walking duties,” she half lied. “What brings you to my room at this hour of night?”

Twilight blushed softly as she trotted inside, closing the door behind her. She avoided eye contact and lightly rubbed her forelegs together. “This is going to sound incredibly childish, I know, but… I had a really bad nightmare.”

“If you want me to keep a special eye on your dreams, all you have to do is ask,” Luna said with a smile.

Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I was hoping… that is, I was wondering if…if you would mind if I…” Twilight drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes as if bracing for an incoming projectile. “Would you mind if I slept in here with you tonight?”

A bit of heat graced Luna’s face as she asked, “May I ask why, Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head and turned back for the door. “No, no, forget it. I knew it was childish.” Her horn glowed to open the door again, but her violet aura was overtaken by Luna’s blue one, holding the doors in place.

“Do not mistake my curiosity for condescension or disapproval. You’re allowed to be open and frank with both Celestia and I without fear of judgment, Twilight. You’re one of us now, and we’ll be together a long time,” Luna assured.

Twilight turned back to Luna with a brighter blush. “It’s just that, well… ever since I was a filly, if Spike or I had a really bad dream, we’d cuddle up together in bed. Just being together made the nightmares go away. That never really stopped, no matter how old we got. And since he’s gone… well… I was just hoping…”

“May I ask why you chose me and not my sister? You two are much closer, if I may be so bold,” Luna asked with a tilt of her head.

Twilight was silent for several long seconds. She said nothing, but she didn’t have to. Luna knew. She put Celestia in the younger alicorn’s nightmare, after all.

“I just… don’t want to bother her. She’s the princess of the day, so she needs her rest when it’s not daytime, right?” Twilight lied with a nervous smile. “Besides, you’re my friend.”

“That I am,” Luna giggled with a smile. She opened up a wing and motioned toward it with her head. “Come. If it’s company you want, I’d be happy to provide.”

Twilight let out a relieved sigh and cantered over. She crawled in bed with a deep blush, cuddling up to her friend’s side under her wing. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Luna reassured as her horn glowed, pulling the covers over the two of them. “It gets lonely being the princess of the night, truth be told. Very few ponies aside from my guards are even awake, let alone spending time with me.”

“Sorry,” Twilight mumbled. “My duties are during the day, and I usually relax and study at night, so… sorry.”

“It’s fine, Twilight,” she said, leaning down and nuzzling her cheek against Twilight’s. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“If you want, I could come to relax and read in here at night. If you don’t mind,” Twilight added.

Luna blushed brightly, though she quickly closed all the blinds to hide it. “I think I’d like that. Now you get some sleep; the sun always rises too soon for the weary, does it not?”

Twilight chuckled sleepily. “Too true. Goodnight, Luna, and thanks again.” The younger alicorn shifted against the older to get comfortable before laying still and drifting back to sleep.

“Goodnight,” Luna muttered, giving Twilight one last nuzzle before laying her head down and entering the realm of dreams again. Her heart was heavy with thanks that she didn’t deserve. She knew that Twilight would be back in her bedchamber in the near future. She’d have to be. The nightmares certainly wouldn’t stop anytime soon; not until things were set right again.

With a grieving heart and soul, Luna got back to her task of sowing horror and sorrow for the mares she loved the most.

Dear Dissent

“Twilight. Twilight, wake up,” came a soft, soothing voice.

Twilight just curled up tighter, pulling the luxurious silk sheets over her head. She was far from ready to leave the safe haven of dreamless sleep. “Sun’s not even up…” she mumbled.

The voice chuckled and she felt somepony’s nose prod her side. “I’m fairly sure it is. I did raise it, after all. Come on, get up.”

“Muh?” was the most articulate response Twilight could muster at that moment. When the rusted gears in her brain finally got turning, her eyes shot open and she threw the covers off. Sitting next to her bed was none other than Celestia, a smirk on her face and her amusement plain. “Celestia! Sorry, I just, I, um…” She blushed when last night’s memories caught up with her and she realized three things: first, that she was sleeping in Luna’s bed; second, that Luna was fast asleep next to her; and third, most importantly, Celestia had just caught Twilight in bed with her sister. “I can explain?” she said with a nervous giggle.

“No need; Luna explained it to me at breakfast this morning,” the older alicorn chuckled, nuzzling her muzzle to her student’s. “Haunted by nightmares last night, yes?”

“Breakfast?” Twilight blinked and looked up at the clock, though it was hard to see in the darkness of Luna’s room. Both hands had just parted from their tryst over the number one a few minutes ago. “Oh wow, I really slept in,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. “Sorry, Celestia.”

“No harm done,” she assured. “It sounds like you needed it. Besides, I’m more than used to handling the duties of a ruler on my own.”

“Still, sorry,” Twilight said with a weak giggle. She tried to look her mentor in the eye, but every time she did the phantoms of last night’s nightmare clawed at her mind’s eye. She climbed out of Luna’s bed and used the excuse of stretching her legs and wings to avoid eye contact. “How much did you leave for me?”

“There is still much to be done, but that can wait for later. We have a press conference to attend, remember?” Celestia got to her hooves and cantered out the door.

Twilight’s heart sank into her stomach as she followed, her heavy hooves struggling to keep up with her teacher’s stately strides. “I remember now,” she mumbled.

“You don’t have to go up with me, though,” Celestia added. “Considering the circumstances and the personal nature of this whole affair, I don’t think it’d be fair to push you into the spotlight. I think you should be there, though, as a learning experience and to keep you in the loop. There are plenty of places to stay away from the prying eyes of cameras and still hear my address.”

Twilight bit her lip and looked to the side. She tried to distract herself with the gorgeous stained glass windows of the palace as the pair trotted past them, but her head was already spinning from anxiety and the cavalcade of colors wasn’t helping. “No, I’ll be fine. Just… could you do the talking, please? I didn’t get much time to review our official answers,” she asked.

Celestia gave her a soft, indulging smile that made Twilight cringe; it was that look that said that the older alicorn knew she was being lied to, but took pity and wasn’t going to call the liar out on it. “Of course. Don’t worry; I’ve dealt with far worse incidents. I know what to say to keep the masses from grabbing their torches and pitchforks.” Twilight shot her mentor a look and she added, “Sorry, poor choice of words. No harm will come to Spike, I promise.”

Twilight sighed and nuzzled Celestia’s side. “I know. I just can’t help but worry. No matter what we, I mean, you say, the papers are going to demonize Spike and drench the story in so much yellow journalism that Fluttershy’s coat will look white, and then some young fool with delusions of vigilantism is going to try to track him down to be a hero. This is going to get somepony killed!”

“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” Celestia said as they reached a flight of stairs leading them downward. “That’s the price of freedom of the press; truth isn’t necessarily required. I can’t tell you how many ‘biographies’ of my dear sister have all sorts of insane theories about the ‘real’ reason she turned into Nightmare Moon. I’m not so sure about that second part, though.” She chuckled and looked down at Twilight. “Did you end your embargo on reading dragon slayer stories recently?”

“No; I still refuse to read that xenophobic trash,” Twilight huffed. “But I do know how the stories go, and that other ponies read them, and that in all likelihood somepony’s going to try to imitate them.”

“It’s a possibility. All the same, not much can be done; the Everfree Forest, what’s left of it, is still too large to block off or keep surveillance on,” Celestia sighed. “Even we just have to accept that sometimes things are beyond our power. The most we can do is keep as many things under control as possible.”

“How does it feel, Twi, to know that most if not all of your life is completely out of your power?”

Twilight shook her head and winced, trying to shake off the memory tugging at the back of her mind as the stairs ended.

“Still, I’ll have Discord give Spike some warning next time they meet,” Celestia continued, not noticing Twilight’s wince. “I doubt anyone would be able to get very deep into the forest, but he should at least be ready to defend himself. For now, the best we can do is not give the press a reason to make this worse than it is, though they hardly need one.”

Twilight nodded mutely as the stairwell let out into the main entrance hall. Vertigo hit her like a firework went off behind her skull when the hail of camera flashes assaulted her eyes. Her lack of peaceful sleep caught up to her as she shakily followed the vague shape of Celestia down the stairs. She thought she could make out Celestia’s legs not being stable either, but it was hard to see through all the bursts of light. It was so hard to see or even think that she didn’t know they’d reached the landing above the crowd of reporters until she bumped into Celestia’s plot.

With a thankful lack of remark from her mentor, Twilight circled around and sat at Celestia’s side as she fought to control the blush on her face and look as awake and confident as possible. A rigid, regal spine, upheld head, and stiff upper lip did little to make her actually feel awake or confident, though.

Celestia cleared her throat. The motherly concern from her and Twilight’s conversation was gone, and in its place the practiced face of a solemn leader, with narrowed eyes and taught lips. “Good afternoon,” she started, her stately voice carrying across the hall. “I doubt you need much reminder why you’re all here. A few short days ago, the Western side of the Everfree Forest, a place that has long lived in our culture as a den of nightmares and untamable magic, was set ablaze and burned to the ground. We all saw the smoke and the rising flames here from Canterlot; many of you probably knew before I did. Many of our non-pony animal citizens that lived on the edge of the forest have died or lost their homes, and several villagers from Ponyville have been displaced. One of the Elements, Lady Rarity, has even been hospitalized.”

“I will not lie to you, directly or by omission,” she continued, swiveling her head to look over the crowd. Twilight could barely see the crowd, anyway, but tried her best not to look at the ceiling to get her eyes away from the camera flashes. “I have no doubt that the grapevine has been plumbed many times over before this meeting, so you all probably have a good idea of who’s responsible already. With the unique coloration of the flames and all the eyewitness reports, there never was any point to hiding it. The cause of the fire was Spike, dragon servant of the crown and a royal confidante.”

Twilight’s ear twitched and her teeth grinded; Celestia paused to allow the reporters to murmur amongst themselves, and Twilight could pick up many questions about why Celestia would let a dragon into Equestria in the first place and many words to describe Spike other than his name, like “beast” or “monster.”

“What do you think it feels like to me, being your ‘number one assistant’ for all these years and still having to answer to you? Being stuck in this library because nopony will ever trust me on my own? Being stuck in a town, in a society, in a country where I don’t even belong?!”

Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“We have reason to believe that the fire was purely accidental,” Celestia resumed. “Even so, arson and accidental slaughter are still serious crimes, especially on such a large scale. We do not know his exact whereabouts, but rest assured everything will be done to bring him in and have him face his punishment in court as a citizen of Equestria.”

Another wave of disbelieving murmurs washed over the assembly. Through the wall of flashing light, Twilight could barely see a figure amongst them stand up from its seat. “Your Highness, why in the world would you allow this dragon the privilege of citizenship after what he’s done?” a mare’s voice asked, the Manehattan accent very thick. “Why did you allow it in the first place?”

“The laws on citizenship are very clear: Any creature that is born within Equestria’s borders is eligible for citizenship, equine or not,” Celestia said. “Spike’s papers were filed years ago, and since his birth he’s been under the legal guardianship of Princess Twilight, her parents, and myself. As a citizen of Equestria-”

“An old interview with Princess Twilight clearly states that her test of admission into your academy was to make this Spike’s egg hatch while you were in attendance. No other instances of such a test exist in the schools’ records. Spike’s existence and relationship with the crown were quite clearly planned in advance. After the tragedy he caused, I think the public has the right to know what the purpose of that plan was,” the reporter cut in.

The room went quiet and the camera flashes stopped. The assembly seemed to be torn between admiring, hating, or gawking at the reporter with the cast-iron spine. Twilight’s mind seethed with less than flattering judgments of her past and character, from who she slept with to get her position to how many tin foil hats she must own. She glanced over to Celestia to find that her mentor’s face had changed little, though her calm gaze turned colder as she shifted her weight.

“This press conference is about the recent tragedy in Ponyville and the palace’s planned course of action. Any past details of the personal relationships between myself, Princess Twilight, and Spike are not open for discussion and strictly between us,” she announced, looking across the crowd as if they were all responsible for the lone mare’s gall.

“Then let Princess Twilight speak, Your Majesty,” the reporter pressed. “Princess Twilight, do you have any comments? Are you more willing to let the public know why you were given a dragon of all things as a pet?”

Twilight grit her teeth; the eyes of the crowd were all fixed on her. Her own gaze fell on the reporter that was causing such a stir, a unicorn with a short cut, dark red mane, mint green coat, and yellow eyes boring into hers. She fought the urge to practice the Royal Canterlot Voice then and there as she said, “First of all, Spike is not my pet. He’s like a surrogate son or a little brother to me, but not a pet. Furthermore, I have no reason to believe that Celestia would have ulterior motives to giving me a special test to enter the academy.”

“Besides that you’re the only unicorn in the long and storied history of the academy to be given one? That doesn’t seem strange to you?” the mare shot back.

“Face it, Twi, you were made to be a royal by a royal.”

Celestia cut in with, “I don’t think that this line of questioning is appropriate given the-”

“Even if it does, I trust Princess Celestia with my life,” Twilight interrupted in turn, her voice rising to block out Spike’s in her head. “She may not be perfectly open, but I trust anything she may be withholding from me to be for my own good and the good of her subjects.”

“You’re only living the life you have because Celestia pulled your strings, you puppet!”

“If she’s keeping things from you, how can we trust her not to keep things from us? Is there more to this story? Was her line about not lying by omission just a load of-”

“None of your business!” Twilight snapped, her teeth bared and her wings flaring.

The floodgates had burst wide open. The others in the crowd started joining in with their own questions in a confusing mass of meaningless, infuriating noise as the cameras resumed their blinding flashes. Twilight closed her eyes and ground her teeth together to try to drown it out.

“Silence!”

The entire room went deathly quiet. Twilight’s eyes snapped open as she looked to her teacher, her Royal Canterlot voice shaking her to her very bones. Celestia’s eyes swept across the room. “This conference is over. It has been a trying time here in the palace, as Spike has a special place in the hearts of the entire royal family. The guards will show you out, and Princess Twilight and I will return to trying to sort out this disaster and provide relief to those afflicted. Thank you.”

With a bow of her head, Celestia put a wing around Twilight and urged her to come with her. She complied, her head hung low in shame, not courtesy. Her hooves heavier than ever, Twilight followed her teacher within the comfort of her shadow. Celestia lead her away from the murmurs of the departing reporters and deeper into the palace, where the only sound was their own hoofsteps and their only company the stone-faced guards.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Celestia sighed. “I should’ve known better. All the same, you did well under the circumstances. After I was forced to consign my sister to a millennium of imprisonment, I did much worse with the public. I scarcely left my chambers for a long time. There were even rumors that I was dead for a while. I left Equestria leaderless when they needed me most. You had the courage to face your critics even at a very dark hour; you should be proud of that much, at least.”

Twilight said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on her hooves as she put one set in front of the other, the carpet strolling by like a lush red landscape.

“I’ll be lucky if I even have any friends besides you.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight muttered, her view of the floor blurring with tears.

“For what?” Celestia asked softly, nuzzling her student’s horn.

“For ruining everything.” She charged her horn, and before Celestia could protest, she was gone in a flash of light.

Dearly Disgraced

The light of teleportation faded and Twilight found herself in her bedroom at home – her real home, the library in Ponyville. It felt so much colder after what had happened there; less like home and more like a memorial. She couldn’t help but feel her heart seize whenever she looked at the door, where she’d gotten her last glimpse of Spike running away, or the jar where she’d kept the shards of his fire ruby by her bed.

“My dear friend Twilight, what brings you back? I thought you had a country to get on track,” a deep but feminine voice asked behind her.

Twilight almost jumped in her skin and wheeled around to see Zecora behind her, balancing her head on her pole in a meditative stance, her eyes closed.

“Sorry, Zecora,” Twilight chuckled nervously, folding her defensively flared wings. “I didn’t know you were there.” She blinked and looked around. “Where’s all the books and debris…?

“Before I started meditating, I cleaned your home up today. I thought it was the least I could do for letting me stay,” the middle-aged zebra responded with an upside-down smile.

Twilight looked back at the zebra and smiled meekly. “You didn’t have to. Letting you stay here is only the right thing to do after, well… Spike burned your house down.”

“Home is a state of mind, not a roof over my head,” said the stoic. “Still, I wish I could’ve gotten my masks before I fled. Though to their fates my heart is numb, they did remind me of where I come from.”

“Sorry,” Twilight mumbled, eyes downcast. “I’ll reimburse you personally if I have to; you deserve your own place. Maybe now that the town likes you more, you could build a house closer to Ponyville.”

“Though I appreciate your great charity, perhaps you should focus on Spike and Rarity,” Zecora suggested, opening one eye. “Both have many wounds matted with salt; besides, the loss of my house was not your fault.”

“But it was!” Twilight blurted out, pacing back and forth in front of the medicine mare. “Spike was my responsibility, and I completely messed it up! Hundreds dead, dozens destitute, all because I stupidly thought Spike could handle his failing relationship ending. But oh no, of course not! I thought he was better than that, more controlled than that!”

“That he was more like you, or so you thought you knew?” Zecora finished, opening her other eye.

Twilight stopped mid-stride and put her hooves down, her head hung low. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I thought he was like me.” She shook her head and started pacing again, all life and fury gone from her canter. “I should’ve known better. I really should’ve. Spike’s had the biggest crush on her since we moved here, and his relationship is the only thing he could ever really ‘own’… and now to him it looks like we took it away.” She snarled, her eyes softly glowing. “When Celestia asked if that was the best thing to do, I should’ve said no! I should’ve known better! I’m a stupid, arrogant, failure of a-”

Her ranting came to an abrupt halt when she let out a yelp from Zecora’s bamboo stick smacking her over the head. “What was that f-” She bit her tongue; her bedroom was wrecked anew, books and sheets of parchment scattered about like a hurricane had passed through. Zecora was looking mutely at her, hooves on the ground and staff by her side. “I lost control again… didn’t I?”

Zecora just nodded, a pitying look in her eye.

Twilight slumped to the floor, shaking her head. “I’m sorry; I’m so sorry. Every single time I get over emotional, my magic completely spirals out of control. I’m afraid it’s going to hurt someone someday. I just wasn’t prepared to handle this much power. Arcane or political, I guess…”

Zecora trotted in front of her and nudged their noses together. “Guilt is the deadliest poison for the spirit, but the question remains: what will you do about it?”

Twilight looked into the zebra’s cyan eyes long and hard before letting out a sigh. “I don’t know yet… I don’t know how to fix this. I feel like I don’t even know what I’m fixing.”

Zecora huffed and trotted out of Twilight’s sight. “It seems you’ve forgotten the lessons I gave many years ago, in that Everfree enclave. What you need is more than control; you need to learn harmony, in your mind and in the soul.”

“What good are magic lessons going to do? Magic isn’t going to solve this!” Twilight asked, looking over her shoulder to see Zecora grab her staff.

“Twilight, this is not for your powers; this is for what you’ve needed for hours.” She tossed the staff to Twilight who caught it in her magic glow. “What you need is true clarity, to become more aware, of those by your side and what they’re doing there.”

“What are you implying?” Twilight asked coldly, looking between the staff and its owner.

“If you need to ask, you cannot see, hence why you need more clarity. Twilight, I’ve known you for many a year, and I’ve come to know what it is you fear,” Zecora explained, not backing down an inch. “Fear of failure holds you down and makes you blind, but not of failing those you’re responsible for or have maligned. By the time that you and I are done, once more your heart will clearly see the sun.”

Twilight’s ears flattened against her head, her eyes lowering and only vaguely shifting between the staff and Zecora. Finally she managed to ask, “What do I have to do?”

The forest was still deathly quiet. The scent of burnt flesh still hanged heavily in the air and stung his nostrils. Smoke still darkened the sky.

Spike was able to put all that out of his mind ever so briefly because for the first time since the waking nightmare started, he had water.

The young dragon was slumped over the edge of a river, greedily drinking up all he could if only just to feel the cold on his parched lips and tongue. An entire lifetime of reading books and an advanced homeschooled education was shrieking at him all the various infections and diseases he could catch from unpurified, wild water, especially deep in the Everfree Forest. The sheer thirst he’d gotten wandering through the smoke-filled forest without any water to help his burning throat tied that education up and tossed it into the river with cement horseshoes.

After another long slurp of water, he finally flopped backwards onto his rump with a satisfied belch. He panted, his tongue lolling out with a shadow of a smile on his cracked lips. “Sweet Celestia, that feels good,” he mumbled, closing his eyes for a moment and just basking in the darkened sun.

“I’m not interrupting anything lurid, am I?”

“Holy-” Spike almost jumped out of his skin and right into the river. He turned around and flopped on his front to see Discord lounging on the branch of the tree behind him. “How did- no you are not!” he fumed, his cheeks turning red.

“Good, because I really don’t need to see that,” Discord said with mock disgust and a teasing grin. “How goes things?”

Spike huffed and sat down again, facing away from the serpent. “Still have some gems left,” he muttered, leaning back with his arms propping him up. “Arm isn’t infected yet; I was about to clean it to keep it that way.”

“So, not dying; pretty good, considering the circumstances,” Discord said flippantly. “Doubt you’re going to like the news I’m bringing, though.”

Spike’s heart skipped a beat. “Is Rarity okay?”

“Stable,” Discord answered. “Looks like she’ll wake up any day now. And, not that you care, but Fluttershy still refuses to speak to anyone, and the recently made homeless Zecora is staying at your house.”

Spike flinched, his shoulders moving as if he was about to curl up. “That’s not fair,” he mumbled.

“Life is never ‘fair’ when it’s not going one’s way,” Discord deadpanned. “Certainly wasn’t fair to them when they were made to suffer over this.”

“I didn’t mean it; I didn’t mean to hurt them,” Spike said, voice quavering and dry eyes mustering up tears.

“Hardly matters.” Discord suddenly appeared in front of the young dragon, sprawled across a floating, inflatable recliner that somehow didn’t get swept away in the current. “Under Equestrian law, right now you are a wanted criminal. First-degree arson and accidental slaughter charges; nasty stuff. And the way the public and the press are baying for your blood, there isn’t a lawyer in the country that would take your case if you were ever caught.”

Spike leaned forward, folding his arms in his lap and looking down at his own claws. “So… I really can’t go back now?”

“Not unless you want to go to jail for a long time,” Discord answered. “The way things are, a royal pardon isn’t likely; it would just get vetoed, probably near-unanimously. Really, only Mayor Mare of Ponyville is sticking her neck out for you, and she doesn’t have much clout. Them’s the breaks when the monarchs give away their right to complete and total authority in favor of limited democracy.”

“I know how the courts work,” Spike growled half-heartedly. “I know how they worked before I even moved to Ponyville.”

“Then you should know that the answer is yes; you can’t go back,” Discord sighed. “At least, not without some major illusion magic to hide yourself; magic that I could provide.”

Spike stared long and hard, flexing his claws. Always sharp; never blunt. Never hooves; made to rend and tear and shred.

“Not yet,” Spike finally muttered. “I won’t risk it until Rarity’s awake… not much point otherwise. I can’t bring Zecora’s house back, or Fluttershy’s friends.”

“Probably for the best,” Discord agreed. “Though, before I go, a bit of good news. Celestia has officially announced that nobody is to go after you, legally sanctioned bounty hunters included. The bad news is that even if the government won’t offer the normal payment for anyone who brings you in, the public would probably laud him or her as a hero. Long story short, watch your back; some wannabe dragon slayers may be headed your way.”

Spike nodded, looking up to Discord again. “I’ll keep an eye out. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me; I’m sort of under royal orders right now,” Discord brushed off. “Though between you and me I’d be doing this anyway, but tell anyone that I’m capable of being truly nice and the xenophobic public will be the least of your worries.”

Spike chuckled darkly. “Not like there’s anyone to tell.”

Discord smirked. “Good boy. Ta ta!” With a snap of his fingers, the draconequus was gone.

Alone again save for the sound of the rushing river, Spike looked at his claws one more time. He flexed them into fists and sighed before kneeling at the edge of the river and tearing off the most recent dressings for his wounds. He let the bloodstained leaves and vines float away.

The wound was inflamed, almost swollen beneath his scales, and emitted a noxious smell that made him want to gag. He hissed softly through gritted teeth as he slipped it beneath the cold waters, watching the darkened blood and pus drift away downriver as he tried to wash it off.

Dearest Hope

The welcome bell rang when Rainbow Dash opened the door and cantered in, though the atmosphere itself was less than welcoming, both figuratively and literally. Sugarcube Corner lacked the laughter of the infamous, trouble making grade school twins that usually served as the soundtrack for the shop. Instead only Pinkie Pie stood behind the counter, her mane still so straight as if even it were depressed to be there, and Applejack in front of it, a tied bandana dangling from her neck.

Rainbow Dash pulled down the bandana around her own muzzle, holding back a few coughs from the still sullied air inside. “Heya, girls; what’s going on?” she asked, her hoarse voice even more so. “I was wondering why you two didn’t show at the hospital today.”

“Sorry, Rainbow,” Applejack said with a frown, “I’ve been dealing with the relief effort near the farm. Those biomancers or whatever those magic snobs call themselves told me this morning that their magic still won’t work to help the trees grow back since it’s the Everfree, and trees without magic help take decades to grow. We don’t have time for that. No trees to spread the magic from wherever it comes from in the forest, no zap apples, Sweet Apple Acres is in trouble and the town economy tanks,” she listed, nostrils flared and brow furrowed. “I’ve been writing letters to everypony in the country that could possibly help.”

Rainbow Dash flinched and cringed. “And you, Pinkie?”

“Mister and Missus Cake took the twins and went to Fillydelphia to live with relatives,” she droned. “Pound and Pumpkin were getting very sick from all the smoke and the smell of the bodies. I stayed behind to keep the doors open and the bits flowing. Not like I have anything better to do.”

Applejack shot Pinkie a glare, but the baker didn’t acknowledge it. “What we’re trying to say is that we’d love to be there for Rarity, but we’ve got other things to attend to right now,” the cowpony explained. “What brings you here?”

“Partly I was wondering where you two were, but mostly I’m here to pick up some sweets for me and Fluttershy,” Rainbow said, trotting up to the display case next to Applejack.

“Fluttershy’s eating again?” Applejack asked, her ears perking up along with her lips.

“Well… no,” Rainbow Dash admitted, her own ears lowering. “But that isn’t going to stop me from trying.”

“Oh…” Applejack sighed and sat down, adjusting her hat. “Mind if I pay for them, then? I feel bad for not showing up today. Who knows what Fluttershy must think is goin’ on with us.”

“No, it’s fine,” Rainbow insisted, holding up a hoof. “I’m good for it. I just want a few red velvet brownies.”

Before Applejack could respond, a bag of them was already in front of Rainbow Dash. “Take them; business is so slow they’d probably go to waste anyway,” Pinkie Pie mumbled, taking some of her own money and stuffing it in the cash register.

Rainbow’s ears lowered until they were flat against her head. “Pinks…”

“Don’t mention it,” she interrupted as she rang up her own cash. “I have enough stashed away for a rainy day. Besides, you’ll both need it after I finish with what I was saying before you came in.”

“Oh, right,” Applejack said with a nervous chuckle, “Pinkie said she got some info from Discord.”

“And?” Rainbow pushed.

Pinkie shut the cash register. “I won’t bore you with the details. All you need to know is that with all the legal trouble Spike is in, if he’s found guilty of all his charges, we’ll all be dead by the time he gets out of jail. If he’s extremely lucky and only gets convicted of half of them, we’ll be old and grey by the time he’s released.”

“Th-that’s insane!” Rainbow Dash sputtered, her jaw slack and wings flared in rage. “That’s practically a life sentence!”

“And ain’t those illegal?” Applejack added.

“A life sentence for a pony, not a dragon,” Pinkie corrected. “It’s actually a pretty small fraction of his total lifespan. But the bottom line is that if he ever comes back or otherwise gets caught, we’ll never see him again anyway.”

“That’s just… that’s just not fair,” Applejack mumbled, eyes downcast. “He doesn’t deserve that.”

Pinkie’s eyes snapped at her, their normal bubbly baby blue gone and an icy azure in its place. “None of us deserved any of this. But here we are.” She turned away and hopped over the counter, dragging her hooves upstairs. “You two get going. I’ll be upstairs until some new customers show up.”

Rainbow let out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding and relaxed before she even knew she was tense. She shared a look with Applejack, worried frowns on both their faces. The pegasus grabbed the bag of brownies and the two silently left together, only the bell above the door bidding them farewell.

The two let out a few pained coughs before they remembered to put their bandanas on their muzzles again. The smell of death and smoke still hung heavily in the air, but the cloth veil made it slightly less overwhelming. Slightly.

“Hey, AJ,” Rainbow found herself saying as the two turned to part ways. She saw the farmpony turn back around, so she did the same. She swallowed nervously and continued, “You don’t blame Spike for this mess, do you?”

Applejack’s eyelids drooped and her gaze fell downward. “At first I didn’t, but… I’m so scared and mad right now that it’s hard for me not to. I mean, I’m looking at losing the farm here. Hay, worse than that, Ponyville could completely fall apart within the next year! My parents and Granny Smith are probably rolling in their graves right now from just the possibility. Without the town’s only real export and cash crop, what’s going to happen to us?” She sighed. “I know blame doesn’t fix anything, but when I think about all that I can’t help but look for someone to pin it on.”

“But you were the one before this whole mess that knew Twilight shouldn’t have torn Rarity and Spike apart!” Rainbow spat. “You were smarter than any of us! What happened to that?”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed and she snorted. “So that’s what this is about? You asked for my opinion, and I gave it. I can’t keep getting caught between you and Twi while you two fight like rabid dogs. I have my family to think about right now, not who most deserves a crop to the plot.” She turned around and gave a vulgar “kiss my plot” lift of her tail before trotting off. “Come and talk to me about it when you decide to stop being so petty and actually do something to help!”

“Fine!” she shouted after her. “But at least I’m not the one who ditched Fluttershy and Rarity for some stupid trees!”

Applejack flinched, but her stride didn’t break as she cantered back towards her farm.

Rainbow Dash snorted, turned tail, and took flight, soaring over the rooftops straight for the hospital. The streets below were desolate, save for a few that were galloping to get to their destination and back before the smell and the sting of smoke made them sick. Most houses were glowing with magic light; air-filtering barriers that mages from the relief effort had set up. It kept the town from dying of smoke inhalation, but little could be done about the smell of charred wood and corpses.

It didn’t take the fastest flyer in Equestria long to arrive at the hospital, despite the hell that the smoke was causing on the air currents. She circled around to the back, coming to a halt in front of the window to Rarity’s room. Fluttershy was still sitting next to Rarity’s bed, her head laid in the unicorn’s lap and Angel perched atop her head. With a frown and a sigh, Rainbow pried the window open and glided back in.

“I got some red velvet brownies,” she said as cheerily as she could manage, closing the window and taking her bandana off. “Your favorite, right?”

Fluttershy’s eyes briefly looked up at her, but didn’t linger long before returning to Rarity’s face.

Rainbow’s fake smile faltered as she rummaged through the bag. “I got plenty for all three of us, so help yourselves.” She took one out for herself and took a bite, setting the bag behind Fluttershy’s head.

Angel stirred and looked up at Rainbow before looking down to Fluttershy and back again. He sighed silently and shook his head before hopping off her head and reaching in, breaking off a piece. He opened his mouth to eat it, but froze and closed it again. He hopped around to in front of Fluttershy’s muzzle and offered it, his ears perked with a small smile.

Fluttershy mutely shook her head.

Angel sighed in defeat and stuffed it in his mouth with a scowl, hopping back atop his owner’s head.

“Thanks for trying at least, Angel,” Rainbow muttered, taking a seat to the side of the room.

Angel just shrugged and flopped over, curling up again and angrily peering over Fluttershy’s mane at nothing in particular.

Rainbow looked down at her own brownie and sighed, taking another bite. The rich texture and rush of sweetness on her tongue lifted her lips in a small smile. A few minutes and bites later, the sweet was gone and so was her smile. The only sounds were the dull rhythm of Rarity’s heart monitor and the occasional pleading groan of Fluttershy’s deprived stomach; the only smell was smoke mixed with cleaning solvents, which quickly overpowered the lingering sugar on her taste buds.

Rainbow’s ears perked up when the monotonous beeping suddenly picked up in tempo. Her head followed when she heard a series of chest-rattling coughs scrape their way up Rarity’s throat. The unicorn’s eyes were wide open in panic, trying to pull against her restraints while Fluttershy tried to hold her still.

“Wh-where am I?” Rarity rasped. Her voice had gone from melodious to grating, the difference between a ringing bell and claws against rock. “Where’s Spike?!”

Rainbow Dash hopped to her hooves and burst through the door into the hall, calling out, “Rarity’s awake, could we get a little help here?!” She ducked back in when she heard the rush of hooves coming closer. Fluttershy was croaking out something with her atrophied voice, but it was so soft that Rainbow couldn’t hear.

Nurse Redheart and Tenderheart rushed in, moving Fluttershy aside as they tried to restrain the flailing Rarity. Fluttershy timidly backed away, face hidden behind her mane with a single eye peering out, Angel standing up tall and ears perked on her head.

“Where’s Spike?” she repeated, her horn sparking erratically in her hysterics. “Someone please tell me he’s okay!”

“Rarity, get a hold of yourself!” Rainbow snapped, hovering above the two nurses. “Spike is alive and kicking, but if you don’t calm down you won’t be, got it?”

Rarity’s breathing slowed. Her struggles came to a stop as she let out another round of retching coughs, a bit of vomit leaking from her lips. She laid back and let the nurses do their jobs. “Thank goodness,” she sighed, her chest heaving with labored breaths. “Thank goodness…”

Rainbow Dash sighed in relief and put her hooves back on the floor. She looked over to Fluttershy with a grin, but wasn’t greeted with any joy in return. Her lone, exposed eye was downcast, tears forming at its edges. Rainbow’s smile wilted. She stepped forward to join her friend, but stopped when she felt the crinkle of paper beneath it. The bag of brownies had been knocked onto the floor in Rarity’s panic, many of them trampled by the nurses in their hurry.

Rainbow picked up the squished bag and looked inside. Reaching in, she produced the last undamaged sweet. She took her spot next to Fluttershy, draping a wing across her back and wordlessly offering it. After a few moments of silence and stillness betwixt the two while Tenderheart went to go get the doctor, Fluttershy took it in her own hooves and bit into it, leaning into her friend as tears rolled down her face.

Dearly Forsaken

Fire; it’s such a short word and simple concept, said in countless analogies to be dangerous if left unchecked, all consuming and greedy. In her world, in civilization, the most she’d ever seen was in a fireplace, a little dancing light show that warmed up her and her lover as they held each other beside it.

She had no lover anymore. Fire was all that remained. It roared in her ears. Its heat coated her fur in sweat. Its breath stung her eyes and throat. Her entire world was ablaze.

But she couldn’t stop. Not yet. Some things were more important.

“Spike!” Rarity called out again, her voice long past the point of hoarse as the forest burned around her and she galloped through the blaze. It hurt to talk; felt like someone was scrubbing the walls of her throat and lungs with sandpaper. Didn’t matter; had to find him before it was too late.

A branch as thick as her middle came crashing down from the canopy. It brought down a hailstorm of smaller ones, the flaming twigs flying like shrapnel on impact and singing her coat. She screwed her eyes shut and yelped, cringing and letting out a fit of coughs.

“Spike, where are you?” she called out, her voice more and more faint and her hooves getting heavier as she continued her ride through Tartarus brought to the surface. Her lungs ached, each labored, shallow breath coming harder than the last. Each crunch of cinders and leaves and wood and charred bones under her hooves ate away at her mind as gleefully as the fire would her body. Each hooffall was another grain of sand falling in the hour glass, and it was quickly running dry.

Rarity’s legs slowed to a canter, then to a trot. Her hooves felt heavier than lead. Her head wasn’t swimming in disorientation, it was drowning. Her vision wasn’t clouding over, it was blacking out.

She laid her head low and vomited. Wouldn’t need food where she was going if she couldn’t find Spike or get out, anyway. If there was a way out. If it was even worth getting out.

She collapsed to the ground, only the dirt to cushion her fall. She couldn’t tell where she was. Could barely even think about where she was. All that mattered was that fire was there. Her only company, in the end.

“Spike… anyone… help me,” she choked out.

“Rarity!”

The world was no longer on fire.

It was dark instead.

Spike looked over his shoulder. He could see the growing fire behind him, in the distance. By then it was just a glow in his eyes, against the nighttime darkness. No telling how many other eyes saw it as all too bright. Or how many wouldn’t ever see anything again because of it. He tried not to think about it.

He looked up when he heard a clap of thunder. He couldn’t see the gathering clouds through the thick canopy, but he could tell they were there. Emergency rainstorm procedures; textbook way to deal with a fire, though he guessed they would have to form the storm first and then nudge it over the Everfree. Normal weather magic didn’t work there, after all. Hopefully Rainbow Dash was smart enough to realize that before it got too out of control.

He snarled and turned back to the road-less path ahead. “She better; she helped cause all this,” he mumbled to himself, his tail slamming on the ground as if she were right there behind him. “Ditched me when I needed somepony to talk to… hope she gets caught in the fire.” His heart twinged as soon as the words left his mouth.

Another, more visceral pain gnawed at him, earning a gasp from the dragon. He held his right arm tight and looked down at it. The adrenaline gone, he could start feeling the bite he’d inflicted on himself. He could certainly feel the slick blood running over his hand.

“Stupid,” he spat at himself. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Need to find some way to staunch the bleeding and keep it from getting infected, or I’ll be stupid and dead.” He leaned in and breathed hot air onto the wound, quickly drying some of the escaping blood. It would buy him some time, but not much.

He scanned the area for anything he knew he could use. Nothing, save for a few vines and some large leaves. Plenty of poisonous plants that could kill him, but he wasn’t keen on using those. The word “yet” crossing his mind didn’t disturb him as much as it should have.

He ripped down a particularly large leaf from its branch and tore down some vines. He wrapped the leaf around his wound and tied a haphazard knot around it to keep it in place. It wasn’t exactly Nurse Redheart work, but it would have to suffice.

Spike snapped off a branch of the large-leafed tree for when he had to change his primitive dressings and kept walking. Had to make sure he was ahead of the fire, if only for his own sanity. Hopefully cross the river before he fell asleep so it wouldn’t be a problem.

He walked in silence, save for the twigs snapping beneath his heavy footfalls or the occasional chatter of an animal nearby. He could see the eyes of timber wolves skulking in the darkness, but they didn’t make a move. He dwarfed them and he could breathe fire. They had more reason to fear him than the other way around. His trek was uninterrupted, save for when he had to walk around a tree or duck under a branch. He was lulled into a sort of rhythm with his own footsteps.

The solitude gave him time to think. Worse, it gave him time to remember. He tried desperately not to think about what had happened over the past day. Happy memories, happy thoughts, were much more preferable. There was that time Applejack saved him from timber wolves, back when he was young and vulnerable. He had to chuckle at his own idiocy. Dragon code? What a load. Or the time he went to try to figure out what being a dragon meant by meeting other dragons. What he learned, in a few words: being a complete bastard. He never wanted to be a dragon, in body or in spirit. He couldn’t help the former, but could avoid the latter.

Or… at least he tried.

He shook his head. His mind was being dragged down back to the past day as surely as water flowed downstream, but he tried his best to fight the current.

He remembered the day after Twilight’s coronation and how he hugged her tight, crying. He was just so happy knowing that he’d never have to see her die. No amount of hatred he held for her in the present could take away that sort of relief.

He remembered his birthday party several years back, the one that marked him as officially not a child. There weren’t any presents, naturally, but the girls had tried to make up for it. Though that was around the time that his feelings for Rarity were growing more… physical, which made things awkward. More than awkward.

He remembered when he finally got up the courage to ask Rarity out. Hearts and Hooves Day, three years ago. Rarity’s latest coltfriend had dumped her a few days prior, the idiot. He had gone to the Boutique to comfort her, and she looked like she needed it. She said how glad she was he was there, and how at the rate she was going she could never find her knight in shining armor, her very special somepony. He couldn’t remember what exactly he said; it was probably corny and sappy. Whatever it was, it worked, since he also got his first real kiss.

Spike sobbed, though no tears flowed. He was out of tears to cry. He leaned against the nearest tree and slid down its truck. He wept dryly into the night, only his memories to keep him company.