"Where is it" Pumpkin demanded of the empty room as she pulled a variety of toys out from beneath her bed and sent them flying haphazardly across the room, upon running out of ammo she ran to her closet and repeated the process. the entirety of her room was now nothing but a massive mess, She had torn it apart while her twin brother, Pound Cake, was out playing with some of his friends.
He had tons of friends.
Pumpkin had friends too, at least that's what she told her parents, her brother, Pinkie Pie…and herself. In actuality, all her ‘friends’ were just her stuffed animals. She did all the kinds of things with them that one would do with friends. They went out for walks, they had lavish tea parties, they threw crazy parties with Pinkie. But out of all her stuffies, her favorite one by far was that of a little purple and green dragon. She'd gotten it at a fair in the Crystal Empire after spending all of her tickets at a booth and managing to knock over all the cans at once with her last throw. The tag that had once been on the stuffies leg declared its name as Spike, and she'd loved it ever since. She'd done her best to take good care of it, she even tucked it into her bed whenever she wasn't playing with it.
But upon returning home from a study session she had found her side of the room a mess and several of her toys missing and some broken. All that remained of her little dragon was the tag that had been ripped from its leg, and now that she knew it wasn't in the room she knew who had stolen it, the resident of the other half of the room.
"Pound!" Pumpkin screamed out, she instantly heard him and his friends go quiet, "Where's my Dragon!?" Pumpkin came out of the room and spotted Pound running down the stairs with his friends in tow, Pumpkin spied that none of them had it and instead chose to raid the room her family used as their living room. After failing to find her Spike she proceeded to look in every other room save her parents and Pinkie's room.
Upon finding nothing the only place left to search was the dining area where the customers ate. Pumpkin rushed downstairs and gave the area a once over, checking to see if any customers were in the restaurant when she saw who was at the counter talking to her mother. It was Spike, the real one, The little purple dragon who ran the library in the castle.
"That will be twelve bits please," Mrs. Cake said, Spike was fishing out the appropriate amount when he saw Pumpkin from the corner of his eye, turning his head to look at her.
"Oh, hi Pumpkin," he said, his face shining with a cheerful smile. "It's been a while since I've seen you." Pumpkin jumped back out of view, hiding behind the counter. Spike frowned at the reaction "Oh dear," Spike turned to Mrs. Cake, "She's not afraid of dragons is she?"
"Oh good heavens no," Mrs.Cake politely "She just gets nervous around others," Mrs.Cake said as she took the bits and Spike went to wait on his order. Cup Cake turned and went to find her daughter, who was peaking out to see if Spike had yet left the premise. "You know," her mom said ", If you want to make friends, you should try talking to others." her piece said, she went to bake Spikes order. Pumpkin mumbled a response under her breath.
"I have friends, I just lost one…” Pumpkin poked her head out from around the counter and saw Spike sitting at one of the tables, reading a really long piece of paper and talking to himself.
"Oh," She heard him say with a groan, "I forgot, It's re-shelving day," Pumpkin's ears perked with curiosity and she took a deep breath and walked out from the counter and quickly ran and hid behind the nearest table. She heard her mother call his order and Spike rolled up his paper and retrieve his snacks.
"What’s a re-shelving day?" She wondered quietly as she watched him take his bag of goodies. Wanting to know more but also not wanting to have to talk to him, she waited for him to leave, and decided to follow him. "Mom I’m going out for a bit," she called.
"Alright, have fun and try and make a friend or two," her mother replied as Pumpkin left and started her journey to discover what a re-shelving day was. Spike was pretty easy to follow. It was raining slightly, so not too many ponies were out, she saw her brother and his friends playing in the mud. Most of the usual market stands were closed due to weather. As Pumpkin followed Spike, she saw he was heading for the library.
"Is it a library thing?" she wondered, She continued following him for a distance until he entered the castle. Pumpkin quickly ran up to the crystalline stricter and then slowly made her way up the steps, and using her magic she phased through the doors so as to not attract Spike’s attention. She saw his shadow on the floor as he made his way into what she guessed was the library, so quietly made her way to the entrance, waited until his shadow dictated he wasn't looking at the doorway, and then looked through it.
The library was huge, it had so many books. She gasped, then shoved her hoof in her mouth and looked to see if Spike had seen her. She had almost forgotten she was supposed to be hiding. Thankfully, he had his back turned and seemed to be reading from his list again. She watched as he walked to one of the shelves and started selectively taking books off of them, once his hands were full he then put them on a table where a big book was sitting. She just stood there and watched as he kept doing this.
She was wondering if this was the re-shelving day when it happened, Spike was grabbing a book and pulled it out, only for several others to be pulled out with it and tumble down on him. He flinched at the incoming barrage but before any of the books even came close to hit him, Pumpkin used her magic to push them all away from him, scattering them around him.
Spike looked at them then turned on the spot, surprise evident in his eyes when he saw the little orange filly. They both looked at each other for a second, before Pumpkin took several steps back into the hall and covered her face with her hooves.
"I'm sorry!" She squeaked in embarrassment. "I wanted to know what a re-shelving day was, and I followed you here, please don't be mad!" there was a moment of silence before a shadow covered her
"Mad?" Spike asked with a chuckle as he popped out of the Library and looked down at her. "It’s hard to be mad at somepony when they just saved you from getting smacked in the face by a bunch of heavy books."
Pumpkin took her hooves off her face and returned them to the ground as she looked up at Spike.
"So you’re not mad?" she asked, and to her surprise, he just laughed.
"Hahaha! Pumpkin I'm honored that you chose me of all the ponies in this town to spy on, otherwise, I might be missing a tooth right now." After he stopped chuckling, he wiped his eye and then look back down at her. "Re-shelving day is the day I take all the books off their shelves and put them back in order."
"Order?" Pumpkin asked with a curious tilt of her head. "Why wouldn't they be in order?"
"When the Library is open, ponies are touching and moving books all day, not only that but this is also the day I put the returned ones back on the shelves, and resort any misplaced books." There was a moment of silence, then Pumpkin surprised Spike when she rubbed the back of her neck and asked with a flush face.
"C-Can I help?"
"Help?" he asked, repeating what she said to make sure he heard her right.
"Yeah, I'm a unicorn after all, so wouldn't it go faster if I helped you by putting them back?"
Spike smiled at her enthusiasm. "My dear friend I would be honored if you would help me," he said as he made his way back into the room Pumpkin stood in shock for a second before following after him
"friend?" she asked, looking like she was gonna cry
"Hm?" It was his turn to tilt his head now. "Well sure, saving someone from a book-themed avalanche and offering to help them in a hard task is something a friend would do, so I'd say we're friends,"
Pumpkin said nothing at first as Spike made his way to the bookshelves, her eyes started shining as she smiled, and declared for all of one dragon to hear "You're my friend, my first friend."