Twilight looked down at her happily yipping assistant and sighed, "We really need to get you a proper body."
Spike yipped again and then went back to eating his kibble. She would need some gem stones and a power point to perform a transformation ritual, but the nearest power point is miles outside of Canterlot. But maybe all the magical flux in and around that school indicates an alternate energy source.
"Right," Twilight says, "Spike, let's go."
The gems were the easy part, a quick suggestion spell and the jeweler thought she had already paid for the large sapphire, ruby, and emerald now residing in her coat pockets; the school, not quite so easy. They arrived while class was still in session to avoid being spotted while they did a walk about the school area. Twilight noticed the peculiarities right away. The front of the school had recently been rebuilt, and the magical energies surrounding the entire black were chaotic. As she had expected, an AU m-energy bubble. There must be a portal nearby, but the spell used to locate such things is better done in the dark.
A bell rings inside the school and Twilight slides into her car, she would come back early in the AM to cast the spells.
Twilight starts awake to the sound of her blaring alarm and flashing LED display that reads three AM. She groggily smacks at the plastic device until it quiets. "Five more minutes," She mumbles, but Spike is having none of it and begins climbing all over his older sister, yipping and nipping at her hair and ears. "Ok, ok, I'm up!" Twilight shouts as she attempts to bat the "ferocious" puppy off her head.
Spike says something in dog, but Twilight doesn't speak dog, and besides, he's probably just scolding her for staying up too late again. Twilight begins going through her morning routine: brush teeth, brush hair, change clothes, feel sorry for herself for getting stuck on this assignment, grab her keys, some chalk, a hand full of gems, Spike, and head out to do some magic.
Canterlot is dead that this hour, all sensible people being at home, asleep, and the senseless ones at work or a party. The school and surrounding neighborhood are dark and silent as Twilight and Spike step out of her car. "Ok, let's get this over with. We wont be able to do anything fancy tonight, but maybe we can get you a proper body, at least." Spike yips in agreement, or disagreement, Twilight is to tired to care.
She pulls a small, laminated piece of paper about the size of a playing card out of her jacket pocket and touches a small amethyst stone to the side which contains a detailed diagram of a ritual circle and whispers. "Fall into the void." A tiny light sparks to life between the card and amethyst. It floats like a dust mote in the air and gently wafts toward the school on an unknown breeze.
Pretty much useless in most situations, the light mote will move toward the area with the lowest m-energy and go out. In this particular instance it will float to where the portal is letting the AU m-energy into their universe. Most portals are attached to mirrored surfaces, so Twilight is unsurprised when the mote disappears as it touches the mirrored surface of the statue in the center of the front area. "Well, there's our portal, now let's see if we're compatible." Twilight pulls out the chalk, a glowing diamond, and a small, dull pearl from her coat and kneel on the side of the statue opposite the road, so as not to be seen.
Manually drawing a ritual circle is a pain, but just like every other adept, she know how. Down go the gem stones and out comes the short ritual chant for the spell. The diamond glows brighter for a moment and Twilight begins a second chant. After a moment the pearl shines dully and Twilight stops her chanting. "Well, it's your lucky day mister," She scratches behind Spike's ear, "We're compatible. You know what to do." Spike looks at her with a "the hell am I supposed to do right now, stupid" look and Twilight sighs. "We shouldn't have just picked the first thing we saw, that's was stupid." Spike nods. Twilight whispers a quick spell that erases the chalk and begins redrawing, replacing the pearl with the ruby, sapphire, and emerald.
This second chant is long and complex, weaving the words into a tapestry of light, song, and magic. Spike howls low in his throat, adding to the mix and the gems begin to glow brighter and brighter until they flash like tiny suns and the chant stops. When her eyes clear Twilight sees that the spell has worked and Spike, now with a human body, lays naked on the concrete. "I'll go get the clothes." She says, and walks over to the car.
Spike groans behind her, "Yeah, you do that, I'll just lie here for a moment... I had forgotten how much transformation magic hurts."
Twilight chuckles, "Stop being a baby, it's not that bad." Spike doesn't bother replying as she walks back from the car with some large boots, jeans, a hoodie, and a belt. She unceremoniously drops them on his chest.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it, now get dressed, I want to be out of here before someone comes to check out that flash."
"Too late," Spike says as he ducks behind the statue. The sound of a car pulling to a stop forces Twilight into hiding next to Spike, who is putting on clothes as if his life - or at least indecent exposure charges - is on the line.
"... right here." a girl says as a car door opens.
"Think Twilight is back?" A girl with a southern accent asks.
"Maybe, but I don't think so, she just left." The first girl says. A couple more cars pull up.
"Did you really have to wake me up for this?" Says a tired girl, "I have track in the morning."
"Stop whinin' Dash," Says the country girl, "I'd rather bu up at four AM every morning for a week than have another one of Equestria's nut cases sneakin' up on me... 'cept for you, Sunset, you can sneak up on me anytime."
"That joke was terrible and you should feel terrible for making it." The tired on - Dash - says.
"Hey guys, I brought snacks!" A new girl says.
"Thanks Pinkie." four or five girls chorus.
Spike, now fully dressed, peeks out from behind the statue for a second and whispers, "There are six of them, all magically enabled, but using some foreign energy. One seems powerful, but I think I can take her."
"No need," Says Twilight, "One seems to know me, I'll talk to them."
Spike shrugs, "Your funeral if they're hostile."
"Stop being dramatic," She whispers back, then, "Hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle." Twilight steps out to face the six girls, one of whom she recognizes, "Hey Pinkie." She waves.
"Hey Twilight!" Pinkie waves enthusiastically over the top of an old sedan with Cakes Bakery stenciled on the side, "Why are you back so soon?"
"Back? Pinkie, I saw you this morning."
"Oooh~, you're that Twilight."
Then it dawns on her, "There's been another Twilight running around, hasn't there?"
"Yep!" Pinkie says.
"Ah, that makes sense."
"Oh. My. Glob." Says Spike from behind Twilight, "She's so beautiful!"
"Spike." Twilight says, exasperated, but it's too late, he's already moving at the speed of love struck idiot towared the flame haired one, hitting her with a body slam / hug / pheromone haze / magical alcohol. On Spike's planet, it's called a mating ritual, on Twilights it's called the dance of sex and death. Doubly so for a guy who get's a "crush" on anything with compatible parts.
The flame haired one doesn't even know what hit her before she's wrapped up in arms and yards of too big sweater and dazed by the ambient magic, "Can I keep her?" Spike asks excitedly, "I promise to feed her and walk her and cuddle her every day!"
"No, Spike," Twilight says sternly, "We aren't on Dragonia anymore, you can't just pick up the first creature you see and claim her as your own."
"But Twilight!" While most of the girls stand in stunned silence, the one with the blonde hair wearing a had raises an eyebrow. "Well, she'd some form of Twilight, that's for sure, only she can inspire such insanity in my life."
"Hey!"
"Ok, Twilight and you, Pinkie."
"Yes, well, it seems we have a lot to talk about," Twilight says, "Shall we find a 24 hour cafe in which to do so?"
"That's about what I'm thinking," Says the rainbow haired one, "I need at least 2 espressos before anything else happens."
"Mmf!" The six of them look at Spike, who appears to be gently snuggling the flame haired one to death.
"Dammit Spike!"
It was a cold, windows autumn day when Spike first felt the heat growing in his stomach. 'A letter?' He thought, but no, that felt different, 'Gas?' Not quite.
"I think I might be sick!" He shouted, startling his roommate out of her musings and rushing to the bathroom, where he promptly caught on fire.
Twilight Sparkle, being a rational, level headed pony, was of course panicking, and trying to put him out by dumping copious amounts of water on him. It wasn't helping. However, after a few moments, the pair realized that Spike wasn't in pain, nor was their treehouse catching on fire. Spike was just... engulfed in green flames for some reason. This was quite odd.
"This is quite odd." said Twilight, the copycat. "I'll look through the library, you send a letter to Princess Celestia, and I'll get Pinkie to round up the girls, just in case. At this point, Twilight's backup plans had backup plans, so she settled in for the first thing the did every time there was a disaster, she took every book off the shelves and scanned each and every one of them for the relevant data, while firing a small purple flair through a small hole drilled into the ceiling just for that purpose.
It took 25 minutes for all the girls to arrive. When Applejack opened the library door she was greeted with a scene which, while she had never seen before, did not surprise her. Spike was sitting on a chair in the middle of the library, cheerily burning. Pinkie was pretending to roast marshmallows on him, though they appeared not to be seared by the blaze. Rarity and Fluttershy sat on a nearby sofa, looking concerned, Twilight was reading a book, and Rainbow Dash was making a joke about Spike thinking he's "Such hot shit." Applejack closed the door behind her and went to join Rarity and Fluttershy on the sofa.
"So," She began, "What're we dealing with?"
"Spike is on fire." Fluttershy supplied the obvious.
"Twilight has no idea why." Rarity added.
"And Princess Celestia hasn't responded." Finished Spike, deciding that he wanted to get out of his chair and see what would happen if he rolled on the floor to try and put the fire out.
Fortunately for the pacing of this story, that's when Celestia decided to get off her royal ass and send a reply. It read simply, "All is well, do not be worried, expect a visitor soon."
"Well, that's not very helpful." Applejack said.
Over the next three days Spikes flames go brighter and brighter, to the point where nopony could look at him without squinting. So bright, in fact, that Twilight had to move his basket downstairs to the basement, as the light he gave off was keeping everyone awake. He didn't like this, but didn't really see any other way, though he was positive he could think of one.
On the third day, right around the time Twilight was getting a serious migraine from having a miniature sun as an assistant, Spike flashed incredibly brightly, nearly blinding Twilight, and the fire vanished. The spots cleared from her eyes to reveal Spike, on his step ladder, a book half put away, just sort of standing there, looking around, wondering what happened.
"Was that it?" He asked, a bit incredulously.
"I... Guess?" Twilight responded, "This is really weird."
"You're telling me."
A month passes,, the Running of the Leaves comes and goes, and winter fast approaches. Out come the hats, the jackets, the boots, out comes the snow. The first snow is quite beautiful, the weather is just below freezing so it falls in heavy clumps, covering the ground in a thick, white blanket. Twilight and Spike enjoy the first mug of cocoa of the season while they watch the snow fall, and in the distance they hear a sound.
Not a party. Not some strange contraption. Not a changling hoard, or a pissed off chaos spirit. A kind of keening. Sort of a warbling wail. Kind of a husky growl added in for good measure. Twilight and Spike looked at each other, and I know that you know what they were thinking.
"What the fuck was that kind of keening, sort of a warbling wail, kind of a husky growl added in for good measure?"
Well, it's a dragon, but don't tell them that, it's a surprise.
Being the ever curious bookworm and the just as curious baby dragon, they went outside to see if they could figure out where the sound was coming from. Unfortunately, what with all the nearby mountain, the echos were making it difficult to figure out where the noise originated, thought Spike gave it his all and pointed up. "Fifty bits it's coming from that thing."
Twilight looked up at what appeared to be a blue hawk flying a ways above the treehouse. The two of them went back inside to use Twilight's telescope, and, what they found, which was very surprising, so surprising in fact, that Twilight gasped, was that the creature was quite a ways further up and also a dragon with three tails. Though, this brought up a new question, if this dragon was so high up, how could Twilight and Spike see it, weren't there supposed to be clouds over their treehouse? Yes, yes there was, and looking closely, Twilight could see that there was a hole in the cloud cover, letting the early evening sky peek through.
The hole was small, say slightly larger than a full grown mare, and the convenient placing of this hole made it very hard to see if you weren't right underneath of it and looking straight up. In fact, the hole was so convenient that it gave Spike and Twilight a whole thirty seconds of warning when the dragon pointed its nose down and headed straight for them. Thirty second they wisely used to gawp like tourists.
The dragon was fairly majestic for a three tonne lizard falling from the sky. Twilight would have taken the time to admire the site if she wasn't so busy admiring the sight and not stopping the possibly dangerous dragon from landing right in front of her house with a muffled thump into the quickly gathering snow piles.
The dragon raised its head and looked at the small Spike. "Hello child, it's nice to meet you."
Spike, being a gentle drake by upbringing, responded with, "It's, uh, nice to meet you too, I guess."
The dragon gave what passes for a smile among dragons and might charitably be called an 'evil, sharp toothed grin' by most ponies. "You must have many questions." The dragon rumbled, "And all shall be answered." The dragon gave a mighty yawn, letting the pair see down it's cavernous throat and letting them smell all the things it had eaten in the last week.
'Do I detect an apple crueler with a cinnamon glaze?' Spike thought.
"But the morning will come soon enough, and the flight here was quite long and difficult, so, if you don't mind." The dragon curled it's long, serpentine body around the treehouse and promptly began snoring.
Another purple flare lit the night.
The mane six, and Spike, spent their night in Applejacks barn. Why? Because Fluttershy was afraid of dragons and it was the only place, other than the library, where the seven of them could bed down and talk about whatever the fuck was going on. That and Appejack offered some leftover pie that nopony, or dragon, could refuse.
The girls had quickly decided that the only thing they could do is wait until the dragon woke up and then confront it, ask it what its business was, maybe help it with a friendship problem, and sen it on its merry way. It wasn't going to be that easy, and they all knew it, but they couldn't do anything about it right now, so, sleeping bags in hoof, they settled around a heat lamp int he Apple family barn and got what little sleep they could.
The next day dawned ludicrously bright, the sky having dumped all it's contents on the town the night before, leaving a pristine white sheet on the ground which reflected the bright sun such that there was nowhere you could look that didn't glow with reflected rays.
The six ponies and the dragon walked towards the town library, around which a small gathering of townsfolk were congregating. Some appeared to be frightened, others curious. Two little fillies who probably should have been getting ready to go to school were poking at one of the dragon's three tails.
"Sweetie Belle, don't bother the dragon!" Rarity called to her little sister, before running over and picking both fillies up in her magical grasp.
"Come on!" Sweetie Belle whined, "I was thinking we could get dragon wrangling cutie marks."
"Didn't we already try that?" Scootaloo asked.
"Maybe Spike wasn't big enough to count." Sweetie reasoned.
"Well," Rarity interrupted, "As much as I would love to explain to our parents why you were eaten by a dragon, I don't think it's a good idea to provoke our, um, guest."
"Phooey." Sweetie Belle said, and jumped down from Rarity's grasp as she lowered them to the ground outside the ring of onlookers.
"Go to school, right now, or I will ground you for a week." Rarity attempted to say in a stern tone.
Sweetie made a disgusted noise, "Fine." She and Scootaloo started walking away, planning how they would sneak back as soon as Sweetie's sister was out of sight.
Meanwhile, four ponies and a dragon approached the dragon's general head area. One of them noticed something was missing and looked around. "Fluttershy." Applejack said, "Get over here."
Fluttershy, who was hiding behind a pair of large stallions, shook her head, "Nope nope nope, not again, I refuse."
"Fluttershy~" Applejack whined, "Please?" Applejack made doe eyes at the pegasus mare, attempting to imitate a certain rabbit that always got his way.
"No." Fluttershy said, as firmly as she could, "I am not moving from this spot."
While Applejack tried to convince Fluttershy that it was safe to approach a creature that could kill them all if it sneezed, Twilight was trying to figure out if there was a polite way to wake up a dragon. With Spike she could just toss him on her back and go about her day until he woke up by himself, but she thought that that might be difficult with the creature before her. Not that the dragon was fat or anything, Twilight would never think that. Fortunately for her, the dragon was already awake.
The dragon cracked one of its eyes open a little and whispered in a voice that could probably be heard halfway across town, "Lively bunch, aren't ya?"
Twilight looked around at the crowd. "Dragon's aren't very common around here."
The dragon chucked, "I would think not. But who, may I ask, are you?"
"I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, Element of Harmony and resident librarian. Who might you be?"
"I am Saphire Night, Songstress of the north-western continent, a pleasure."
"Well, uh, I don't mean to be rude, but, what in the absolute fuck are you doing here?"
The dragon laughed at Twilight's obvious lack of calm, "Why, I am here to sing of course."
...
...
"What?"
"Singing, you know, what with the mouth and the breath and the fus, ro, dah?"
"But... Why?"
"Because this little guy," The dragoness patted Spike's head, "Is ready for the next step in his life."
Pinkie looked back and forth between the small purple dragon and the large blue one, "I'm not sure he's big enough."
The dragon blinked in confusion, "Big enough for what?"
Pinkie blushed, "Never mind, I was thinking of something else, obviously."
"Anyway," The dragoness began, "We should begin immediately." She began shifting and moving, causing everypony to back up to avoid her long tail and claws as she stretched like a cat, gouging furrows into the cobblestone street. She held out her claw so that Spike could step onto it, "Come child, a town is no place for singing."
"Wait, woah, nope, don't move. No one moves until I get an explanation!" Twilight shouted. "What do you mean? And what are you going to do to my assistant?"
The dragoness sighed irritably, "Ponies. Right, here's how it works. This little guy," She pointed to Spike, "Is about to reach sexual maturity. Though, with the last migration, you'll have to wait for the next one to start looking for a mate, but that's no matter, no dragon is going to pressure you to start fathering eggs until you are at least 500 years old, but it's always good to start looking young. Wouldn't want some of the older dragons takin' advantage of an uncoupled whelp like you, now would ya? Anyway, obviously he can't participate in the migration in his current form, so when his body is ready for the transformation into his - I hesitate to call it an 'adult' state, since he won't be a full and proper adult for at least two millennia, but his, shall we say - 'adult capable' state he gives off a signal and the nearest singer, that would be me, comes and sings him the song of ages. And, as easy as one, two, three, fighting your inner demons, surviving the inevitable existential crisis, not falling into an eternal slumber, or falling into the greed cycle, or simply dying from the process, he gets some nifty new wings, and gets to join the next migration."
Twilight just stood there, stunned, mouth agape.
Pinkie, surprisingly, was the one blushing the most, though that didn't stop the faces of the rest of the gang from feeling the blood rush to their face.
"Finally!" Spike exclaimed, "I might actually get a little respect around here."
"What was that about dying?" Applejack asked.
"Nothing important." Saphire replied, before scooping up Spike and taking off.
"Hey!" The girls chorused and began running after the dragon.
"Stop!"
"Wait up!"
"Spinach!" Fluttershy looked over at Pinkie, "What, I didn't think I was being random enough."
The dragoness landed on a hill not to far outside of Ponyville and set Spike down next to her. They appeared to be talking, but the six couldn't hear them until they got closer, "...but I'm sure you'll be fine, it's only every happened three or four times in the last eight thousand years, you have nothing to worry about." Saphire said to Spike.
Stop *huff* both *puff* of you." Twilight panted out, "I disagree... with everything... that is happening here."
The dragon looked at her, "I'm sorry you feel that way?"
"I refuse to let some random dragon lady show up and tell me that my little brother is, ew, 'sexually maturing.'" Twilight seemed a bit hysterical, "I don't know who you are, but nothing weird is happening on my watch, so you can just go away and do dragon-y things, and I'll be taking Spike back home."
The dragoness looked down at her. "I think you may be confused here little pony, and I suppose that's my fault for being nice." The dragoness brought her head down so she was eye level with Twilight. "I am not here to ask the permission of some pony to do my job, and if you wish to interfere you may, but I assure you, I have eaten creature more powerful than you and still had enough room for dessert." The dragon growled, "Now back up, or I swear on the scales of my forefathers that I will chew you so slowly that you will feel each and every bone in your body ground to dust before you die. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
Twilight was stunned. Fluttershy was not, "Now listen here you big-"
"NO!" The dragoness roared, letting out a stream of violent blue flames, "YOU LISTEN. I HAVE BEEN PATIENT, I HAVE ANSWERED YOUR QUESTIONS, BUT I WILL NOT TOLERATE YOUR INTERFERENCE. LEAVE. NOW." The ponies stood transfixed.
Spike poked the dragoness in the arm, "You'll have to excuse them." He said nervously as the dragoness looked down at him, "They've sort of been my surrogate family for the last couple of years, so they're a bit protective. And- and you didn't exactly do a very good job of explaining what's happening, so you can understand that they might be a bit wary of, y'know, letting you do this whole puberty song thing without all the facts."
"Be that as it may, I will not allow for interference with the ritual, it is a major pain in the ass to have to start from the very beginning every time I get interrupted."
"Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's cool guys, right?" Spike pleaded with the girls with his eyes. "You trust me, right Twilight?"
Twilight looked skeptical, "I do, but-"
"Just, just let this happen, I swear I won't let her hurt me, and I'll come running if anything happens." Spike looked at Twilight, trying to reassure her that he would be ok, though he didn't know himself if that would be the case.
Twilight sighed, "Fine, but I am going to sit right here." Twilight sat down in the snow, "And I am not moving until you're done."
The dragoness chuckled, "That may prove difficult, as the song of ages take three days and three nights to recite in its entirety."
"Three days?!" Twilight yelled, "You'll both starve!"
The dragoness scoffed, "If we were ponies perhaps, but so long as this one," She pointed at Spike, "Has eaten sometime in the last week we'll be fine." She looked down at him, "You have eaten recently, correct?"
Spike thought for a moment, "I had pancakes for breakfast?"
The dragoness blinked, "I suppose that'll be enough. Come, sit, I shall begin shortly."
"Girls." Twilight said, "Could one of you get me the emergency camping gear on the third shelf in the downstairs closet?" Twilight asked, not taking her eyes off the two dragons, one sitting, the other laying so that they were snout to snout.
"Are ya sure sugarcube? Three days with the library closed might get the mayor in a tizzy."
"Just use the 'Closed for adventure' sign I keep next to the door, no one will question it."
"Would you like someone to stay with you dear? I imagine it will be quite lonely out here just listening to music for a few days."
"No, I'll be fine, you girls have jobs you need to get back to, I can handle this, I call you if I need anything."
"I'll bring you a box of doughnuts every day." Pinkie promised.
"Thanks Pinkie, but I think they're about to start."
Saphire crooned, letting her voice rise and fall in a waver that reminded Twilight of gentle winds through ghastly gorge, and the song began.
The song did, indeed, take three days and three nights. Sometimes Saphire sang softly, almost whispering to Spike alone, sometimes she wailed and roared like a banshee. There were no recognizable words, but Spike's attention never wavered from the dragoness in front of him. Occasionally he would join her, letting their voices mix, mingle, and split into harmonious or sometimes clashing melodies.
Pinkie came by every day to drop off a box of doughnuts. Fluttershy approached once and told Twilight that her animals were being very hard to control, so she probably wouldn't be able to come back immediately when the dragons stopped singing. Applejack stopped by in the evenings when she was bringing her cart back from town. Rarity didn't appear, but Twilight assumed she was busy. The cutie mark crusaders tried to wrangle the dragons, but Twilight stopped them before they could get close. Of course, there was the occasional townpony who would come to complain about the noise, or just gawp at the singing duo, but no one was willing to try to stop them.
Twilight timed it, the song lasted three days, ten hours, fifteen minutes, and around thirty three seconds.
As the last note fades from memory something spectacular happens: Nothing.
Twilight looks between the two dragons, they are motionless, perhaps hearing the echos of their song in their ears. It's pretty silent after the constant noise. Twilight can't actually hear anything. She shifts her butt, noticing that she's sore from sitting for so long, and tries to make a sound, only to realize that she is quite parched. She levitates a water bottle over and drinks from it.
"Hello?" Her voice sounds tiny, "Is it over? Are you two ok?"
Saphire stretches, her bones popping and she yawns, "Yeah, we're fine, now we just gotta wait for the kid to get out of his own head."
"What do you mean?" Twilight asks as she approaches.
"The song of ages asks a dragon to look at everything they are, everything they've done, and everything they want to be. It asks them to look to the future, a future that spans thousands of years, and to find something that will keep them sane for all that time. It's easy for a dragon to get lonely, or angry, or depressed. We will live to see this world change in ways that you ponies could never dreams of, and we need a reason to get up in the morning. The song of ages asks that a dragon prepare them self for that. It may seem to you to be a bit much to ask of a dragon that barely reached his second decade, but we have found that if we leave it to long then there's a much higher chance that the dragon will not be able to find a suitable answer, and get stuck in their head indefinitely."
"Wait, Spike could get stuck in his own head?" Twilight asked, distraught.
"It could happen, but it's very unlikely." Saphire said, unconcerned, but when he does get out, I have a question that I must ask him, and I'm afraid that I am the only one who may hear the answer."
"But-"
"No buts little pony." The dragoness said, and blew a stream of fire in a circle around her and her charge. The crackling flames blotted out Twilight's vision and hearing such that the dragoness had to raise her voice so that she could be heard. "Now just sit right there, he should wake up in the next twelve hours, and you can see him then.
"But..." Twilight trailed off, the dragoness wan't paying attention. "Fuck that noise." Twilight muttered, something she had caught Spike saying once or twice. Twilight had a spell just for this kind of situation. Summoning her concentration she let loose with a quick burst of magic.
Inside the ring of fire a tiny purple ball stuck itself to Spike's arm, its color blending in with his scales. Spike, for his part, continued staring into space.
'And now we wait.' Twilight and Saphire thought in unison.
By Twilight's count, it took seven hours, thirteen minutes, and three seconds for Spike to wake up, which he did violently. "Aaaahhhhh!" He screamed, "The fuck was that, the fuck are those, THE FUCK ARE THESE!"
Saphire chucked, "Those are your wings child, or should I say, young drake."
"That was NUTS! First I was in this huge library, then I was fighting against Sombra for some reason, then Princess Luna was there, and she DIED, then Ponyville exploded, then there was a jacuzzi, and Fluttershy, and Rarity, and they were KISSING, and, fuck me man, that was some weird shit."
Saphire continued laughing, "I am glad that your search was an easy one. Did you find what you were looking for."
"Yeah, I guess I did."
"Ahem, then this is the formal part of the ceremony. Please sit still and listen. Drake, you have heard the song of ages and have dreamt the dream of naming. You have found purpose, and with that purpose you have found who you choose to be. Tell me, young drake, who do you choose to be?"
"I am, " And then Spike said something in another language. A growling, tearing language that hurt Twilight's ears to hear. "But my friends call me Spike."
Twilight could hear the smile in Saphire's voice, "I'm sure they do. Now, listen closely, do not speak that name to any other creature, ever. That name is the name by which all manner of nasty things can befall you. With it, a creature can control everything that you do. To a creature that knows your true name, you are nothing but a slave to be used and discarded. Guard it well."
"But, uh, didn't I just tell you?"
"Worry not child, for the first recitation of a dragon's true name serves to bind the listener to that dragon forever. Should you wish it, you could order me to sever my own head, and I could do naught but obey."
"I wouldn't do that." Spike said quickly.
"I know, young drake. The measure serves to protect a newly awakened dragon from those that would use them, however, it makes us singers quite vulnerable, should a new drake get it into their head that they want a slave, but it is understood that to do so would be to bring ruination onto the new dragon, as the death, capture, or enslavement of a singer is grounds for immediate execution by all of dragon kind."
"That's some pretty heavy stuff." Spike said.
"A true name is nothing to be scoffed at, young drake."
"Yeah. I guess it's a good thing that you made this fire. Could you imagine the chaos that would ensue if every time I asked for ice cream everyone in town had to give me one? That would not be good."
"Indeed. There are some horror stories about young dragons speaking their first name in crowds. Most of the time, the crowd immediately turned on them and tore out their tongue so that they could never give an order. Quite brutal stuff, even for dragons."
"Ouch. Well, I suppose that's what you get."
"Indeed. But I have other duties to attend to, and I suppose you have duties as well, Fire Bringer. The path you choose is a difficult one, may your endeavor bear fruit."
"Uh, you too?" Saphire Night raised her wings high in the air and took off in one mighty push, putting out the ring of flames and climbing into the air, leaving behind a slightly changed Spike.
He was quite a bit bigger, perhaps a little smaller than herself. His features were a bit more angular, but still rounded. He stood on all fours, and his tail was long enough that he could put it in his mouth without bending. Two tiny wings poked out of his back. Not nearly big enough to get him off the ground, but Twilight supposed that they would grow to a proper size.
"Hey Twilight!" Spike called. The sound echoed in her ears, so she dropped the eavesdropping spell, "Did you really sit out here for three days?"
Twilight nodded, looking over her assistant. "Yeah... You look good."
Spike looked at himself, he couldn't tell if he looked better than before, but he supposed that he probably looked more mature to ponies, at the very least. "Do I?"
Twilight nodded, "Yeah, that's a good look for you, though we're going to need to get you refitted for the next GGG."
The thought of getting refitted brought a blush to Spike's cheeks, "Do you think Rarity will like the new me?" He asked.
Twilight nodded, "I think she'll love it, just like she loved the old you."
"You really think so?"
"Yeah. C'mon, let's pack up and head home, I want a proper home cooked meal."
"Oh, oh, oh, I bet I can actually reach the cupboards now!" Spike exclaimed excitedly as he helped her path up the camping gear.
"Yup, you sure will." Twilight commented as they began walking home.
Spike hummed along merrily, swishing his tail.
Twilight walked home thinking one thing over and over again: Fuck.