A Frayed Notebook with Pages Missing

by Ezn

Rule the Third

Rule the Third
by Ezn

Spike sat under an apple tree, deep in thought, rubbing his chin with one of Twilight's old quills. A sheet of parchment curled over his knees. Written near the top of the sheet, in flowing calligraphy, were the words "Spike the Dragon's Code of Honour".

"Hmm," Spike mumbled, thinking over the events of the past few days. He glanced at another piece of parchment, which sat by his side and was headed -- in slightly less immaculate calligraphy -- "Spike's Dragon Code". That heading had made him cringe since he'd woken up that morning and realised that he didn't actually know if any dragons other than himself actually had dragon codes. It was a little dubious to hold oneself to a code that may not even really exist, he'd thought, and seeing as he was revising his code anyway, it seemed like a good time to retitle it in a more truthful and specific manner.

Getting an idea, Spike dipped his quill in the inkpot on his other side and put it to the parchment. His well-practiced right claws glided the quill over the paper, being careful not to shake or commit a false stroke. Twilight only had so much spare parchment for him to use, after all.

Spike lifted his quill from the page and looked over what he had written.

Rule the First: Any party whosoever rescues Spike the Dragon from mortal peril shall be entitled to a debt of favours to be determined by negotiation, unless that party is a personal friend of Spike the Dragon.

He read it through three times, and decided he was satisfied. He was especially happy with his use of "party" and "whosoever" -- he'd seen words used like that in some legal documents Twilight had had him dictate to her recently. They added a very necessary seriousness to his code, he thought.

Spike looked back at the parchment next to him and quickly set to work copying the still-reasonable second rule to the one on his knees.

Rule the Second: Spike the Dragon will not lose control of himself to greed.

He only reread this rule once, being eager not to dwell on what had caused him to make it. His head snapped back to the parchment beside him and he surveyed his third rule.

The parchment was blank beneath the second rule. Spike felt a twinge of annoyance at himself, and then a bit of shame.

Surely no code of honour worth the parchment it was written on was so short as to only have two rules? The Royal Guardponies' Code of Chivalry had more than twenty rules -- Twilight had spent many an exasperating evening coaching Shining Armour in memorising them all word for word.

The more he thought about it, the more Spike realised how embarrassingly little he actually knew about honour codes. It had seemed like a great idea to come up with one after he'd had such a bad time on his quest on self-discovery, but he'd only done it based on a conversation with Rainbow Dash about some character in a Daring Do book who had one.

Spike sighed. How was he supposed to be a noble dragon, beholden to a code of honour, if he didn't even know enough about codes to come up with more than two rules? If he couldn't even think of a third standard to hold himself to, could he even really call himself noble.

Just then, something above him groaned and made the leaves of the tree rustle, knocking Spike out of his contemplation. He looked up, and suddenly the world went blue.

"Oh, hey Spike!" called a voice from above.

Spike removed the pillow from his face and looked up at Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow!" he cried, forgetting to chide her for dropping her pillow. "Just the pony I needed to talk to."

Leaving her blue blanket lying on the tree branch she'd been sleeping on, Rainbow Dash glided downwards and touched down softly in front of Spike, grinning proudly. "Funny, everypony's always saying that about me. What's on your mind, squirt?"

"I was just wondering something about a Daring Do book," he replied. "You were telling me about a guy in one of them a few weeks ago. The zebra warrior with the code of honour?"

Rainbow's face brightened. "Oh yeah! That was Reseph, a good friend of Daring's. He was in book seven, 'Daring Do and the Perilous Pyramid'. That guy was really cool, and noble too. He saved Daring from --"

"What were the rules in his honour code?" Spike asked, dodging a blow-by-blow retelling of the entire book.

"Oh, well, the first one was --" Rainbow frowned and got a far-off look in her eyes. "Um, the second... there was one that... huh."

Spike quirked a worried eyebrow. "What do you mean 'huh'?"

"Exactly that, Spike," Rainbow said, shrugging. "I just realised that Reseph didn't actually say what any of the rules of his honour code were. He just 'swore by it' and said stuff like 'my code would never allow that!'"

"Oh." Forlorn, Spike looked down at his remarkably short code of honour. "Well, that's... disappointing."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with that 'dragon code' thing that got you and Applejack into all that trouble the other day, would it?" Rainbow Dash pointed at the crinkled parchment beside Spike, prompting him to snatch it up protectively, blushing.

"N-no, nothing like that at all!"

Rainbow gave him a severe look.

He wilted.

"Aha!" she exclaimed. "I knew that's what this was about!"

"P-please don't be mad! I'm trying to fix my code, so that I can avoid stuff like what happened with Applejack and still be noble! I've even added a clause to the first rule!"

Dash zipped into position above Spike and looked down at his parchment, nodding slowly as she read his first rule. "Hmm... that looks kinda okay, actually."

Spike tilted his head up. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." Rainbow reached down to ruffle his spines. "Don't get to feeling like having a code is a bad thing, Spike. There's got to be awesomeness potential in it if a cool guy like Reseph had one. Hay, you could even say I live by a code."

"You do?"

"Absolutely! But there's only one rule: be awesome! I know that's all I need."

Spike frowned thoughtfully. "Well, maybe that works for a pegasus pony like you, Rainbow Dash, but a noble dragon needs a more substantial code if he is to truly, uh... be really really noble. Problem is, I can't think of anymore rules to put down."

Rainbow flew away from her hovering position above Spike and spun in circles, as she often liked to when she thought. A few moments later, it paid off.

"I've got it!"

"Yeah?"

"In 'Daring Do and the Perilous Pyramid', Reseph never did say what any of the rules of his personal honour code were, but he did have a lot to say about the many adventures he'd been on to develop it. I'll bet he had the same problem as you, Spike, and just needed some inspiration to get over it."

Spike rubbed his chin with the feather of his quill and stared into Rainbow Dash's widely grinning face. "So what you're saying is I need to have some really awesome adventures if I want to learn what my code should be. Is that it?"

"Totally!"

"And they should be dangerous, treacherous, and life-threatening..."

"The more reckless the better!"

Spike's eyes narrowed and his mouth scrunched up into a pensive pucker. He thought for a moment, before saying, "Cool!" and his face snapped into a wide-eyed stare of excitement. "I'll start right away!"

The two pieces of parchment were engulfed in green flame and the inkwell and quill forgotten as Spike hurriedly got up and head off towards adventure. "Thanks, Rainbow Dash!"

Rainbow smiled proudly, watching Spike rush off as she imagined a mother might watch her recently full-grown foal. "My work here is done," she said, folding her forelegs over her chest.

***

Author's Note:

And then Spike had some crazy adventures and learnt a valuable lesson about life.