Chapter One
Unearthed
===============
Breath escaped Spike's throat in a strained whoosh as he set an industrial-size wooden crate on the floor in front of him. The resulting thud echoed throughout the cavernous oval-shaped, four-story room made of purple and pink crystal, save for the green stained glass windows and teal bookshelves lining most of the walls. He stood in the room’s centre and flexed his tiny, aching arms.
Twilight Sparkle, sat at a small round table in the centre of the would-be library. She looked up from a lengthy scroll that Spike strongly suspected was a checklist. “Are you sure you don't need help with those?”
Spike suppressed a wince. “I'll be fine.” The box was taller than him, and he had to dig his claws into it to reach high enough to pry the lid off. He hoisted himself to the top, and rows of book spines met his eyes. “Hoboy, this is gonna be fun...”
“I know. I'm so excited!” Twilight said, taking flight and hovering above him. “I'll always miss Golden Oak, but this new library will be second only to the archives in Canterlot and the Crystal Empire.”
The crate Spike stood on held a few hundred books, but the shelves before him looked like they could hold dozens of crates’ worth. “Do we really need to shelve the entire library before anything else? Couldn't we at least set up the kitchen first? Or the fridge?”
Twilight swooped back to her scroll and skimmed the first few lines. “When Tirek blew up Golden Oak, Ponyville was left without its library. Ponyville can't not have a library!”
“And we can't not have food.”
Twilight's stomach rumbled in agreement. “Well... there's always the Hayburger.”
“Speak for yourself. They don't serve gemstones.”
Magenta magic pulled the books from the crate, sending Spike somersaulting off it. His rump hit the ground with a thud, and the books landed in three neat stacks, too gently to make a sound.
“Hey! Could you not throw me off the crate next time?”
“Sorry.” Twilight magicked six more stacks from the crate, setting them next to the other three, and then replaced the lid. “Complaining about food won't make this shelving go any faster. We can grab a bite to eat after we get through this crate. How does that sound?”
“The Hayburger still doesn't serve gemstones.” Spike grabbed the book atop the closest stack.
“We'll set up the kitchen as soon as we're done with the library,” Twilight said. “I promise. Our friends haven't gotten a proper look at the castle yet, and once they can browse the library and have a nice snack from the kitchen, I'll be able to invite them over!”
“Well, thank Celestia she set up her own bed before we started this,” Spike muttered under his breath.
“Okay,” Twilight said, glancing at the book in Spike's hands, “tier two, shelf three.”
Tier two meant the second set of shelves from the top. This, of course, was several times Spike's height. He sighed and folded his arms, giving Twilight a bemused frown.
A pink tinge appeared on her cheeks. “Maybe we should also buy a ladder while we get lunch.”
Spike grumbled and dragged his feet toward the third section of shelves. At least climbing would require his arms to lift substantially less weight than the book crate he had just hauled.
Just before he could reach the shelves, his body went rigid as if petrified. The book fell from his claws with a thump. If Twilight had said anything, Spike did not hear. He could feel nothing, nor control his body; it was as if an invisible blast of magic had lanced through his temple, overloading his brain. For a moment, all he saw was a beautiful white mare, with her blue and purple mane in elegant curls giving him a broad, half-lidded smile.
“I... I have to go,” Spike finally said. The book lay at his feet, open halfway and forgotten. He turned and marched like an automaton toward the door.
“Well, okay, I suppose we could take a break now. Where are you—” Twilight had to step out of the way, and he seemed willing to walk right through her.
“I'll be back sometime later.” A listless monotone had replaced Spike's usual perky voice.
“Spike, what's wrong?”
“Need some fresh air,” he said without looking back. Finding words was a challenge; something called not just to him, but his entire consciousness like a mental magnet. A tiny part of him wondered if the stress of Tirek nearly destroying his friends, his home being blown to cinders, and the monumental task of not just having to settle into a new house, but an entire castle, had just hit him all at once.
Whether it was that that had called to him, be it his own mind or something else, it made him think of not just Rarity, but her melting in his arms. He opened the library door and set off toward his promised land, pausing only to grab a brown haversack from the pile of assorted luggage in the castle's vast entrance hall.
* * *
A short while later, Spike arrived at his destination. He stood not at the entrance to the Carousel Boutique, but in the middle of the badlands, above the home of the Diamond Dogs. As he had approached this particular patch of the arid landscape, he noticed numerous holes created by the locals—he even recognized the one they had ponynapped Rarity in—but this patch of wasteland looked conspicuously undisturbed.
Spike paused and surveyed the land around him. The calling grew stronger. Rarity appeared before him again, cradling something he could not see. She set it down, closed her eyes, and puckered her lips. She leaned toward him, drawing closer. Spike's arms reached forward to embrace her neck...
They closed around thin air, and Rarity vanished in a puff of disillusionment. He sighed and gazed at his empty palms. “What am I doing here?”
He kept his hands open in front of him like they cradled something precious. And large. Realization snapped into place in his mind. A gem lay buried somewhere beneath him, a gem whose value Equestria had not seen in hundreds of years. A gem somehow undiscovered by the Diamond Dogs. Rarity, the personification of beauty and glamour, would be just as enthralled as he if she laid eyes on it.
Spike dove toward the earth, claws churning. If his arms were stiff or sore from lifting the crates of Twilight's books, it did not impede him as he gouged a sizable hole in the span of a few minutes.
As he dug, gems flew past his head, glinting in the sunlight amidst the soil. Spike paid them no mind; compared to the gem calling to him, they were no more valuable than the dirt they lay in. Any hunger Spike had felt earlier disappeared, and the gems did not remind him he had not yet eaten that day.
Clink. He looked up. The hole looked like a crater, and he had dug as deep as he could, for he could not break through solid bedrock. “If it isn't in this hole, then I'll just dig another.”
Sweat dampened the otherwise dry soil as Spike clambered out. As was usually the case with the badlands, especially in the summer, the pegasi allowed almost no clouds to block the sun. It made the air scorching and heavy. Spike realized just how hot it was, now that he had paused his mindless digging.
When he regained the surface, he took several paces, wiped his forehead, and took several deep breaths. “This ain't gonna dig itself.” And he was off again, tearing at the earth by the chunk. I should be tired by now, he reflected, but the only thing his exertions drained were his free thoughts. Any fatigue, doubt, or pain he might have felt poured out of his body along with his sweat.
Before long, he had bottomed out once again, coming up against bedrock. Dirt caked his scales. He could not think anymore. Longing for the gem and the gift it promised were the only things on his mind, leaving room for nothing else. All he could do was continue to dig. The holes blurred together in his vision. The angle of the sun shining into his eyes was his only concept of the passage of time. No matter how furiously he dug, the result was the same. Spike climbed from his latest dig site and staggered as if intoxicated. What was once an untouched section of land now resembled the aftermath of a meteor shower.
Sensations hit him all at once: His arms were jelly from overuse; his skull split from dehydration; his claws felt chipped down to nothing; and his legs and back burned from so much bending over. He fell on his tail, his vision growing hazy.
The ground rumbled.
Pebbles danced around Spike. “Huh? What's going—?” Thunder roared in the cloudless sky. I must be going nuts, Spike thought. The earth shook again and fissured in front of him. A beam of jet black energy shot from the crack like steam from a geyser. The beam stretched into the sky, forming a pillar that drew Spike's gaze as high as it would go.
And then it vanished. An object glinted in the sunlight. Spike's eyes locked onto it as it began to fall to earth. He could not make out what it was other than a black speck—a blot of ink against the sky's blue canvas. It hurtled toward him, but he did not move. It looked like a small comet, something that was once big and mighty, reduced to a pebble from entry into the atmosphere.
Spike's hands extended. The object landed in his palms with a soft plop. His jaw fell open, his pupils dilated. In his hands, he held the biggest diamond he had ever seen. It was the size of his head, and had more facets than he cared to count, each cut to perfection with craftsmanship worthy of the Crystal Empire.
But most remarkable of all, this diamond was jet-black. It radiated a bizarre anti-light, the same light that had erupted from the ground moments ago. Spike knew he had found what he sought. He gazed into it like a crystal ball. An even deeper blackness swirled at its core.
“This... this is unreal,” said Spike.
Oh, I am very real, Spike the dragon.
Spike's head snapped up. “Huh? What? Who's there?”
Do not be afraid, my dear Spike. I am your friend. I have waited a long time for you. The feminine voice must have come from the diamond, but Spike heard it from somewhere in the back of his mind. Its tones were laden with honey so sweet Spike could taste it. Yet beneath the soft overtones, sharp, confident annunciation gave the words power. Although he could not see the speaker, he knew her voice could only belong to a young mare, not beautiful in the way Rarity was, but more regal and perhaps mysterious.
“Help me with... her?” He raised the diamond to his lips and whispered the last word into it. As he did so, it emitted subtle wisps of blackness that curled into his nostrils and mouth, unnoticed.
But of course. She is as beautiful as the stone from which I was hewn. A worthy prize for someone as noble and brave as you.
Spike's head gave a mechanical nod. The air around him was still, and a heavy silence had fallen on the badlands.
You have waited long enough. Now your lifetime of servitude has come to an end. The diamond filled Spike's vision until he could see nothing else. Anything—and anypony—you desire will be yours...
* * *
The diamond thrummed within the haversack clutched in Spike's trembling claws. They did not tremble with nerves, but anticipation, excitement. He stood in front of the entrance to the Carousel Boutique. The sun had almost set, and it was surely past closing, but he knew Rarity would still be hard at work.
If his stroll through Ponyville had been eventful, he did not notice. He had only paused to take a quick dip in the fountain at the centre of town. Spike only needed to devote the tiniest fraction of his consciousness to a task as menial as walking; instead of the town's worn cobblestones, its outdated tacky houses, its bumbling citizens, he saw Rarity, the embodiment of beauty itself.
Rarity, the diamond buried within the heap of grimy, worthless rocks—the lone platinum ingot among countless bars of fool's gold. She was a prize unattainable by even Equestrian royalty, but Spike lacked the slightest doubt. When he walked, he felt like a disembodied observer watching himself automatically performing the act while he entertained himself with the thoughts of how exactly he would court Rarity.
Would he take her on a grand, sweeping tour of the Equestrian countryside, or would they enjoy an urban getaway in only the most upscale of resorts in Manehattan, Phillydelphia, and Vanhoover? Spike's face locked itself into a haughty grin. His steady hand closed around the Boutique's doorknob with a confident grip, and he let himself in without bothering to knock.
Rarity sat amidst a sewing machine and bolts of fabrics, hard at work on some dress or other. She was too absorbed in the intricacies of her latest design to notice his arrival. Spike squared his shoulders and straightened his back. He put on his most stoic expression and cleared his throat.
Rarity's head snapped up. “Spike?”
“Why hello there, fair Lady Rarity,” he said. “You look positively ravishing today—like always.” A part of Spike knew these words were not his own, but he did not care; the diamond had promised him Rarity, and he could do nothing but trust it. How could it be wrong?
Rarity moved her head back slightly, and her mouth opened a little. A pink tinge gathered in her cheeks. “Spike?” she repeated after taking a moment to collect herself. “Are you feeling all right? You... don't seem like yourself.”
Spike grinned inwardly. “I haven't been myself since we met. On that day, I was incomplete—incomplete without you, a crown without jewels.”
Rarity covered her mouth with a forehoof, but it was not to conceal laughter. Her defences were lowered. Spike knew the time to strike was now. “Allow me to give you something no one else ever has: a gift worthy of somepony as radiant as you.” He knelt and presented the haversack to Rarity.
She cocked her head and stared at it. “W-what's in the bag?”
Like a molting spider, the sack fell open without Spike's help. The diamond filled the room with its eerie anti-light. It thrummed in his open palms. The strange non-illumination danced over Rarity and Spike's features. A wisp of the blackness at its core drifted from one of its facets and curled around Rarity's head. Unnoticed by her, tufts of the fume seeped into her ears and nostrils.
“Why, Spike... this is—this is—”
The two stared at the diamond as if it were the spark of all life itself that Spike cradled in his palms.
“The greatest gem in all of Equestria,” said Spike.
Rarity inhaled sharply. “Not even Canterlot's finest jewelers could fathom such perfection.” She leaned so close, her muzzle almost touched it. Her eyes shot wide open. “These cuts are simply exquisite, and there is not so much as the tiniest of nicks out of place. And the colour! I didn't know diamonds could be as black as this. Spike, darling, this is incredible!”
“It may not be as incredible as you, but it's the closest thing I could find.” Spike laid the sweetness on thick, just like the diamond had done when it spoke to him.
“And it's...?”
“All yours.”
Rarity pried her eyes away from the diamond to gaze into Spike's. “Oh, darling, this must be worth an absolute fortune, if you can even put a price on something like this. How can I possibly accept such a gift?”
“To me, you're more valuable than any diamond ever could be—even this one.”
“Oh, Spikey-wikey!”
Before Spike knew it, Rarity was on top of him, planting kisses everywhere she could find. His head felt hotter than it had in the blistering sun. His arms had wrapped themselves around Rarity, his hands caressing her. He had not heard the diamond clatter to the floor when it left his grasp.
Spike floated in a blissful, dizzy haze. His most wild daydreams did nothing to prepare him for this. Finally, after two agonizing years, Rarity, his ultimate prize, was finally in his possession. As she kissed and nuzzled him, he knew how right it felt. The feelings Spike had felt and been dying to express since he had met her had now smitten her. She, the most beautiful mare in Equestria, was rightfully his.
A giddy smile played across Rarity's muzzle. She paused her affections to catch her breath. “Oh, Spike, most wonderful of dragons! This diamond—” The diamond had somehow ended up atop a pile of silk on a table several feet away. “—will be the centrepiece in a design the likes of which Equestria has never seen. I shall be the greatest fashionista to have ever lived! Celebrities—no—nobles—will line up, begging to be the first to have a personalized dress crafted by moi!”
Spike ran a finger through the curls of Rarity's mane. “For you, there's no doubt it'll happen. It's destiny.”
“Mmm,” Rarity purred. “Say, it's quite late. Were you digging all day?”
Spike nodded.
“You poor dear! You must be famished.” Rarity eased herself off him and stood. She offered him a forehoof. He delicately took it and climbed back to his feet. “You ought to have dinner and spend the night.”
Spike pretended to consider it for a few seconds. “Well, I think that should wait until tomorrow. See, Twilight's in the middle of moving into the castle, and—”
“Oh.” Rarity stared at Spike's feet, half-squinting. Her lips trembled. “I understand. Knowing her, she wants to be moved in as fast as possible and has each day planned down to the minute. It must be so hard for the both of you after what happened to Golden Oak.”
Spike tucked a hand under her muzzle and gently eased her head up until she looked him in the eye again. Her ears still drooped. “It's a change, but I think she'll like it more in her castle in the end. The library's huge. Very huge. Spike-break-your-back-climbing-fifty-feet-to-the-highest-bookshelf huge. It'll probably be a year before we're done stocking it.”
“I see,” Rarity said. “If you ever need help, I'd be happy to.”
A sly grin quirked Spike's face. “How about this? Come tomorrow at around lunch time. We can go on that date, and you can rescue me from Twilight. This way, I can do some work so she doesn't get too upset.” And, Spike thought, this will only make her want me more. I bet she kisses better after she's been squirming for awhile.
Rarity giggled. “Lunch it is. Edward and I will be counting down the minutes.”
“Edward?”
Light-blue magic whisked the diamond to Rarity's cheek. She nuzzled it. “Why, this lovely diamond, of course.”
Spike scratched the back of his head. “Uh, I think that diamond is a she.”
“What makes you say that?” She caressed and patted the diamond's smooth top. Her hoof made a satisfying clacking sound against the broad facet.
“You'll see what I mean.”
They said their goodbyes, and Rarity gave Spike a final kiss on the cheek. He half-strutted, half-floated out the Carousel Boutique's door. When it shut behind him, he wondered what he would dream about every night now that his greatest one had just come true.