//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Heart`s Warming, the Breezes of Loyalty [Edited] // by CaioCoia //------------------------------// The snow was falling lightly outside, the soft white flakes were falling on the day of the most celebrated holiday of the year in Ponyville. Looking outside from the window one can watch the snow falling and look on as the ground becomes covered in layers of fresh snow. Meanwhile, inside the castle laying on the carpet near the fireplace was a young purple alicorn who was reading one of her many books. She was alone but she had the feeling that something important was missing. She looked to her draconian assistant’s basket and he surprisingly wasn’t there. Searching for her assistant, Twilight got up from the carpet and started to go looking for him. Searching inside her castle she attempted to locate him. She checked the bathroom, the throne room, his bedroom, the library, and many other rooms that her castle held, but he wasn’t there. Just then, she caught a whiff of something that smelled absolutely delectable. She smiled to herself, finally knowing where he had run off to. Slowly approaching the kitchen she entered to see a little purple dragon with green spines who was baking something that smelled delicious. The little drake’s face was covered in flour but he was happily baking something to his heart’s content. “Happy Hearths Warming Eve, Spike.” Twilight said from the doorway catching him off guard and almost making him drop his utensils. “Whoa!! Hey Twi, you scared me a bit there. You nearly made me drop my baking utensils.” Spike said grinning, feeling very relieved that that hadn’t been the case. “But anyways, happy Hearths Warming Eve to you too, Twilight.” “So Spike, what are you planning to do today?” Twilight asked while approaching him, looking at whatever he was baking. “Oh, I was just making this cake and baking some cookies for today. Maybe make some eggnog for later on, and then just go watch the snow fall near the fireplace.” Spike cleaned his face with a nearby towel as he told her plans for Hearths Warming day. Twilight started to become anxious, she didn’t like to see her assistant and her closest friend do all the work for her. “Can I help you with something, Spike? I want to help you finish this soon, because I kind of want to have a chat with you.” Twilight asked making Spike look at her, his eyes riddled with confusion. “A talk? What do you want to talk about?” Spike asked trying to decipher his surrogate sisters intentions. “First: lets finish this, and afterwards we can talk about it. Here, let me help you with this.” Twilight said while approaching the granite island in the middle of the kitchen and catching his bowl of cream with her magic. Spike started to chuckle, making her stare to him in confusion. “What? Is there something on my face?” “No, it’s not that. It’s just that you’re assisting your assistant. That’s a good one” Spike let out a little laugh. “I hope you’re not trying to take my place as your number one assistant.” Twilight thought over what he was talking about, she couldn't deny that idea was funny, and start to giggle too, after that simple joke. “Okay, that’s a good one I must agree, but don’t worry. I won’t try taking your place as my number one assistant. I can be the number one assistant of my number one assistant.” Twilight joked in derision like him and they started to laugh, after facing so many problems and challenges, they still had their friendship and each other's company to help them deal with the boredom. When the laughing fit was broken, it created a silence between them. Spike smiled and brought the eggs and cream to Twilight. “Okay, my number one assistant, if you’ll help me by starting to make some eggnog for us and then after making it we can go and finally talk.” Spike remembered how Twilight gave orders to him and tried for the first time act like her, doing a great job. Twilight guessed the roles were switched for them, making Spike the boss and Twilight the assistant. Even if it was just for one day. “Okay? Is that everything you needed me to do, Mr. Dragon?” Twilight asked in a serviable fashion sounding like an assistant at his beck and call. “Come on, Twilight. I never called you Ms. Sparkle and much less your highness.” Spike said while rolling his eyes in her direction. “You know you only have to call me Spike, right?” Spike took the cake out from the oven and put his cookies in. Finishing this, he then put the cake over on the table and looked towards Twilight, who was starting to make the eggnog by herself. Spike smiled, watching her make the eggnog without his help. Taking his cream bowl it took a few minutes for Spike to ice the entire cake, he spread gems along one side of the cake for himself and put alfalfa along the other side for his friends to enjoy. “The cake is done.” Spike said as he let out a sigh of relief, noticing that Twilight had finished making the eggnog and was now tasting it. “Mmm! It’s perfect.” She said after sampling her eggnog proudly. “Okay, now we only have to wait for the cookies. So what do you want to talk to me about?” Spike asked while he put his pink, frilly apron on the counter and walked over to her. Twilight looked at him, but Spike was desperately trying to avoid looking her in the eyes. “Spike, how are you feeling?” She asked, he let out a small sigh, recalling how she had asked him the very same question just a few days prior. “It’s okay, Twilight. You don’t need to worry about me, I’m feeling fine.” Spike said showing some exasperation in his voice. “Spike, I know you’re lying to me. Please, just tell me what’s bothering you.” Twilight said, sitting down next to him and wrapping one of her wings around him in a comforting manner. Spike looked to her, he was nervous and trying to think of a way to weasel his way out of the interrogation, he couldn’t think of one. Letting a sigh of defeat, he walked to a nearby chair and sat on it, letting another sigh escape his lips he turned to Twilight. “I feel absolutely terrible, Twi. But I’m doing better than I was a few days ago. I thought I had finally gathered up enough courage to confess to Rarity how I felt. To see if I could get her to love me back. I needed to know if she felt the same way about me or not, or if she was just… leading me on. No matter what the answer was going to be, I knew that I needed to know the truth.” Spike’s posture and demeanor sagged as he continued speaking. “Well, I found out. Found out exactly what I wanted to. How Rarity truly felt about me. My crush, the mare I’ve been pining after for years, crushed my heart. Right into little pieces.” He sighed, pulling his legs up into his chest. “At least she tried letting me down easily. She told me that she saw me as a little brother. That’s good, I think. It still hurt though, more than I let her know. Knowing that me and her never truly had a chance together. It stings.” Spike said his claw pressing his chest, as if it were wounded. After taking a breath he exhaling a sigh of sadness “I’m trying to focus on my chores, to avoid thinking about that. Keeping my mind busy with the cleaning and the cooking helped me a lot to keep me from dwelling on it, so I’m still better than before.” He looked back to Twilight. “Thank you for asking, Twilight. This actually helped cheer me up a little bit.” Twilight listened her draconic brother with all the empathy she had, but inside of her heart she still had a strange inkling that there was something he wasn’t telling her. However, she knew she couldn’t just force it out of him, he’d tell her when he wanted to, not when she wanted him to. She remembered when she was studying with Starlight and Spike at the castle, he was destroyed, he didn't eat or drink all day long. She took care of him as much as she could the first day after Rarity had rejected him. She couldn’t remember seeing him cry that hard or for that long in a very long time. The second day the situation became worse, because Spike wasn't feeling himself, he didn’t show any feelings and acted like he lost every feeling he had. After a few days like this, she tried to get him to go outside, but he didn`t show any interest in going outside. Day after day Spike had changed a bit after Rarity said that they couldn’t be a couple, there was a good change however, she noticed her assistant was becoming depressed but still was trying to hide his true feelings from the others, making more chores for himself to avoid thinking of this. Twilight knew that doing this was unhealthy but wasn’t sure how she could get him to tell her what he was hiding. The timer made a sound signalling to them that the cookies were done. Spike got up from the table and walked over to the oven, pulling the cookies out and placing them on the nearby table. He took out a list and crossed off the final line of his chores, everything was done and he was ready to spend the rest of his day watching the snow fall gently down to the ground. “Hearths Warming meal? Check. Now, Twilight, if you don’t mind I have some snow to watch.” Spike was excited to watch the snow by himself, it's the perfect occasion for him finally watch the simple things in his life. However Twilight didn't share in his enthusiasm because she feared when he finally had time to himself his depressed thoughts would comes back to bite him in the butt, she needed to find a way for him to waste his time. “Hey, Spike? Why can’t you just read a book today? Maybe if you read a good book you will feel better and forgot what happened?” Twilight suggested, the books always helped her with all her personal problems, there was nothing that a good book couldn’t do, she remembered when she did read the entirety of Ponyville history, she had forgotten all of her problems and even her chores for that day. Which led to more problems being created. Spike looked to Twilight with a serious expression, like what she had said to him was the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard. Twilight attempted to figure out why Spike was looking at her that way, but after a few moments of silence he slowly shook his head and let out a sigh. “I know you are just trying to cheer me up Twilight, but I don’t think a book can do that for me.” Spike thought it would have been tempting if he had liked the idea in the first place. Twilight was speechless, Spike refused the idea about reading a book, was he crazy or something like that? Rarity destroyed his heart so hard making him turn to madness, why can't he just let the books help him? Her mind was running wild trying to comprehend what he had just said to her. “But you know? I liked the idea of reading something today, so I think that I will go and read my Power Ponies comic right now, thanks Twilight.” He walked out of the castle kitchen. “Wait, what?!” Twilight snapped out of her thoughts after hearing Spike tell her he was going to read his comic books. “But Spike, haven’t you already read your Power Ponies comics ten times? Don’t you think it’s time to try another type literature? Like our books?” “Nah, I’m okay. It’s not my fault that the Power Ponies are in hiatus until next month, so I will have to wait until then, and nothing better than reading it again.” He waved his claws like it wasn't important to him, but the more he tried to avoid reading the books, the more Twilight annoyed him into trying to. “But Spike, books are a good thing to read, they have adventure, fantasy, romance, comedy, we have a lot of books to read, Spike. Why can’t you just pick one to read, you will find out the books are better than comic books.” Twilight shut her mouth after realizing what she said. Spike turned around looking mad to her. “Say that one more time, and I will make you want to take that back.” Spike stated, making her glare seriously at him. “Make me take that back. That`s what I want to see you try, I said that books are better than comic books.” Twilight dared her assistant to make her take her words back. “Okay.” Spike sighed and walked around the kitchen, noticing one book he found on the floor, after reading the cover he showed it to Twilight, making her widen her eyes, noticing her defeat was coming. He was in front her looking at the book with a devilish smile. “So you wanna see me try? Okay, let’s see what we have here, The Tales of The Hearths Warming Celebration, Vol 2. This is your favorite, isn’t it?” Twilight knew she has to take that words right now, or something terrible would happen to her beloved book if she didn’t. “What do you think will happen if some dragon sneezes on this?” Spike pondered looking to her, he was going to sneeze on purpose and burn her favorite book. “OKAY SPIKE, OKAY, YOU WON. I TAKE THAT BACK, BUT PLEASE DON’T BURN THE BOOK.” Twilight begged Spike to not burn her favorite book. Spike was going to reply to the comment when one knock on the door far away from the room, was echoing all throughout the castle. “I guess we have a visitor, you don’t know how lucky you are, Twilight” Spike put the book on the floor and started to walk towards the front entrance. Twilight hugged the book with all her force, thanking whatever forces were helping her and let her book remain safe from Spike’s fire breath. The hug was ended abruptly when she looked around the kitchen and noticed all the utensils were disorganized, she let out a sigh and started to re-organize them, but also wondering who it was that came to visit them. Spike walked through the corridors, going the front door the knocks were becoming more powerful and quick. “I’m coming, hold on a second.” Spike finally stopped in front of the door and opened it letting a colorful burst enter the castle. The door closed and Spike flew backwards into the throne room. Spike fell from the colorful burst who was carrying him near the door, he was trying to understand what heck happened in that moment. “What was that?” Spike asked as he got up from the floor, he saw a cyan pegasus shivering on the floor, her mane nearly frozen white from the snow that had accumulated in it. He recognized this pony as Rainbow Dash, who was currently freezing right in front of him. “Rainbow Dash are you okay?” She only nodded but after that collapsed to the floor.