“Another, Donut Joe,” Spike said to the empty seat across the counter.
“Sure thing, Spike,” Spike said, doing his best gruff Donut Joe impression. He slid off of the crystal dining chair and plodded over to the kitchen counter. “You sure you're all right, Spike? You don't usually have this many donuts. Too many this late at night and you'll get a tummy ache.”
Spike sighed as he lifted the lid on the empty donut box. “It's been a long day. This time it was Twilight who had an episode, not me.”
Spike raised his eyebrows in place of an invisible Donut Joe. “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, opening the crystal cabinet below the counter and squinting as he peeked inside. He stood up on his toes and picked up the candle holder on the counter, using the light to search the cabinet. “Twilight babysat Flurry Heart today. She had a checklist full—full!—of things to do today, and you know what she did?”
Invisible Donut Joe didn’t answer.
“She kept forgetting about it! She never forgets a checklist. She has this insane need to complete them, and practically pulls her hair out if just one item isn’t completed at the end of the day.” Spike opened another empty cabinet and huffed. “Not only that, but she brought a baby into a room full of sick children! I mean, sure, maybe an honest mistake, but Twilight usually has the foresight, you know?”
“Yeah, I do,” said a distinctly not-gruff, not-Donut-Joe, feminine voice.
“Gah!” Spike jumped away from the cabinet. He dropped the candle holder, though before it could hit the ground, it was caught in the turquoise glow of Starlight’s magic.
She grinned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Nah, it’s okay, just,” Spike said, clutching his chest with a claw. “Yeah, okay, you scared me.”
“I’m sorry. Again.” Starlight rubbed her elbow. “I heard you, uh, talking about—”
“Yeah, it was nothing—”
“—Twilight having an episode, and I—”
“—could probably forget this ever—”
“—if you wanted to talk about it?”
Spike blinked. He picked at his claws, shaking his head. “I, uh, no, I don’t really feel like it, sorry.”
“Are… are you sure?” A smile crept across Starlight’s face as she nodded towards the cabinet. “I know where Twilight hides the good stuff.”
~ ~ ~
Starlight picked a jelly donut from the box and pushed the box to the middle of the dining table, so it was within reach of both her and Spike. “So I heard about what happened today,” she said.
Spike stopped wolfing down his chocolate, glazed cake donut and licked his claws one by one. “Yeah, I know. From me. Just now.”
“Well, yeah. I was holed up in the library most of the day. All I heard myself was Twilight playing with Flurry Heart in the halls.” Starlight set her donut down on a plate. “So you’re saying that wasn’t her?”
“Yeah, sort of. Like, I’m sure she’d play with Flurry Heart. That’s totally understandable. But, I mean, you heard what I was saying. The checklist, the hospital thing, it was all a bit off.” Spike wiped his claws dry with a napkin. “And, well, you know, what I’m thinking is that she was… forced to do some of that stuff.”
Starlight held her hoof up to her chin. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not like anypony’s mind-controlling her. But… it sort of is. It happens to me, too. A lot more than with Twilight, actually.” Spike wrung his claws and looked down. “You remember that one time… oh, wait, you weren’t here yet. Well, there was this one time, we were at the Equestria Games in the Crystal Empire, and I…” Spike’s face grew fire-red. “I sang Cloudsdale’s anthem… and I didn’t know the words, so I made them all up… in front of all of Equestria…”
Starlight cringed. “Oh. Oh dear.”
“Yeah, I know, but that wasn’t me!” Spike pleaded. “I get this urge inside me sometimes. It’s like this immense… pressure to do things I wouldn’t normally do.”
Starlight nodded. “No, it’s okay, I get that too.”
Spike stopped wringing his claws and looked at Starlight. “You do?”
“Yeah, and…” Starlight looked around the empty, dark kitchen. “Now, don’t call me crazy, but whenever this kind of thing happens, I see a little floating word out of the corner of my eye.”
Spike grabbed the edge of the table. “No way, me too!”
“I didn’t want to outright say it, because it sounds absolutely nuts. But it’s always there when I have an episode, every time, just far enough out of sight that I can’t make out the word.”
“Yeah, no, of course!” Spike hopped up on his chair. “But you see it too, right?”
“Yeah! You remember that one time, when I cast a spell that hypnotized all of our friends?” Starlight held her hooves up by her eyes, looking down at her elbow. “The word. Right there.”
Spike’s eyes went wide. “Yeah, whenever I get the urge, it’s always there.”
“Yeah, exactly. And just last Friday, when I got mad at Trixie and bottled up my anger—like, put my anger in a literal bottle—I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to tell Trixie exactly what I felt, but the urge, it made me bottle up my anger.”
Spike snapped his claw. “I knew it. I thought, ‘That’s so unlike Starlight,’ and now I know why.” Spike leaned forward. “How about when you locked Twilight and I in that time-travelling spell thing and tried to stop Twilight from meeting her friends because of petty revenge? Was that an episode?”
Starlight rubbed her elbow. “No, that was… That was real.”
Spike sat down. “Oh.” He picked at his half-eaten chocolate donut. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” Starlight looked down at her own not-eaten donut and picked it up. “It was only real at the time. That’s not me anymore.”
Both of them turned to their donuts and nibbled in silence. Spike finished his before Starlight, licking his claws and looking down at his feet. He swung his legs as they dangled a few inches above the ground.
Starlight watched Spike’s feet, too. She ran a hoof through her mane. “Has Twilight ever said anything about having episodes?”
“No,” Spike said, resting his cheek on his claw. “I’ve asked Twilight before and she says she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I asked Rarity once, too. Then I just kept it to myself.” He smiled. “But finally, I’m not alone, so that’s nice.”
Starlight nodded. “Yeah, I’m glad I’m not the only one. I was afraid of telling anypony, since I haven’t known you guys for very long. What do you think is causing it?”
“No idea.” Spike rested his elbow on the table. “But one thing I notice is it goes away almost right after someone learns a lesson. So maybe there’s some friendship magic and stuff that’s forcing us to learn lessons. It was before the map, so I don’t think it’s that.”
Starlight rubbed her chin. “Hmm. Okay.”
Spike sighed. “I kinda wish it just went away. Maybe it’ll stop after a while, you know? Like, it appeared out of nowhere, so maybe it’ll disappear out of nowhere too, right?”
“Right. Maybe given it a couple seasons? Maybe it’ll stop after spring or fall.”
Spike shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s been going on for years. Who knows when it’ll stop.”
“Yeah, who knows.” Her eyes wandered over to the kitchen counter. She floated over the box of donuts from the counter. Lifting the lid, she presented the remaining array of donuts to Spike. “Well, until then… Another donut?”
Spike smiled at the sight. “Yeah, sure.” He picked out one with white frosting and chocolate sprinkles.
Starlight picked one out, too, and raised her donut in a toast. “To less Spike episodes.”
Spike smirked and raised his donut. “Cheers to that.”