//------------------------------// // Two // Story: I Wasn't Prepared For This // by canonkiller //------------------------------// The low, darkened ceiling made the room Spike was in feel restraining even before he tried to sit up and found himself chained belly-up to the floor. Pain rocketed up from his right side while his left was limb and numb, and his shoulders dropped back against the cold stone hard enough to draw a shout from him; a muzzle had been put on him too, he realized as it happened, and as he tried to recall what would have needed it, the reality came rushing back. Twilight was gone. He'd ruined her. His claws flexed involuntarily, scraping across the stone with an unpleasant screech. The muscles in his arm burned, and he forced them flat again. Feeling was starting to return to his numbed side, a prickling, cold burning that reminded Spike of catching snowflakes on his tongue when he was younger and didn't mind the cold so much. As the feeling spread to a searing itch under his scales, he figured it would be more like catching an avalanche in the face. He poked the tip of his tongue out of his mouth, as far as he could with his jaws bound, and tried to wet his lips. He felt a gap in his teeth, near the back - he must have lost it. Had he swallowed it? He wasn't supposed to swallow teeth when he lost them. He used to get in trouble. Not that it mattered, really. He was in trouble anyway. Someone walked up behind Spike, the sound of metal horseshoes ringing on the smooth stone. They stopped, and after a brief pause, tapped their hoof against metal - Spike assumed he must be in a cell, so it was likely the bars - and cleared their throat. "You're moving around. Are you awake?" Spike's heart dropped in his chest, and possibly through the floor. He went to reply, rediscovered his mouth was bound, and nodded slightly. The familiar gentle tingle of magic slid under the bindings on his muzzle and limbs, slicing them open like the thick leather was warm butter. Spike lay still despite being freed, fighting back whimpers of pain and tears at how soft it had felt, how familiar. Different families had magic that felt different ways, Spike had learned, though most ponies never noticed it between themselves. If Spike had another dragon to ask, he would have confirmed the idea. Rarity and Sweetie Belle both had magic that felt precise and clean, like a needle, or more fittingly, a shard of gemstone. The magic he had just felt was like a breeze on a summer night, one he had felt almost daily around Twilight, and now... ...Shining Armor. The Prince pushed the gate open with a hoof, letting it screech on the old, rarely used hinges, and walked across the cell to Spike's side. Spike braced himself, turning his face away and pulling his arms in despite his muscles screaming protest. He deserved this. He ruined his sister, he ruined a Princess, he - - he felt Shining's magic weave between his fingers and push them open, where Spike hadn't felt his own claws digging into his palm. "We had to tie you down because you kept thrashing in your sleep," Shining explained, his voice quiet. "The Princesses didn't expect their magic to have such a powerful reaction, but they should have used more caution after such a strange event." Shining's magic withdrew as Spike sat up, and he didn't falter even as the young dragon looked evenly into his eyes despite still being halfway on the ground. Spike felt something around his chest as he moved, and looked down, wondering if Shining Armor had missed something. It took Spike a second to process what he was wearing, still feeling woozy and unsure. He ran his hands over the smooth black fabric, feeling the hardened leather padding underneath. He felt... well, it was more accurate that he didn't feel anything wrong with it, other than it being a bit tight. Then, why...? Shining cleared his throat, a little awkwardly. "It's, ah, it's a wing brace. We had to find something on-hand, so it's the largest pony size. Not really meant for dragons, but it's better for your muscles than nothing." "A wing brace," Spike repeated, still thinking it over. "Twilight needed one of these when she got her wings, so she would be able to..." "So she would be able to fly." Shining finished. Tentatively, he reached out with a hoof to Spike's side. Spike moved his arm out of the way, and Shining drew open his wing with practice that only felt slightly awkward on a larger subject. Spike stared down at the limb Shining had opened, his mind blocking out the amount of pain it had taken to open it. The upper side was the same purple as his scales, but underneath, the skin was a pale green flecked with pink and white spots on the edge. Some of the scales on his shoulders looked as though they were close to shedding, and piercing them were the narrow, fragile stems of feathers. "Twilight's should look like that too," Shining Armor mused softly, bringing Spike's focus back to reality. "She'll probably have different colors, though," Spike added with a weak laugh, trying to hide the gritting of his teeth as he drew the wing back in. The brace shifted, easing the effort it took to hold his wings closed. The two of them waited there, for a second, Shining looking at Spike's closed wing, and Spike looking at the Prince's hooves. "I'm sorry." Spike's own apology died on his lips. He looked up at the Prince's face, only to find he had turned away, staring at the wall with his ears pinned back. Ponies were easy to read in comparison to dragons, especially when they were failing to hold back tears. "You... you're sorry?" Spike questioned back. Shining bit back a sob, and Spike hurried to continue. "You didn't - you didn't do anything wrong! You've been a great brother to Twilight! She wouldn't think any of this was your fault!" Shining tried to smile, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "I may have been a good brother to Twilight, but have I been a good brother to you?" Spike closed his mouth. "I haven't seen Twili much recently, but when she lived in Canterlot, I tried to spend as much time as I could with her. But she lived with you then, too, and I just... never thought about it. I didn't ever see you as a little brother, and I'm sorry." Shining sat down, half-looking at Spike but not sure if he wanted to. "I felt protective over Twilight today too, but I was able to talk to Cadance about it. You didn't have anyone to talk to who really knew what was going on, and we both know how Twilight is when things get busy - she probably wasn't doing much to help you either." "She's been doing her best," Spike replied, knowing his tone was sharp even though his heart wasn't behind it. "The girls have figured it out anyway. If she gets too busy, I can live with them." "She's been doing her best," Shining Armor agreed. "But I haven't been." He stood up, and turned to Spike, his stance speaking volumes of confidence his face lacked. "You don't have to forgive me. But I want a second chance at being your brother." Spike stared at him, still as stone, and then looked down at his claws. He watched a drop of blood seep from the hole he had almost torn in his hand, flexed it as he remembered how Shining's magic had felt, forced himself to keep it from closing into a fist as he realized he might never feel Twilight's magic again. He met Shining's eyes, trying to convey gratitude as well as he could, even though the words felt alien in his mouth. "We'll find her together... brother." Shining gave him such a hopeful smile that it practically lit up the dark corners of the cell, and then settled back into the role he had assumed for so long; a Captain of the Guard. "The Princesses think she's gone into the Everfree. Most of our magic won't track her there, and the spells that do will take days to set up, and it might be weeks before any of our unicorns can get a result. She hasn't been seen since we lost sight of her from Canterlot; so many people were focused on the festivities that nobody was prepared in time to intercept her. You've been out since yesterday - it's about noon, now - and search parties on foot and in the air haven't been able to find anything more than scraps of fabric." If Shining's second chance had been a sunrise, thinking about Twilight again was night. Spike fidgeted with his claws. "...What is she?" Shining paused, his head nodding slightly from side to side as he tried to balance facts with family. "I... I didn't see much of her. Everything was happening so quickly; Cadence and I weren't supposed to be seen, so we were seated back behind one of the guard platforms, and armored. Once the guards started moving, there wasn't much we could do to get closer." Spike waited. "I don't know what she is." Shining admitted. "I don't think any of us really know yet. The Princesses have been talking with each other, in private. Cadence says she's been left out of most of it - she doesn't mind, she's handling the public reaction, mostly - but she thinks this isn't the first time a pony like this has existed. Probably didn't happen the same way, but it would be a start in figuring out how to fix this. She's going to start calling on scholars once she has the time." Spike winced. Fix this. Broken. "And what about me?" He answered, though with the unsteady tone of someone who had read a summary but hadn't really understood the meaning. "Pony magic doesn't react with dragons the way dragon magic reacts with ponies. Your wings have developed faster, and you'll probably be more comfortable on all fours or leaning forward, instead of standing upright. The size is likely temporary, a reaction to wanting to protect Twilight." Shining Armor's voice, and Spike's heart, threatened to break on her name. He continued, "As for Twili, her wings look more like yours, now, but they'll probably grow in more feathers later. We - Cadence, mostly - thinks that most of the change will be in her magic. She might be able to breathe fire, or eat gemstones, or swim in lava. Her changes could also be just in looks. We don't know enough yet, which is why we need to make sure she's safe. "Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are hoping that whatever magical reaction happened, you'll be better at finding her than anyone else." Twilight rolled in the mud of the riverbed, coating herself in a sheet of filmy brown muck. Her scales had been itching awfully since she woke up, and where she had rubbed at them in her sleep, strips of translucent, scalloped skin had peeled off to reveal firmer, glossier scales underneath. It was, in her opinion, a completely awful process with an only slightly less awful outcome. At least once the skin had come off, it stopped itching. Now, she just had to hide bright, shimmering scales from prying eyes, and even thinking too hard about trying a spell to do so had given her a headache. Which led to her rolling in the filth on the shore of a river, in the middle of the wilderness. It was search parties that had woken her up; two groups of five had passed by her hiding place, picking up the scraps of her dress that she had torn off while dragging herself into the den. She wasn't sure what had kept them from a more thorough search, but the Everfree was dangerous and alien to most ponies, and they had all seemed on edge, and who would have expected the Princess to be hiding, awake, in a dirt hole and not respond to their calls? She waited until even the distant sounds of them crashing through the underbrush had faded before she had crept out, tearing off the rest of her dress - praying to Celestia (however much good that would do, now) that Rarity would forgive her for ruining it after all of her work - and leaving it behind underground. Since she had started moving, she hadn't stopped. The Everfree was dangerous, but it was a danger she knew; research and experience led her to edible plants, around non-edible ones, far around the nest of a manticore and her cubs. For a brief distance, she had even traveled through the entwined branches of the trees above, wings still weak and claws scoring the wood, to pass over a swampy pit surrounded by kelpie tracks. Every inch of the deadly forest had seemed like home. Rolling sideways to scoop mud up over her shoulders, soaking in the warm sun that broke through the thinner canopy around the water, she closed her eyes and relaxed. She let her focus slip inwards, through drowsy blackness and into her thoughts, visualized easily as a many-shelved study. She wasn't sure if she had slept for so long because she had been awake for so long and the exertion, or because of the magic, but it was not a test she could repeat to study it better; the thought was bound up and put aside, like mystery books with the last pages left blank, and added to the ever-expanding catalog. She hesitated, although she knew that she would always be able to find it again in her own private library, knowing at the same time that many of the thoughts she put away she never reopened. She put it on the desk. She considered that this might not be the best way to keep things in order, and wondered how other ponies did it. She made a note to ask, and left that sheet on the desk as well. Could she go back? Probably. She was still a Princess, technically, she had the wings and the horn, even if they weren't really the best suited for the job. The element was still hers, though worse for wear - finding it obviously glaring on her head, and twisted out of shape, she had pried at the metal until it relented into something more resembling a collar and draped it around her neck, where the jewel hung relatively centered on her chest - and that gave her some standing if the title was revoked. Should she go back? Harder to determine. She knew that there had been enough tension in the past that two Princesses had been too many for a fledgling Equestria, and even now she knew Celestia could bear ruling on her own. Cadence, young in comparison though she was, had a capable hold on the Crystal Kingdom, and if Twilight could hazard a guess, would likely be having talented foals of her own that may be eligible to rule as well in the future. Twilight wasn't even quite sure what she was the Princess of, if she was being honest. Magic, maybe, or friendship, but as far as she could tell these were things that didn't really need constant supervision like, say, celestial bodies responsible for sustaining life on the entire planet, or a kingdom that was only now making up for hundreds of years of lost time. She didn't feel much different, like she was tuned into some vast network of ideas and concepts that she was in charge of adjusting. She was, though, the first to be given Princesshood in thousands of years. Being the Princess of the people could have some strong effects, but she had grown up taking care of Spike; she knew what kind of treatment dragons got, and under Celestia's tutelage, knew the general consensus of what Equestria thought of everything else, and the general consensus was essentially 'no'. A Princess who was not pure-bred pony would probably not be best for the position. It might have been better if she had stayed, reassured the crowd, avoided all of the political and physical quagmire she was in. But something was drawing her south. She felt it more clearly after waking in the den; a tug in her chest, not her heart, but seeming to come simply from her center. With her emotions and environment stable, it wasn't uncomfortable, not the way it had hauled at her when she first stood up and felt her magic flooded with an alien fire. It was like she had grabbed the wrong quill, and though it wrote fine, there were moments when it felt profoundly wrong to be holding something green instead of something red. She checked in on the riverbed and noted, passively, that she had ended up facing south while she was resting. It was not something Celestia had told her about, which ruled out an ancient Princess pilgrimage tradition, and any instinct to migrate that might just have to do with wings. Which left her with it having to do with dragons. Twilight knew dragons tended to migrate, once their wings had grown in. Inner fire or not, their scales were awful in the cold, and so traveling to places with more favorable temperatures was common sense even without instinct. (She wondered, briefly, if it might not be instinct, but taught between dragons; she knew studies only came from ones hatched in captivity, or kept forcibly there after being 'wild', and while the latter would try to escape anyway, the former tended to stay close to where they had been raised until they were sent to live with other dragons, which was generally when their wings grew in. She, a little less briefly, cursed herself for not bringing it up with Celestia when she had written to her during the last migration.) Of course, that wouldn't explain why she was being pulled south now, when it wasn't until the cusp of winter that dragons tended to leave. Actually, now that she was thinking about it, she had noticed there hadn't been much dragon activity this year. Old lairs were abandoned, and most known dragons around were older ones that had not flown south the last year. She sat up and forced herself to turn north. Something tightened inside her chest, bringing her wings just a touch closer to her sides. Something was wrong. It would have been easier to deal with if the Princesses had been angry. Spike was seated beside Shining, who was casting him assuring looks out of the corner of his eye, and across from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, with a long table and a shorter map spread between them. Luna looked subdued and solemn, while Celestia seemed drawn and frayed; a mare seeing her own actions repeated from the sidelines, a mare terrified of the scene playing out the same way. Both barely looked at him. "We know now that she must be in the Everfree. We've cast seeking spells over every other sector we can, with no results." Celestia gestured with a nod at the small, golden horse-head figurines dotting the map; the carved eyes stared, unseeing, at Spike. "The magic of the Everfree is wild, and even spells of our strength can't work over it as they should. We have enough of a response to know she is in there, and alive. Beyond that, we have nothing." Spike studied the board, the dark, questioning smear across Equestria's core shimmering back at him with statuettes of silver wings and horseshoes. "She's moving?" "She has to be," Celestia confirmed. "The second sweep brought us her dress, but not her, or her Element. It's safe to say she's on the move with both of the latter intact." "There would be no doubt if her Element had been broken, or if she was dead," Luna added. "We would not have to inform you if it happened." Spike nodded, looking over the map again. He didn't want to meet anyone's eyes - was kind of terrified to, if he was honest with himself. Did they fear him? Did they fear what he was capable of? Would royalty be able to hide it well enough for it to surprise him later? Even the fact that he could look forward instead of up to see their expressions made him want to wince. His bulk hunched over the table, even with his elbows and wings tucked in and head bowed, and the realization that he was a match for the rulers of his entire world shook him whenever he caught a glimpse of his own claws resting on the edge of the table. The room was quiet for a long, long while. Spike took a shaky breath. "Will... will she come back? What happens after this?" Luna gave Celestia a pointed look, and the elder Princess sighed. "If she does not return, we will return to the way things were without her. I will take on a new student, as will Luna, and with hope we will find someone with the same innate magical strength before too many years have passed." Spike's claws tightened on the edge of the table, a move that would have been invisible even a day prior but now split the room with the sound of cracking wood. He lifted his hands quickly, bringing them in close to his chest and staring blankly down at the damage. He had pierced a ring of holes around a mountain range in the south, obliterating the towns around it. "The way things were without her," Spike echoed softly, his eyes tracing the new canyons carved into mountains he had never seen, where painted dragons writhed around the holes piercing their wings. "What about me?" Celestia said simply, "your task is to bring her home." Two hours later, on the border of the Everfree, while Shining Armor explained the methods of ground cover to a fresh group of guards, Spike slipped away into the bushes and all but disappeared. Coat and scales dulled to a dusty brown by dried mud, Twilight slipped through the forest like an ashen ghost. For all the practice and skill of the Royal Guard, the Everfree had no parallel, no training ground, and no second chances. She didn't know how many ponies had been lost, but she had heard screams, and had seen stranded pieces of armor; the hunt for her was not without losses. She had almost considered showing herself, once, hunched under a bush of thorny tendrils while a search party passed by. They spoke of her brother, and her mentor, and her friends, and she had wanted to lunge out and throw herself down to be captured. But their talk turned to monsters, of legends of vampires and demons, parallels to ancient evils she had fought (and bested) - and she was among the beasts. She could not disagree with that, and the thought that being part dragon would make her a monster - after raising a dragon herself and knowing how many of the things said about them were wrong - drove her further back into the brambles, poking holes in her pelt between the purple scales. Once, a lifetime ago, she had prepared to face down a Goddess with nothing but her fledgling magic and a fragile promise of hope. She reflected on the monster that had faced her down that night, and saw herself. Ponies wanted the daylight, wanted courage, wanted strength, wanted to look to their leaders and see themselves - as she had done, a lifetime ago, when a snow-white mare took her under her wing and taught her of legends. Something was wrong in the south. Twilight knew she would not have noticed it had everything gone as planned. Twilight believed in destiny. Every fiber of Spike's being wanted him to flee the darkness of the wild forest, so as soon as he was out of earshot, he did. His wings were still only just strong enough to carry him, the brace trying to balance his new-grown bones, and his muscles burned; he flew as much as he could to avoid leaving tracks, the exhilaration of finally being able to take to the air balanced keenly by the fear of being spotted. He had seen the guards deployed in Ponyville, and knew better than to try and slip into the library, but this close to the Everfree, everyone was focused on searching. Unchallenged, Spike crossed from wilderness into Fluttershy's backyard, where he attempted to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible. Fluttershy was alerted to his presence not by a knock or soft, pleading call, but by a veritable flood of small animals pushing through her back door while he loomed outside. For what it was worth, she barely flinched. "Oh, hello Spike. The Princesses wrote to tell us that you'd be working in the Everfree, but I didn't think they'd let you come and visit so soon. Unless you already...?" Spike shook his head, stepping closer to the door but staying outside. "They don't know I'm here." She reached out with a hoof, but he shook his head. He opened his mouth to reassure her, but the words caught in his throat and he shuddered, his claws curling into fists as he pulled himself in. "I... I'm scared, Fluttershy. Twilight's gone, and I ruined everything, and I thought I could trust the Princesses but I don't know what they'll do to her if they can't get the dragon out, and what about me, who would want a dragon around that might have killed a Princess? You said if I couldn't stay with Twilight, I could stay with one of you, but what if I hurt someone else? I couldn't... I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hurt any of you. I don't know what I'll do if Twilight's not alright. She's out there on her own and I'm here and I'm a monster and-" Fluttershy stepped closer to him, meeting his eyes to make sure he was going to let her near. He did, and she did, standing up on her hind legs so she could hug his shoulder, wings wrapping as far around his chest as they could. "You'll always have a home with me, Spike. You're not a bad dragon." She pressed her head against the bottom of his neck, comforting him as best she could, and stayed there until he curled his neck down to press his chin against her head. She tapped his side with one hoof. "Can I ask you a dragon question?" "I guess." Fluttershy paused for a moment, figuring out what to say. "Sometimes, animals from the Everfree come to me when they're not hurt, if there's something I need to know. With how much goes on around here, there's a lot to tell, even if most of it just has to do with rebuilding some bird nests, or finding new burrows for bunnies before the winter." Spike huffed softly, acknowledging. "A lot of them have been saying that dragons have started to... vanish." Spike stiffened. Fluttershy hugged him a little tighter, but continued. "They aren't being forced out, and they aren't migrating. They're leaving hoards behind, and a few have left eggs. The guards said something about the dragons when they came through here earlier, but I didn't quite hear it. I meant to ask you sooner, but... Spike, do you ever feel like you have to leave?" Spike was tempted to say that he very much felt he needed to leave right now, but something about Fluttershy's tone was too serious for that. He sat silently, the tip of his tail twitching as he considered it. He had wanted to travel before, or fly, but not to leave - not in the way she had described. He couldn't imagine living away from Ponyville enough to even have a traditional lair, but to have one of those and leave it, too? He couldn't wrap his head around it. "No," he said, after a pause he noticed was far too long, "Ponyville is my home now. I couldn't leave all of this behind, not for anything." Fluttershy was quiet for a few moments - and had started nervously twirling a curl of her mane around her hoof. "Twilight was ready to leave Canterlot when she wanted to stop Nightmare Moon." Spike frowned. "She wouldn't go to chase down danger when she knows you've all got her back." "She doesn't know if we've got her back or not right now." Fluttershy reminded him gently, unnecessarily. "You're scared you made her a monster - what if she's scared she is one? She's a... logical pony, Spike. If she convinced herself she was needed somewhere else more, she would go. You know that." He did, but he wished he didn't. "And she's part dragon, now. And being a dragon is new to her. If something is convincing dragons to leave Equestria, it might have taken her too." "Are you saying I should find the dragons?" "I'm saying you should find Twilight. She's your family. You might be the only one that can." Fluttershy tapped his chest with one hoof. "No matter what happens, you've always got a home here with... the rest of us. We want you to be happy, and you want Twilight back. It'll work out. It always has." Spike huffed. "Rainbow Dash is working with the weather teams to keep the sky clear while the patrols are out. She'll make sure you'll get through unseen." Fluttershy gave him one last squeeze, and then stepped back, looking up at him with hope that he prayed was not misplaced. "I know you can do it. Go." The border of the Everfree was not so dramatic on this side of the forest. The trees dwindled down to bushes, and then to grass, and then to scrubs, and then to reddish, dusty sand, and then gentle, rolling plains as far as the eye could see. Twilight had not seen any patrols in a long while. She expected they were staying to the shallower parts of the forest, expecting her to return home for supplies, and as surviving the deep forest would be difficult, getting enough ponies around to the southern side to patrol it would take days longer, if not weeks. She was free. Her breath caught in her throat as the realization caught up to her. She was still in Equestria, and would still have to avoid ponies in all but the most remote of places, but for now, hooves (and claws) pressing into the warm red earth and the brilliant blue sky stretching wide and clear above her, she was unbridled, unstoppable, unnecessary. She was no protege, no Element of Magic, no Princess; just a pony standing on the precipice of a strange new world. She laughed, and it filled the silent sky with joy. She had flown once with her new wings, a swift but unsteady flight that had carried her to safety, and now all she wanted was for her wings to carry her away from that sanctuary. It was as if the scales had poked holes in her brain as well as her fur, letting all of the exhilaration and compulsiveness leak into the thoughts she had kept orderly and closed for so long, like an empty jar of black ink being refilled with a dragon's ransom of gold. Home still pulled her back, a little bit, the thought of her friends waiting for her, the thought of Spike trying to reach out to her at the castle, but it was only glints of it, an inky darkness between the draw of the warm sun. She answered the calling of the open sky with a short run and a leap, the talons on her hind legs digging gouges into the sand as she jumped, and spread her wide, leathery wings to catch the sandy winds; the hot air billowed upwards, and she soared higher than she ever had, the world falling into patchwork fields seamed with roads below her, and began to cross the last stretch of Equestria between her home and the land of dragons. Spike, though he had no way of knowing, had no draw to the south. Instead, with every scale, he felt the warm, easing draw of Twilight's magic, running through his veins and desperately seeking the source; an invisible trail as wavering and unsteady as slick rocks beneath a shimmering, shallow stream. And with every step, it itched at him as though he was being judged and being found wanting. Spike had not been witness to Twilight's magic at full strength very often, but the white radiance she channeled through the Elements had torn burning, ragged holes in the natural orders, ones that blackened around the edges for months after the rest of the world had recovered. He felt like those holes; like the taste of unfiltered power had poked through his skin and was going to burn him alive from the inside out. It was stronger, now that he was following Twilight. He didn't know what that meant. Was kind of afraid to think about it, too, if he was being honest with himself. What he knew for sure was that the Everfree was thinning, patrols had stopped showing up, and even for a dragon of his new size, he didn't have to weave between trees to find a path he could fit through. Patches of sunshine were wider and wider, and if he really looked for them, glints of open sky fluttered between the undergrowth still ahead. And yet, even with wings, even knowing how easy it would be to fly to her, even knowing, at the very least, how freeing it was to just be able to fly, Spike kept his claws in the musty dirt of the wild forest. Because Spike, chasing the pony closest to him - his mother? His sister? His family, - wanted only to go home. He wanted to be back in the library, comfortably curled in a reading nook, looking out the window at the world going by and tending to the tree he had called home for the strangest, dearest part of his life. He'd been a spectator to the kind of mayhem that Twilight was usually involved in, and now that it had taken him by the tail and thrown him into the midst, he just wanted things to be normal again. Spike walked through the last wisps of the Everfree, careful to avoid bending any of the small, resilient trees that clung to the last of their feral soil, baked pale by the glaring sun above; and between them, where the dusty red moss gave way to dusty red dirt, was a deep gouge where a four-taloned claw had torn through the earth to take to the sky. And there, above it, a distant gleam across the grassy hills, was a Princess,flying south. And Spike, keeping her in his sight, settled himself on all fours and began a steady, distance-eating lope through the fields. She kept going. It wasn't long before the hills evened out into low, golden pasture, and Spike found himself skirting between thinner patches to avoid leaving too much damage in his wake. It felt profoundly odd, seeing over the tall stalks even while standing on all fours, especially with the added care he needed to walk through the crop without crushing it. Worse, though, was that he had lost Twilight a short while ago, as she had turned upwards and vanished into a bank of clouds, heavy with the promise of rain. He felt her ahead of him, her magic seeping into his scales, but how far she had gotten, he could only guess. She landed at dusk, settling in the safety of a cluster of trees, fruitless and isolated. Her wings ached, but not as bad as she had feared they might; her wing brace had done the job while her muscles settled, sped by magic. She hesitated before lying down against one of the trunks; a hint of routine had wormed back in now that her hooves were on solid ground, and she felt a sudden, unobtrusive shift into being considerably out of place. Where was the stairwell to her bed? The lamps she needed to put out? Her nightly journal entry? Spike? She pushed the doubts away, and then felt guilty about not caring as much as she should have, and then pushed the guilt away, and then turned that part of her mind towards the maps she studied under Celestia's training and told it sternly to try and figure out where she was. That settled, she set to checking for shedding scales, poking and prodding with her magic, testing both her magical strength and her physical. Every tiny spell she tried to nudge against the scales oozed around them, never quite hitting the mark, and every time she tried to cast another, an ache in the back of her head grew stronger. Frustrated as her magic rolled off again, splitting out of her control like beads of water, she turned pointedly away from her side, staring straight ahead through the trees, and her headache swirled around to directly under her horn as Spike stepped into the clearing from between them. If you were to ask her, she wouldn't be able to tell you how she recognized him. He was still a rather large dragon, easing back into softness at the edges, with two braced wings, on all fours, and looking rather rusty from running across the red earth, and his breath was hitching like he was about to cry, and his eyes were a warm, familiar pink. In the breath it took for him to run to her, she figured she looked about the same. Spike lifted her up in his arms, rising on to his hind legs to bring her close. With her head against his shoulder, she couldn't see his face, but she felt his jaw against her back, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the words, and his grip tightening when he couldn't. Twilight patted him on the back with one hoof. "Um, hi, Spike." His grip loosened. Twilight resisted the urge to try and slide to the ground, to be out of sight, to be unnoticeable. "I'm so sorry," His voice broke. She remembered that her heart should have. "I did this. You should be in Canterlot, celebrating, probably at some high-end party or, or a book signing, but you're like this, and you're here, and I don't even know where here is, and - and -" She tried to turn a grimace into a smile, her head throbbing. "Spike, could you - could you put me down, just, for a second?" He obliged a little too fast, almost dropping her (but not quite) and taking a few steps back. She thought she caught a glimpse of relief on his face, too, before both of them tried to hide it. "It's my magic, isn't it?" Spike asked gently. "It's hurting you." "I don't... I don't know." Twilight rubbed at her eyes, trying to soothe the pain. "I thought it was because I was casting spells, but..." "I can go again." Spike said, voice gentle, voice breaking. "That was always the plan, right? You'd stay in Canterlot, and I'd stay in Ponyville. We can be apart if you come home. It'll be okay. It'll be the way it was supposed to be. You'll be a Princess, and I'll be me, and I'll take care of the library, like I always have." Twilight wanted to leave, to break this contact, to do... something, other than look at the dragon crying in front of her, not seeming to notice he was doing it. Almost without meaning to, she started scraping pebbles up from the ground, sorting them by color. She hoped Spike wouldn't notice. He didn't seem to; he was focused completely on her, searching her face for some kind of reaction, some kind of reassurance, and finding nothing. It felt so wrong that Twilight's coat prickled at the base of her neck, some kind of familiarity echoing from those prying violet eyes that peeled off of her like shed scales, so much like Spike's own. She wondered, briefly, if her eyes were green. "You're running away," he prompted, gentle, almost parental. Twilight shook her head, regretted the movement, looked down at her pebbles. "There's something I need to find. I can feel it, the same way I felt when I realized how to use the Elements. I'm not sure where it is, but I can feel it calling me. I have to go. I'm not sure I can turn around and go home. It's something-" she remembered the large map Celestia had taught her from, ancient and hoof-painted, and the wary guess Celestia had given to where Spike's egg had been found, "-something to do with dragons." Spike's claws dug into the dirt, pulling up stones into his palms. "I don't feel anything that way. I only want to be back in Ponyville. I'm supposed to bring you back. If I go back without you, I don't know what the Princesses will do. I can't leave you here." They both sat in silence. Spike watched her, waiting for an answer; she started ordering her pebbles by shape. "Take my crown," Twilight said, not looking up. "Take it back to Princess Celestia." "Twilight-" She stomped her hoof, driving a small, round stone back into the dirt. "It's irresponsible of me to bring such a valuable stone this far from Canterlot, and I'm going even further. It's best if ponies don't recognize me. I'll find a way to be inconspicuous, but I can't if I'm worrying about the element the whole time." "You can't resign from being an Alicorn." Spike's voice was hard, but wavering; a landslide waiting to fall. "You're probably immortal now. Someone could capture you for ransom." "If they do, I'll just outlive them and come back," Twilight countered. "Spike, I'm going. If you have to go back, say this is all you found." She lifted her hooves to her crown, still twisted upside-down around her neck, and pulled it up over her head. She held it for a moment, looking down at the gemstone gleaming back at her. Spike hesitantly moved to take it, and she slowly, carefully, held it out to him. Claws mere inches from the metal, Spike met her eyes. "Are you sure?" Was she? There wasn't any doubt that she could dig up, only the resistance to the digging that told her that she probably should have been a touch more concerned, or she should have at least given it some more thought. "I'm sure, Spike," she whispered, her voice seeming impossibly loud in her own ears. Had it been this quiet before? "I'm not a Princess any more." Was I ever? Spike's hand closed around the crown, and her hoof, and in her last glimpse of the crystal, it flashed a brilliant white, and all of her senses exploded. Spike opened his eyes to a milky white sky dotted with the shadows of rain. He was on his back, head propped up slightly by a mound of dirt pushed up behind his shoulders, sore but whole. His chest felt like it was on fire, and he sat up, pressing a hand to it to try and find the source. Hazily, he found the Element of Magic, hard under his claws and set in a simple gold choker. As it burned against his fingers, his mind cleared and he nearly choked on air as he fully realized that he was wearing the Element of Magic. He drew his hands away, afraid to touch it, and as he stared at the stone in disbelief, it winked in the light and the heat faded, even the prickles under his scales that had been searing at him ever since he'd seen Twilight soaring above the plains. His attention was drawn away from it as something across the clearing moved; Twilight, standing up shakily from her own crater, directly across from him. Her eyes, gleaming green in the diffused daylight, found the gemstone and mouthed a silent 'oh'. They stayed that way for probably too long, Spike trying to find a way to put all of this into words - Why me? Why now? Why not come home? - while Twilight seemed to just be taking everything in. She walked over, slowly, and Spike lowered his head so she could press her own against it, the closest thing a large dragon and a young mare could get to a hug in a hurry. "I have to keep going," she whispered. "We'll figure out what this all means later. Go home, and tell them I'm alright." "The Element of Magic is on me." Spike said, staring at her. "Shouldn't we try to sort this all out now?" Twilight turned to look south, her mouth set in a grim line. Softer, firmer, "I have to keep going." Spike nodded, and took a few steps back. Twilight's chest tightened at the thought of him having to face this mess alone, but the pull to the mountains was even stronger now with her element out of the way. She could almost feel the peaks looming just beyond the horizon. "You're still you, Twilight." Spike's voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned to face him. He smiled gently, echoing a lesson she'd taught him so long ago. "Who you are is not the same as what you are." "What I am might change who I am. Every Princess becomes an Alicorn." She smiled back at him, tried not to linger on the stone set around his neck. "Maybe to be what I'm supposed to be, I can't be a Princess." His smile weakened, and she saw it happen. A week ago, she wouldn't have ever given up her chance, and they both knew it. A week ago, he would have given it up for her. He gave all of his fears voice; "Come back home." She didn't settle any of them; "I will." Words filled his throat but didn't pass through his gritted teeth as he watched Twilight take a few steps back. Eyes closed, grimacing, her magic fizzled to life just long enough to hide her; a wide white and green flame over her flank, a white slash down her forehead - not much, not to someone who had seen her, but just enough for passage through a land that still expected a Princess. She stared up at him, green eyes defiant, anxious, waiting for him to stop her but fearing that he might try. There was nothing he could say, no matter how much he wanted to. Not to her. Not like this. He couldn't make himself blink - couldn't make himself lose any more seconds of her - but he dipped his head, and she turned away. Twilight didn't meet his eyes again as she steadied herself, took off into the air, and soared off towards the south, even though he watched her go under the clouds broke rain between them, long after he was soaked to the bone, and long after he turned back north, checking over his shoulder with a hand to the Element he now bore, until he had crossed the plains and the Everfree swallowed him up.