Spike's Mirror

by Saldana

Chapter 1

The night, the moon and a bit of solitude; that was all one little dragon needed for a perfect evening. Lost in thought, staring out of a window at the Ponyville library into the night sky, he dreamt of love and unicorns. Or more accurately, of one unicorn in particular. Our little dragon had fallen madly in love with Rarity, the town's couturière / fashion expert / model. He had tried time and time again to get closer to her, to get himself noticed by her, hoping for a remark or a kind word, and, why not, sweet foolishness, a sign of something more intimate than just the simple friendship they shared. And this evening, after dozens of fruitless ploys and schemes, Spike simply couldn't think of anything else to get closer to Rarity.

Not that he hadn't tried everything: poems, flowers, drawings, cakes. Whenever he could, he went over to lend her a helping claw. He never ran out of compliments for her newest creations, he always found an excuse to drop by Rarity's boutique and share a chat or drop off a parcel — sometimes multiple times a day. Whenever she was around, he would watch his language. He had tried a number of come-on techniques he had read about in some library books, had sometimes worn ridiculous clothes just to appear en vogue.

Simply put, Spike was positive that he had tried everything imaginable -- but all those little signs of affection should have put him on her map by now, shouldn't they?

He lost his sleep agonising over this, which led to him staying up very late in the evening; he pretended to go to bed at the same time that Twilight did, then got up without a sound to watch the stars and the moon. How, for the sake of all dragonkind, could he succeed at seducing Rarity? Why didn't she notice him? Was he that pathetic? All these questions swirled around in his head more and more often, growing more pressing after every new setback in his quest for Rarity's heart.

"Maybe", he murmured, "I should just give up and try to forget her. If we're still just friends, even after all this time — there's no reason that's gonna change one day. How could a unicorn so beautiful and talented fall for a poor little dragon like me?"

That night, Spike slept very poorly. His dreams all revolved around the object of his desires, but he never actually managed to reach it. Consequently, he awoke very early, with a slight headache and a case of the blues severe enough to depress even Pinkie Pie. However, he didn't actually feel tired; he soon got used to small bursts of agitated sleep during shorter and shorter nights. Occasionally, he would just rest under the blanket without thinking or doing anything, simply waiting for the time to pass. His prized moments of rest and peace grew rarer and rarer. It was then only grudgingly that Spike got out of his basket to prepare some breakfast.

Twilight awoke from the smell of fresh toast. She'd gone to bed very late the night before, reading a riveting textbook on magic. As she lightly trotted over to the kitchen niche, she saw her assistant, a chef's hat atop his spike rim, just finishing up a tray.

"Hey, Spike!"
- "Hey Twilight. Up already? I was just making you some bedside breakfast..."
- "I can see that", she said, admiring her assistant's work. "So what did I do to deserve all this special attention?"
- "Umm, well... nothing special, really, I just wanted to ... well ..." said Spike and lightly scratched the backside of his head.
- "Oh Spike, that's so nice of you!" said Twilight and sat down at the table.
- "I don't know how you do it, Spike, but your cooking skills really get better and better every day. You gotta practise a lot, don't you?"
- "Umm, not really, that stuff just comes naturally after a while", Spike said, blushing slightly.

What he didn't mention was that he had indeed spent a lot of time practising cooking in secret, but with the one goal of impressing Rarity with his culinary creations; he wanted them to be as sophisticated as possible to be worthy of the couturière's own chic and glamour. But then again, his cooking skills so far hadn't had the desired effect on her.

"So what's the plan for today, Twilight?"
- "We still have to go over teleportation charms, I'll need your help for that. Oh, and I also have to drop by Rarity's place to get the seams reinforced on one of my dresses. Aaand I need to read two or three tomes on magic variations. How about you?"
- "Oh, not much, really, just a bit of shopping to do in town, and some tidying up here at the library... d'you want me to take care of your dress while I'm on my way?"
- "Oh Spike, you'd never miss a chance to visit Rarity, admit it already", Twilight chuckled.
- "It's just to... uh... do you a favour, that's it, to do you a favour and let you stay here and study without interruption", stammered Spike, blushing again.
Twilight responded by raising one of her eyebrows as high as it would go. She obviously wasn't buying it in the slightest; after all, Spike had proclaimed his crush on Rarity the instant the two had met. And what was more, it wasn't particularly hard to notice Spike's infatuation if you knew which signs to look for — or when you lived and worked with him. In addition, she was always at the forefront when it came to aiding the dragon in one of his numerous seduction schemes.

After breakfast, they both went to go about their respective tasks. Spike didn't make it to the couturière until early in the afternoon.

"Hi, Rarity", he said and opened the store door, which set off a small bell jingling wildly.

"Just a second, I will be right with you", answered a voice from the store's back.

Spike used the waiting time to look around him. He'd been to the boutique so often that he immediately noticed every little change. Here a ribbon that had been moved; there a role of misplaced fabric. He couldn't help but smile when he noticed that: keeping things tidy and in order was already very difficult for Twilight, but for every other pony, things like that could quickly become an absolute nightmare. Especially if you had an enthusiastic little filly for a sister that was hellbent on helping you, even though you had important orders to fulfil.

- "Here I am, I'm all yours", said Rarity and emerged from the back room. "Oh, it's you, Spike! Are you coming to visit me again?"
- "Uhh, yeah, I just had this robe to bring you from Twilight. It needs a bit of restitching", said Spike and blushed lightly.
- "Hah, let me have a look."

Rarity spread the robe on her worktable and got to work. Spike watched her wide-eyed; he had trouble staying unaffected so close to her. To avoid coming off as all too weird, he started to pace up and down the boutique floor.

- "Spike, darling, could you please stop making the rounds like that? You’re giving me a headache!"
- "Oh, umm, sorry. It's just that I don't like watching you do all the work while I can’t help."
- "If it's just that, hold this for a minute while I try and save Twilight's poor dress..."
- "... it's that bad?"
- "I have no idea how she does it, but she managed to ruin this beautiful piece..."
- "But not as beautiful as yours are, right?"
- "Are you trying to make me blush?"
- "Oh, no, not at all..."

Normally, Spike always managed to come up with something to change tracks and gently steer the conversation towards a different subject, preferably one that would engage Rarity. But now, nothing, null, nada came to mind. So he contented himself with watching the unicorn work, his heart beating furiously in his chest.

- "Say... can I help you with something? Anything?"
- "O shank u, its ow shide."
- "Pardon?"
Rarity dropped the piece of fabric she had held in her mouth.
- "I was saying: No, thank you, it's alright."
- "Ahh, okay."
- "You know, Spike, I'll have to invest quite a bit of work in this robe here. That's going to take me some time. Why don't you go do something else to pass it, instead of boring yourself here?"
- "But I never get bored with you around, you know."
Immediately, Spike bit down on his lower lip as he realised the blunder. Luckily, he was spared from having to come up with an explanation, since Rarity was bursting with laughter.
- "Oh come on, Spike, stop saying that just to be nice! You're going to making me blush again. Come on now, hush hush, you can come back to pick up the dress in the evening, right?"
- "Yes, but ..."
- "Tutututu, no 'buts', save yourself quick", she said and pushed Spike towards the exit, hoof against snout.

Spike desperately searched for a good reason to stay, but couldn't think of one. And so, head hanging, he resignedly headed back towards the library, to see if he couldn't find anything else to do.

"... need ... talk ... Spike."

He pricked his ears. What kind of conversation would mention his name? He noticed that one of the boutique's windows stood ajar, and carefully approached.

"But Twilight, why did you want to talk to me about Spike?"

To be continued...

Thank you to Schmarshall for his translation
This is a translation from the French original “Le miroir de Spike” by Saldana. If you know French, check it out!

Comments

[NotHereAnymoreProbably]

I want more!
It looks really good.

Uh... question - why are there hyphens at the start of nearly every sentence somepony talks in?

[Shining Prince Percival]

Good story!

[Ospero]

127848 I've seen this one on fanfiction.net, and I think it's a translation from French. Perhaps that might be the reason for the hyphens.

[PinkiePiee]

I like it so far!

[Sparkle]

127999 You're right. Dialogues are written like this in French and I simply kept the hyphens when I translated this, but that probably wasn't a smart choice. I'll fix it for future chapters (Update: will be fixed very soon.)

[Glassed]

Nice read. Tracking
-Glassed