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In the distance, Spike could hear a rooster bringing forth the day. A rush of wind took him back into a relapse of both dream and memory. He could feel the air on his scales, with the scent of apples surrounding him. He could feel a soft substance underneath him that he realized to be hay. His other senses seemed foggy and inaccurate.
When Spike opened his eyes, the world was dull but the images were clear. He was in a barn that had one door cracked open, letting in the morning sun. He looked closely and found that the hay around him was also spotted with sleeping bags, seven in total. As the images twisted, he could see there were ponies sound asleep. Once again, he heard the rooster’s call.
Spike lifted himself from his hay flooring which had turned into a purple and green sleeping bag. Not fully comprehending, Spike walked to the cracked door. Along the way he glanced at the sleeping ponies, but could not pinpoint why they were familiar. Then, one cleared up and turned yellow with a pink mane. He looked to the door. In the back of his mind he could remember Fluttershy saying that she would prefer the door to be cracked, but other than that, this was not a memory he recognized.
Spike returned his attention to the other figures. He could hear their soft mumbles and the familiar sounds of their soft breaths. One by one they shone their colors and returned to his memory. He tried to remember when exactly this sleepover occurred, but something was blocking it out. Spike went to Twilight, ready to wake her up and get answers. Instead, he stood above her and could only watch. He tried to reach forward, but his mouth moved instead.
“But I’m sure I have to do this,” Spike said aloud.
Spike didn’t know where those words came from, but he suddenly turned to Rainbow Dash, as if she retorted. From her direction, he heard her voice.
“Spike’s a tough dragon, he’s no baby anymore,” Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed.
“But he sure looks like a baby dragon,” Pinkie Pie’s voice rang from his right.
“But he’s not, and I have complete faith that he’ll be just fine,” Twilight responded. Her voice faded to a whisper just as she finished.
The silence was deafening, and Spike realized he once again was able to move his body of his own will. This time, however, he didn’t take a step towards Twilight. His mind must’ve been confusing this memory, mixing two together. His eyes were on the door. He remembered their words, even if he didn’t remember this memory. Spike knew that his friends would always help; would always be there when he wanted them to. This time, he’d prove to himself that he was capable of doing the same for them.
Spike headed towards the door and he felt no resistance. As if this was the deciding factor, the door creaked open, revealing the open sky and green forestry. The sound of a rooster crowing was given a face, when he saw the beady eyes of the rooster watching from his perch in the rafters. As Spike passed the opening, into the green world outside, he decided to turn around, maybe have one more look at the choice he was leaving behind.
Everything was on fire.
Black flames were spreading wildly around the hay. He could hear his friends’ screams now, as their sleeping bags were engulfed in the darkest flames. Spike wanted to run to them, to help them before it was too late. But it was already too late. He had made his choice, and the barn doors shut in front of him. He could hear the chilling laughter of a foe long ago.
Spike backed away from the barn, his legs out of his control once again. The barn was ablaze and darker than the night. As he watched it crumble to the floor, the barn morphed and twisted into a snarling black dragon With a wingspan larger than the barn, it towered above everything. Its eyes were bright purple, aimed at Spike. The creature opened its wings and flew into the air, scarring the ground beneath it in pitch black. The dragon blotted out the sun, spreading it’s darkness in mass. Everything went black as a roar split the sky in two.
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Spike jolted awake, holding his head in his hands like it would fly away. He didn’t have to think too deeply now to remember when they had that sleepover. It was the morning before Twilight received her special mission. There hadn’t been any problems for weeks, so to have something as urgent as that letter, it had made him forget how peaceful their morning had been.
Even now, he didn’t think about the sun shining bright above, or the soft breeze against his face. Though the sands were hot, they did not offer discomfort, but warm sensation to attach himself to.
After that dream, Spike had to pull himself back into reality and remember his own mission. Next to him was Lis, who was still sound asleep. She was pulled into a ball, like a child. She only added to the urgency he felt right now. Spike wanted to head straight for the nearest town and get on a train back to Ponyville. He wanted to not have to worry about those black flames anymore, and that maybe they’ll be gone forever if he told the others all about what those flames could do.
There was a flash of purple eyes that made Spike flinch, as if he had been blasted by those flames again. He couldn’t help remembering Cilia, as she rose from her restless sleep. Her eyes had been purple, with those black flames forming around her. He thought that he could remember she was shaking, but he put it aside as only a false memory. He couldn’t differentiate his false memories from the real ones.
Spike turned towards the town, but his eyes rested on Lis. Her feathers were shifting with the gusts of wind. Knowing full well that she would go back to Cilia were he to disappear, Spike decided to nudge her. She opened her eyes wide, only to cringe at the pain. She was still not accustomed to the blinding light of the sun. After a moment, she remembered that she was no longer a prisoner of the caves and noticed Spike standing above her.
“Spike?” She asked, trying recall the past nights events.
“Lis, do you trust Cilia?” Spike asked in a low voice.
Lis paused for a second before answering. “No, not at all.”
“Do you trust me?” Spike asked in the same tone.
“Of course,” Lis said without hesitation.
“Will you go with me to Ponyville?” Spike asked, his voice low and with hesitation.
Lis had resolution in her face, but his words stripped her of that. She tried to speak but she couldn’t think properly and it only came out as a few gasps of breath as she battled her hesitation. Spike sighed and turned away from her.
“Stay away from Cilia. Whatever you do, don’t talk to her,” Spike said, before starting off at a sprint and running deeper into the desert.
Lis called out after him, but her voice was caught by the wind that was steadily growing stronger. She decided to chase after him, but the sands were tough to run through with her talons. Still, she did not relent. She had almost caught up to him, but as she reached up to grab him, a tendril of sand and wind whipped across her face. She fell back and tried to see where he had gone, but more wind was blowing around her, picking up sand and blocking her view.
Deciding that it was no use, she turned away from him and fled away from the desert sandstorm. She trudged through the harsh winds and teeth gritting sand until she hit something wooden. Hoping that this tree could protect her, she tried to walk around for better cover. Her claws hit stone, and she realized that this wasn’t a tree.
Lis couldn’t see well, with the sand blocking her view in all directions. When she tried to further inspect the structure her talons slipped in the sand and she fell beak first into the grainy floor. She could feel the sand slashing at her back and holding her in a cocoon of brown. She was finding it harder to breathe, and soon after, the brown sand turned to black.
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Spike was thrashing through the storm. At first he was worried that the trains might not be running during a storm, but then he grew more worried about arriving at the station before he suffocated. The winds picked up to tremendous speeds, and he was wishing that the weather ponies in charge of these storms would notice he was outside.
It isn’t good to hope for miracles, because even he couldn’t see a foot past his face, let alone a weather pony seeing him from the outskirts of this storm. Spike kept his eyes closed after the fourth time that he was blinded by a barrage of sand particles. The air was feeling thinner the more he stayed out here, but he also started to notice things around him.
Spike thought that he had stepped on a horseshoe, but he didn’t want to stop and check. On one occasion, he smacked into a metal structure, which he knew to be the water tower near the center of this town. If luck was on his side, he’d find a house. However, knowing that he had wandered on this town during one of their routine sandstorms meant that luck was still on vacation.
Through the drowning gusts of wind all around him, Spike thought he had heard somepony calling his name. Spike tried to call back, but his mouth was instantly coated in sand. Spike spit out what he could, but there was no way he would try that again. Instead, he turned the direction he thought was left and continued onward.
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“Wow,” Strife said to himself as he overlooked the desert plains.
“What is it?” Cilia asked from her perched position on the other side of camp. She was watching for something, and her eyes darted from side to side.
“Never seen one of those kinds of storms before,” Strife said.
Cilia followed his gaze into the heart of the desert. Pillars of wind were flowing high into the sky. Like towers to heaven, they were swirling in destructive motions, blowing sand upwards and dropping in all directions. At their top was probably a weather pony, guiding the destruction, controlling it to their will. Inside of the cluster of storms was the largest, its spiraling motion was directed towards the ground, as if this were not a tower to heaven, but one to Tartarus.
“Let’s go,” Cilia said to Strife. Her wings were beating fast enough to disrupt Strife, and he found that he couldn’t keep up with her speed. One thought of the gems he left behind, and he turned around.
Cilia flew into the storm, her eyes glowing purple.
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In front of us, our future is laid out. Whether we choose to walk a path familiar to us, is up to us in the now. What we decided on in the past is meaningless.
Because the past is what defined us, but the present is what defines us- for the future.