One and done
Not knowing what else to do, Spike the Dragon paced back and forth, waddling on his stubby legs, his chubby tail swishing from side to side. Turning his head, he eyed the basket, took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out in a huff as he continued to pace. Ever since the basket’s arrival, his world had been turned upside down. He flexed his claws and looked over at Twilight, who had her nose in a book.
“What do we do, Twilight?” Spike asked in a voice that trembled with emotion, quavering, rising and falling in pitch. “How do we make this right?”
Twilight Sparkle looked up from her book, titled, Parvus Draconus. She eyed Spike, noted how frantic he looked, and Twilight, being a decent pony, tried to put herself into Spike’s frame of mind, wondering how this might be affecting him.
The whole situation was pretty awful, of that there could be no doubt, and Spike was having a rough go of things. Her dragon companion looked terrible and her heart ached for him. She slid out of her chair, dropped down onto the floor, sat down, and extended one foreleg in a silent invitation.
Without hesitation, Spike ran to Twilight, plowing into her, wrapped his forelegs around her neck, and began crying. Twilight wrapped her foreleg around him, her wings also closed around him, and she stared at the basket. She felt her own eyes beginning to mist over, sharing in Spike’s rage, sorrow, and grief.
“Why... does... this... happen?” Spike asked between sobs.
“I don’t know, Spike,” Twilight replied as she rubbed Spike’s back, trying to bring comfort to her dearest, closest friend. He had been with her since the very beginning—he had been her friend, her playmate, her study-buddy, without Spike, she wouldn’t have become the princess that she was today, of that there could be no doubt. As Twilight continued to stare at the basket, she felt her heart breaking.
The library room was silent, save for the sounds of Spike’s sorrowful sobbing and the ticking of a clock sitting upon a shelf. Twilight, not knowing what to say, held Spike in silence, wondering what this must be like for him. After giving it a little thought, she realised that it must be unbearable. It was more than what had just happened, it was also a statement about dragons in Equestria, their place in society, and Twilight could not even begin to imagine how this might be hurting Spike, these awful, awful realisations. She felt a growing lump in her throat and a heaviness in her heart as she thought about Spike’s place in Equestrian society as a whole.
Lowering her head, Twilight Sparkle kissed Spike on top of his head, and she felt his sobbing ease. He clung to her, she could feel the faint tickly scratching of his claws against her pelt, and with Spike’s heavy breathing came the scent of wood smoke and sulfur, a scent that she treasured. A long time ago, the smell had bothered her—it had made her want to sneeze, in fact, but she had long since grown used to it. Now, it was like the scent of her mother’s perfume, the sound of her father’s voice, the way her brother hugged her, or the smell of strong tea steeping—it was a source of comfort that she needed in her life. Her foreleg rose and fell as she continued to stroke Spike in an attempt to comfort him.
“How do we make this right?” Spike asked in a voice that cracked and squeaked with emotion, his sulfurous breath hot against Twilight’s neck. “What do we do? What do we do?”
We. Twilight pondered the word. Spike was trusting her to fix this somehow, to make it right, he was trusting her to make some sense of this and help him understand it. She sighed, not understanding this herself. She turned her attention to the basket and what was inside of it.
A dragon egg.
A pygmy dragon egg to be exact.
Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and sighed. Ponies could be cruel. There were bad ponies. Very bad ponies. There were also good ponies. The egg being here in her castle was the end result of some very good ponies encountering some very bad ponies.
The bad ponies, from what little Twilight Sparkle knew, had plundered a pygmy dragon nest, hoping to find an easy fortune in gems and other trinkets that the dragons had hoarded. The bad ponies had pumped poison gas into the dragon nest, a type of necrotoxin known to affect dragons and cause cell death. The end result had been tragic. The dragons and their hatchlings had all died.
The good ponies had arrived to find the bad ponies plundering the nest after the poison had dissipated. Tarnished Teapot and Maud Pie, who had been in the area on an expedition, had done their job as rangers. The bad ponies had been subdued, the authorities had been summoned, and when everything was said and done, there had been a sole survivor, a late bloomer, an egg that had not hatched yet.
The egg that sat in the basket just a few feet away.
“Would you like a sibling?” Twilight Sparkle asked in a low voice. “A companion? A playmate? Would you be happy if I kept the egg?” Twilight Sparkle felt Spike go still, his claws still clutching at her. She could hear his measured breathing and she knew that he was thinking. Spike tended to freeze up completely when engaged in heavy thought, an odd quirk of his draconic physiology.
The clocked ticked the seconds away, seconds became minutes, and Spike made no reply. Twilight waited, her eyes on the basket, and she continued to hold Spike close as he processed whatever deep thoughts he was having.
“Did I make you happy?” Spike asked, breaking his silence. “I mean, as a hatchling… were you happy having me around?”
“Why, Spike, of course you made me happy,” Twilight replied without hesitation.
“Those were happy times for me.” Spike heaved a sigh and smoke curled out of his nostrils. He wrapped his arms around the foreleg that Twilight had braced herself upright with and rubbed his snout against her velvety purple pelt.
Twilight wondered what Spike was getting at. She looked down at the dragon clinging to her foreleg and wondered if perhaps Spike had grown a little bit. He was still so young. She could see that his eyes were closed and she watched the rise and fall of his chest.
“As much as I want to keep the egg, Twilight, I want others to be happy,” Spike opened his eyes and looked up at Twilight, who was looking down at him, “I want whoever is in the egg to be happy like I was happy. I was thinking Twi…”
“Yes, Spike?” Twilight’s ears made an attentive twitch and perked forwards.
“You did a pretty good job of raising me”—Spike paused, blinked, and he squeezed Twilight’s foreleg even tighter—“I mean, I know you had some help and all, but it turned out okay. You learned responsibility and you cared for me and everything worked out okay.”
“Spike, what are you saying, exactly?” Twilight’s brows furrowed and she gave Spike a gentle squeeze.
“I’m saying that things could work out if this tradition was continued,” Spike replied as his gaze fell, his eyes now focused on the basket instead of Twilight. The dragon lapsed into silence and listened to the sound of the ticking clock. His eyes closed and memories began flooding into his mind.
Twilight Sparkle as the purple tickle monster. Twilight nursing him through those rough times when he molted and shed his scales during a growth spurt. Twilight giving him a bath and scrubbing him. Twilight waxing his scales when he was too small and too clumsy to do it himself, polishing them to a mirror finish.
Raising him, Twilight had known responsibility. She had taken her duties seriously. Spike felt a wave of gratitude crash over him like an ocean wave smashing into the rocky shore. Tears trickled down his cheeks and he rested his head against Twilight. He thought about the other dragons he had met—those dragons had been jerks. Colossal jerks. Spike was not like other dragons, and it was all because of Twilight Sparkle. She had raised him to aspire for more than just being a greedy jerk. Spike had hopes, dreams, he had ideas, thoughts, everything he was, it was because of Twilight.
Watching Twilight grow up had inspired Spike and had influenced how he wanted to grow up. Twilight had started off as his playmate, slowly changing into his caretaker, his friend, his confidant, and then into something else. As he clung to her foreleg, he thought about what Twilight meant to him. He wondered what he meant to her. Their relationship was a strange one, defying conventions. What business did a unicorn filly have in raising a dragon?
Spike didn’t know, but he was grateful that she had. Opening his eyes, he glanced at the basket. Whoever was in that egg deserved the same sort of happiness that he himself had found. A best friend. A caretaker. Some special pony that would do the right thing. Some special pony that had the right stuff. Maybe a future princess. Or maybe just a good pony, period. A pony with potential that would be found and seen in much the same way that Twilight’s potential had emerged as she had cared for him. Spike drew in a deep breath and let it out in a slow, thoughtful exhale.
Something good had to come out of this tragedy. Reaching up with his claws, Spike wiped his eyes and his tail curled around Twilight’s foreleg.
Realising that some time had passed, Twilight asked, “Spike, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that this egg could bring out somepony’s potential,” Spike replied as he sniffled, “just like I did for you.” Spike paused, cleared his throat, and looked up at Twilight. “You were the best thing that could have ever happened to me. All I am and all I ever will be is because of you.”
“Oh, Spike,” Twilight gasped as she squeezed him. “I owe everything I have to you. I couldn’t have done this without you. You made everything possible.” Twilight fell silent and when she spoke again, her voice was low and husky. “I love you, you know… I don’t think I say it enough, but I do.”
“I know,” Spike replied as he felt something hot splash against his face, something that fell from up above him. “I, uh, love you too…”
Twilight Sparkle felt her insides melting. She gave Spike another squeeze as she lowered her head down closer to his ear frills, her eyes on the basket. “So, you think the egg should go to some foal that shows promise? Do you think raising a dragon will motivate them into self improvement?”
Spike nodded, his head bobbing up and down, his eyes locked upon the basket. “I can only see good things coming from it. The world doesn’t need more jerk dragons or jerk ponies. We have a chance to make things better. If a dragon and a pony grow up together, they realise that they have a lot in common and that they don’t have to be jerks to one another.”
“Hmm,” Twilight hummed, thinking about dragon and pony relations.
“I want to give Tarnish and Maud a hug the next time I see them,” Spike said in a voice raspy with emotion.
“Oh, I think they’d like that.” Twilight looked away from the basket, glanced at the clock upon the shelf, and then looked down at Spike. “Hey, do you want to go and pig out on ice cream? I think we’d both feel better if we pigged out on ice cream.”
Spike nodded, swallowed, and glanced at the basket. “We should take the egg with us. We don’t want it to feel lonesome… it lost all of its siblings…” Spike shuddered and a wisp of smoke trickled out of his nostrils. “Do you think this will make things better, Twilight?”
Hearing Spike’s words, Twilight considered her own reply, wanting to give an honest answer. “I think so, Spike. Friendship needs understanding… common ground.” Twilight thought about her foalhood for a moment before she continued, “Shining Armor, my big brother, was my first friend… I didn’t know it at the time, but you were my second. You tried my patience. You made me cry. You ate my homework. You set my mane on fire… and I treasure every moment. Even when you ate my homework and Princess Celestia didn’t believe me when I told her that my dragon ate my assignment and I got detention.”
Unable to help himself, Spike giggled, even as tears continued to trickle down his cheeks. He felt another hot droplet strike him on the face, and he knew that Twilight was crying. In that moment, Spike felt a surge of hope as he looked at the egg, the hope shoving away his despair and his sorrow. One day, a dragon and a pony might know the sort of special friendship that he and Twilight had.
“I think I need some ice cream,” Spike said to Twilight.
“Me too… let’s go.” Twilight folded her wings against her sides. “Spike, grab the egg.”
“Hey, Twilight,” Spike said as he disentangled himself from Twilight and stood up.
“Yeah?” Twilight too, stood up and stretched out her hind legs.
“Do you have somepony in mind?” Spike asked.
Twilight, thoughtful, made her reply. “Not yet, Spike… I’ll need to give this a lot of thought… this is a big decision that affects two lives… but when I do decide, you’ll be the first to know, okay?”
“Okay, Twilight.” Spike waddled over to the basket, his tail swishing as he walked, he grabbed the basket by its handle, and picked it up. He could feel heat coming off of the egg. He hefted the basket up, wrapped his arms around it, and gave it a hug.
“You’re going to have a wonderful life,” Spike whispered to the egg, “I promise…”
See you in the next story... Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals.
Leave a comment, if you don't mind. 
If it isn't too much trouble, that is.
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I really shouldn't have read this while at work. It is very hard to hide tears in the confines of the break room.
Bravo - I eagerly await the sequel!
Nice work n.n im sure the little guy will get a great home and a friend once he or she hatches. There for awhile I thought spike was going to ask to take care of it. Can't wait for the next one.
Great little story with some wonderful introspection. Looking forward to Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals and seeing who gets the egg, what they name the hatchling, and how it effects their lives.
Beautiful and well written. Thank you for sharing!
Interesting, I eagerly await the next story.
Waiting for the next story with eagerness.
img12.deviantart.net/4f95/i/2015/095/8/4/raritys_egg_colored_by_hillbe-d8oj3qg.jpg
6926032
What is... I... why?
6926117
My bad!
orig06.deviantart.net/b986/f/2015/343/b/3/raritys_wet_willy_2_by_hillbe-d9jl56m.jpg
It's sweet to see Spike and Twilight look back at their relationship with such fondness that they'd want someone else to have the same one.
I am wondering why it seems, at the beginning, that the existence of the egg seems like an existential crisis for Spike... maybe he never had to confront the idea that, at some point, his egg found it's way into pony hands and its destiny was up in the air?
6926317
For Spike, it really is an existential crisis.
The universe is a cold, indifferent void that cares nothing for his well being and safety. Twilight raised him, nurtured him, and looked after him. Twilight cared when the universe didn't.
Now, he is faced with a situation similar enough to his own that it really strikes close to home. There is a dragon egg. What should be done with it? Return it to other dragons to raise it? Keep it in an incubator, hatch it, and set it free in the wild? Or does Spike reject his own dragon heritage completely and subject another dragon to raised under the influence of pony culture? How will other dragons feel about that?
At some point, Gorgonzola from The Weed will show up in the next story. I'm thinking that her and Spike need to have a talk.
I think Sunset Shimmer is the reason why Celestia let Twilight raise a dragon as an eleven-year-old in the first place, and Spike has a pretty good understanding of why. Taking care of an infant, having another sapient life utterly dependent on you, forces you to experience empathy and compassion in a way nothing else does. After Celestia lost her last student due to Sunset's inability to empathize with those she saw as "lesser" than her, the princess wanted to stack the deck for her next student, and do whatever it took to make sure Twilight grew up able to care and empathize with others.
6926396
Eleven? Where does it ever say that Twilight was eleven?
(I agree with everything else though.)
This is an extremely rare story!
6926481
Rare? How so? I would think that Spike and Twilight fics were common as dirt.
6926485 No, my good friend, it's rare in the sense that it's a story of yours that has that nice, shiny, green 'Completed' tag on it!
6926493
Surprisingly, I do have a lot of those.
6926495 Heh, looking at the list, true enough, I suppose. Or maybe it's just your multi-chapter stories that I end up following that are cursed to remain languishing uncompleted. Alas!
6926411 That's just a guess based on Twilight's appearance at the time, and the fact that Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns comes off in many ways like an expy of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Also I suppose because that's when she got her cutie marks, and they are an elaborate puberty metaphor.
6926661
See, I've heard lots of other people say five years old, because she was the same size as Sweetie Belle in that episode when they showed Sweetie Belle at the age of five. Twilight was a lot smaller than Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle are now.
I think the point is, it is supposed to be ambiguous. The argument could be made for any age. The foals in the magical kindergarten that we see in Lesson Zero are all tiny Twily size.
This is a typical Kudz story.
Question, so I don't rush through the prequel...
Is the Tragedy this oneshot references covered in the prequel?
6926786
No. This is more of a transition story that exists between the previous story and the coming story.
6926788 Danke. That means I can wait a bit to read it... probably gonna do it in a few hours.
6926671 She was a lot bigger than 5 year old Sweetie Bell, the same size as the CMC now. And we saw her in grade school as a blank flank with her friends in Amending Fences.
Honestly, it's hard to imagine the Celestia's school as a grade school with the entrance requirements. Most "gifted" schools that you test into are high schools, or middle /high schools.
I enjoyed TLatHH, but this interlude has me very eager for PTSSfFF.
6926920
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/d/db/830px-Twilight_Sparkle_flashback_nervous_entrance_exam_S1E23.png/revision/latest?cb=20111117053343&path-prefix=es
And here she is. Teeny tiny Twily.
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140324161037/mlp/images/1/1f/Sweetie_Belle_%22finally_I_was_perfect%22_S4E19.png
Of course just about any story in the Weed or Chase-verse makes the feature box.
Congrats, Kudz.
it's good to see another story from you kudz, even if I'm too lazy to read what story came before this one
6927017 Yeah, Twilight Sparkle filly looks to me to be the same size as the ghostly Sweetie Bell standing next to Luna. Her legs and facial structure seem closer as well.
These gals here look a lot younger than filly Twilight:
4.bp.blogspot.com/-0a-pd4-a7Fw/VZnHLwJh_7I/AAAAAAAADYg/hdYSxONuZFg/s1600/mlps5e12sciencelab.jpg
On one hand this is excellently written, on the other I think it's just plain too weird. Spike giving away someone else's child is too bizarre, he's still a kid himself. That egg could've had extended family nearby. How would this help Pony, Dragon relationships I'm pretty sure if they told any dragon about this they would take issue. Hypothetically if the roles where reversed and dragons where killing ponies and then raising their young, almost no-one would think that's a good idea. Also, the authorities where called and did nothing about the orphaned dragon egg? Then what's the point of them even being called if they didn't care about the well-being of dragons? Or did they just hand it over to Spike because he's a dragon?
6927649
The egg was brought to Twilight, as she is both one of the authorities and Equestria's leading expert on the care of dragons.
I understand that it is an odd situation, which is why I wrote it. I wanted to delve as far away from human norms as possible. I tried to think about what their society would do based upon societal views expressed in the show, IE, dragon eggs being made available to students as an entrance exam. Which, under scrutiny and thought, reveals that there are some problems present.
Very nice. I didn't read the first story but I thought it was cool anyways.
6927321
Actually, Twilight is much smaller. Somebody did the pixel count. Tiny Twily and five year old Sweetie are about the same relative pixel hight... older Sweetie beside Luna is larger by a good bit.
Also, it should be noted that the show is highly inconsistent.
This is the kind of heartwarming shit that I follow MLP for. :p
Thank you for a job well done.
6927875 To me she looks the same size, but there is no way we are going to be able to prove something like this in a cartoon, so I feel like we will have to agree to disagree.
My only issue with Spike and Twilight's decision is if they do give the egg away to a child. I hope they are able to take care of the hatchling. Sure Twilight could do it but she wasn't a normal filly in the first place. What if the pony they choose is a nice pony but a terrible care giver. Would they just take the hatchling back? Could they live with the consequences? I don't think the next story will go this way but it is something to think about.
6928367
Pixel counts can prove quite a bit. It's how we know the relative size of ponies, based upon the pixel count of the eight foot tall candy cane in Canterlot.
derpicdn.net/img/2012/8/28/84693/large.jpg
And a bunch of fans have already done the work, Tiny Twily is about the same pixel height as Sweetie Belle at the age of five. So yes, things can be established and given a credible amount of proof.
pre09.deviantart.net/79f3/th/pre/f/2012/179/d/0/my_little_pony___how_____little______by_eagle1division-d556k0u.png
6928394 Yeah, but only if the show keeps things consistent. For example, I judge the size of ponies off of Angel, since we've seen him in both Equestria and EqG world, so we know how big Fluttershy is compared to EqG Fluttershy.
I'm not sure how the pixel count of filly Twilight can really be compared, since she is not in the same scene, so we don't know how close she is to the POV. She could be small or far away then. I suppose you could take a look at her next to Celestia and compare it to the CMC next to Celestia, but the actual pixel count doesn't seem like it would solve this issue.
6928417
She is absolutely tiny compared to Celestia, which is one of the units of measurement in the comparison.
6928423 Well shoot, if you have the pixel count of Filly Twilight and Celestia, please share it.
6928431
I can't find it. I know somebody did it, but I can't find the images and I don't have the time to keep looking.
6928446 Eh, thanks for telling me about it anyway, I'll keep an eye out for it.
6928641
Fluttershy is probably the oldest, based on size measurements, and the fact that she uses a totally unique body form in that episode. She's almost stock mare sized, but not quite, which might be the closest thing we have to a teenager.
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/d/db/Filly_Fluttershy_singing_with_woodland_creatures_S1E23.png/revision/20111114204658
derpicdn.net/img/2015/12/7/1039275/full.jpeg
Long legs are long.
images5.fanpop.com/image/articles/130000/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic_130699_5.jpg?cache=1319322402
Applejack, who is just a teeny tiny bit smaller than Apple Bloom... it's the legs, they're stumpy.
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/7/7c/Apple_Bloom_with_Apple_Bloom_cutie_mark_S5E4.png/revision/latest?cb=20150420201113
derpicdn.net/img/2013/7/7/366604/full.png
A much smaller Rainbow Dash with a gangly long legged Flutterbutt.
The writing here really has a rough-draft feel. It's awkward and halting far too frequently.
For instance:
Too many commas breaking up what should be a smooth singular action when written, which is something, you know, that causes, if you see what I mean, readers to, you understand, get a really jerky sensation from the writing.
Much cleaner: Spike ran to Twilight without hesitation and plowed into her, beginning to cry as he wrapped his forlegs (could use 'arms' for Spike) around her.
You might also want to add some emotive adjectives to better illustrate the mood of the scene.
Spike ran to Twilight without hesitation and plowed into her with tears running in rivulets down his scaly snout, sobbing balefully as he wrapped his forlegs around her.
6928851
Will keep this in mind for future work.
6927865
It's very hard to see Twilight as the authority on dragons here, all she does is comment on the sub-type it is. And in a world where some ponies have managed to engineer or harvest a neurotoxin explicitly to kill dragons that doesn't seem impressive at all.She also doesn't offer any plans to do with the dragon besides raising it herself only due to consideration of Spike. It would be nice if we saw more of her experience here, something that would make her the clear choice to leave this egg to.
Spike's the one we see seriously contemplating what do with it, and a child deciding another child's entire future based entirely on just his experiences seems wrong. If I combined what I know from the show to this stories universe, it turns pretty disturbing.
6930504
This is also a world where one can buy an alicorn amulet from a junk dealer or go to their public library and check out a book with an obedience spell that gives you total control over another creature's body. (Discord ate the letters of the spell.) Alchemical concoctions are made with no regulation and foals have access to things that children definitely should not have access to.
This is a world with a very disturbing question of why Princess Celestia had a dragon egg handy for her students to experiment with that raises some very dark questions about the rights of dragons in Equestrian society... or the fact that Spike, when he was sick, was taken to a veterinarian as though he was a sick pet. This is a world full of fridge horror.
There is meant to be a creepy vibe here, that was intentional. Questions should be asked. If Spike was raised as a dragon, would he willingly allow a fellow dragon to be raised by ponies, or would he insist that the dragon stay with dragons? Is the choice he made because of his upbringing? Does he have Stockholm Syndrome? Is he selling out his own species? Is he doing what he's doing because of his servile nature as an assistant? Does he actually believe he is making the world a better place? Can Spike's choices or views even be considered dragon-centric or are they pony-centric? Can Spike, a dragon raised by ponies, truly know what is good for dragons? Is he acting as an unwitting imperial agent enforcing the rule of equines upon others 'for their own good?'
There are a million questions that should be asked about Spike and Twilight's relationship, starting from the point where Celestia conveniently has a dragon egg around for testing students.
6931440
Wow, you're like a mad genius that managed to hide all this right under everyone's nose. At first glance it seemed like just another cheerful family oriented story between Spike and Twilight. Then when you start asking questions it turns bleak. I have to applaud you managing to do that but at the same time I wish for another story that would actually delve into those topics.
6931916
Sumac Apple... in the next story. Asking the questions that nobody wishes to hear. He of the Horrendous Hypothesis.