//------------------------------// // Story Time // Story: Grief is the Price We Pay // by Scyphi //------------------------------// That following Saturday, with shop was naturally closed for the weekend, meant there was little work that needed to be done, but as Spike wandered downstairs, he still hoped Fly Leaf could give him some sort of task to try. However, when he arrived in the shop’s front room, he found Fly Leaf strapping a saddlebag full of books onto her pumpkin orange back, preparing to leave. “Hey Spark,” she greeted as she spied the little dragon trotting down the stairs. “Hey, are you and Thornton going out for anything today?” “Not really, Thornton’s busy practicing magic, and I was just going to keep myself busy with something down here,” Spike replied, self-consciously adjusting the false glasses he wore as part of his disguise. “Oh good!” Fly motioned to another bag full of books sitting on the front desk. “Can I perhaps ask you to help me carry these books to the city library then?” Spike shrugged and dragged the bag off the desk, pulling it over his shoulders. “Sure. But what’s the occasion?” “The library’s holding a seasonal charity event today,” Fly Leaf explained, moving to unlock the front door long enough for them to step out. “Ponies from all over town come to donate books and help run the event and it’s become tradition for me to donate some of the surplus from my stock then stick around to volunteer to read for a story time event for foals.” Spike blinked and grinned in mild surprise as he took his fedora from off a hook near the door, placing it over his green spines. “That’s nice, I didn’t know you did that!” “Well, it’s the first time the event’s been held since I took you and Thornton on as staff,” Fly Leaf reminded as she opened the door and held it open for Spike to step out. “Speaking of Thornton, you think he’ll want to come with?” “I don’t think so, it sounded like he’s going to be a while working on a troublesome spell this afternoon,” Spike explained. As if to prove this, a muffled bang was suddenly heard from somewhere upstairs, sounding like Thorax’s spell had yet again misfired. “Thornton!” Fly Leaf called up to her other employee. “Spark and I are heading out for a bit! Please don’t burn down my shop in the meantime!” “I won’t!” Thorax was distantly heard calling back down. Satisfied enough with that promise, Fly and Spike then headed out and off down the streets of Vanhoover, heading for the library. They chatted in passing as they went before Fly Leaf became inquisitive about the dragon beside her. “So Spark…” she began, then frowned, “…or do you prefer Spike? Thornton seems to favor the latter, but I’ve noticed you answer to either name, so…” “Uh…” Spike began, momentarily unsure how to answer. “Probably Spark would be better…especially in public.” “Spark it is then,” Fly Leaf settled then continued with her original thought. “Anyway, you and Thornton said you’d both been traveling about before coming here…so what sort of places have you been to?” “Oh, well,” Spike responded, having to think about it for a second. He saw no reason why he couldn’t be truthful about this though. “Canterlot, Appleloosa, Manehatten, Fillydelphia, Rainbow Falls, up into the Frozen North…” “Any place exotic?” “Well…Thornton hasn’t, but I’ve been down to the Dragon Realms before…” “That doesn’t surprise me, you being a dragon and all. That’s probably home for you.” Spike hesitated for a moment. “Actually…I was hatched and raised in Equestria.” Fly gave him a surprised glance. “Really? How did that happen?” Spike shrugged. “It just did. I actually hadn’t ever been down to the Dragon Realms until very recently, and that was just for a passing visit…maybe I’ll visit again sometime…we’ll see.” “Hmm.” Spike could tell from her tone that Fly Leaf was curious still about the matter, but she didn’t pry further. A couple blocks from the library still however, Fly Leaf decided she was hungry and stopped at a pony with what Spike thought was a shabby-looking food cart, selling pita pocket sandwiches. Despite the questionable appearance of it all, Fly bought one for herself anyway, pointing out it was at a decent price. “You want one?” she asked Spike as the pony, a rough-looking stallion that didn’t look much better than his cart, prepped her pita pocket. “I’ll pass, thank you,” Spike said, looking at the somewhat sloppy state Fly’s finished pita pocket looked and decided he didn’t trust it. Fly Leaf seemed to find the pita pocket tasty though, and had eagerly downed it all by the time they arrived at the city library. They found the building unusually busy due to the charity event, as it seemed Fly wasn’t the only pony who had come to donate and participate. Because Fly was a regular participant in the charity event though, she was recognized by the head librarian who assisted with Fly and Spike dropping off the supply of donated books. She was both pleased and relieved to see Fly Leaf as she knew she could always count on Fly to volunteer to read to the foals for the story time event, and this year it seemed Fly would be the only pony to do so; everyone else couldn’t make it for one reason or another, and as the story time event was a highly popular one with the foals, the librarian was starting to fear they would have a lot of disappointed foals to deal with. Fly Leaf assured that she would participate in the story time event, then she and Spike went and sat near the little amphitheater where the event would take place and waited for things to finish getting ready for it. While they sat and waited, Fly Leaf pulled out the storybook she planned to read and showed it to Spike. “The Adventures of Air Flap the Pegasus,” Spike read the title aloud, grinning at the cheery-looking cover. “Can’t say I’m familiar with it.” “It’s a relatively new book that seems to be pretty popular with foals these days, so I figured it’d be a safe bet to read it.” Fly explained. She then frowned and stifled a small, sour belch and thumped at her barrel with one hoof for a moment. “Something wrong?” Spike asked. “I think that pita pocket I had is making me a little gassy,” Fly admitted, her frown deepening as she let out another small belch. “…maybe getting that wasn’t such a good idea after all.” Spike grinned to himself, but withheld any comments he could’ve made on the subject. As the minutes drew on, parents started to file their foals towards the amphitheater and getting them settled down for the reading that would be taking place shortly. But the closer the start of the event drew, the more and more ill Fly Leaf started to appear. Soon she was leaning heavily on a nearby bookshelf and was breathing deeply in-between letting out more sour belches, which had been gradually getting more frequent. Spike grew worried as he noticed her face had taken on an unhealthy green tinge. “You okay, Fly?” he asked with concern. “Yes,” Fly initially responded, but then groaned and shook her head, amending her answer. “No…I’m starting to think there was something bad in that pita pocket I ate…” Spike winced and his concern grew. “Food poisoning, you think?” he asked. “Probably a safe bet,” Fly agreed with a weak nod as she let out another belch. If possible, she turned a little greener still. “I should rat out that stallion that sold it to me to the authorities…it’s against the city safety regulations to be running a food cart like that if the food he’s selling isn’t—URP!” Her cheeks suddenly puffing out, Fly slapped a hoof to her mouth as her eyes grew wide in alarm, then spun around and, somewhat wobbly, ran for the nearest restroom which, lucky for Fly Leaf, wasn’t too far from where they had been sitting. Spike watched after her as the bathroom door slammed shut behind her, realizing the mare was just about to be sick. “Uh…uh…” he stuttered, unsure what, if anything, he should do now. “Okay Fly Leaf,” then came the voice of the librarian from behind Spike as she strolled up with a pleased expression. “We’re ready to begin and those foals are all rearing for a good story, so…” she trailed off when she noticed only Spike was here. “…where’s Fly Leaf?” “Uh, in there,” Spike admitted, jabbing a claw anxiously at the bathroom door. “Fly’s not been feeling too good all of the sudden…we think it was something she ate on the way here.” “Oh dear,” the librarian stated with concern, and she trotted over to the bathroom door and rapped upon it. “Fly? You alright in there? Fly?” She opened the door and poked her head inside in time for the sound of Fly Leaf retching, hopefully into a toilet, inside. “Oh dear, Fly!” the librarian cried, and started to slip inside, only to about face and point at Spike. “Stall them!” she urged. “Me? But—” Spike started to object but he was ignored as the librarian ducked back into the bathroom. Spike bit his lip for a second, then figured to go ahead and step into the amphitheater and take over for Fly Leaf on the reading. After all, how hard could it be to read a storybook to some foals? It wasn’t until he was out before the group of cheering and applauding foals, thinking Spike was the one that had been planned to read from the beginning, that he realized he didn’t actually have the storybook in question with him; Fly still had it with her when she ran into the bathroom, and he had no alternatives at hand. He had nothing to read. Quickly, he racked his brain for a solution. “So uh, hello everypony,” he started off politely. “Um, so there’s been a small hiccup…Fly Leaf, the uh, mare who’s gonna read to all of you…has been, uh…unexpectedly held up, and can’t read to you right now…but hopefully she’ll be able to soon, and…” “Are you going to read to us?” a young filly suddenly called out from within the crowd. “Uh, well, no,” Spike began to hesitantly explain. “Because, you see, as I was saying, I’m not the one…” “Read us the story already!” another foal called out from the back of the group, quickly joined by more foals who all weren’t listening to Spike trying to explain the situation. “Get on with it!” “Read us a story!” “If you don’t read us a story, I’m gonna cry!” “Mommy, the lizard-thing won’t tell us a story!” Spike pressed his claws to his face in frustration for a moment, making a small growl. “Okay, okay,” he relented, even though he still had no idea what story he was going to tell them. “You want a story? I’ll tell you a story. This is the story about…” he looked around quickly for inspiration before spying a picture of a mouse on a sign hanging near the library’s children section. “…a mouse. A friendly little mouse named…” again he searched his brain for inspiration. “…Squeak. Squeak the mouse.” A colt raised his hoof. “What sort of mouse was he?” “A house mouse, the kind of mouse you’d find living in the wall of your kitchen, and that you’ve probably seen your mothers scream like little foals at the sight of whenever they scamper by.” This drew a series of giggles from the gathering of foals, and Spike saw one mare sitting to one side, probably the mother of one of the foals, roll her eyes in good humor at the jab. Heartened by this positive reaction, Spike pressed on. “So Squeak lived in the wall of such a house with all his mouse friends, and they all played together and did things together and were having a great time.” Spike paused briefly as he realized he needed some sort of antagonist now to create conflict. “But also living in the walls of the house was this big mean rat that didn’t like Squeak or his friends, and lived alone, plotting ways to mess up Squeak’s day.” “Boo!” one of the foals fittingly called out at this. “Boo on the rat!” “That’s right!” Spike agreed with a nod, pointing a claw in the direction of the foal. “This wasn’t a nice rat at all! Anyway, one day, Squeak was playing with a ball with one of his friends, and the rat saw this and decided; he was going to take that ball and keep it for himself. That way, Squeak and his friend wouldn’t have the ball, and they’d be sad, messing up their day and leaving them in a foul mood while the rat would take joy in their misery.” Getting caught up in the moment, Spike let out a wicked cackle at this, which drew more boos for the rat from the foals, voicing their disapproval of the rat’s bad behavior. “So when the ball accidentally went out of bounds during Squeak and his friend’s game, the rat dove for it to try and snatch it away from them! But Squeak and his friend hurried over and tried to take it back. And they tugged and tugged and tugged, until it popped out of all their paws and soared up through the air and landed…uh…” On the other side of the amphitheater from the library’s children’s section was the library’s cooking section, marked with a picture of a cooking pot on a sign, and Spike quickly recalled what Fly Leaf had cooked for dinner last evening. “…a ginormous pot of simmering seven-cheese stew!” The foals all oohed and awed at this twist, save for one foal who declared out loud that the pot of stew sounded delicious. “And thus it boiled down to a race to see who could retrieve the ball safely from the stew first, the rat or Squeak and his friend!” Spike went on. “While the rat went off to plot his own ways of getting at the ball, Squeak tried jumping in after it, but the stew was too hot, and he burned his bottom.” The foals laughed at this. “It became clear then that the only way to get the ball back was with something that could keep the hot stew from touching them,” Spike continued. “And that was when Squeak’s friend had the genius idea of using…” he spied one foal that was wearing a t-shirt with the picture of a sailboat on it. “…a boat!” “A boat?” more than one foal called back in surprise. “Yes!” Spike agreed. “With toy remote-controlled motorboats! With such a boat they could safely sail the seven-cheese stew and recover their lost ball!” “Like pirates!” a filly near the front cried. “Yes! Like pirates!” Spike agreed again, running with that idea. “Which meant Squeak and his friend had to put on the appropriate attire to look the part, and when they had, Squeak wasn’t Squeak anymore, because he’d become SQUEAK, SCOURGE OF THE SEVEN-CHEESE STEW!” Several of the foals shouted out praise for this, but then one curious foal asked “What did Squeak’s friend become?” “The sidekick!” Spike replied without hesitation. “Because every good hero needs a sidekick, right? Anyway, now dressed for the part and their motorboat ready, they cast off into the stew and went after their lost ball, but guess what? They found out the big mean rat had gotten the same idea, and came chasing after them with a motorboat of his own!” This drew gasps of surprise from his youthful audience. “And so the chase for the ball was on! Squeak and his friend dodged right, dodged left, trying everything they could so to lose the rat in the stew and get to the ball first, smashing through waves of cheesy stew and…” “This must have been one heck of a pot of stew!” one foal observed suddenly. “Oh, it was!” Spike assured. “It was a massive, family-sized pot of stew, a huge, stovetop-breaking sort of pot of stew meant to serve dinner for a whole family of healthy hungry ponies! And it was a big family!” He wanted to liken this imaginary family to the Apple family, but not only did he know that would risk revealing who he actually was, he knew it’d just go over the heads of his attentive audience and so chose to just leave it at that. “And the rat and Squeak chased—” “Don’t forget his friend, the sidekick!” “—and his friend, the sidekick, chased each other all across this huge pot of stew, bumping and racing and ramming each other, trying to get the other to submit or capsize, or at least moored up long enough for the other to reach the elusive ball first! Finally, the ball came into sight, and both sides made a mad dash for it in their boats. They drew closer and closer—they were neck and neck—and THEN…” Spike paused for dramatic effect. “…the rat got the ball first.” The foals all jointly gasped in alarm at this twist. One melodramatically cried out “no!” and toppled over in a play faint. “Yes, the rat got the ball first before Squeak and his friend!” Spike reaffirmed. “But…the joke was on the rat, because he was so busy gloating over the fact that he got the ball, he forgot to watch where he was steering his motorboat, and it slammed into the side of the pot, causing it to tip over, spilling the seven-cheese stew all over the kitchen floor in a cheesy flood of epic proportions, and it got everywhere, and we’re talking everywhere! On the floor, on the stove, on the cupboards…everywhere. And Squeak, his friend, and the rat, went with it. But they had a bigger problem at that point, because remember when I talked about your mothers screaming at the sight of mice? Well, just such a mother, hearing the pot tip over, came to investigate. Squeak and his friend, knowing the danger, ran and hid post haste—” “What does post haste mean?” a foal interrupted suddenly. “It means very quickly,” Spike explained quickly, trying to not lose his train of thought over the interruption, and jumped right back to telling the story. “Squeak and his friend ran and hid, but the rat, so focused on having snagged the ball before them still that he failed to notice, and so he was still sitting in the middle of the mess when the mother pony comes marching in and sees him. And can you guess what happened then?” The foals giddily and loudly all did their own impressions of their mothers screaming at the sight of a rodent in their kitchens. “Exactly!” Spike declared in approval. “So she gave that rat what for!” Then, remembering the average age of his audience, added, “Humanely, of course. She caught him and he got sent to an animal-friendly science lab where they put him through a series of safe and simple tests, um…” Spike decided he was going too easy on the rat now. “…that he didn’t study for!” Several of the older foals oohed loudly, voicing their sympathy for the rat and his testing predicament. “But!” Spike continued. “When the rat got caught, he dropped the ball in the process, leaving it free to be retrieved by Squeak and his friend, and they didn’t get caught, so we all know who won out in the end. And so, with their ball safely retrieved and the rat no longer where he was going to cause them trouble, Squeak and his friend got back to playing their ball game…” Spike thought for a second if there was a way he could sweeten the ending. “…and invited all his other friends to join in too. And they all had an excellent game of catch for the rest of the day. The end!” The foals all immediately cheered and applauded at this cheery ending. Spike was beginning to think he had successfully resolved the story time issue and was about to bow out and exit the amphitheater to check on Fly Leaf when the foals started to call out requests. “What happened to Squeak after that?” one filly asked. “Yeah, what other adventures did he and his friends get up to?” a nearby colt agreed as more foals voiced interest in this subject. “Another!” one colt cried loudly, throwing the juice box he was slurping from onto the ground to emphasize his cry. “Yeah! Tell us another story!” Spike hesitated, but then seeing the first one seemed to have worked out, he shrugged. “Well, all right then,” he said, and proceeded to devise a follow-up story. Again making it up as he went along, Spike dove into the further adventures of Squeak the mouse and his friends, relating to his attentive and young audience the story of how Squeak conquered and seized control of the cat tower from the house cat that also lived in the house, and how Squeak was able to locate and dig up a special mouse treasure buried in the backyard while at the same time evading the machinations of the pet dog that was trying to stop him. Spike was just beginning to piece together the premise for a possible fourth story involving Squeak diving into a pond for an underwater sort of adventure when the librarian finally returned and took charge again long enough to make an announcement. “I want to thank Spark for stepping in unplanned like that,” she said. “The pony who was originally going to read to all of you, Miss Fly Leaf, unexpectedly became ill at the last second. Fortunately, she seems to be doing a bit better now, but she’s sadly not in a condition where she could read to you, and if it had not been for Spark stepping in so quickly, we would’ve had to cancel story time altogether. So let’s all give an applause for Mister Spark real quick.” The foals all stomped their hooves in approval, with some going to extra mile to hoot and holler their approval. Feeling a little put on the spot and the thought coming to him that perhaps he was drawing a bit too much attention for someone who was trying to lie low, Spike sheepishly grinned, waved, then hoping to speed the applause along, made a polite bow real quick. Fortunately, the librarian called for the attention to come back on her as she proceeded to announce what was next on the itinerary for the library’s charity event, allowing Spike to slip out of the amphitheater finally. He was going to go look for Fly Leaf when the librarian, finished with the announcement and stepping away from the amphitheater herself, pulled Spike aside. “I just want to personally thank you again for keeping those foals entertained,” she told Spike. “They would’ve been deeply disappointed if they hadn’t gotten to hear any stories like promised, but you not only insured that didn’t happen, you kept them more engrossed than I’ve seen one of our storytellers for this event do in quite a while.” “Aw, well,” Spike said, shrugging off the praise. “You said to stall, and they were demanding a story…so I improvised.” “I noticed, and I’m highly impressed,” the librarian continued before tilting her head at him. “Did you really make up all of those stories just from the top of your head?” “Completely and utterly,” Spike confirmed with a nod then shrugged. “It probably showed.” “Well, I don’t know about that, you seemed to keep those foals more than entertained with your tales, so whatever you were doing, you were doing it well. I’d go as far as say that you have a talent for this.” Spike chuckled at the idea. “Nah,” he pressed, shrugging off the idea. “Besides, what would I even use a talent like that for?” The librarian shrugged herself, before starting forward again. “Writing your own stories comes to mind,” she said. She motioned for Spike to follow. “Anyway, Fly Leaf should be over here. One of my assistants is studying nursing and sat down to check her over. They should be done by now, assuming Fly Leaf has continued to improve.” Spike followed her obediently, amused by the librarian’s suggestion. “Heh, me? Write? That’d be the day.” Fly Leaf however, upon Spike telling her about it, seemed to agree with the librarian. She was sitting in a private study area of the library where there were few patrons, looking pale and weary, but assured Spike her stomach had settled down and she was more than alert to speak on the matter. “I think she’s not wrong, Spark,” she commented as the librarian’s assistant finished up checking Fly Leaf over now that the ill mare was in a better position to be looked over. “You seem to have enough of a knack for all the right skills for writing at least.” “Really?” Spike said, still skeptical of the whole idea while he sat to one side, waiting for the assistant to finish with Fly Leaf. “You could see me be a writer?” “Well, I could see you be a lot of things,” Fly admitted, smiling warmly at her dragon employee. “But your little improvisation for the foals demonstrates you can piece together an enjoyable story from scratch with ease or little preparation in advance. I only heard bits and pieces from here, but I heard enough to tell that they were still fairly well rounded stories despite that lack of preparation. Not many ponies can do that, you know.” “But they were just these silly random things,” Spike reminded. “True, but you were keeping your audience in consideration, and it was more than that to them,” Fly pointed out. “It wouldn’t surprise me you could whip together stories for all sorts of audiences too if you just put your mind to it.” She placed one orange hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Look, I’m not telling you what to do or anything. That choice is entirely up to you. I just think you aren’t giving yourself enough credit for your abilities.” She then shrugged. “Besides, I’ve seen your handwriting. You’ve got excellent penmanship, diction, and grammar, and you write fast.” She smirked. “Spelling could use some work though, but that’s nothing a good dictionary or thesaurus couldn’t fix.” Spike’s brow furrowed over his glasses as he considered that. “Huh,” he remarked. The assistant had finished her assessment of Fly Leaf’s condition not long after this and confirmed what they already knew; she had gotten food poisoning, likely from something that had gone bad in the pita pocket she had eaten. Fortunately for Fly Leaf though, her case seemed to be mild, and it was the assistant’s hope that whatever it was that had upset Fly had been “upchucked” (as the assistant politely put it) back out earlier and that the worse was over now. Fly simply needed to take it easy and rest up as her body recouped from the trauma and advised she drink lots of fluids to insure she didn’t get dehydrated. No need to stay at the library any further then, Spike escorted the still somewhat weak-kneed Fly Leaf back home to her shop for her to rest up, but during the whole trip back, he considered the supposed writing abilities he was told he was underestimating in himself.