//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 - Free Breakfast 
// Story: Dusk Shine in pursuit of Happiness 
// by bigsnusnu 
//------------------------------//

Free Breakfast

Spike had slept like a log, having such a busy day like yesterday, as soon as he had closed his eyes, he had slept all night without interruption, despite being asleep in a simple sofa instead of his comfortable bed in Canterlot. However, his awakening was another story.

As soon as Spike opened his eyes that morning, in front of him was a spongy nose with long mustaches and deep black eyes looking at him. It was the face of a rabbit, a naughty bunny named Angel, who stared at him with big eyes just centimeters from his face, when he saw Spike waking up, he hid something behind himself.

"WAAHH!" Spike yelled when he saw Angel being very close to him.

A sleepy Dusk Shine, who was right next to Spike, suddenly woke up to hear the cry of the dragon.

"What's wrong?" Dusk asked, opening his eyes with effort and giving a big yawn.

"That... That rabbit was in front of me!" Spike said fearfully, pointing his claw at Angel, who just stayed still at where he was, with a sinister smile on his adorable face. "I swear that he is planning something against me."

Dusk rubbed his eyes and looked at Spike carefully. Now that he was wide awake, he had realized that something was out of place. For some reason, Spike had his whole face smeared with different drawings, a pair of glasses around his eyes, a mustache and beard, all this with black paint.

Dusk stared at Spike for a moment and then he turned his gaze towards Angel. Behind the little bunny he could see a brush with black ink, which was hidden in vain for the little bunny behind himself.

"You should look at yourself in the mirror." Dusk said simply, not wanting to interfere in the fight of these little giants.

As they both got up from the couch. Dusk began to stretch his legs as Spike went to the bathroom.

"But what-! Damn rabbit!! I'll have my revenge!" Dusk heard Spike grumbling from the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Dusk's brain is gradually waking up and connecting to reality. It was still hard for him to believe that he had spent the night outside the castle, and more importantly, away from the presence of the princess.

Dusk began to look around. The living room of the house seemed quite illuminated, indicating that probably it was already quite late in the morning, which Dusk checked when he saw the hour in a small cuckoo clock hanging on the wall of the house. He was surprised to have slept so much, though no one could blame him, after all that he had spent the previous day.

"L-long ago I didn't sleep that much" Dusk said, thinking aloud.

"Yes, I thought the same thing. Truly this is a nice place despite being so... rural." Spike said, who had left the bathroom and had come to where Dusk was.

Dusk stared at him with a strange face.

"What?" Spike asked, knowing what Dusk was actually looking at.

Spike had washed his face and cleaned the paint on his eyes and chin, but for some reason he had left the mustache of paint.

"Are you surprised by my new look?" Spike said with a claw on his chin and a seductive look. "I think the mustache looks good on me, it gives me a more mature air."

"Rather, a ridiculous air" Dusk replied with a small smile.

"What do you know about fashion? Probably, a mustache is a magnet for the females!" Spike said, puffing his chest with pride.

"And do YOU want to attract a mare?" Dusk said bringing his face close to Spike.

"O-Of course not!" Spike said with disgust. "I have seen how colts become fools when they see a beautiful mare that attracts them, if the day comes that I fall in love with a mare, you can give me a good kick in the ass!"

"I'll keep your word." Dusk laughed as Spike went to the bathroom to wash off his mustache of paint.

"Colts become fools when they see a beautiful mare that attracts them? What is he referring to?" Dusk was thinking. When suddenly, the front door of the house opened and Fluttershy entered, followed by several rabbits and squirrels.

"Oh, you have awakened! Good morning!" Fluttershy said, smiling to see that Dusk was standing.

To Dusk, it was a timeless moment, the vision of the young yellow pegasus coming into the house with cute little animals dancing around her, bathed by the sunlight that glinted behind her, with her innocent smile and beautiful aquamarine eyes staring at him.

To Fluttershy, it was just a few seconds where Dusk Shine stared with a silly face.

As soon as Dusk came back to reality, he realized that he had acted like a fool and he was glad that Spike wasn't there to see it.

"G-Good morning, Fluttershy!" Dusk said, blushing and thinking 'what the hell happened to me?', not understanding why he had stared at Fluttershy in that way.

"Good morning, Fluttershy!" Spike said leaving the bathroom, with his face completely clean of paint.

This time Dusk appreciated the timely appearance of Spike, who appeared just before having to explain what had happened. In addition, a growing fear was appearing in Dusk Shine's mind. These new feelings he had, they made him feel good, but they were also making him act like an idiot. Was it friendship? Or perhaps it was something else? Another feeling...? It didn't matter, because whatever it was, this feeling was making him act like a goof, and if there was something that Dusk did not want to lose at the expense of anything, it was his mental acuity, so to safeguard it Dusk decided he needed to get away fast of those feelings.

"I hope you slept well." Fluttershy spoke again. "I woke up early because I had to give breakfast to the animals, I didn't want to wake you because you looked very tired." Fluttershy stroked a pair of rabbits as she spoke. "I already ate breakfast, but if you like I can prepare something for you."

"That would be grea-" Spike spoke, but he was interrupted by Dusk, who quickly put his hoof over Spike’s mouth to silence him.

"Thank you very much, but we have to go." Dusk said quickly.

Then, Dusk took Spike and forced him to follow him to the door. Next Dusk turned and gave a bow to Fluttershy.

"I'm really sorry we can't stay. Thank you for all Fluttershy!" Dusk said robotically, looking down.

Dusk really didn't want to leave, but his brain was telling him that he MUST do it, he must do it if he didn't want to become 'infected' by this strange feeling.

Fluttershy and Spike looked at Dusk and then looked at each other, none of them understood the attitude of Dusk, but it was obvious that he was determined to leave, so none of them said anything.

"Well... I guess this is goodbye." Spike spoke, regretting the decision taken by his brother and the fact that he could not stay for breakfast.

"I guess so, this is our goodbye." Fluttershy forced a smile, who felt sad for the sudden departure of her guests.

As soon as Fluttershy said the word 'goodbye', something went off in the heart of Dusk, something that released some of the pressure he felt to flee from friendship. It was true, he should leave, but maybe...

"Flu... Fluttershy, do... do you think we will see each other again? Will you go to the town within the next four days?" Dusk asked staring at her, wanting with all his willpower to have the opportunity to meet again with the mare.

"Yes, I'll go to the Summer Sun Celebration." Fluttershy said shyly, blushing a little while Dusk watched her.

"That's great! Then we'll see each other again soon!" Dusk said cheerfully.

"I'll be waiting eagerly!" Fluttershy smiled, not understanding why she was so happy that she would see that colt again in a few days, was it... a date?

Both of them were smiling until Spike coughed to interrupt them.

"Ahem! So... in the end, are we going to stay or are we going to go?" Spike said, who felt excluded in between the two ponies.

"Yes, yes, it's time to go." Dusk said turning around and looking at Fluttershy. "See you soon and thank you very much again for everything!"

"Goodbye!" Spike said, walking beside Dusk and saying goodbye to Fluttershy.

"Goodbye Spike! Goodbye Mr. Dusk!" said Fluttershy as she waved goodbye from the doorway of her home.

Suddenly Dusk stopped and turned himself around to look at Fluttershy.

"Ehh... one more thing..." Dusk said while blushing. "You can call me Dusk, the 'Mr' is not necessary."

Fluttershy blinked for a few seconds before smiling tenderly.

"Sure!" Fluttershy said blushing. "Goodbye Dusk!"

With this, Dusk turned around and continued trotting slowly with a smile on his face.

Spike stared at him while all attitudes of Dusk to Fluttershy began to click in his head. But the dragon decided that he wouldn't press Dusk mentioning the word 'friendship' as suddenly as he had done the night before, instead he decided it would be better that Dusk realized this by himself.

"So... why didn't you want to stay for breakfast?" Spike asked while they kept moving away towards the main road.

"Well... I thought it would be abusing her kindness" Dusk said, before blushing a bit. "Besides... she made me feel a little... weird." Dusk said this latter sentence much more softly.

"She helped you, you cared about her, you have a strange feeling that you don't recognize, what could it be...?" Spike said mischievously, trying to make it obvious to Dusk on what he’s thinking about.

Dusk just looked at him, he wasn't so stupid as to not understand where Spike was getting at.

"You think this is friendship, right?" Dusk said looking at Spike.

'Friendship', every time Dusk said that word, his heart ached for a wound of his past, however this time, the light of memories with Fluttershy encouraged him to open his heart to a tiny possibility.

"She told us we would see each other again within 4 days, I hope she keeps her word, and when that happens maybe ... I'll be open to the possibility of becoming her friend..." Dusk said with effort.

Spike's eyes shone with joy, finally it had worked, his brother was opening slowly to friendship! On the other hoof, Dusk's eyes looked at the road, but his mind was beyond in a distant memory.

"Yes... a true friend will never leave you." Dusk whispered to himself.

Thus, Dusk and Spike walked in silence for a while. At first, Spike decided to remain silent for his brother could continue meditating on his own about friendship, but as more minutes advanced, a strong need was born into Spike, something that was irritating him increasingly, though he tried not to think about it.

GROWL~! 

Spike's stomach growled again, his body demanded food! It had passed several times since they'd left Fluttershy's house, however this time he took the latter growl as a sign, so finally he decided to open his mouth and say out his thoughts.

"You said you didn't want to abuse Fluttershy’s kindness, but we definitely have to eat something before leaving!" Spike muttered upset, who was put in a bad mood when he was hungry.

Dusk paused for a moment, the truth was that he had been only in his thoughts while he walked, but he also was quite hungry now that someone had reminded him.

"Well... in the town, we can find something to-" Dusk said, stopping shortly when he realized that he had forgotten an important detail.

"You remembered it, right? We have no money." Spike said crossing his claws.

First, Dusk's face showed affliction, he lamented having spent overlooking this fact again, he wasn't used to not having to eat or where to sleep, under the care of the princess in Canterlot, he had never lacked for something. Then, Dusk began trying to think about what they should do, but his idea flow was interrupted by Spike’s voice.

"Lucky for you, I've been thinking about a solution to our problems." Spike said animatedly pointing at Dusk. "Come on! We must follow the same path by which we reached!" The dragon ended by saying as he walked away from the main road and beckoned for Dusk to follow him.

Dusk was left with no alternative but to follow his scaly companion, wherever he was leading him to.





"Here it is! It won't be like eating my usual bowl of diamond's flakes cereal with rubies, but it'll serve to feed us." Spike said when they had finally reached their destination.

"What are you talking abo-?" Dusk stopped talking when he saw where Spike was pointing. To his left, going downhill, there was a vast orchard full of apple trees.

"How did you know there were apple trees here?" Dusk asked.

"I saw them in the distance when we surrounded the town yesterday, come on! Over here!" Spike said pointing at the orchard down by the hill.

Both of them started to go down the hill until they had reached the limit of the orchard, however Dusk stopped when he saw that there was a small wooden fence that separated the orchard from the rest of the site and a small signboard indicating the name of the place.

"Oops!" Dusk said looking over the fence and then the signboard.

"What?" Spike asked.

"You haven’t seen the signboard? Look! 'Sweet Apple Acres'" Dusk read the signboard, pointing at it. "This must be a private area, we shouldn't enter without permission."

Spike didn't flinch before the revelation of Dusk, his sight was fixed on the apple trees full of huge, red apples in front of him. His stomach growled again, it was as if the smell of sweet apples had invaded all his senses and had clouded his mind, now his need to satisfy his hunger was controlling him.

Without warning, Spike passed between the wooden fence and ran to the apple trees.

"Spike! Wait!" Dusk shouted in a whisper, though there was no case, Spike already had gone into the orchard and was climbing on the nearest apple tree.

Dusk checked to see if anyone has spotted him before jumping over the fence to go behind the little dragon. There was Spike, who had already climbed down the tree with a couple of apples in his claws.

"Spike, we must go!" Dusk said slowly looking around.

"I know, but if only we eat one..." Spike said without being able to slow down himself to take a bite of the juicy apple.

"Sweet Celestia!" Spike said suddenly after having bitten the apple. "This... this is the best apple I've ever eaten!"

With that last comment did Spike quickly devoured the first apple and began eating another with a smile on his face every time he took a bite of an apple. Dusk thought about stopping him, but finally he told himself that it was not worth stopping Spike if he had already bitten the apples, besides, with every bite that Spike enjoyed, Dusk's stomach growled in reproach demanding that he do the same.

"Well... if it's just one, I don't think it's bad..." Dusk told himself while he grabbed one of the apples from the tree with his magic.

When Dusk bit it, he had the same reaction as Spike, it wasn't only hunger he felt, the dragon was right, this was the best apple he had ever tasted in his life!

Dusk began ferociously eating the apple while his stomach was grateful but at the same time it demanded more. The colt was eating apples and pulling out one after another, while Spike was doing the same on his own. They gradually emptied the apples on the tree to which they had arrived and they moved on to the next apple tree, repeating the same process and filling their stomachs with the juicy apples of the orchard named 'Sweet Apple Acres'.

It had spent a lot of time, they had already reached their third apple tree. Then, they finally dropped their pace and stopped with their stomachs fully booked. They sat with their back against the trunk of the apple tree, looking at the horizon with a huge smile of satisfaction on their faces.

“BURP~!” Spike burped. "Those apples were so delicious..."

"Yeah, it was an excellent breakfast... The good life in the countryside." Dusk smiled at the thought that the farm ponies lived so well, eating all the delicious fruits that they wanted and then resting under the shade of a tree without major concerns.

After a long sigh that they both gave at the same time, Dusk again took the floor.

"So, what shall we do to pay for the apples? Remember that this is apparently a private orchard." Dusk said, looking at Spike to his side.

"I don't know, it's not as if we had money anyway." Spike said with a shrug. "We could pretend that we didn't see the sign and say that we thought they were wild apple trees. Although... we could just leave without saying anything, I mean, they were only a few apples."

Dusk looked to the other side, to the two other apple trees that was left without apples, just surrounded by an enormous amount of apple cores. He should talk to his colleague dragon about 'HOW MUCH' he considered 'few'.

"So basically, we just have two options, steal or lie, is that not what you say?" Dusk said looking at Spike again.

Spike looked at Dusk, both looked at each other, they lowered their heads looking at the floor and thought the same thing: "We have fallen so low!" All the amenities of the castle, where they were treated like princes, were no longer there...

"Sigh... I guess we'll have to invent a persuasive story." Dusk sighed looking skyward. "If the farm ponies are like what I've read, we must be careful."

"When did you read about farm ponies?" Spike asked, intrigued.

"Well... once I took a book that told the story of how a colt got lost in a rainy night in a faraway place and he arrived to a farm, then he found refuge in a barn. That night he did many things, things that angered the local farmer, who finally found him and went chasing with pitchforks to lynch him."

"Did you read a fiction story? That's new." Spike said, surprised that Dusk had read something that wasn't on his studies of magic. "But... what things did the pony do that made the farmer so angry?"

Dusk couldn't help blushing at the memory. The fact was that a couple years ago, Dusk was angry with Princess Celestia because she still treated him like a foal, and while it was true that in the eyes of Equestria's law, he wasn't yet an adult, he wasn't a baby foal, he was a young colt. So, that time he wanted to prove that he was as mature as an adult and he had sneaked in the public library of Canterlot, specifically in the forbidden room marked with a red sign that said 'ADULTS ONLY'. There, Dusk took secretly the first book he found and ran away, this was called 'Sexual Fantasies in the farm Sexy-Mare'... Huge was the surprise of Dusk when he read it and realized that instead of addressing issues such as advanced magic, politics or economics, the book was a fictional story where a colt came to a farm and he was met with a young and beautiful farm mare, there they had all kinds of sexual encounters, positions and love's fetishes that exist and shall exist, everything in secret of the farmer, the father of the mare. It goes without saying that the young Dusk wasn't prepared mentally for that, but despite not understanding why adults had these books in the library, he had read it completely and still today he kept a copy of that book under his bed.

"I... I don't remember why the farmer would get angry..." Dusk said fully blushed, going back into reality.

Spike looked confused for a moment before speaking again.

"If the farm ponies are so, and they get really angry about every little thing, it may be better for us to run away."

"Perhaps you're right..." Dusk said.

Both of them began to stand up, which was a hard work because both their stomachs were full. Dusk and Spike shook off the land that had stuck to them, when suddenly a loud scream made them paralyzed.

"HEY!" A serious and deep cry was heard not far away.

The unicorn and the dragon froze and slowly turned their heads to see who it was.





In the distance they could see a huge red colt with brown mane and a big work collar on his neck, even at a distance they could see that he was bigger and stronger than Dusk. The red colt stared at them with a look that penetrated, then he watched in horror of the apple cores that were littered under the apple trees and finally he looked at them again with an angry face.

"Thieves." The red colt said for himself. "THIEVES!"

The first time the red pony spoke they couldn't hear him, but when he came running towards them with a glower shouting 'Thieves!' Dusk and Spike understood that they were in big trouble.

"Hurry Spike! We must ru-" Dusk didn't complete his sentence to see that even before he spoke, Spike had already begun to run on his own.

Immediately, Dusk began running in the same direction that Spike took. However, it wasn't of much help because his stomach was very heavy and besides, the red colt was incredibly fast despite his size.

The red colt was already very close to Dusk, just a few lengths away. Dusk glanced back and saw that getting caught was imminent, so he decided to play his trump card, something he couldn't use the last time when he escaped from Fluttershy's bear. When the red pony had almost caught him, Dusk used his magic and teleported himself several lengths back away, leaving the red pony totally surprised while he braked abruptly and looked sideways looking for Dusk.

Dusk couldn't help but smile as he kept running between the apple trees and looked at the red pony again.

"Sorry, but teleporting is one of my strongest spells, you can't catch me today." Dusk told himself while he saw that the red colt hasn't backtracked to realize he was there.

"WATCH OUT!" A female voice shouted.

Dusk was still running when he stopped looking back and to the side to see an orange and yellow figure in the distance, was it a mare? Dusk couldn't say for sure because as soon as he stopped to look back and to the side, his gaze was turned off because he felt a strong blow against him.

Dusk's eyes slowly opened with difficulty to see that he had strongly crashed into a tree.

"Fool... I should... look forward..." Dusk thought before closing his eyes and falling unconscious.

#End of chapter 4