• Published 12th Jul 2013
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Zenith - The Descendant



Once upon a time, Spike went for a walk.

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Prologue and Chapter 1: The Monolith

“Zenith”
Written by The Descendant

Dedication: The amazing works of the artist Lysok, specifically his images “Spike’s Quest” and “Griffin’s Lullaby”, inspired this story. Lysok graciously allowed me to write this work, and he has my praise, appreciation, and sincere thanks.



“Zenith”
The First Book: Pillars of the Sun
Prologue


When the glass shattered, many things happened.

When the glass shattered, it sent a spray of shards bouncing across the floor of the hospital room. The pieces tumbled across the smooth floor tiles, finally coming to a rest against the distant wall. There they sat, each piece catching the shafts of light that fell through the windows...

... each piece catching the light that fell across the unmoving alicorn in the bed nearby.

When the glass shattered, the sound resonated around the room and filled the hospital ward. The sound disrupted the silence that had settled there, startling all within out of their contemplations. The sound surprised the nurse who had been wringing out the washcloth. It surprised the orderly, nearly making him drop a tray he had been gathering.

It even surprised the princess who sat nearby.

When the glass shattered, it made a little dragon do something he wouldn’t normally do. When the glass shattered, it made him say a naughty word.

“Buck!”

A moment before, Spike had been carrying the glass. Now his hands were over his mouth, and a look of shame sat on his face as he looked to each of the ponies in turn.

“I-I’m sorry!” he said, waving his arms around frantically. “I-I didn’t mean to say that, or break the cup… I-I just, I mean… it, just…”

Princess Celestia lifted herself off of the nearby couch, sighed a small sigh, and then made her way to where Spike stood. As she approached, his hands went back over his mouth, and his eyes went wide again.

“Oh, Spike,” she said, giving him a small smile, “you are going to have to work here at the hospital to pay that back, I am afraid.”

“Heh,” answered Spike, forcing a laugh. As he did, the dragon drew a paper towel across the myriad tiny shards that had fallen closest to the bed, wiping them away from the one who lay there as though defending her from a swarm of insects.

“Oh, yes, Spike,” answered Comfort, painting a smile across her face. “Now you’ll have to work here for a week, taking care of our patient, you know?” The nurse moved to the broom closet, but as the soft sounds of magic filled the room she instead gathered up the trash bin and brought it to the princess.

“Heh,” Spike answered once more, his voice still rather distant.

Celestia’s magic gathered up the pieces. “Thank you,” the alicorn said, nodding to the earth pony as her magic deposited the shards in the garbage can, removing all evidence of the accident.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” said the orderly. As he spoke, the stallion reached out his hoof and began to close one of the heavy curtains, keeping the sunlight from falling directly onto the face of the figure upon the bed. “If that’s how it works, we owe him some bits, not the other way around! He’s been here for, what is it, going on two weeks? You’re gonna need to fill out employee tax… tax forms…”

The orderly looked down to Spike. Instead of the smile he had expected to find he saw Spike staring back at him with a look of betrayal etched across his face. The dragon’s mouth was slightly opened, and in Spike’s tired eyes there was a look like all of his worldly secrets had been revealed.

“I had heard as such,” sighed Celestia. The graceful alicorn turned towards the sofa, her magnificent mane and tail shining around her as she moved through the shafts of her sun’s radiance.

Her statement hung around the room, and Spike stood there for a long moment, awaiting the questions that he knew now must come. When none were immediately forthcoming he turned his bleary eyes back to his task.

His clawed feet made their way over to the now familiar sink. With an agile twist he hopped up so that he was sitting on the counter. Turning his body even farther, Spike reached over his head and into the tall cabinet.

The bottom shelf was empty, sending a scowl of disappointment across the dragon’s face.

“Darn,” he said, hoping that everyone in the room had heard his more appropriate choice of words. With that he steadied himself on the cabinet door so that he could look inside.

The second shelf still held a few glasses, and the dragon carefully stood on his tiptoes to reach up high and deep within. As he did, his tired body gave a small tremble, and he went stock still, hoping against hope that the other occupants of the room hadn’t noticed.

As he sat on the countertop, he threw them each a quick look. It was obvious that they had seen it. He sighed, grumbled, and then lifted the cold-water tap. He placed one of his fingers beneath the stream of water, waiting until it got cold, but not too cold, before placing the cup beneath. As it filled he breathed a few words into the room.

“We’re runnin’ out of cups, Pacemaker,” he said in a steady tone, trying to hide the tiredness that lingered in his voice.

“You’re using them up faster than the cafeteria can clean them, Spike,” answered the orderly. The dragon didn’t answer. That was an excuse. He didn’t want excuses. He wanted nice, clean cups that he could fill with cold, clear water.

He closed the faucet. Spike carefully placed the cup on the counter, hovering his hands over it for a second before jumping off. Grabbing the glass, he once again began to make his way from the faucet to the bed.

“Spike, dear,” said Comfort as she watched him carefully hold the glass in both hands and make small, certain steps, “why don’t you use the paper cups? You… you can’t break them, and there’s so many in the dispenser.”

“I want her to have a real glass. I want her to have a real glass to drink outta, ya know, when she wakes up,” he answered. Spike had not looked to the nurse, the orderly, or even the princess as he said the words. Instead, he focused intently on making his way across the room, on not letting another glass slip through his hands.

A little rainbow fell near his shadow, marking where the brilliant light of the windows met the water in the glass. It wobbled in rhythm with the gentle toss of the water in the cup, and he smiled when he caught a glance of it out of the corner of his eye.

Paper cups do not make rainbows. He wanted her to have a rainbow.

He reached the edge of the bed, moving even slower now that he could see her there. He looked up to the nightstand. There, next to the crown, sat the pitcher he had already filled, it having survived the journey that the last cup had not.

“Spike?” asked Celestia, her voice rising above the room for the first time since she’d discovered the truth. “Why not simply bring the cup over to the side of the bed empty, and then fill it with the pitcher? Would that not be simpler?”

“Yeah,” he answered. He had already answered this question, answered it a half-dozen times over the last week… the last week and four days, if the truth were told. “Yeah, it would be easier, but then she’d have to wait for me to pour it... when she wakes up. She’s gonna be really, really thirsty when she wakes up, and I don’t want her to wait for me to hafta pour it, ya know?”

He placed the glass on the nightstand, gently tugging it to the side so that it caught the light and cast a rainbow on the wall.

“I-I just want her to have…”

His eyes fell back upon the bed, and for the thousandth time over the last two weeks he went silent as he looked upon her face.

Her head rested upon the soft white pillow, her mane falling gently behind her. Two strands of her hair fell forward across her face, slowly moving in the almost imperceptible breaths of the alicorn.

Spike hopped up on the edge of the bed, and with a gentle touch he placed the loose strands back behind her ear. He looked down to see her body lifting and falling in tiny movements beneath the crisp, clean bed sheets.

There, upon that hospital bed, lay Procer Twilight Sparkle Harmonia, the physical embodiment of the magic of friendship, its living avatar in the world.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn whom arose from among the ponies, long loved by many, her grace given form.

There lay Twilight Sparkle, the hero of Equestria, and the Principal of the Elements of Harmony.

There lay Twilight, the librarian and avid reader who had raised him, and who he sometimes had to snap out of fits of adorable insanity. Twilight, who he knew still sometimes liked to sleep with her Smarty Pants doll.

There lay his Twi.

Twilight lay there, unmoving, just as she had for the longest time. For the longest, longest time. He slid back off the bed. He laid his head in his arms, just staring up to her. Just staring at Twilight as he had for days and days and days…

… just waiting for Twilight to wake up. Just waiting for Twilight.

Comfort looked up to see Princess Celestia motioning to her. The nurse bowed and stepped forward. To her surprise, the princess laid her head close to her ear.

“How long has he been bringing her the glasses of water like this, Comfort?” asked the princess in a whisper. As the alicorn lowered her head, the earth pony stretched up to whisper a reply.

“W-well, since they arrived, actually,” she answered. “Every hour, it seems, he brings her a new glass. He fills the pitcher and then brings over a new glass.”

Celestia sighed.

“It’s… it’s almost a coping mechanism, I think, Highness,” the nurse continued. “He doesn’t… doesn’t know what else to do for her. He’s trying to take care of…”

“She’s gonna wake up soon,” Spike said, his voice just high enough to let everyone in the room know that they’d failed to keep the topic from his ears. “Twilight’s gonna wake up soon. Real soon, and when she does she’s going to be really, really thirsty. I want her to have cold water. You know, for when she wakes up.”

He wanted her to have the water, to make sure she wasn’t thirsty. He wanted her to know that he’d been here, waiting. Her Number One Assistant, waiting, ready to give her the cold water, to brush away the strands of hair that might get in her eyes, to give her a rainbow…

He was just waiting for her to wake up, is all. He was waiting for Twilight.

“She’s gonna wake up…”

Just waiting for his Twi.

An hour passed, and he repeated the cycle once more. Before he could rest his head upon his arms once again his name floated across the room.

“Spike,” said Celestia, “will you come and sit with me?”

Spike looked to the princess of the sun, and then to the princess of harmony. Princess. He still struggled to think of Twilight that way. He wrung his hands together, and ran his hands up and down his arms.

“She is only a few steps away, Spike,” Celestia said. “Please, Spike, please come here and sit with me. It is rather lonely over here.”

It was a fib, of course, but it was a soft one, and it had been spoken just so. It spoke to that part of him that did not like to see others unhappy. The dragon made his way over to the sofa. There he leapt up and seated himself against the snow-white side of the alicorn, sinking into her withers. As he did he suddenly remembered just how ancient, and how powerful, she truly was.

A part of him wondered if Twilight was, or would, ever be like that. He wondered if he honestly could learn about her being so without hyperventilating and falling over in a pool of his own spittle, shaking and twitching as his mind tried to wrap itself around the idea.

Heh, probably not, he admitted to himself.

“Spike,” Celestia asked as she lowered one of her wings over him, “I know that it is hard to think about, but have you given any thought to my request?”

“N-no, I haven’t,” he admitted. He shifted uncomfortably at her side. Rather, truth be told, he was far too comfortable. A lingering tiredness sat behind his eyes, and the warmth of Celestia’s coat. It was kind of like when he would sit next to Twilight. She’d read to him, or they’d look through her telescope, or they’d fly a kite, or even just watch the fire. It was like that. Not as familiar, but similar. It was just… well, just not Twilight.

He felt his eyes begin to droop.

“There are not many creatures who take my requests so lightly,” said Celestia.

At once his eyes shot back open. “I... I, oh, ummm… sorry? I’m just… I’ve been busy. Busy with… stuff. Stuff here. Yeah,” he said, groping towards an answer.

Celestia sighed once more, and then lowered her head closer to his. “Spike,” she began, “of all of my little ponies, and creatures, who went to Pursopolis, there are only two left who have not given me a report of what occurred… and Twilight cannot tell me what happened to her.”

Spike shifted in his seat.

“Spike, please, you are the only one who was with Twilight when… when this occurred,” she continued, drawing her voice down, placing her head closer to his. “If I am to do anything to help her get better, I need to know what you saw. Please, Spike, I… we need to know. Will you not tell me, just as we sit here? You don’t need to write anything, we can just talk. Can you…”

“What I saw?” said Spike, interrupting the sovereign.

There was a momentary pause as the dragon fidgeted, wrapping his arms around his knees as he settled beneath Celestia’s wing.

“Please,” she asked, placing her head upon the sofa. Celestia looked up to see many emotions floating in his eyes. Pain. Fear. Uncertainty. These emotions and many more drifted there, floating in his tired features like little boats adrift in a fog. The other reports had told her much, and she guessed what sat inside of him.

The dragon wrung his hands again, closed his eyes tight, and began to speak.




Chapter 1: The Monolith


Spike had never been a huge fan of Twilight’s teleporting, especially over great distances.

Oh, sure, it was convenient for them and all, but at certain times, especially when she did it unexpectedly, it was more like being mugged than a form of transportation. To him, it felt like being thrown into a spinning bingo wheel full of angry weasels while some ponies sang barbershop music at him.

At least, that’s what he assumed it was like. He didn’t ask Pinkie about her hobbies much.

Unfortunately, he had discovered that he wasn’t always a fan of her flying either.

Twilight. Flying. That was still taking a while to get used to. His new riding position wasn’t as, well, inauspicious as it had been before. He rode much closer to her neck, trying his best to avoid the sweep of her wings. After a few botched attempts at finding a good position had left Her Highness Twilight Flopple wobbling through the air like an inebriated duck, a horrible thought had come over him… the thought that Twilight would ask him to stop riding her.

Whether she thought the better of it, or saw that he was thinking the same thing, she had not asked. That she might still have to ask him hovered above him awkwardly… much like Twilight after the third time she had dropped him.

Oh, he thought that flying with her was cool enough. He liked it when they were just out coasting around and all that. But Twilight, being Twilight, had scientifically determined that the most efficient way to travel was the combination of both.

This turned out to be flashing through the high atmosphere where there was less magica vasto to interfere with her teleportation spell, and then rocketing towards the earth with her wings.

Spike hated that last part. He hated it a whole bunch. To him, it felt like being slathered with salad dressing and then shoved down a laundry chute while fighting an industrial vacuum cleaner.

Or so he thought. Once again, Pinkie’s hobbies were her own, and he had no right to judge.

Actually, he hated the first part too. He hated all of it actually. He especially hated that they had to do it more and more as Twilight’s duties as an alicorn princess only seemed to grow. Twilight. Alicorn. Princess. He wondered if he would ever get used to it.

He wondered if he would ever stop hating it.

Unfortunately, Spike had been reminded of his dislike of this hybrid transportation combo of doomy-dooms all too recently.

“Not a fan, Twi! Not a fan, not a fan, not a fan!” he had cried as they streaked towards the ground, a single spot of lavender and purple dropping through the bright blue sky. He held tight to her neck as they dove down, his feet coming loose from his mount and trailing out behind him.

“Gah!” she choked as the dragon squeezed her neck even harder. “I’m a fan of breathing, though, Spike! Not so tight!”

“I’m sorry, Twi, what?” he somehow managed to shout through his clenched teeth. “I couldn’t hear you over the shrieking wind of perilous peril. Ya know, the one that’s all around us as we plummet toward the ground!”

“We aren’t plummeting!” she called back in an exasperated tone, her words fighting with the whistling wind for his attention. “I’ve explained it before, Spike. It’s called a ‘controlled descent’. I’m making hyper-fine motions with my wings to control pitch and yaw, and the airflow…”

“Fine!” he yelled back, clenching shut not only his teeth but his eyes as well. “Okay! You’re in a ‘controlled croissant’ and I’m plummeting!”

As she smirked at his comment, they passed through some clouds, ones that wrapped around them and clung to them, leaving them looking like they’d been rolled in vats of whipped cream and forced to run through the streets while being pursued by insurance adjusters.

They had joined Pinkie for that one. Good times.

“Actually,” she said, her voice coming alight at the opportunity to discuss scientific properties, “we’re sharing our mass at the moment. Since objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass, we both have the same inertia. Now, if I were to start braking, you would continue forwards at your own rate. However, since you’re clinging to my windpipe, we…”

“Ground, Twi!” he called, clenching the last part of his body that he had the ability to clench. “Ground, ground, ground!”

“What?” Twilight asked. She glanced down. There, filling her vision, the ancient remains of the city of Pursopolis hurriedly rose to meet them. “Oh, sorry!” she said with a sheepish smile. With a small bit of effort, Twilight Sparkle made her wings come open slowly, and with that her newfound powers of flight saw them both safely to the ground.




Oh, for Pursopolis, thy gleaming domes sitting astride the ways and streams.

Twilight’s hooves found the ruined stones of an ancient bridge. A marsh sat below the collapsed span, the former stream seeming to be choked with rushes and weeds.

Oh, for Pursopolis, eternal city of wonders.

“Wow,” Spike said, turning his eyes back and forth as he leapt from his perch upon her back. “What a dump.”

“Spike.”

Oh, for Pursopolis, her streets teeming, her larders full, her citizens shining and mirthful.

Spike and Twilight looked up and down the abandoned streets. Wind howled amid the snapped trusses and crooked frames of buildings that had not been occupied for generations.

“Hey,” Spike said, his voice only half-joking, “you didn’t ask me to come along so that I would clean all this up, did ya?”

Twilight giggled, gave him a playful nuzzle, and then lowered her haunches so that he could scramble back up to his appointed, traditional place.

“Come on,” she said, her eyes looking up and down the deserted ways, “let’s find the others.”

Together, as always, Spike and Twilight trotted along, letting her magic guide them, not letting the wind that howled through the cracked domes and empty alleys bother them as they shared their small jokes...

… not noting the thrum that had begun the second an alicorn’s hooves had touched to Pursopolis’s streets.

Oh, for Pursopolis, lost to time and a tyrant’s touch, afflicted by a bane beyond thought.




“Princess,” said a voice, “thank you so much for joining us.”

Spike looked around, wondering why Celestia and Luna were there. Once again, he looked past Twilight’s ears to see ponies bowing to her. His eyes looked up to see the tiara upon her head, the mark of her power somehow staying in place during their descent.

Twilight. Alicorn. Princess. Right. Dang, how long would it take him to get his head around that?

Not all of the ponies amidst the sea of onlookers were quite so hurried in their efforts to prostrate themselves before their newest sovereign.

“Hey there, Princess Twily!” said a very familiar voice.

“Prince Shiny!” she answered, and with that the two siblings first bowed to one another, and then nuzzled against one another. Spike couldn’t help but cover his mouth to hide his laughter. The crowd may have been bowing, but he remembered these two ennobled ponies as the brother and sister who, once upon a time, had both sat in “time out” for attempting to clean the family chariot with steel wool.

As he hopped off of Twilight, Spike felt somepony nuzzle against his back.

“Hoofbump!” called Shining Armor, and with that Spike’s fist met Shining Armor’s hoof.

“Pow, dude!” called the unicorn.

“Pow, bro!” answered Spike as they lifted away.

The Prince of the Crystal Empire smiled down at him, and as Princess Twilight Sparkle smirked and rolled her eyes, all Spike could do was smile back and be very grateful that there are some things, at least, that do not change.

Pursopolis, named for the prizes won in the great pony competitions of old, the marathons that were run from one end of ancient Equestria to the other. Back before Equestria truly was Equestria. Back when the Crystal Empire held sway here… when those ponies did not see themselves as part of the Equestrian experiment.

“We hope to begin moving in colonists by this time next year,” said the Lord Mayor, the proud pony pointing out the work that had already been accomplished. “The most basic of infrastructure has already been restored, Majesty. The sewers were in remarkably good condition, and running water has been restored to the city center.”

Spike looked up just in time to see Twilight blush. Majesty. If her blush meant anything, it meant that she wasn’t quite seeing herself in that light yet either. As the party continued their tour, Spike saw Twilight looking back to him, sharing his smile. A small motion passed between them, and at once Spike came running to her side.

It was a familiar motion, one of the many that they had become part of their silent vocabulary over their decades together. He pressed his hand to her foreleg, running it up and down, moving some of his social grace into her, giving her some of his confidence.

“My Lord Mayor,” she said, using Spike’s gift of touch, “I wonder if you’ve given any consideration as to how the city will be governed? My… errr, our sister-in-law, Cadenza Amore, your Crystal Princess, has said that she’d like for the crystal ponies to organize a participatory government, in recognition of the semi-autonomous nature of the Crystal Empire within Equestria proper.”

Yes! thought Spike as he spun around and drew his arm across his side in victory. The seven hours of practice paid off, Twi!

“We, of course, are considering all options, Majesty,” said the Lord Mayor. As the tour continued, they spoke more of how the city had been governed before Sombra’s rise. While they did, Spike tried his best to make sense of what Twilight and the Lord Mayor were saying. Spike watched all of the diligent crystal ponies at work, their forms going from earth pony to crystal and back as their attitudes changed or their work was completed. Unicorns, true earth ponies, and a pegasus or two lent a hoof… returning the city to what it had been a thousand years ago.

The talk of politics drew on and on, the terms and policies that they had been practicing in Canterlot the previous day flowing easily from Twilight’s recollection. Spike smiled. Whatever Twilight put her mind to, well, she was going to get it done.

Still, politics were politics. It soon became a droning that taxed the patience of the least mature member of the group, the one who was least suited for such complicated matters.

“Aaaagggghhhhh,” he called in a fit of frustration. “This is sooo boooorrrrinnggg!”

The entirety of the group turned to face him.

“Geez, Shining Armor,” Spike said in a judgmental tone as he placed his hands on his hips. “Impatient, much?”

“C’mon, dude,” the unicorn called as he ran his hoof through Spike’s frills. “Why wonder about stuff that’s going to happen when there’s stuff that needs doing right now? Let’s lend a hoof.”

The expressions of the party changed, understanding the wisdom in the unicorn’s words. Soon the two monarchs, the Lord Mayor and his staff, and the little dragon found themselves working to clear out what appeared to have been a central park, one filled with the twisted remains of great fountains and toppled monuments. A thousand years had passed, and the once-manicured lawns had become filled with now-ancient trees.

Talented unicorn casters carefully lifted the tall oaks, ashes, and sycamores, preserving the roots so that the trees may live and be replanted. At the same time more unicorns re-laid stonework that had toppled centuries ago, returning the paths to their prescribed courses. Strong earth ponies and crystal ponies moved soil, leveling the ground. As the afternoon rolled on, even Twilight and Spike began to feel the effects of the work, a glow of sweat hanging around the princess.

“Majesty?” came a small voice, and Spike looked up to see a crystal pony bowing to Twilight. Bowing. To Twilight. He wondered if he would ever get used to that.

“Yes?” answered Twilight. “What can I do for you… ummm…”

“Hyacinth, Majesty,” answered the crystal pony. “Oh, I… we, that is, just wanted to thank you for coming today. It... it really shows that we are part of Equestria. Thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome!” Twilight said with a giggle. “I’m very glad to help! You’ve been through so much, and your Crystal Princess, Princess Cadence, is of course so very important to me. I can’t imagine what it was like for her, losing you all… having to go through lifetime after lifetime hoping this would be the one where she gets to see you again…”

The faces of the crystal ponies fell into a sea of unhappy recollection.

“When… when Sombra forced us to march away from here in chains, to come to the seat of the Crystal Empire as his slaves, we wondered if we’d ever see our home again,” Hyacinth continued. “None of us expected to see it like this… not a thousand years later. Oh my, a thousand years…”

Twilight nuzzled Spike, asking him to move. She stood from where they had been resting and placed her hoof upon the crystal pony. Spike smiled as her voice lifted over the assembled crystal ponies, unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi.

“You have suffered many things,” she said, her soft smile falling around them as she passed through the crowd. Spike watched her go, his arms folded in front of him in happy contemplation of his best friend.

“You have suffered slavery under a tyrant, and you’ve suffered loss and pain. Well, that’s all over. That has ended. All of Equestria lifts you up, and together we’ll rebuild the empire one city at a time. The darkness has passed, and a bright, shining future is out there waiting for all of us. Okay?”

The cheers of the crystal ponies erupted around the nascent park, and as the assembly returned to their work a grinning Twilight Sparkle returned to Spike’s side.

“Phew!” she breathed, lowering her head across his shoulder. “How was that? How’d I do?”

“Heh,” Spike said, patting the side of her head. “Good job! Ya sound like Princess Celestia when ya talk like that, Twi!”

Twilight gave a small chuckle. “She’s been a good teacher, but she has a few thousand years on me…”

Twilight nuzzled him, and Spike returned the gesture. As Twilight’s head lifted from his, a thought went through him, giving him pause. “Hey, Twi?” he began to ask. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They... they’ve lived for a long, long time. Does, does that mean that you…”

“Excuse me, Majesty,” interrupted the Lord Mayor. “I beg forgiveness for the intrusion, but we’ve just finished the restoration of the Cydorenne Fountain, and we’d like to offer the hero of the Crystal Empire the honor of placing the last element and dedicating the fountain.”

“Oh, oh, Twi,” Spike said, hopping up and down in front of her. “Here, lemme fix your mane before ya dedicate it.”

Twilight giggled, and Spike looked up to see the crystal ponies looking at him. “I’m pretty sure that he meant you, Spike!” she said with a wide smile.

“Me?” he asked in a surprised tone, pointing to himself.

“You’re the one with the window in Canterlot, my Number One Assistant,” she said, lowering her haunches so that he could scramble up. It wasn’t as easy as it had been. Twilight was growing into her new form, like Luna had. He tried not to think about whether or not the day may come when he couldn’t get up anymore.

He didn’t have long to ponder the question. Soon Twilight was carrying him forward into the crowd, and the few dozen crystal ponies clopped their hooves on the restored stonework.

Spike’s chest puffed up, and he stood upon his princess proudly, bowing and waving to the assembly. “Thank you, thank you! Glad to be here! Glad that I could help save you all from that scary unicorn guy. No, thank you, it was nothing, really, glad to help out! I tripped halfway down, if we’re being honest…”

Twilight chuckled, and with her magic she placed him high atop the fountain. “Wow! Big fountain!” he said, looking down to the crowd below. “So, ummm, what was it originally dedicated for?”

The Lord Mayor pranced across the dry bed of the pond, and then rose up on his hind legs to whisper into the dragon’s ear. As he did, Spike’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, wow, really?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal nowadays… or at least really, really expensive.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow, smiled, and then called to her little dragon. “Speech!” she called. “Speech!”

“Speech!” repeated the crystal ponies, pounding their hooves to the ground.

“Oh, okay, ummm… okay,” Spike called back from atop the fountain, dancing in place a little as he tried to think of the words. “I was hatched from a cute little green and purple egg. Well, ummm, really, when Twilight hatched me my egg was lavender and purple ‘cause it was under stress from bein’ moved, but most of the time it was green and purple…”

“Shorter speech!” called Shining Armor, eliciting a laugh from the audience.

Spike blushed brightly, grinning in needless embarrassment. He reached down and picked up a decorative bronze spear, the last missing element. Stretching high he began to insert it amid the group of ponies atop the fountain.

“In the name of friendship, and harmony, and cheer, and great stuff like that, I, Spike the Dragon, hereby…”

There was a metallic twang, and one of the figures atop the fountain fell over…

… landing directly on Spike’s tail.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Get it off, get it off, get it off!” he yelped as he danced in place. Twilight immediately bit her lower lip in worry, lifting the figure off of the spade of his tail with her magic. Unfortunately, Spike, in his surprise and hurt, had tossed the decorative spear.

It landed between the hooves of the crystal pony who had been preparing the tap to start the fountain. As she reared back in alarm, she knocked it wide open.

Spike looked at his throbbing tail. As he placed it in his mouth there was a rumble, and at once the fountain roared to life…

… covering him in a thousand years’ worth of brackish, putrid waters.

A disgruntled growl arose from where Spike sat, the white of his eyes shining from beneath his new brown coat. At once the crystal pony went to turn the fountain off, but the long-neglected tap broke off in her hooves.

There was a deeper rumble, and Spike found himself clinging to the head of the collapsed figure, teetering over the side of the fountain.

“Really?” he cried, clutching at the statue.

At once the marble core of the fountain began to fall away, leaving Spike and the figures waving back and forth on the tall, thin, copper piping that carried the polluted waters that still gushed over him. At once Twilight, Shining Armor, and many of the other unicorns present all made a grab for him with their magic. As the spells all cascaded off of one another it sent the dragon, the statues, and the pipe swaying and spinning madly, careening over the heads of the assembled ponies.

“Really?!” he cried once more, the word filled with disbelief.

Soon the ancient copper pipe, unable to withstand the forces that were taxing it any more, snapped off at the base. Spike, the bronze figures, and the remains of the marble seemed to hang in the air for a moment, and then came crashing down. At once the base of the pipe shore off, exposing the frail water main beneath. Clear water erupted forth, gushing around the dragon that sat perched atop the ruins of the fountain, his arms crossed in utter disappointment, his eyes narrow and filled with disgust.

“Really?” he mouthed as the waters rushed around him, overflowing the fountain and pouring through the park, creating dirty, muddy ruts where the ponies had been working.

Twilight’s eyes lifted to him even as she took to her wings, avoiding the waters that streamed from the fountain.

Poor Spike, she thought, watching him sitting there in dejection, my poor little guy.

Nearby, some ponies and their tools were being swept away by the waters or getting lodged in the mud. With one more look to Spike she dove down to help them before all of their work was destroyed.

Spike just sat there, just letting the water cascade around him. “Really?” he said again, watching all of the ponies scatter. He looked down to see the head of the broken figurine, the one that had started the whole mess. The look on the face of the ancient bronze figure was one of startled shock, and as it rolled along in the torrent Spike spoke to it.

“Heh, I know that feel,” he said, watching it roll along. To his surprise the head flipped over the edge of the fountain. With a clang it fell out of the pond and then went rolling down the path, carried along in the muddy waters.

“I’ve got it!” Spike called, splashing through the fountain before pelting off after the dismembered head on his little legs.

“I’ve got it!” he said, following it as it bounced down the sidewalk, out of the park, and out into the streets of Pursopolis beyond.

“I-I’ve got it!” he repeated, now far out of the listening range of any of the ponies in the park. The clang of the head reverberated around the ancient stones of the city, and he followed the bizarre music it made.

“I… I, wow, maybe I don’t have it,” he said, looking up to discover that he had strayed far from the park. Above him the spires and domes of the city lifted from among their ruin. The wind whistled through the city, catching against the ruined structures and adding their tones to a symphony that seemed full of suffering and loss. “Whoa,” said Spike aloud, talking to no creature. “That’s creepy.”

He picked his way forward through the street. In its time, he realized, it must have been beautiful. Around him the roots of the trees had kicked up thousands of tiles. Now, islands of vegetation sprouted from what must have been a wide piazza, a public space filled with beautiful things.

There was a crunch, and he looked down to discover that he had just squashed something flat that had, a millennia ago, probably had been quite expensive. “Really?” he said again. He went to pick it up, to apologize to it somehow, when a metallic clang rang out around him.

He dove for the cover of the shrubs.

After a while the sound rose again, and he recognized it as the brassy note of the bronze head he’d been chasing. Spike carefully lifted himself from the bushes, and then cautiously made his way down the length of the courtyard. As he went he found himself sucking on the spade of his tail. Part of this, he realized, was to end the throbbing that still coursed through it… and another part was for the comfort that it brought.

He turned a corner, and there amidst the clutter and growth of millennia was something that was not supposed to be there.

The head whirled around, spinning in place. Spike took little steps, concentrating on what loomed above him. It was a great metal gate, as tall as any structure in the city… but wrong. It was wrong. He couldn’t think of any other word to describe it.

“Whoa,” he breathed, taking a few steps forward. As he did he knew his suspicion was more and more true. Whatever this was, it did not belong here. It was unlike any other building in the city. It was harsh, monolithic. It did not have the same soft curves of the domes, or the angular spires of the crystalline towers.

No, no… this thing, this gate and the structure behind it, they didn’t belong here. They appeared to have been dropped here, wedged into the street that lead to the courtyard.

It was too clean. It had not aged.

Spike scratched his head. What in the wide, wide world was going on? What was up with this thing?

He looked down to find the head still spinning, just whipping around in place, nearly perfectly silent as it rotated. “Okay, wow, yeah, this is gettin’ creepy,” he said as he reached down to lift it up.

At once the head stopped spinning. It did not slowly end its revolutions, or go rocking across the ancient tiles. No, it stopped in place… the startled, horrified expression on the head staring straight back up into Spike’s face.

“Agh!” cried Spike, falling on his bottom. He stared at it for a moment, and then tried to scamper away.

As he tried to move, something gathered around him. It was deep magic, powerful magic, and it rippled around him and whispered through him.

There was a thrum, another wave of deep magic…

… and the gates bounced on their hinges. As they did a slow moan escaped from within, as though some nameless power were reaching for him.

“Twilight!” Spike called, jumping to his feet. As he did the bronze head began spinning again, whirling around and around in place. “Twilight!” Spike called again, and then he pelted off, calling her name as he ran around the corner and down the ancient courtyard beyond, his voice echoing off the ancient buildings.

The head spun, whirring around and around silently as it sat under the gaze of the gate. There was a thrum, a pulse of deep magic, and then it came to a stop once more.

The eyes of the statue looked up to the gate, locked in their unending, eternal shock. So they stayed as more thrums fell over them, and the monolith held dominion over all that fell in the shadow of its towering reach.