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// 94 – "Apparently, I've Missed My Nineteenth Birthday." 
// Story: Spike Quits His Job and Goes on Numerous Quests 
// by B_25 
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~ 94 ~

"Apparently, I've Missed My Nineteenth Birthday."


Spike's eyes were lost to the palm of his claw, blinking at the purple scales now darkened with age. He then gazed to his dead friends, their faces just as surprised as his. They were breathing, unlike other dead ponies. 

The drake returned to staring at his claw.

“Spike?” the voice came, delayed but filled with sophistication, making the drake clench his eyes out of reflex. “Is that...is that actually you, darling?”

There was silence. Across the platform, the black dragon sat still. Dispair stood atop his head, just as unmoving as the dragon, watching the scene begin to unfold.

“That...that depends really,”  Spike said, clenching his claw and stabbing the scales of his palm. He needed a sensation, even pain itself, to subtract the raw emotions ravaging throughout his body.  His eyes began to burn, but he withheld his tears. “Is that...I mean are you..."

A gust of wind swept through the platform, picking off the tops of piles of ash, and flying back into the afternoon sky. Spike stifled a sob.

"Are you...really her?" he finally forced the thornful question out his throat, wincing as they parted from his lips. "Are you really my Rarity, or...or some grandchild of hers?"

The girls paused. They looked to one another, confused and concerned, before two of them shook their head and momentarily dropped them. Rarity stepped forward. 

"That I am, Spike."

Spike winced and turned his head. 

"I am your Rarity." She couldn't help but smile once he turned his head back, coming to giggle alongside her next joke. "Though I'm honored you'd think my looks would carry down through the ages. But I'm confused as to why you'd be concerned about a matter, particularly in a time like this."

Spike had chuckled at the joke, never quite returning the eye contact, and lowering his head upon hearing of her curiosity. He stepped backward to main the same distance between them. "I was asleep for so long...none of this is making any sense."

"Asleep, dear?" Rarity carefully ventured, staying in place. "I'm not sure I quite understand why sleeping would result in our...in our deaths, unless you fell into some sort of dragon hibernation." She chuckled. 

Spike was silent. 

Rarity wondered if she'd gone too far. 

"In a way, I was." Spike finally rose his head, gazing at the girls from across the platform. "I've met some new friends, who put me into a slumber to dispel all my worries and fears. Apparently, I've missed my nineteenth birthday."

He began to smile. 

Dash's face scrunched up as she came to her alabaster friend's side. "What kind of math is that? First, ya storm off into oblivion, and then you come back out nowhere, and claim to around the same age as us!" 

Spike couldn't find himself to be angry at the outburst. He looked to her with same wonderment found in watching the dead slowly come back to life. He smiled a wobbly smile. "I can't believe I'm hearing your voice again, Dash."

Dash blinked, before peering forward. "Well listen to it loud and clear then, bucko. Just where the hay have you been all this time!?"

Another gust of wind descended upon the platform. The end of his black coat wafted upward. "I already told you, I was asleep for most of the time. And even when I awoke to train, you ponies should have been dead long ago, unless the Elements has made you six immortal?"

“That. Would. Be. Awesome!" Rainbow's chest swelled at such a possibility, before her enthusiasm deflated. "But no. At least, I don't think they do."

"I was asleep until I was nineteen," Spike murmured to himself, swaying his head as his eyes glistened. "You ponies shouldn't be alive. You ponies shouldn't be alive!"

The girls felt their mouths go agape on their own. Even Disapir tilted his head, finding a show that was entertaining even to him. 

"And now why would we be dead, sugarcube?" the third and final voice emerged, drawing the drake's attention away from whatever had possed him. He looked to her and had trouble holding back the tears. "I'm not sure why you're acting like years have passed, but the fact that you think we would die in those years has us a bit confused."

Spike was silent. 

"Why do you think years have passed, Spike?"

Spike closed his eyes and swalloed. "Apple..jack. How many...how much time has passed since I left."

"Uh, I don't know the date exactly."

"A rough number...a rough number would do."

"I'd say a few months," she said. "Why?"

"There's something wrong here." Spike took serval steps back, trying not to focus his eyes on the girls despite his eyes being drawn to them. It was if they were to just evaporate at any second, and the truth would be unleashed to his fragile eyes. "Someone has to be playing tricks on me, or changing the universe so radically to make such a meeting like this possible."

"Why are you talking like that, Spike?"

"I agree with Rares," Rainbow said, tilting her head in her friend's direction. "Why don't you cut it with the crptic crap and tell us whatever it is you got going on?"

Applejack drew a breath before speaking. "Spike...sugarcube. Would you care to tell us how long its been for you; how long its been since you've spoken to us?"

Spike was silent.

"Well, Spike?"

Finally, he looked fully upon them, and did not hold back his gaze. Whether time itself would descend to turn their bodies into ash before his very eyes, Spike knew this was something he had to get over. "You say it's only been a few months since I left you girls, right?"

Applejack nodded her head. "I'm guessing the same ain't true for you?"

"I was told I was asleep until I was nineteen years old."

"You told us that one already!" Rainbow said. "We get that it's odd, but it still doesn't explain why you think we're all dead!"

Spike hesitated, then spoke. "You don't understand, when I say I turned nineteen, I mean that I turned nineteen in pony years."

A look of shock graced Rarity's features. Applejack dipped her head in thought, concern masking her face. While Dash stood forward, face still scrunched in irritation. "And what does that have to do with anything?'

"Dragons have a longer lifespan than ponies, Rainbow Dash," Spike explained, doing his best not to let his voice crack. "So, we measure our years differently."

"So kinda like dogs then."

"Kinda, but the other way around."

"Then spill the beans already!" Rainbow began to walk forward, though the drake did no inch back. "Just how many dragon years are in pony years?"

Spike didn't know why, but he began to smile. 



"One thousand and nine-hundred years. That's how long I've been asleep for."