If you didn't count Twilight's regularly scheduled nervous breakdowns, the Ponyville library was normally a quiet place. Now, however, it was full of animated conversation. Zecora had come over to visit. She and Twilight sat at the small reading table downstairs, steaming mugs of tea in front of them.
Spike was doing a few small tasks around the library, reshelving returned books here, dusting off an empty shelf there. He hummed to himself as he worked. These weren't exactly jobs that required a lot of concentration, and he listened in on what Zecora and Twilight were discussing with half an ear. Zecora had interesting things to say sometimes, and even if she didn't, her twisting everything she said into rhyming verse was funny to listen to.
'Indeed, this tale is not a bore
An ancient piece of zebra lore!'
Twilight took a sip of her tea. 'I'm listening, Zecora!' she said eagerly. The old zebra always told fascinating stories whenever she came to visit, and Twilight had learned more about zebra culture from her than from any book.
'Deep in the forest lie treasures untold
Diamonds and rubies, silver and gold!
Many have set out this treasure to find
But none have succeeded, for they were too blind...'
Spike was just on his way to the kitchen to put the kettle on for more tea when he stopped in his tracks. His ears perked up, and he abruptly stopped humming. Treasure? Diamonds? Rubies? This was interesting, all right. He slowly went ahead into the kitchen, taking quiet steps so he could hear every word Zecora said.
When Zecora went home half an hour later, Twilight had learned a lot about the mysterious treasure hidden in the Everfree Forest. She wanted to jot down some notes before the new information faded from her mind. Of course, it would have been easier to just take notes while Zecora was talking, but that had seemed impolite. As she looked around her study, she couldn't seem to find her quills. 'Spike, have you seen my quills?' she called out.
There was no response.
'Spike?' she tried again. 'I need a quill, and some parchment...' There was no sign of her number one assistant. Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. Where had he run off to now?
Spike ran through the streets of Ponyville, heading straight for the Everfree Forest. A treasure! Diamonds and rubies! He was going to find that, or his scales weren't purple. Sure, he'd heard Zecora say something about other adventurers trying and failing – but how hard could it be? He had his sharp dragon senses, and he knew the Everfree like the back of his claw. Who knew what delicious gems he'd find!
'Heya Spike, where are you headed in such a hurry?' a familiar voice called after him. He skidded to a halt and turned around to see the voice's owner, Sweetie Belle, flanked by her two trusty companions, Applebloom and Scootaloo. The Cutie Mark Crusaders.
'I've heard about this awesome treasure in the Everfree Forest!' he said excitedly, bouncing up and down as he spoke. 'There's diamonds and rubies and everything. And I'm going to find it!' Judging from the Crusaders' open mouths and wide eyes, they were pretty impressed. Then an idea hit him. He could use some help looking for the treasure, and he knew the terrible trio were always in for an adventure. Sure, it meant he would have to share whatever he found with them, but if he'd heard Zecora right, the treasures buried in the forest were so huge there would still be plenty for him. 'Hey – you guys wanna come?'
Few things could have prepared his eardrums for the deafening cry of 'CUTIE MARK CRUSADER TREASURE HUNTERS! YAY!' that ensued. The three fillies bumped hooves and trotted off towards the Everfree Forest under excited chatter. He quickly regained his bearings and followed them.
'So... where exactly is this treasure?' Scootaloo asked once they were a few hundred metres into the forest.
'I don't know. Zecora was pretty vague about that. But I've got a few places in mind where we can look,' Spike said enthusiastically. 'We could start at the princesses' old castle, I bet there's plenty of cool stuff buried there!'
Scootaloo sighed. 'We should have brought Rarity along. She could find the diamonds with her magic.'
Spike's heart jumped up at the mention of the love of his life. Rarity! How could he have forgotten about her? They could always go back and get her – but would she want to come along? He knew the delicate unicorn was no fan of the Everfree Forest. Then again, she was a fan of diamonds, wasn't she? And it would be so romantic, adventuring together... He could see it now.
'For you, milady Rarity,' he said as he crawled out of the hole he had just dug. His forehead was covered in sweat from the heavy labour of digging, and his claws were muddy and dull, but it was worth it. 'A gift for the most beautiful unicorn in Equestria.' He held up the glistening red stone he had found deep in the forest soil.
'Ooooooh, Spike! A fire ruby! It's so beautiful!' Rarity squeaked. Her eyes went starry as she took the gem and gazed at it. 'I don't know what to say… Thank you, my little Spikey-Wikey!' She threw herself forward and hugged him tightly, showering his forehead with kisses. Spike let out a sigh of delight. He'd dig a thousand of those holes just to feel her embrace.
His daydreams were rudely interrupted when Sweetie Belle spoke up. 'Actually,' she said, 'Rarity showed me how to do that spell last week. I'm nowhere near as accurate as her, of course, but I can get us pretty close!' She beamed with pride as she spoke of her new skill.
'Awesome!' Applebloom said. 'So we just head deeper into the forest until Sweetie Belle picks something up! Let's go!'
'Oh. Yeah. That works,' Spike muttered.
'Find anything yet, Sweetie Belle?' Scootaloo asked. At least half an hour had passed, and Spike estimated they were now about two or three kilometres from the forest's edge.
'Nope. I'm picking up some very weak signals, but I think that's just noise. And even if it were a real treasure, it's too weak to get any clue as to which way we're supposed to go.'
'We'll just have to keep going then,' Spike said. 'The deeper into the woods we go, the better our chances of finding the treasure, right?' This seemed perfectly logical to him: going deeper into the forest meant more effort and more danger, hence the payoff would also be bigger. It had to be. Twilight often complained that he should spend more time reading serious textbooks rather than Daring Do novels, but he had learned something from those stories after all.
'Right.' Scootaloo sighed. 'I'm getting hungry. We should have brought something to eat.'
'Speaking of which,' Applebloom said, 'I'm supposed to be home for dinner in…' She looked around for a clock, then realised she was in the middle of a forest. 'Umm… half an hour?' she tried. 'Maybe I should have told Applejack I was going on this little trip with y'all.'
'Don't be silly,' Scootaloo said. 'She would never have let you go if you told her you were going into the Everfree Forest. Anyway, what are we going to do about the whole food thing?'
Spike put a claw to his chin as he walked. This presented a problem. He would have enough to eat once they got to the treasure, of course – that was the entire point. But ponies couldn't eat gems.
Fortunately, the problem seemed to solve itself. 'Hey,' Sweetie Belle said, 'why don't we just forage stuff from the forest? Like real adventurers! There's all sorts of plants here we can eat. We can even try to catch some fish!' She pointed a hoof at the small stream ahead of them.
'Do ponies even eat fish?' Applebloom asked skeptically.
'Let's go find out!' Scootaloo said with a broad grin, and galloped into the water.
An hour later, and several kilometres deeper into the forest, the treasure hunters were tired, frustrated, and still hungry. Fishing had been a nightmare – another item to cross off the list of things they could get their cutie marks in, Sweetie Belle reckoned – and most leaves had proven to be less than edible. Her gem-finding spell still wasn't picking up anything substantial, either.
'Wait, where's Spike?' Applebloom asked. The three fillies stopped and looked around them. They had reached a small clearing – a place without trees, which was also disturbingly free of small purple dragons.
There was a rustle of fallen leaves somewhere to their right. 'I think I heard something,' Sweetie Belle said. 'Let's go take a look, Crusaders.' Applebloom and Scootaloo followed her into the bushes, clumsily making their way through. Eventually, they got to the edge of another clearing and peeked out of the bushes. What they saw froze the blood in their veins.
Spike was standing perfectly still, face to face with a creature they knew all too well: a cockatrice. 'So... beautiful... can't... look away...' he blabbered. The cockatrice had caught him in its gaze, and it wouldn't be long before its deadly magic started to work.
'We should do something,' Applebloom hissed.
'Quiet! It might come after us, too!' Sweetie Belle snapped.
'Well, we can't just leave him there to be turned to stone, can we?'
'You'd rather be turned to stone yourself, instead?'
Applebloom let out a soft sigh. 'I guess you're right… but isn't there something we can do? Distract it, maybe?'
'I don't…' Sweetie Belle muttered, struggling to find the right words. 'I'm scared.'
'Me too,' Applebloom whispered.
Scootaloo's eyes widened at her friends' reluctance. 'What are we waiting for?!' she said. With an ear-splitting battle cry, she jumped out of the bushes and tackled Spike, breaking him out of the cockatrice's gaze. Just in time, too – his tail was already starting to turn to stone.
Spike crashed to the ground, with Scootaloo half on top of him. 'What the… what's going on?' he mumbled. He shook his head, then saw the cockatrice and realised what kind of situation he was in. 'Oh. Thanks, Scootaloo,' he said. Sweet Celestia, was he glad he'd brought some friends on this expedition!
'Don't look at it!' Scootaloo cried, rapidly covering his eyes with a hoof.
Then suddenly, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, emboldened by their friend's daring action, jumped after her. This left a jumbled mess of three fillies and a dragon lying on the ground. Meanwhile, the cockatrice had recovered from the surprise. It let out a rasping scream and advanced towards them, slowly and menacingly. 'Okay… maybe this wasn't the best plan,' Scootaloo muttered, squeezing her eyelids shut as tightly as she could to avoid those deadly red eyes.
'Oh no you don't,' a soft but firm voice came from above. Wait, was that...? Yes! Fluttershy! The Cutie Mark Crusaders breathed a sigh of relief. The Stare Master had come to save them once again, it seemed.
Before they could look up at their saviour, however, they were swept up in a flash of blue, along with Spike. 'And what the hay did you think you were doing so deep in the forest?' Rainbow Dash shouted. 'C'mon, Fluttershy! Let's get them to safety!'
'I think the closest safe place is Zecora's,' Fluttershy said, then returned her attention to the cockatrice. 'And you're going to leave my friends alone from now on, is that clear?' she said sternly.
Spike heard the creature mumble some kind of confirmation and speed off. Rainbow Dash put him down roughly. 'You carry Spike and Applebloom,' she told Fluttershy. 'I'll take Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Let's go!'
The two pegasi touched down in front of Zecora's hut. Watching Rainbow Dash shake off her passengers with moves that resembled Applejack taking on a particularly stubborn apple tree, Spike breathed a sigh of relief that he was travelling with Fluttershy. She merely gave him and Applebloom a gentle nudge to dismount.
'Now, I'm very interested to hear what you lot have got to say for yourselves,' Rainbow Dash said sharply. 'You had half the town worrying about you! A good thing Twilight had a hunch where you'd gone, otherwise we wouldn't even have known where to look!'
'These woods are very dangerous,' Fluttershy added, her voice almost as stern as when she'd addressed the cockatrice. 'What if that cockatrice had gotten to you? Or if you'd been attacked by timberwolves? We were worried sick!'
'Yeah, what was the idea here, the Cutie Mark Crusader Suicide Mission?' Rainbow Dash snarled.
Spike and the Crusaders were silent, knowing that there was nothing they could say that would make things any better right now. They were saved by the bell when Zecora came out to greet her unexpected visitors.
'Oh my, this does not look good!
These young ones, so deep in the woods!
What brought you to this dark place?
Didn't you know of the dangers you might face?'
Spike sighed. There was no escape now. 'Treasure,' he muttered. 'I heard you tell Twilight about the treasures in the Everfree Forest... we went to look for them.'
Zecora chuckled. 'Those treasures aren't buried in the ground
In your own heart they must be found!'
Four pairs of eyes widened. 'What?!' Spike cried out. 'But you said… diamonds… gold…' he stammered.
'So there was no treasure at all?' Applebloom said. The sheer disappointment in her voice seemed to soften even Rainbow Dash's mood.
'Ugh, this was the worst quest ever!' Scootaloo groaned.
'Many others have heard this tale
And dug at the ground to no avail!
For the deeper meaning of the story
Is lost on those seeking gold and glory!
But tell me now, what did you learn?
What newfound wisdom within you burns?'
Spike just stared at Zecora in disbelief. A friendship lesson? Seriously? That was the treasure?
Then he came to his senses, and realised they had just been asked a question. Seeing that none of the Cutie Mark Crusaders were about to speak, he racked his brain for a lesson he could draw from their adventure. 'Well… I guess we learned not to go rushing into dangerous forests…' No, too obvious. He had already known that, but he had ignored it. Then he cast another glance at the three fillies sitting next to him, and suddenly he had something. 'And if you do, at least bring some friends.' It was very true, too – if it hadn't been for Scootaloo, he would be a nice little dragon statue now.
'And we –' Sweetie Belle pointed at Applebloom, then at herself '– learned you should always fight for your friends if they're in danger.'
'Even if it's scary,' Applebloom added.
Scootaloo smiled proudly. This was one lesson she hadn't needed.
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. 'Well,' she said sternly, 'sounds like Princess Celestia will be receiving quite a few letters.'
'See, your quest was not in vain,' Zecora said cheerfully.
'Although no gold or gems you did gain
You did not come back empty-handed
You found your treasure, and safely landed!'
Spike sighed. It wasn't the kind of treasure he'd been hoping for, but it would have to do.
