The Mountaintop

Family is a pretty neat thing, ain’t it? I mean having those special ones around that will love and support you no matter what is pretty stellar. But what about me? I don’t have any real family, I guess you could count Twilight. She did raise me, but just because someone raises you doesn’t mean they’re family…to her I’m only family when I need it. The rest of the time I’m little more than a secretary, slave if you’re feeling politically incorrect.

Sometimes I wish I could find my real family. I know you’re thinking ‘But Spike you tried that already, remember?’ Yeah, trust me…I remember. But I’m a dragon, and dragons are stubborn. When we have something we want to guard, let it be an idea or mountains of gold. We’ll protect it, and in some cases hide it.

I mean, I guess Twilight is my family…sorta. She only acts like family when it benefits her. If I’m sad or planning on going a migration, she starts to worry. Why? Because her little secretary would be gone, and she doesn’t know step one about how to find a book in the library.

I learned organization from the head librarian in Canterlot. Yeah, not many ponies can say that. Even fewer dragons. But me, well I’m special. You give me an author and a title and I can tell you what shelf it would be on, even where on the shelf it would be. Twilight can barely find the dictionary. Egghead, my spines.

I suppose this distaste has been growing for some time. Just the thought that somewhere a mother dragon is missing her little egg she lost all those years ago…it infuriates me. Think about it, an egg stolen from it’s rightful place and raised in a castle full of ponies, for Celestia’s sake! Actually…it probably was for Celestia’s sake. Poor turn of phrase.

All this thinking…philosophy and problem solving have never been strong points of mine. I prefer…actually I’m not sure what I prefer. Rarity, I guess -Though who doesn’t prefer Rarity- and gems. That’s really about it.

That’s why I take these little walks on my day off though, to learn who I am. I’m no pony, I don’t have a cutie mark to tell me what I’m good at. It’s up to my spare time to find out what.

So far I learned that I can’t sew, I’m no good at lifting, I suck at poetry, my thoughts are always jumbled. I mean, what can I be good at? I’m a dragon. My people are known for terrorizing villages and sleeping in caves, not much to go off of.

“Achoo!” The sneeze came from behind me, so I jump and spin around to the sound. Someone followed me, drat. I was really hoping no one would ever do that.

“Be quiet, Sweetie! He’ll hear us!” Great. Those three. The last thing I wanted was for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to follow me, mainly because they like to pester endlessly.

“Too late.” I say just loud enough for them to hear, just loud enough to let them know that whatever scheme they were trying failed.

“Consarnit!” Applebloom cursed loudly and stepped out from behind a rather large rock, the other two members of the CMC following behind her. “Guess we ain’t private investigators, neither.” I ignore the double negative, it’s just the dialect, nothing to do with intelligence.

“Why were you following me…?” My voice has little energy in it. Why should it? I come up here to enjoy alone time, to think. Now I have three troublemakers tailing me.

“Well Sweetie noticed how you walked up here every day…and we were curious..” Scootaloo looks down at the ground, her compatriots parrot the motion. “Also we thought that maybe we would get our cutie marks for private investigators…” Now see, I want to be like these three; I want to go on this long quest to find out who I am and be rewarded at the end of it with a badge that everypony can see. I want that kind of recognition…

“An’ we thought that maybe ya could tell us about how you figured out what’cher good at.” Good ol’ AB, Always the positive one. Too bad that just reminded me of how useless I am. So, I sit back on my rock and sigh.

“Truth is…I don’t know what I’m good at.” They all cock their heads and come a bit closer. “That’s why I come up here, to try and find out what I’m good at.” I sigh again, I should really quit doing that. “But the worst part is that once I find it, I won’t know. No cutie mark will pop onto my side letting me know, nothing will change for me…” At this point I’m talking to myself because the CMC are behind me talking amongst themselves.

“What if that’s why we don’t have our cutie marks?” Scootaloo questions her friends.

“We’re dragons?” Squeaks out the unicorn.

“No dummy, what if we’ll never get our cutie marks?  What if we already know what we’re good at and our marks will never appear?!” All three fillies look at each other, and then proceed to scream at the top of their lungs n fear and high-tail it down the mountain.

What was I expecting? For three little ponies to have some philosophical input? Ugh, I disappoint myself sometimes. Anywho, those three killed my searching mood and I really don’t want to go back into town. Twilight will just saddle me with endless chores that she’s ‘too good for.’ I mean really, she thinks re-reading a book that she’s read thirty times too many is a good use of time, but when I want to visit Rarity or make a sweet jewel cake it’s all ‘Oh Spike, quit being lazy.’ Call me gravity because I’m seriously underappreciated…

I think I’ll stay up here for awhile..

--

Where did I put that thread? Pesky clutter..I really clean this up a little. Not too much though, I do like this organized chaos. No, those are my pins…ooh, shiny! But no. Thread, but not the thread I’m looking for.

What is this? Spike’s bag? He must have left this here when he was getting fitted for that suit. I should really return this to the library…or I could look through it and then return it. Juicy gossip is always a good thing.

A book on sewing, interesting. Some rubies, pretty. Might keep one of those for a project I’m working on….and what is this? A note? Oh, a poem!

I always wondered where I came from

Where I’m going, where I’ll end.

I know this train of thought is dumb,

But how else is my time to be spent?

I cater to a mad pony

Shouting and barking orders

How am I to cope with this phony

Who offers no mercy or quarter?

Perhaps this is why the peak calls to me

and the sharp rocks below.

They call to me,

Perhaps that’s where I shall go.

I know that the flow isn’t perfect and some of the words don’t rhyme perfectly, but I can tell it came from somewhere very personal to the little dragon…and somewhere very scary. He’s talking about the mountain…the peak, the sharp rock at the bottom. I don’t like what this implies. Perhaps I should go check on him? Perhaps I shall not tell anypony else? I shall.

Not without preparation, of course.

--

How long have I been up here? Five hours? Six? I don’t know, but the light is waning. Twilight must be worried, after all who will keep all of her neuroticisms in check? Who will triple check the locks on the doors and windows? Who will give the bookshelves one last look over to make sure everything’s squared away? Who will she boss around? Bleh! Phooey on her, I like my rock.

A rock shifts somewhere behind me, my first and only hope is that it’s not the CMC again. I really don’t need them here. Twilight would be better than them, at least she wouldn’t be sneaky…

“Spike? Darling, are you here?” I know that voice, it haunts my dreams..my waking moments. The class it holds is nearly royal, the very stature makes you want to bow down. Rarity. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here…there’s a search effort for you and I had to find an emergency sitter for Sweetiebelle…” Was I expecting her? I don’t think I was, but then again I can be forgetful.  “I found your poem in your note..well that and Sweetie did tell me you were up here.” Darn it…see? Forgetful.

“Oh…” I want to say more. More, why won’t you come out around her?!

“Yes, that’s what I thought when I read it…” Great, that tone in her voice isn’t exactly a good thing. It’s kind of like disappointment mixed with pity. Disapittyment. “I don’t know what made you write it, but what I do know is that everypony needs somepony to talk to.” I can feel her standing behind me, waiting for me to say something. What to say?

Quick! Say something!

“I walk by this mountain every day, and every day I look up at the peak…some days I wonder about how far down it is, how painful the fall would be. Maybe I could do it, maybe I couldn’t…who knows? So I came up here one day…and…I learned I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I have too many questions with not enough answers…” Well, that’s a lot more than I was expecting. Good job More, you actually came out for once.

“Spike…I understand and all…” There’s a but coming, I can feel it. “but…” See? “Aren’t you a little too young to be thinking like this? You are just a baby dragon, you have no business thinking about…that.” She’s uncomfortable even thinking about suicide, forget about her saying such a thing.

“Rarity, I’m sixteen years old. Sixteen. I maybe a baby in dragon terms but in pony terms I would have already moved out of my parent’s house and had my own life. I’m not your little sister, I’m a little more mature than that…” It’s true…oh so true. I may not be totally mature, but more so than most ponies my age. For some reason age doesn’t translate well between species, they only see stature. I do carry sixteen years of life experience, that and a few magical enchantments I’d rather not talk about.

“Oh yes, of course…” I obviously threw her off with that. “But why, Spike? Why would you think such things?” She sits beside me, shocking since she didn’t put anything down first. “You live a good life with Twilight, you are practically her son..” That struck a chord…right in the heart. Touchy, touchy subject she’s walking all over.

“All she does is order me around Rarity!” A little righteous indignation never hurt anypony. Neither did a little standing and poignant pointing.  “I-I go on a migration or try to find myself and she only worries because her servant wasn’t there!” I can feel the tears in my eyes, and she can see them. I know she can, the embarrassment, no one wants to see another living being cry, it goes against our nature. “I was torn away from my mother when I was just an egg so I could be raised to be a…a..a librarian!” I have a right to be this angry!

“I…I..” She is speechless, good. I won. “I think that no matter what you say, it doesn’t justify what you were thinking about.” Wait…what? “You have a life, friends who love you, and a lifespan that far outpaces most other beings. You are lucky Spike!” I’m about to say something, to counter her optimism. “You think that just because Twilight treats you like an assistant that she doesn’t love you? She’s down there Spike, crying for you.”

…

“She wants you there, safe Spike.”

…

“You can jump off of this peak right now, but know that the guilt of it will follow you for all of eternity. And know…there are ponies who love you even though you’re not one of us. We love you…and you’re worth the world in our eyes, Spike.”

There’s a saying…I just remembered it. Funny how memory works…not funny haha, funny weird. Yeah, the saying:

“Every peak has a valley on which it casts its mighty shadow. Though you may be in the deepest part of the valley, the darkest part of the shadow…just know that once you reach the peak, the shadows you walked through make the sunlight worth that much more.”