It was a beautiful morning in Equestria. Ponies were strolling along the streets of ponyville, greeting one another with a friendly "hello" or "good-morning." But one certain purple dragon still lingered in the land of dreams.
Spike ran as fast as he could, tears welling in his eyes. He stopped, looming over the body of a pony. He noticed blood all through the mare's lavender mane.
"Spike," she mumbled, coughing up blood.
"Twilight," Spike began, "this is all my fault. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."
Twilight started to close her eyes slowly. Spike froze in the shock of seeing his his closest friend die. "Twilight?" he whispered.
"Twilight, no," Spike cried in his sleep.
“Spike… Spike, are you okay?” Twilight softly said as she nudged the dragon’s shoulder to wake him up.
"Noooo!!!" Spike screamed as he woke from his slumber.
"Ahh!!" Twilight shrieked, falling backwards at the dragon's sudden scream.
"Huh? Oh um... sorry Twilight. I had another nightmare," Spike said shamefully, watching Twilight recover from his scream, "I didn't mean to scare you like that."
Twilight gave Spike a look of genuine concern. "What was it this time Spike?" Twilight asked in a motherly tone.
"It was about Rarity, and she was killed from a..." Spike's face went crimson thinking about the nightmare.
"Oh, OK," Twilight cut him off, heading to the door.
“Oh! I almost forgot,” Twilight said, stopping in the doorway, “Rarity came by to ask you something this morning.”
“What'd she want?” Spike asked.
“She wanted to see if you could help her with some gem collecting this afternoon,” Twilight said, picking up and reorganizing some books, "She ran out last night because of a large order of gem covered dresses."
“What time is it Twilight? I slept in really long today,” Spike asked, cleaning up some things on the floor of his room.
“It’s… Oh dear! Spike it’s 11!” Twilight yelped, grabbing the dragon and pushing him into the middle of the library.
“So?” Spike said concerned about his friend who was now trying to push him towards the door.
“Rarity wants to meet you at the Boutique at 11:10,” she explained, still pushing the dragon out the door.
Spike opened the door and started running like a bat out of hell.
Twilight let out a sigh of relief as the Dragon got out of sight. “Okay girls, you can come down now,” Twilight said as she closed the door and sat on the couch.
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack came down from hiding in Twilight’s bedroom. “So why did we hide from Spike again?” Rainbow asked being ignorant to Twilight’s intentions, as usual.
“Have you girls noticed Spike’s behavior lately?” Twilight asked somewhat rhetorically, "He's been acting different aroung
“Um… Why tell us, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked softly.
“I’m telling you guys because his nightmares are getting worse and worse.” Twilight said with concern in her voice.
“You mean like the Scootaloo, nightmare thing I told you guys about,” Rainbow said, putting her hoof to her chin.
“Precisely, thank you Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, giving the mare a mock, impressed look, “So the only way to stop the nightmares…”
“Is for ‘um to tell the truth ‘bout whatever it is that's bothering him,” Applejack finished.
“Exactly, however we can’t just ask him what it is,” Twilight said with the utmost seriousness, “He needs to be able to tell us, or show us, on his own.”
“So we’re supposed to give him little nudges so he'll spill the beans?” Pinkie asked, jumping up and nudging the flying pink-maned pony to her left.
“I guess you could put it that way.” Twilight said, looking to Fluttershy to see if she was alright.
“But… what if we don't find out what it is?” Pinkie shouted, her cotton-candy mane went straight.
"We'll just have to wait until he confesses about his problem," Twilight sighed with a look of doubt. Then everyone turned to Rainbow Dash, whose face was far from understanding.
“Let me guess Rainbow, you need me to explain what we’re going to do, don’t you?” Twilight rolled her eyes looking at the clueless blue pony hovering in the middle of the room.
“Yeah,” Dash muttered rubbing the back of her neck, sitting on the couch.
“Ugggh, we are going to get Spike into a situation where he'll tell us what his problem is, all of which we need to do without him knowing we set him up, got it?” Twilight said slowly, as to make sure Rainbow understood.
"Got it!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she hovered in mock salute.
"So does everypony know the plan?" Twilight asked. Everypony in the room nodded to reassure Twilight.
"Then goodbye girls," Twilight yawned showing everypony out the door.
"Goodbye Twi see ya' later," Applejack said, leaving the library.