The sun began to descend as the little dragon finally managed to get home. It usually didn't take quite so long to walk to the library from Sweet Apple acres, but be it from guilt, laziness or simply from being absentminded, Spike had dragged his feet a little, opting for the long way home and taking his time to do so. There isn't a pony or dragon alive that would hurry towards their inevitable punishment, at least none that Spike knew of. He opened the door to the library, yelling as he did. He hoped that it would give him a chance to get a word in, as he braced for the shouting.
"Sorry Twilight, please don't be mad, I promise I'll make up the time!"
The lights were off and he almost tripped as his feet caught on the books still covering the floor. After flicking on the light switch, Spike was astounded at what he saw. Given Twilight's usually exemplary work ethic, the fact that she hadn't even begun to finish was cause for alarm.
"Twilight?"
No reply. He tiptoed delicately past the books, not wanting to cause yet another avalanche. He was in enough trouble as it was. The library was eerily quiet, not that unusual considering it was a library but still, it gave Spike the chills. Normally at this hour, Twilight was either hard at work, or had her muzzle planted firmly in a book, sleep never came very easy for her so she had to find ways to pass the time. Once again he called out. "Twilight?"
Just where the hay is that pony?
He shrugged, deciding that it would be best to get to bed and take his punishment in the morning, he started towards his room, when he heard his stomach grumble. He laughed nervously, taking the long route home was a sure way to build up an appetite. Spinning round he headed into the kitchen. As he helped himself to the remnants left in the fridge, he happened to notice that the sink was empty. She wasn't the best cook, but that didn't mean Twilight couldn't have whipped up a quick bite to eat with Spike gone.
Spike then noticed something even more peculiar. An unusual smell that lingered on the air, bitter yet slightly aromatic. The plate holding Spike's supper slipped between his claws as worry took hold, whirring his head around he confirmed his fears. Twilight had opened that drawer.
When the pony you live with is an extremely powerful unicorn, with an aptitude for innovation and a love of experimentation, you learn to be a little cautious. The only reason Spike was able to sleep in the same room as Twilight when he was younger, was because her curiousity was tempered by both her morality and her reasoning. If Twilight had been drinking, she was no longer restrained by either.
The first time Spike had witnessed Twilight drunk was coincidentally the evening after his first date with Fluttershy, where after a week of being overworked by a class of teenagers, Spike's unexpected revelation had caused Twilight to have a mental collapse. When Spike came home Twilight had smelt something foul, greeting him with a grin that was borderline masochistic and kept ranting about "fixing it", whatever "It" was. If she hadn't collapsed from overdoing it, leaving an awful mess on the floor by the way, Spike doubted he would have lived to see the morning.
This is bad, this is very, very bad!
Arming himself with whatever he could reach, in this instance a frying pan, Spike went to search for the missing librarian, if she was drunk, then she was incredibly dangerous and Spike couldn't forgive himself if she went rampant about the town. The first place he checked was his room, fearful of a Twilight hiding in wait, like the monsters from so many fairytales. He checked his closet, under his bed and behind the door but found no sign of her. He knew she wouldn't be in the kitchen or the main section of the library, so that left one more place, her bedroom.
As Spike headed up the stairs, his senses seemed to increase tenfold, the smell of alcohol grew stronger, and every creak that arose from the old wooden steps were louder than normal. He could feel his heart beating in his chest ever faster, he felt the surge of adrenaline as his claws wrapped around the handle of Twilight's door. He breathed slowly and slower still pushed open the door to her room.
"T-twilight? You in here?"
This time he got a response, a jumble of unintelligle jibberish, followed by a very loud snore, Spike allowed himself to relax.
Praise Celestia! She fell asleep!
Spike smiled a little as he celebrated in the fact that Drunk Twilight hadn't done anything during her little visit, though this was quickly soured when he realised that tomorrow Normal Twilight would be hungover, and therefore even more irritable than usual. He sighed, this was his fault in part he realised, stressing her out like that. Was he being selfish? Maybe a little but what was he supposed to do, stand up his marefriend? Not unless he wanted the relationship to last, and considering Fluttershy was the only pony in town, who had shown any sort of romantic interest in him. He wanted it to last. It also helped that she was so cute.
He approached the side of the bed and pulled the covers over Twilight, who had in her drunken stupor, literally thrown herself onto the bed. Kicking the covers aside as she had streched out on the bed. Spike noticed the wet stains on her pillow.
Has she been...crying?
He'd made Twilight cry? If Spike hadn't felt bad before, he sure felt bad now. He'd abandoned her, as hard as he found that to believe, he knew that's what he'd done. He sat down on the side of the bed looking at her. Even now the unicorn shivered, plagued by a nightmare it seemed, as she moaned and sobbed under the sheets. Spike tried his best to calm her without waking her, shushing and stroking the top of her head gently, as Twilight had often done for him whenever he got upset or frightened.
I...I've got to do something about this, I've...
He swallowed deeply as he realised now, he'd felt something in the back of his mind as he ran and heard Twilight screaming after her.
You're crying, because, you think I've replaced you!
Spike remembered how he felt when Owlicious first turned up, how he felt abandoned and alone because he thought Twilight had found someone better. It sickened Spike to know that, however inadvertently, he'd made Twilight feel like that. He had to apologize to her, make her see that he was still her assistant, that much was clear to him. He hoped that she would see this was just a big misunderstanding.
"Sorry Twilight..." He knew she probably couldn't hear him, she'd probably wouldn't even remember in the morning but still he felt obligated to apologize right there and then. He pulled the door shut, before heading down to his room. No longer feeling the tension that had plagued him not moments before, Spike was able to relax, sleep coming quickly for him. Together, Twilight and Spike quickly filled the library with the sound of their snoring.
Little did they know of the powers at work, if they did, sleep would have been the last thing on their minds.
The hooded figure, the one whom had been watching Spike and Fluttershy mere hours before, felt disgusted as they watched Spike sleep through the window. They'd dealt with dragons before, brutish, foul-mouthed, malicious creatures, who only cared about feeding their greed and fighting just because they found it fun. The hooded figure had been tolerant of Spike's presence in Ponyville before, they assumed him a servant, a slave to Twilight Sparkle, forced to do her bidding. That, they thought, was an acceptable fate for the young drake, given the atrocities his species had commited.
"And yet here you lay." They whispered angrily. "Sleeping soundly, not a care in the world."
As it turned out their assumption was incorrect. Not only was Spike not a slave, nor a servant he was actually considered a citizen. This had made the figure's blood boil, how could this be? Dragons belong in woods or in caves, far from where any pony would have to suffer their presence. He'd even begun to date one of the residents, someone who the hooded figure happened to be quite fond of. Clearly he'd forced the timid mare to date him, no pony would ever willingly date a dragon. The way she'd recoiled in fear at his kiss back at Sugarcube corner, that had been the last straw. Celestia may have been content to let wolves sleep amongst the sheep, but not the hooded figure. They would be sure to remind that annoying little serpent of their place in the world. Of course the task at hand required subtlety, removing the dragon would be a difficult task, given his strong ties to Celestia. Murder was out of the question, too many questions and investigations, but maybe, just maybe they could the town against the resident dragon. Given what the hooded figure knew about their species that didn't pose to much of a challenge, for now though all they could do was wait for the oppurtune moment to strike. With a flash of magic the figure disappeared without a trace, leaving the night to progress.
The next morning, Twilight awoke, her head beating like a drum and the light burning in her retina's. She rubbed her temples as she tried to remember what could have caused this, then her eyes fell to the empty wine bottle on the dresser.
She groaned, "Guess I got a little carried away again last night? Ow... my head."
She flung back the covers and headed over to her table to brush her mane, as was her morning ritual, though the throbbing in her skull made it difficult to concentrate and more than once the brush was released from her magical grip, hitting the ground loudly with a dull thunk. A very unwelcome noise to anyone suffering from a hangover, but through some miracle, Twilight had managed to tame her bed-mane somewhat.
"You'd have thought I'd learnt something from the last time...". Miserable, Twilight crawled her way to the door and down the stairs, stopping halfway when she saw the library floor. It was...
Clean?!
She rubbed her eyes in disbelief. Was she still drunk, was she still in the same library? Even though her memory of last night was somewhat hazy, she had some vague recollection that the library was in shambles, reshelving having been abandoned after Spike had ran off.
Come to think of it, where is that runaway drake?
Her question was quickly answered as Spike ran across the library floor, not noticing Twilight was on the stairwell. He ran over to a shelf, pulled down a book and headed towards the kitchen.
"Spike?" Twilight said as loud as she dared. Startled, Spike tripped up over his tail, sending the book into the air. Desperately grabbing claws reached up into the air, knocking the book back upwards but never catching it. As Spike fell flat on his front, the book slammed down on the wooden floor. The noise caused Twilight to cringe. She was annoyed, but her curiousity beckoned.
"What in the wide, wide world of Equestria are you doing?"
Spike replied shakily, the fall having knocked the wind out of him "Nothing."
She shot him a skeptical glance, looking between him and the book on the floor. "Then what's the book for?"
"I can't reach the top of the cupboards?" He said sheepishly. Twilight could tell when he was lying, she'd known him long enough for that.
She replied in a calm but stern tone. "Spike."
Instead of replying, Spike darted back into the kitchen taking the book with him. Twilight huffed, deciding that whatever Spike was doing, she would find out eventually. Until then, the couch certainly looked very inviting. She stretched out on the upholstery, resting her head on the arm, she closed her eyes.
"What did I do last night..." She remembered being very sad for some reason, something to do with Spike...
Oh, that's right…
Back came that lonely feeling, that harrowing sensation that she had tried to bury, to drown in wine. She was still single, and that was upsetting.
Hearing some shuffling behind her, Twilight was quick to wipe away the crystal tears that had formed in her eyes. Imagine if Spike saw her crying? He'd probably bend over backward trying to cheer her-
Spike saw me crying yesterday didn't he?
Sure enough the young drake shuffled into the room carrying a platter of food, piled so high it was a wonder how he could see where he was going, before setting it down in front of her. Eagerly he grabbed a glass and pushed it under Twilight's face.
He beamed at her "Here drink this!"
She wrinkled her nose at the smell coming from the glass, looking in she saw a foul looking red slush. "What-" The smell caused her to gag quite violently. "What is that?"
Spike shrugged "Can't remember the name but the book said this was an excellent cure for hangovers!"
"What's in it?"
Spike paused as he thought then began to list off all the ingredients he could remember, counting them off on his fingers. "Well I put in tomato juice, a raw egg, parsley, chilli powder-" Seeing the look of apprehension on Twilight's face Spike couldn't help but chuckle. "What? I followed the recipe to the letter."
"Spike, I'm not drinking that..."
"Come on Twi-"
"No." She said firmly, glowering at him as though he'd just tried to poison her, which looking at the beverage before her, he may have well just have.
Spike looked down at the floor forlorn. "Oh...okay. I get it you're still mad at me." Twilight looked at him puzzled.
"Why would I be mad? So you ran off yesterday, so what?"
Now it was Spike's turn to be confused, Hadn't his selfishness been the cause of her little drinking session yesterday?Twilight began to pick at the food Spike had brought.
"You're allowed to spend your time as you want, did I ever get mad because you'd ran off to the boutique? No. If you want to spend your time with Fluttershy that's okay with me."
Her words were true, she didn't mad at Spike, at least not any more. Whilst she may have been mad at the time, Spike had clearly been hard at work rectifying the situation. The library was clean, he was home safe and the breakfast he'd provided looked delicious, if anything the only one she was mad at was herself. Though her relationship problems would have to wait, judging from the look on Spike's face, she'd have to try to calm him down first, she didn't need anyone fussing over her, least of all Spike.
"Okay?"
Twilight had a quick look round. He'd done a remarkable job and in record time, guilt was a good motivator it seemed.
"Besides you've gotten the job done, without me as well."
"Twilight, I don't get it if your not mad at me? Why did you, you know?" He said flicking his head in the direction of the kitchen.
Twilight sighed "Call it mare problems."
"Mare problems?"
She shook her head, if only he knew the half of it. "Don't worry you're not to blame, nor do I think you could help. Don't worry I'll be fine really!"
"You sure?"
She reaffirms this with a nod, before gesturing him away with a wave of her hoof. "Positive, now run along, I don't have anything for you to do just yet."
"Okay, oh and Twilight?"
"You know I'm sorry right?"
"I know, you're forgiven"
Spike smiled. That was way easier than expected.