Twilight Sparkle stepped into the library later that afternoon with a saddlebag thrown over her back, loaded with various supplies for studying peppers and for cleaning. After dragging herself from the floor that morning, she had left the mess behind to run some errands and was in no hurry to get back to it. As soon as she stepped in, every muscle in her body froze.
The library floor had been wiped clean, polished to the point that it sparkled in the sunlight coming from the windows. All the books were neatly arranged on the shelves and all the dishes washed and put away. Fluttershy was in the back of the library, dusting the top shelf with a rag as her little wings fluttered gently. Pinkie Pie helped Rarity with tying some decorative ribbons, while Rainbow Dash scraped a final blotch of cake frosting from the ceiling and Applejack arranged the dishes neatly where they belonged.
“What is this about?” Twilight asked the four other ponies in the room.
Pinkie Pie hopped over Twilight’s way as she entered. “Hiya, Twi! Lookee what we did! Lookee what we did!”
Fluttershy turned around to face the source of the sudden voices, giving a startled little gasp as she did. “Oh, hi Twilight. Rainbow Dash told us you were having trouble keeping up with your chores and convinced us to help clean up.”
“Wow. Thanks, everypony. This is so thoughtful of you.” Twilight turned her head to pan the library, still in awe at how clean it had become in only the hour since she’d left.
“Aw shoot. Don’t you fret none about it, sugar cube.” Applejack gave a wave of dismissal. “After all, what’re friends for?”
After descending to the floor, Dash stood on her rear hooves, cupping her forehooves behind her back apologetically. “I’m really sorry I broke your statue, Twilight. I might never be able to make up for it but I figured this was a start.”
“Ahem! About that,” Rarity said as she stepped in from a separate room with the fully restored statue hovering in front of her. “Rainbow Dash, you simply must take more care. If this bust had been broken into anymore pieces I’m not sure there would have been anything left for me to fix.”
“Rarity, that’s marvelous!” Twilight took a few more moments to look around at the sparkling clean library and the repaired statue. She supposed she should have been happy, but all she could do was exhale and hang her head in disappointment. “Thanks.”
The other five watched their friend mope up the stairs to her bedroom, then looked at each other in apparent confusion. Something was definitely wrong with Twilight and it was obvious it wasn’t the messy library.
Rarity went upstairs after Twilight and followed her to her bedroom, the others trailing silently behind. They found Twilight Sparkle stretched out across her bed, face buried into her pillow.
“Twilight, dahling, whatever is the matter?” Rarity’s voice was filled with genuine concern.
“Oh, my,” Fluttershy said from behind Rarity, “were we intruding? I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“No, I appreciate it. Really,” Twilight replied, her voice muffled into her pillow.
“Then let’s turn that frown upside down!” Pinkie shouted with a smile. “We worked really hard to clean this place up!”
“I’m fine,” Twilight answered in a tone that contradicted her statement.
“Don’t sound much like yer fine to me.” Applejack looked around the room at the other ponies, then back to Twilight. “I can’t speak for the rest of us, but I ain’t budgin’ ’till you tell me what’s eatin’ you.”
“Yeah, we cleaned up your library and fixed your statue, so what’s the problem?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight lifted her head from her pillow. Here eyes, puffy and wide, scanned each of the five ponies in the room. All of her friends were there, and they had worked so hard to help. All except for one little dragon who normally would have been the first to help her. “It’s Spike. I think he’s been avoiding me on purpose the last few days, and I don’t know what it is I said or did to him. He left this morning without even telling me! He always tells me where he goes. Did I work him too hard? Did I violate some sort of dragon code of conduct?” Frustrated, Twilight slammed her face back down into her pillow.
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud! It’s got nothing to do with you, Twilight,” Dash said. “Spike just found himself a girlfriend, that’s all.”
“Wait, what?” Twilight looked up at Rainbow Dash in confusion. “Since when?”
“At least the last couple of days. He’s been spending all his time with her.”
“Um, Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy whispered, “I thought we weren’t going to tell.”
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, but I hate to see a friend so down like this,” Dash replied.
Twilight turned to Fluttershy, looking incredulously at the pegasus. “Fluttershy? You knew, too? And you didn’t tell me?”
As Fluttershy wilted under the tone of Twilight’s voice, she felt a sympathetic hoof touch her shoulder. Twilight turned her head to find Dash with her foreleg stretched out to her. “We were going to let Spike tell you himself, but I guess he lost his nerve.”
A look of confusion that melted into a smile spread across Twilight’s face. “Spike… a girlfriend? Is this a joke?”
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash answered, “maybe I’m the kind who might pull a fast one like that on you, but would Fluttershy?”
“It’s true,” Fluttershy replied. “A girl dragon. A really cute blue one.”
A few silent moments passed as Twilight assessed the situation. Spike had a girlfriend? That little dragon was growing up faster than she’d realized. How long would it be before last night’s dream came true and Spike was fully grown? With the way the years had flown since she’d hatched Spike, he’d be an adult in no time.
Twilight noticed Rarity had remained silent during the discussion. Her eyes quivered, darting, as though in deep thought, torn between emotions. Twilight could understand why. There was the joy of knowing that a friend was happy, and the idea of Spike giving his heart to a young dragoness was endearing, but Twilight also knew of Rarity's desire to find a special somepony herself—somepony sweet and generous. Somepony like Spike, if he were only about eight years older and a pony.
“Well, that is certainly splendid news,” the white unicorn finally spoke, putting on her large covering smile. “I’ll bet they look simply darling together.”
“What’s with that tone?” Applejack asked. “Rarity, yer not jealous, are ya?”
Rarity giggled, gnashing her teeth to fight the sudden embarrassment. “Who, me? Come now, Applejack. That is a ridiculous implication. Why should I be jealous?”
Smiling wide, Pinkie Pie resumed her cheerful bouncing in place. “Ooh! Ooh! We should tell Spike to bring her to Ponyville! We could throw her a great big party with cake and ice cream and punch and soda and candy and games!”
Twilight ignored Pinkie's excited rant as she rubbed her hoof on her chin in thought of what to say to Spike when he came home.
“Feelin’ better now, Twi?” Applejack asked. She patted Twilight on the shoulder.
“A little bit,” Twilight said. “And when Spike gets home I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
***
The two little dragons walked paw-in-paw through a sandy trail that cut through a thick blanket of trees, their leaves dancing slowly in the breeze. Spike looked down at his waist. He’d strapped a small leather belt with an attached pouch to his waist that morning just before leaving the library. Recalling how Sapphire had frozen the lake the day before, Spike stopped and rubbed the pouch with his free hand.
Sapphire, jarred from Spike’s sudden stop, dragged him forward a couple of steps. Taken by surprise from the sudden movement, Spike fought to maintain his balance and buckled his knees.
“What’s wrong, Spike? Why’d you stop like that?” Sapphire asked.
“Well, I was just thinking,” Spike began. “You showed me a cool trick yesterday. Would you like to see a cool trick of my own?”
“Sure!”
From the belt strapped to his waist, Spike produced a scroll of parchment and a feather quill. He unrolled the scroll and scribbled something on the sheet before rolling it back up to belch a small jet of green flame on the scroll. In an instant, the parchment faded away. Before Sapphire could make anything of the display, a belch of her own forced its way out of her maw, along with the same scroll Spike had just made disappear. Without a word, she grabbed the scroll from midair, unwrapped it and read the letter Spike had written.
Hi.
Sapphire looked up at Spike, amazed. “Hey, that’s fun! Let me try it.”
Without asking permission, Sapphire snatched the quill from Spike’s paw and scribbled a note of her own on the parchment.
“So how do you send it to who you want?” Sapphire asked.
“Just think about who you want it to go to,” Spike said. “Picture them in your head.”
“Okay, here goes.”
She held the scroll in front of her mouth and belched a cloud of icy breath on it. Within a second, the scroll vanished and Spike spat it back out.
Hello.
Spike looked at Sapphire for a few seconds, impressed. He hadn’t been sure it would work with any dragon besides him, and now Sapphire wanted to make a little game with it.
With a sly smile, Spike took the quill back away from Sapphire to write another, much longer note underneath hers. Sapphire attempted a peek, forcing Spike to turn around to hide the letter from her prying eyes. A duet of belches followed, and Sapphire unraveled the scroll to read Spike’s note out loud.
"You are the most beautiful dragon in all of Equestria."
Smiling wide, Sapphire looked back up at Spike, who was blushing and twisting his foot into the sand.
“Awwwww!” she said, then took the quill one more time and wrote yet another note underneath Spike’s before belching the scroll back to him.
Spike grabbed the scroll from midair and unrolled it. "You are the sweetest dragon in all of Equestria."
Spike looked up at Sapphire, who was smiling and blushing at him. Their eyes locked for a few moments; then both dragons fell over on their backs, clutching their stomachs in laughter.