//------------------------------//
// But Now I See 
// Story: Grief is the Price We Pay 
// by Scyphi 
//------------------------------//

Spike was finding it very hard to calm himself down after Twilight’s disastrous visit, so much so that he spent the next several or more minutes (he wasn’t sure of an exact timeframe, truthfully) following it still curled up on the floor, weeping outwardly but inwardly his blood was still boiling. By the time the tears slowed to a stop again, Spike had rolled onto his back and glared up at the ceiling of the chamber, angrily reviewing what Twilight had said to him during her relievingly brief visit.

How dare she, he thought to himself. How DARE she come in here and say such things, and with Thorax lying RIGHT THERE no less! How DARE she speak of him in such a callous manner, like his life had meant NOTHING, and how DARE she try to shift ANY of the blame off herself, let alone onto me! ME! All just because I had the GALL to stand up to her!

And so on his internal seething continued, all of it directed at the alicorn that had wronged him so. He had known well before Twilight had ever set hoof into the chamber that such a meeting was only going to end in disaster, but not even he thought it would’ve gone like this. He had expected her to come in trying to pick up their relations from where they had left off, like Thorax had never happened, which Spike wouldn’t have stood for a second any more than what did transpire. But it stung to hear Twilight so blindly miss the point, and he was insulted Twilight even thought she could try to wave aside her blame like she did. Even after the literal changeling hive full of evidence proving Thorax’s honor that she had been witness to, Twilight still couldn’t see him as anything but an enemy, and even with all the evidence piled up against her, her little stunt only proved to Spike that all she cared about was proving to him that she had still been right.

But she wasn’t. And the idea she couldn’t see that, that her own ego meant more to her than his own grieving heart and his lost friend, infuriated Spike…as well as cause him to pity her, which was the saddest part of all of this. Deep down…he knew she could’ve done far better.

Spike continued to lay there on his back, glaring at nothing, for several minutes without interruption. He had effectively forgotten that, despite it having wound down considerably, Thorax’s viewing was technically still underway, until a hapless changeling, unaware of what had transpired and whom Spike didn’t know, entered and quickly tried to hurry to Spike’s aid upon seeing him lying on the floor, thinking him hurt. Annoyed at having his resentment interrupted, Spike only snapped at her, chased the baffled changeling out of the room, then dragged the chamber’s beetle-like doors shut, sealing himself inside and barring entrance of anyone else who might choose to come and disturb him. Any who tried were all immediately told to leave by Spike. He didn’t want anyone right now.

As the hours then slowly passed by, Spike spent his seclusion quite restlessly, unsure or unable to settle down into any one particular activity. He spent the first several minutes just pacing aimlessly about the room, brow tightly furrowed as he let his anger bubble. Every now and then the pressure built up to the point that Spike would break down and bellow the raw rage out into the chamber. Eventually, realizing his anger for Twilight wasn’t diminishing any, he took to ways to try and vent it however he could. At first he took to yelling very foul-mouthed triads against the pony, but when that proved to be insufficient, he took to hurling chucks of changeling resin at an unflattering caricature of Twilight he scratched out on the wall with his claws. When he ran out of loose chucks to throw, of which there really weren’t that many lying around to begin with, Spike took to yanking out new ones directly from the walls and throwing those.

But soon even that proved to not be enough, even after Spike had torn chucks of resin from what seemed like every place in the room he could reach except for the floor and of course the resinous base for the moss bed Thorax’s body laid upon. At that point, Spike ended up throwing himself upon the caricature, pounding and clawing at it with his feet and claws until it had been scratched into oblivion and, wearied from the effort, Spike let himself sink to the floor, weeping again. He remained leaning against the wall shedding tears for a long period, but still feeling restless, he eventually rose to his feet and proceeded to pace aimlessly about the room again, mulling upon bitter thoughts while half-heartedly kicking at the pieces of resin left scattered about the floor.

Before long, his pacing gravitated back towards Thorax and he started walking back and forth or in a circle around Thorax’s resting place, viewing the changeling and mourning for his death. As he had been doing ever since his friend’s death, he kept wishing Thorax hadn’t died at all. Eventually this wishing turned to desperation, and as the increasingly late hour and lack of sleep started to wear on him, it ultimately led to the dragon coming to Thorax and helplessly shaking his body in a very vain attempt to try and get him to “wake up.” This stopped abruptly once Spike realized what it was he was doing, and, ashamed, let his head drop onto the side of the mossy bed to go into another bout of weeping. At the end of it, he reverently took the time to restore Thorax’s position upon the moss his shaking had bumped him out of.

Though, depressingly, he noted that despite the shaking, Thorax’s position hadn’t shifted much at all, the changeling’s body now feeling cool and stiff under his claws. And with that realization, the fact that Thorax was dead and gone sank into Spike’s mind with full finality. Up until then, Spike had found some way to shirk it, some way to convince himself otherwise, warding off this full realization…until now. To his genuine surprise, he found himself taking it better than he expected, and it wasn’t long after reaching this point that Spike found himself accepting that Thorax was dead and not coming back. Despite this progress though, it still left the dragon extremely depressed and sad, and he found himself sinking to the floor again, leaning against the side of the bed with glazed eyes staring at nothing.

He remained there for a very long time, just letting his mind wander. He felt listless…he dimly thought it might have something to do with the late hour—he was certain it was well into the night now—and that he hadn’t slept or eaten since that morning leaving his body gradually running out of energy to keep going. Weirdly though, he found he couldn’t care…even though he figured he probably ought to. Instead, he just sat there and let the time slowly continue to slip away from him.

At one point he picked up one of the hunks of resin he had been throwing around earlier and started whittling away at it with one of his claws, scratching away random flecks of the block and not really having any intended shape in mind. That is until he realized he was whittling away one end more than the other and he continued with that trend for a while until he had given the block a pointed and extremely sharp tip. He held it in his claws for several long moments, debating to himself what he could do with such a sharp thing…but ultimately he snapped off the pointed tip with his claws, making it uselessly blunt again, and tossed the pieces aside. He did not pick them up again.

He continued sitting there, letting the hours slip by as his mind retreated inward upon itself and outwardly turned more and more distant. At some point, he let himself slump over until he had flopped onto his side, laying there on the floor with his back against the moss bed and vacantly staring out across the chamber, but he couldn’t recall when exactly that had transpired. At one point he lazily reached for the cushion Pinkie Pie had left for him so to slide it under his head, sparing it from having to rest on the hard and cold floor underneath. He noticed that it had been a long time since someone had attempted to enter the room now, but he wasn’t terribly surprised given how late it had gotten, nor was he particularly bothered by it. He was facing the chamber doors still anyway, so he would see if there was ever any activity there.

Unbothered, then, he remained where he was, until a moment when he slowly let his eyelids close for a prolonged blink of a second at most, only to open them again and see that Princess Luna had suddenly appeared within the chamber, standing by the still-closed doors.

More surprised than annoyed, Spike sat up, ogling her. “How did you get in here?” he asked aloud.

“The changelings, it seems, were quite reliant on the magic of Chrysalis’s throne for security,” Luna replied, then upon seeing that Spike didn’t understand, elaborated more simply. “There are no wards anywhere in the hive prohibiting teleportation.”

“Oh,” Spike grunted. He blinked blearily a few times at her. “So…why are you here?”

“I have not yet paid my respects to Thorax, first of all,” Luna replied calmly as she moved to approach Spike, glancing about the chamber as she did, no doubt noting the aftermath of all his actions since sealing himself inside. Spike noticed she was carrying a tray in her magic, but from his angle sitting on the floor, he couldn’t see what was on it. “Second of all, I wished to visit you.”

“Oh,” Spike grunted again. He frowned a little. “I don’t get a say in it, then?”

“I did not mean offense,” Luna assured, pausing her approach but not really denying it.

“Whatever,” Spike mumbled, instead choosing to rack his brains, trying to determine how long he’d been in here now. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Not quite sunrise,” Luna replied. She tilted her head, regarding him critically. “You have not slept.”

“I’m not tired,” Spike replied while proceeding to rub groggily at his eyes.

Luna watched him do so for a second. “Of course,” she said, but sounding unconvinced. “You should still consider getting some sleep at some point though.”

Spike shrugged off her advice immediately. “I will when I feel tired,” he grumbled, ignoring the fact that he was clearly already there. Luna regarded him in silence for a long moment, her lips slightly pursed, so Spike nodded his head at the tray she carried. “What’s that?”

Luna glanced at the tray and floated it to him so he could see. “I thought you may like something to eat, so with the assistance of the changelings, I have taken the liberty of obtaining an early breakfast for you.” She moved closer to point out the foodstuffs arranged on the tray. “It is not elaborate of course, as this being the changeling hive, there are only so many foods edible to the likes of us accessible, but I think we were able to manage.” She pointed her hoof at each of the foods in turn. “There is a potato-like tuber, a couple of native mushrooms, a type of a fibrous but edible plant here that the changelings call hive’s purslane, and a wedge of cheese that the changelings make themselves.”

“Changeling cheese,” Spike noted aloud, regarding the faintly mint-green wedge of cheese as he accepted the tray into his claws.

Luna nodded. “You are already familiar with it, then,” she remarked aloud and regarded the wedge whimsically for a second too. “It reminds me a bit of camembert actually, except a bit more savory in flavor. I admit to being rather surprised to learn of it though…as they feed primarily on emotions, I was unaware the changelings made anything like it.”

“Just don’t think too hard about where they get the milk to make it,” Spike advised. He continued to regard the cheese for a long moment, reminiscing. “Thorax was a big fan of this cheese, though.” He heaved a heavy sigh, then, carrying the tray in his claws, he stood up. “Anyway…I’ll get out of your way.”

He moved away from the base of the mossy bed and over to the side wall of the chamber to sit back down, taking the tray with him, while positioning himself so to watch Luna proceed with paying her respects. Luna watched him move, actually wishing to speak a bit further with him first, but upon seeing that would have to wait, she turned her attention to the deceased changeling, stepping closer.

She heaved a sad sigh as she looked the fallen changeling over, turning visibly sullen. “So, we meet in person at last,” she mumbled aloud to Thorax. “I confess…this is not at all how I had hoped we would do so. But…having seen many of the same omens as you had…perhaps I should have foreseen it coming.” She went quiet for a moment after these cryptic words, closing her eyes. She drew in a shuddering breath before continuing. “I am deeply saddened and sorry that it had to come to this, young Thorax. Much like you had, I did not wish for anyone to die from these events. But that said…I am glad that the good your sacrifice has presented for both of our races suggests it will not be in vain. If you are still witness to that in anyway, I at least pray that you have few regrets for paying that price.” She drew another deep breath, opening her eyes again, in which her dismay for his passing was clear. “May you rest peaceably, Thorax, and…thank you for what good you were able to bring to us…regardless of the grave price that came with it.”

After these words, she went quiet, falling into a long moment of respectable silence in salute to the changeling’s passing. Afterwards though, she turned to face Spike again, the dragon still sitting to one side and idly watching her. She noted with a frown that he had set aside the tray of food without partaking of anything upon it. “Are you not going to eat?” she asked aloud, moving to approach him.

“I’m not hungry,” Spike replied simply.

Luna stopped to regard him seriously for another long moment. “Starving yourself will not bring him back, Spike,” she reminded seriously.

Spike frowned and his mostly amiable attitude towards her up to now vanished. “Are you finished?” he asked sternly, changing the subject.

Luna paused for a second then resumed approaching him. “Actually, I wish to speak with you further, if I may,” she said, moving to seat herself beside him. “I feel there is still much to discuss.”

Spike’s brow furrowed, and he bodily turned himself away from Luna. “If it’s about how oh-so-very sorry you are, lamenting about what happened, how wrong you all were, or anything to do with Twilight, then you can forget it,” he growled in warning.

“On the contrary,” Luna explained calmly, proceeding carefully. “I wish to tell you a tale…if you are willing to listen.”

Spike was quiet for a moment, but slowly turned back to glance at her, his expression a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. “What sort of tale?”

Luna made a small grin, heartened by Spike’s show of interest, even if small. “Well,” she began, “a great many years ago now, back in the early days of Equestria, things were not nearly as peaceable or without struggle as they are now. The country was still quite young and there were many things about governing that were not yet worked out. Celestia and I were still young and relatively new to roles as princesses, though we had certainly been ruling long enough to have earned the trust and respect of our subjects. Despite that, we were overwhelmed with the problems we all faced as a country and uncertain how we might overcome them. Starswirl the Bearded had vanished by this time, and without our beloved mentor aiding us through governing like we had at the time of our coronation, it often felt like we had no one else to turn to for aid.”

She fell silent for a second. Spike assumed it was to wait for his reaction to this, seeing if he would permit her to continue. Upon debating it briefly, he shrugged to himself and decided he might as well. “So what happened?”

“Well,” Luna said again as she continued. She licked her lips as if debating how to proceed. “There were two ponies that were at that time established at the heart of Equestrian politics of the day, eager to do their part to help as citizens of their still-fledging nation. They both had many grand and bold ideas about where the country could go, were eager to both share them and help make them a reality if possible, and pleaded for the chance to do so.”

“And I’m guessing you and Celestia granted them that chance.”

Luna smiled distantly. “But of course. So those two ponies, granted the opportunity to help guide the country into the future, set to work making their respective visions possible. And what bold and grand visions they were. It was hard to not be excited at the prospects they foresaw bringing to Equestria. The problem, however, was that their respective visions for Equestria were not mutually compatible. One viewed the country going one way, the other viewed it going a different way. Both were highly promising, but we could not have both. And as their visions pulled increasingly apart from each other, debates started to arise over which of the two plans would be best to pursue. Sides were chosen. The arguing grew to be quite fierce and at times vehement. It was hard not to be—the fate of Equestria rested on the outcome, or so it felt at the time. Finally it came down to a final and intense vote to decide which path the country would take. And after much arguing and conflict, the ponies spoke and selected the path they would take, abandoning the other. The victorious pony immediately set off to carry it out, abandoning anything to do with the other plan, there being little point in doing so now. The loser, however, felt jilted, dismayed that the plan that pony had taken so very long to conceive was being so completely dismissed without a second thought, and disagreed that the victorious plan really should win out.

“That pony attempted to bring new life to their plan, at first by trying to fuse it with the winning plan, then upon that failing, attempting to try and replace the winning plan with theirs, all in the belief that this plan was the one the country really needed. The pony had convinced themselves that any plan that wasn’t their own was only going to bring trouble. The two ponies had been close up to that point, so the losing pony tried to gather support from the winning pony, but the winning pony respectfully declined and only continued to pursue their own plans, dismissing the other’s entirely without giving it the attention the losing pony felt it deserved. Becoming increasingly frustrated though, the losing pony refused to give up, continuing to try and force their losing plan upon the populace, trying to gather supporters. As the years went by, it caused the losing pony to grow increasingly more and more bitter, angry, and distant from all around them…and all in vain. Their plans were no closer to coming to fruition than they had before, and by now the winning plans were well underway towards implementation. Indeed, those plans were proving very beneficial to the country as hoped, and the losing pony was urged to accept it.” Luna’s tone gradually turned distant as she continued relating the tale. “However, that pony refused. Anyone that would not accept their views was now considered a rival, and decided such a thing was intolerable. The pony’s continued attempts were only getting quite embittered and destructive over it and only causing harm for all…most especially themselves. There was no way it would end well unless the pony realized that continuing on down this path would only bring them more suffering, not the victory they desired.”

Spike snorted, believing he saw where Luna was going with this and why she thought the tale related to him. “So what did he do about it?” he asked wearily, urging Luna to just get to the moral of everybody living happily ever after and how he could too if he just did the same, so he could go on with telling Luna precisely why he did not agree.

Luna, however, surprised him. For a long moment, she did not reply, turning very withdrawn and her eyes vacant as she recalled distant memories. When she finally did, it was not to speak the outcome Spike was expecting. “She became Nightmare Moon.”

Spike felt a chill run down his spine, eyes widening as he realized these weren’t just any two ponies Luna spoke of. He twisted around and gaped at her, who remained distant and sullen, no doubt recalling unsavory memories of the event. He of course knew all about the rise and fall of Nightmare Moon, but this was the first time he was hearing the tale uttered from the mare herself.

Luna took a deep and sorrowful breath before proceeding. “Spike, I know that after what has happened you feel extremely bitter, and by all accounts you are quite entitled to,” she remarked. “But that bitterness will never bring you anything, and most certainly not the closure you so desperately need. It is easy to lose yourself to that bitterness, to convince yourself that it will all still work out that way, but I promise you…that time will never come. If you continue down that path, you will only live to see yourself become a monster doing harm far greater than any wrongs you feel were done to you…far too late to do anything to prevent it, or take it back.”

“So, what, you’re saying I’d eventually become like a…Nightmare Spike…in the end?” Spike asked incredulously, the words blurting out before what Luna was telling had sunken in fully.

“Not per se. No one needs to become a Nightmare anything to still make grave mistakes in their anger and hatred if they choose to succumb to it.”

“I’m not.”

Luna gave him a cold glance. “Then your behavior has been doing little to convince me otherwise, Spike.”

Spike opened his mouth to angrily deny it, but then caught himself as he realized he would only be proving Luna right. Shocked by that thought, it forced him to fall quiet.

Seeing this, Luna continued. “I do not say this to be mean, of course, but I know very well the power of that temptation…and for your sake, I plead that you fight it off instead.” She took a deep breath. “If I wish to achieve anything with all of this, Spike, it is to spare you from reaching the point of having to live the rest of your natural life knowing that you had ever let your anger cause you to do such a horrendous thing.”

Spike continued to gape at her, stunned by this adamant argument Luna was giving. For a long moment, he simply sat there, trying to process what it meant. Soon, his mind entered a conflict where it couldn’t agree whether Luna was absolutely right or whether remaining bitter like he deeply wanted would be preferred. The latter was proving very hard to let go with Thorax’s body still lying there in the room in front of him, and he found himself staring longingly at his fallen friend while his mind whirled on.

“Luna, he was the greatest friend I have ever had, more than any I’ve had before in my life,” Spike spoke abruptly. Tears started to form in his eyes as he gazed at the deceased changeling, his voice starting to crack. “…and he’s dead!”

“Yes,” Luna acknowledged seriously as she took him by the chin and turned his head to face her. “But he did not die in vain. He died, saving your life, saving my life, saving all of our lives, saving all of Equestria, potentially saving numerous other countries, and even saving his own kind by showing them a better path. And yes, he paid the gravest of prices to do it, but it is still a great victory for everything he lived, died, and believed in. Are you really willing to take that all away from him just because you can’t accept that this is what needed to happen to do it?”

Spike gazed at her, tears dripping down his cheeks, before he wrenched his head away so to gaze back at Thorax again. Slowly, he closed his eyes, knowing there was only one answer he could give. “No,” he admitted in agreement. Slowly, he started shaking his head. “But…everything I did these past four and a half moons was to prevent him from facing any fate like this…only to be forced to sit to one side and watch it all be for nothing.”

“And I firmly believe that Thorax would disagree,” Luna stressed, “because your actions still gave him four and a half moons of your friendship, something I know he cherished greatly, and I may not have gotten to know him anywhere near as well as you did, Spike…but I don’t think for a second that he would have given that up for anything.” She again gently turned the little dragon to face her. “And I don’t think you would either. No matter how it may have ended…to the both of you, I think that friendship still made it all worth it more…don’t you?”

Spike looked at her, weeping, for a long moment, then he again twisted away, averting his gaze from the princess of the night and continued to mournfully regard Thorax lying on the mossy bed. Luna sat and sadly watched him during that time, hoping Spike would choose to resume the discussion, or at least show some sign she was getting through to him. But even as the tears the dragon shed slowed and vanished, Spike remained silent and spoke no further.

Luna breathed a heavy sigh, closing her eyes as she hung her head for a moment. “Very well, then,” she concluded softly and rose to her hooves, turning for the exit. She was soon arriving at the door and debating whether she wished to teleport back out of the room or simply use the door this time, wondering if it would really matter at this point.

“Irritati.”

Luna blinked and twisted around to look back at Spike. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, confused.

“Irritati,” Spike repeated. “It’s a changeling word…it means ‘embittered.’” He sniffed and rubbed at his nose with the back of his claws before turning to look at the princess, explaining. “Changelings typically feed only on positive emotions, but they have the capability of feeding on any emotion at all, including negative emotions. The reason they don’t, however, is because feeding on such negative emotions is addictive, making them become unstable emotionally and mentally, eventually becoming aggressive and violent without reason…only to end up hurting themselves and those around them. They call those that are like this irritati.” Spike’s gaze went back to Thorax. He placed one set of claws upon his chest. “I’m not a changeling,” he continued softly, sadly recalling what the changeling had said to him when they first spoke of this, “but bottling up my own anger and hatred like this is poisoning me too, and if I keep doing it…I’m going to end up hurting myself too…in ways far more painful than any physical injury.” He let his claws fall into his lap again as he continued to gaze at Thorax’s body. “He’d want me to let it go and just move on…wouldn’t he?”

Luna studied the dragon for a second. “I believe he would, yes,” she agreed. Slowly, she trotted back to Spike’s side. “I know this is the first time you’re dealing with the death of someone so close to you, and that is not easy to deal with. It never is. And I fear it never will. But it is simply something we all still must accept.”

Spike was quiet for a second. “And if we don’t?”

Luna made a small and forlorn grin, not out of happiness, but because she could relate. “Undoing death is something every living thing upon our world has wished to do at some point. Some of them have seriously sought some way to do it, either through science, magic, or a combination of both. I must admit there was a time when even I kept up with such studies back before my banishment. After all, I have faced death many times myself, and it has never any easier to deal with every time.” She sat down beside Spike again. “But I’ve since come to realize that, no matter what, death will always be unconquerable, at least in this plane of our existence, and sadly no amount of magic can undo it. Some have found ways to fake it, but it is never a true restoration of life for the dead. Once dead, the deceased are not going to come back—the very mind and soul that had once made up that being is gone now, leaving the physical world for realms beyond and unknown, or so I have always liked to believe.”

She reached out and wrapped a hoof around Spike. “I’m telling you all of this, Spike,” she continued, “because it is important you recognize and accept it, or you will never be able to begin the healing process and come to terms with his death, instead losing yourself foolishly and fruitlessly chasing after something you can never have again. I’ve seen it happen before to others, of all species, who were twice as strong and knowledgeable as you. In the end, it is simply better to cherish that you ever had something so great in your life at all.” She leaned closer. “I know he was a dear friend, Spike. But he wouldn’t want your life to end just because his did. That wasn’t why he gave himself up in the first place…you know that.”

Spike didn’t speak for a very long moment, mulling upon her words. “Luna,” he began slowly, “the pony in your story…did she ever find the peace she was looking for?”

Luna gazed at him for a moment. “Yes,” she replied earnestly, blinking back a tear, “in time.”

Spike nodded to himself. “Okay,” he mumbled. He let himself tip over until he was leaning on Luna’s side, the princess wrapping her hoof tighter around the grieving dragon. When he spoke next, it was directed at the fallen changeling before them. “For you then, Thorax.”

The two remained silent after that. There was nothing more that needed to be said.





At some point Spike dozed off, falling into a much needed deep sleep. It was blissfully dreamless, and Spike suspected Princess Luna had something to do with that. Upon waking though some hours later, Luna was no longer in the room, having left him to sleep without disturbance. Nevertheless, he felt rejuvenated and more alert, so much so that the past several hours seemed like a daze by comparison. He still felt grave sorrow for Thorax’s passing, and one of the first things he did upon waking was to stand beside the changeling’s body, lamenting his passing, but somehow, through means he couldn’t explain, he felt a bit more prepared to face the no doubt grievous road still ahead of him.

More immediately, he also felt hungry. As Luna had left the tray of food behind when she departed, no doubt in hopes that he would take the time to eat it, he helped himself to the food, downing it all ravenously. At first he was going to eat all but the wedge of changeling cheese, not having forgotten what had gone into making it, but his empty stomach demanding filling eventually won out and he ate it anyway. The savory taste reminded him of the Thornton Cheese that Thorax would make back in Vanhoover, yet not entirely, the changeling cheese still being notably different in terms of texture and strength in taste. He quickly could see why Thorax had been so very fond of it and so determined to try and recreate it, but then again he had thought the same thing after tasting Thornton Cheese for the first time.

After eating, he remained in the room, quietly keeping watch over the body of his friend, wondering to himself what to do next. He knew that, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t stay here forever—sooner or later he was going to have to get up and do something else besides sit there and mope. But he put it off until finally, as the morning following Thorax’s death began in earnest, the choice was made for him and two reformed changelings entered the room with Spike’s permission.

“If you are ready,” the first of the two changelings told Spike, “we would like to proceed with the final steps of preparing Thorax for burial.”

The thought gave Spike pause, turning to regard his fallen friend with a heavy heart. The idea of burying Thorax had such finality to it…he knew it would signify a closing farewell to his dearly departed friend. He didn’t feel nearly ready for it…but he also suspected that, were it left up to him, he never would be. He looked over his friend lying on the bed of moss for a long moment, before taking in a deep breath and bracing for the step he knew he had to take. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you guys can go ahead.”

“Will you be staying to watch, as before?” the changeling then asked.

Tempting as it was, Spike immediately shook his head, figuring the preparations probably wouldn’t bring him any comfort anyway—he was loosely familiar with some of the steps generally required. “No,” he said aloud, stepping away from Thorax. “I’ll leave you two to it and won’t get in your way.”

“Are you certain?” the changeling pressed as Spike turned to leave, no doubt very aware of how emotionally trying this all was for the dragon.

“Yeah,” Spike said as he paused at the door, wistfully looking back at his friend. “Besides…I’ll get to see him for one more time at the burial, won’t I?”

The changeling grinned sadly. “I suppose so,” he said, then nodded respectfully. “Very well. We will make an announcement throughout the hive when the burial is ready to begin. I imagine a great many will want to join you for it.”

“I hope so,” Spike said, and with a final nod to the two changelings, he turned and exited the room. Though he did so very self-conscious about leaving Thorax’s side, he still felt confident this choice was the right one to make, no matter how difficult.

After he left the room though, he quickly found he didn’t really have anywhere else to go…and no real idea how to get anywhere in the hive even if he did. So instead he chose to wander about the hive randomly, allowing his mind to lapse into deep thought. Of chief focus was what he would do once Thorax was buried and where he would go. It was still a difficult subject for him to face, but he was perfectly aware he couldn’t ignore it forever. Thorax was gone, but Spike wasn’t. Like it or not, his life would trudge on, and he knew he needed to prepare for whatever lay ahead still, no matter how challenging.

So he mulled upon the matter as he wandered aimlessly about the hive, occasionally crossing paths with other changelings that greeted him as he passed. He didn’t think much about his wandering, but as it turned out, he wasn’t the only one up and aimlessly walking about the hive…which he saw when he rounded the corner and stepped into a corridor the same time Twilight Sparkle happened to enter from the other end. Both abruptly halted upon seeing each other and waited for the other to react. Neither of them did though and instead they simply stood there, staring the other down in silence. Twilight did so with clear apprehension, fearing Spike’s wrath towards her. Spike, however, simply watched her without expression, waiting for her to make the first move.

Gradually, perhaps realizing this, she did. “Um…out and about, huh?” she remarked softly. It was weak and lacked genuineness. But Spike simply nodded in reply, so Twilight continued. “Heading anywhere in particular?”

“No,” Spike replied. He looked Twilight over for a second, noting she had a still fairly fresh cut on her left temple and briefly wondered about it. “You?”

“No,” Twilight replied back. “I’m just…wandering…thinking.”

Spike nodded to himself. “Likewise.”

Twilight was quiet for a second. “You’re still furious with me…aren’t you?”

Spike averted his gaze for a second, not seeing how answering that truthfully would help. “I’m still trying to give you the chance to say whatever it is you need to right now, Twilight,” he eventually said instead.

Twilight nodded to herself a bit, taking a few cautious steps towards him and her face falling. “I’m sorry, Spike,” she said softly, as earnestly as she possibly could, “Truly and deeply sorry.”

Spike’s gaze dropped to the floor. “That isn’t going to bring him back, Twilight,” he pointed out, his voice cold and distant.

“I know,” Twilight replied. “But for your sake…I dearly wish it could.”

“How can you even begin to claim that?” Spike hissed suddenly. “Everything you’ve done only suggests you didn’t care about him at all. Twilight, last night you couldn’t even call him by name!”

Twilight went silent for a moment, averting her gaze in shame. “A lingering bad habit I’d developed,” she confessed.

Spike wasn’t swayed. “Don’t give me excuses, Twilight.”

“Spike, what I said last night…I…I didn’t mean disrespect to you or your friend, Thorax, or to make you think that I…I hadn’t…” Twilight trailed off for a second then started again. “I just…I’d felt I needed to explain myself, and…I spoke without thinking…” she trailed off again, squeezing her eyes shut. “…no…no, you’re right, I can’t try to justify it…because the long and short of it is that there is nothing I can say that will make up for what I did. I made a grave mistake and you ended up paying needlessly for it. After everything I’ve done to you…I can’t possibly blame you for hating me.”

Spike looked at her wearily for a long moment then heaved a heavy sigh, averting his gaze again. “It’s not that I hate you, Twilight,” he spoke abruptly, drawing Twilight’s attention back onto him, “Not really, at least. I’m just…extremely, extremely, disappointed in you.” He returned his gaze on her, his eyes sad. “What happened at the Crystal Empire…that was when I needed your support, then more than ever before…” he shook his head, “…and you weren’t there for me…it was like what I was trying to tell you meant…nothing…and it left me wondering if you were ever really there for me to begin with.”

“I know,” Twilight admitted, nodding her head. “At least…I do now.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Now is entirely too late, Twilight.”

“I know.” Twilight bit her lip. “You were right, Spike…you were always right, but I refused to see it. And I ended up pushing you away, risking your life needlessly repeatedly, hurt pony relations with everybody, turned Equestria topsy-turvy, accused innocent beings…and helped get somebody killed.” Now Twilight shook her head, suddenly furious at herself. “Sweet Celestia, I’m such a fool!”

“Then why did you do it, Twilight?” Spike demanded firmly, stepping closer to her. “It’s the one question that keeps running through my head again and again that doesn’t have an answer. Why in Equestria did you do this?”

“Because I was scared!” Twilight snapped back. Then, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes in shame, she continued on in a calmer voice. “When you looked at Thorax, you obviously saw a friend…but when I looked at him…all I could recall was every past time I had encountered a changeling…and how none of those encounters had ended well.”

“Then it was a racist thing,” Spike deduced, feeling a bit vindicated. “You wouldn’t trust him simply because he was a changeling, judging him because of the past actions of other changelings, ignoring completely who he was as an individual.”

“But there’s even more to it than that,” Twilight continued anxiously, cutting Spike short before he could continue with his criticisms. Her gaze wandered about aimlessly as she sought how to best explain. “You of course remember when the changelings tried to invade Canterlot?”

Spike nodded. “I assume you were afraid something like that was going to happen again with Thorax,” he deduced coldly.

“Well…yes and no,” Twilight admitted. She again paused. It was clear saying all of this was very hard and uncomfortable for her, so Spike didn’t rush her. But he also waited expectantly for her to finish too, not about to let her get out of saying it. “It was more…when I had caught on that something was amiss about Cadance…before she was revealed to actually be Queen Chrysalis…I tried to do something about it, to bring it to everyone’s attention and stop things before harm could be done…but no one would listen to me. And for a moment, I was stripped of the support and companionship of all my friends, family, and my mentor all because one changeling had swayed them so thoroughly they couldn’t see what I saw…and hundreds nearly suffered greatly because of it. Because of just one changeling, Spike. I saw the warning signs and could’ve prevented it…but everyone turned their backs on me instead…leaving me alone and feeling helpless…only for a matter of a couple of hours…but it still felt like an eternity to me.”

A moment of silence fell then Spike folded his arms, resolutely gazing at Twilight. “That was precisely how I felt when this all went down, Twilight,” he reminded coldly. “Don’t you see that you had only done the same exact thing to me?”

“But then you know what I was feeling when Thorax appeared!” Twilight stressed determinedly, her apprehension suddenly forgotten in her determination to make this clear. “Spike, I was beyond terrified that what happened in the Canterlot invasion was happening again then and there at the Crystal Empire, and it seemed to me I was already losing you to the sway of a changeling…I was determined to at least make sure it got absolutely no further than that.” Twilight’s eyes turned frightened. “I did not want to be put in that same sort of situation again, where I lose all who I care about to the smooth-talking of a changeling…I was desperate to avoid that…” she averted her gaze yet again, “…clearly to the point of excessiveness.”

“Yes!” Spike hissed, and jabbed a claw furiously downwards as he went on to make his point. “You were so desperate to spare yourself that you ended up doing precisely the same thing to ME! In this instance, Twilight, you were the changeling you were so afraid of!” He shook his head, fuming for a moment, before, while forcing himself to calm down, he leaned against the nearby wall of the corridor and hung his head. “Twilight, all you’re doing here is proving to me more just how very flawed your reasons were in all of this…and just how oblivious you’ve been…” he squeezed his eyes shut, continuing on in a whisper, “…or might still be now.”

Twilight went quiet for a long moment, but eventually she took a deep breath and continued on. “Spike, you asked why I did why I did…and that’s why,” she reminded gently. “Everything that I’ve done since what happened in the Crystal Empire, has all been a…very misguided attempt to try and stop what I feared would only drive me apart from those I cared about. I won’t pretend like any of it was right of me to do because I recognize now that it wasn’t. Yet while I know that it hasn’t seemed like it, Spike…that still always included you. So when you started siding with someone I knew to be a changeling over everything else, rejecting everything I was trying to say…”

“Then why. Did you. Let. Me. Go?” Spike demanded slowly and deliberately through clenched teeth. He put strong emphasis on the words of the sentence as he slowly turned his head to look at the mare with expectant eyes. “If you really feared for me…falling away…like that, then when I told you that if you banish Thorax, I was going with him…why did you let me go?”

Twilight hesitated. “You made your intentions very clear…would it have mattered if I did, Spike?”

“I was bluffing, Twilight,” Spike growled. “I was just trying to blackmail you into not banishing Thorax.”

“Clearly not though,” Twilight argued back, “because you still acted on that threat, making it clear you meant what you said. You never even tried to come back, did you?”

Spike stared at her with cold eyes. “By then you had already made it clear to me that I wasn’t wanted.”

Twilight stared back at him for a moment, but her resolve quickly caved again and she lowered her gaze, her shame surging upon her like a crushing weight once again. “Look, we can argue this in circles for days and still get nowhere,” she said, cutting the argument short. “It was the same then, too. By that time, I…I didn’t foresee anything good from trying to argue it further…no one did. You were so fiercely determined to side with Thorax that…we feared any attempt to force you to stay away from him…was only going to push you further away, demonize us even more in your eyes. We thought…I thought…that if we let you go…that would still leave us enough of a good standing to…to try again and convince you to come back…when the chance next arose.”

“And what exactly was that next chance you were thinking of, Twilight?” Spike asked. “I’ve already been told that you and the others still thought that Thorax had this whole swarm of other changelings hiding somewhere to support him, waiting to take us in, but you must realize you had no proof of that, and Thorax and I both told you there were no such changelings! We were both acting alone.” He pointed a claw vaguely in the direction of the Frozen North. “You realize we both could’ve frozen to death out there in that wilderness, right? By sending us away, you could’ve very well just been sending us to our deaths. In fact, that’s precisely why I did leave! Because I was scared to death that was the fate awaiting Thorax unless he had someone he could count on…and as I was the only one willing to do it…” he trailed off, leaving his thought unfinished, but clear.

By this time, Twilight had teared up, quietly weeping. “But I really, truly, believed you were in no danger of that, Spike,” she confessed softly. “I really did think there were other changelings waiting to snatch you up, and while that was still an awful prospect to even consider…I knew the changelings would still keep you alive and safe at least. Shining thought for certain that if we let them have that apparent victory, it’d let them back off and drop their guard down, and then he could go out with the Crystal Guard to capture them and secure you back and…” she let out a miserable sob, and despite himself, Spike felt his anger cool a little at the sight. “…when we realized nothing was out there though…that you two had instead fled the area entirely…Spike, I think that was when I first began to realize just how disastrously we had messed up…I didn’t want to admit it…but after that point…all I really wanted to do, was set things right and get you back, where I knew you were safe again.” She abruptly let out a frustrated yell, and angrily stomped a hoof on the ground. “I’m such an idiot…it was all there…right in front of me…but I…I just…how could I have been so oblivious to something so obvious?”

Spike was quiet for a second. He slowly lowered himself onto the ground, seating himself with his back resting against the corridor wall, his eyes going unfocused as he turned the matter over in his head. “You were blind,” he remarked aloud, recalling the words one changeling had spoken to him while paying their respects to Thorax, “but now you see.”

Twilight watched him through her tear-filled eyes for a second. Slowly, she started to nod. “Yes,” she echoed, “but now I see.” She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to clear them of tears and sniffling to herself as she worked to calm herself down. She was only semi-successful, but it was enough that she took another step closer to Spike, speaking humbly and with confidence. “Spike, look…in a way, I was bluffing too, because I didn’t expect you to actually make good on your claim to follow Thorax, and…even when you did, a part of me still expected you to come back…once you saw for yourself what I foolishly believed was the truth. Further, I never thought both of you would actually try and flee until I was told that was precisely what happened.”

“Do you really think that helps your side of things any?” Spike asked with a small amount of spite, but mostly he was just making a point.

One Twilight saw as more than valid. “Of course not,” she admitted. “It’s just…I didn’t understand…I didn’t appreciate…what Thorax meant to you…much less understand that he was being such a genuine friend to you.” She stopped to take a deep breath, bracing herself. “But now…I understand why you did leave. It’s like you said…I hadn’t given you any reason to think you were welcome there anymore…something I now regret deeply. Spike, with every fiber of my body, I swear to you…I never meant to give you that impression.” She licked her lips again then pressed on. “And as for Thorax and my bias against him…I think I understand where my thinking went wrong. I had wanted to compare the situation with what happened at the invasion in Canterlot, but…in reality…the real reason I lost support like I did in Canterlot was never because of any changeling…it was because of how misguided I was in trying to address the problem…a mistake I only repeated here, because I failed to learn the lesson when I should’ve the first time.” She paused, watching Spike and trying to judge his reaction to all of this, but there was little change in the dragon’s composure. “Spike, I’m not trying to justify what I did, and honestly, I don’t really think there’s anything I can do to fix this anymore…but it’s been pointed out to me that…just giving up, succumbing to fate and doing nothing isn’t going to change anything either. So…if it helps at all…I promise you, after everything that’s happened…I’m going to try everything in my power to keep myself from making that same mistake again, and try and warn others who might do as I did. Hopefully…it’ll prevent anyone else from suffering like you and Thorax have.” She watched Spike for a second again, but still didn’t see any change in his distant expression. She sighed heavily, sinking into her guilt and regret yet again. “You still blame me for his death,” she observed heavily.

“Absolutely,” Spike replied without an iota of hesitation. He sighed, closing his eyes for a second too. “I mean…the blame’s not all on you…I recognize there were lots of other factors that led to it too. And I see Chrysalis as the actual murderer, so for her sake, she had better hope that she never crosses paths with me again, or…or I don’t know what I’ll do.” Spike shook his head for a second. “But there is still no doubt in my mind, Twilight…if you hadn’t done what you did…he’d still be here, alive.”

Twilight shuffled her hooves heavily, fighting shameful tears again. “I’m sorry, Spike,” she said again. “But…there’s nothing I can do to change that now.”

“No one can,” Spike agreed heavily. He teared up too, and suddenly the anger and fury vanished, revealing the hurt little dragon he was. “That’s probably what hurts the most about it. At the end of the day, Twilight, I don’t want redemption, revenge, apologies, or anything like that.” He let out a sob before continuing on, choking on the words as he spoke them. “I just want my friend back.”

Twilight averted her gaze sadly. “And here I am,” she murmured darkly to herself, “the supposed princess of friendship, taking that friend away.” She shook her head. “I’m such a fool.”

“Yes, you are,” Spike agreed. He fell quiet for a second, leaning his head back in thought. “But then maybe I am too.”

Surprised, Twilight looked back at him, blinking owlishly. “Spike?”

Spike didn’t open his eyes or reply back for a moment. “When I left the Crystal Empire with Thorax,” he began slowly, “I also gave up you…on everyone…except myself and Thorax. And because of that, I turned my back on any chance of fixing things.” He sighed heavily. “I had my chances to end this sooner too, Twilight…opportunities to seek to set the record straight, make peace, or even seek additional help…but I turned them all away…refused to even consider them. I was just so angry…I refused to believe I could be anything else ever again.” He let out another sob, somewhat suppressed this time. “What’s worse is that Thorax saw what I was doing ages ago, but…bless his heart…he was too good a friend to try too hard to call me out on it…so when you get right down to it, even I didn’t listen to Thorax as much as I should’ve…and as I result, I just let things keep getting worse, and worse, and worse…and now here we both are…wishing we had never let our petty grudges get so bad. If we had…maybe things would have been different.” He opened his eyes and gazed mournfully at Twilight. “We were both blinded by hate, Twilight…but at least you hadn’t been so blind as to stop looking for a solution…whereas I was.”

Chilled yet humbled, Twilight simply stood there in silence for a long moment, staring at Spike. “Spike, you had more than enough just cause to think that way at the time,” she reasoned. “You were simply being realistic.”

“Was I?” Spike challenged. “Everybody is always dismissing ideas or calls for such peace and friendship among all because they’ve all conditioned themselves to think that such a high ideal is too unrealistic. But now I’m wondering if Thorax was always completely right. What if such thing is much more within our reach than we all allow ourselves to think, and we just aren’t reaching it, because we aren’t letting ourselves actually try and obtain it?” He shook his head, looking away. “Whatever the case, Thorax was still right about one thing…the best way to defeat an enemy isn’t to beat them down until they submit, it’s to make that enemy into a friend, because you can’t have enemies when all you have are friends.” He sighed. “We just didn’t listen to him soon enough…and now he’s gone.”

Twilight gazed at him quietly for a long moment. Slowly, she closed the distance between them finally and sat herself down beside him. “I can’t imagine how awful you’re feeling right now, Spike,” she murmured softly. “You did so much trying to protect him…only to have him die anyway. It must seem like you failed him.”

Spike gazed at the floor with sad, wet eyes. “It’s not entirely untrue,” he confessed. “But that’s just it, Twilight. Even with all of that hanging over me…when I look back at everything that we did together these long four and half moons…” slowly, he grinned a little, a warm and cheery small grin that batted away a little of the gloom seeking to engulf him, “even if I had known then what I know now, that the whole adventure was only all going to end in his death…I would still do it all exactly the same, because, no matter what…those four moons I had with Thorax were the greatest four moons of my life… even with every bad thing weighing on my mind during it all…and even if it meant he would get to live in the end…I wouldn’t give that up. Not for anything, Twilight, not ever.” He was tearing up now, but confusingly, he suddenly let out a laugh at the same time, realizing Luna had been right. “And because of all that, I intend to cherish those four moons I had with Thorax as my friend always and forever, never forgetting one iota of it…because to me…even though I now have to face the terrible pain of losing him and the frightening prospect of living life without him…somehow…it was all still worth it.”

Twilight watching him for a moment, unable to share his baffling cheer. “I still wish I could do more to take that pain away, Spike,” she murmured aloud. “And I never wanted to put you in such a painful situation in the first place.” She sheepishly played with her hoof for a second. “I know it seems meaningless…but I really am sorry, Spike…deeply so.”

“I know you are,” Spike acknowledged, his brief flare of cheer fading again. He slowly shook his head. “But the forgiveness you’re looking for, Twilight…I’m sorry…I just can’t give that to you…not right now. I’m still not sure if I ever can. Never mind Thorax…you hurt me. Neither of us can ignore that. And no matter what…I think that’s always going to stand in our way.” He sighed heavily. “I know what you want, Twilight…you want things to go back to the way they were before. In a lot of ways, I do too. I do miss the old days, Twilight, when I was the assistant trying to help the neurotic princess of friendship trying to make the world a better place…”

“You’re more than that to me, Spike,” Twilight said. Her voice caught suddenly and she started tear up as she struggled through her next statement. “I know I never said it very often…but I always have considered you…like a sibling to me.”

But Spike shook his head sadly. “No, Twilight,” he said slowly. “I had a sibling…but he’s gone now.” Twilight blinked once, but then closed her eyes and bowed her head, crushed to hear this. Despite the sadness it was clearly bringing her though, Spike continued on. “I’m sorry, Twilight,” he said. He spoke in a very level and stone-faced manner outwardly, but inwardly he felt, clogged within his body, a deep and massive amount of sadness for having to say this that he just couldn’t express fully. “I know it’s painful for the both of us to admit it…but we’re not siblings, and perhaps we never were. I think we both know that, if that was ever really true, neither of us would have ever let this happen.”

Twilight was quietly weeping now, if anything only even more dismayed to hear this, but even through all of that she was slowly nodding her head in agreement. “I do,” she whispered finally, “but that doesn’t change how I feel about it.”

Spike slowly shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s not going to change how I feel about it either, Twilight.”

A long moment of silence fell between them in which the two sadly sat and mulled upon this admission, realizing the scope of the great rift that had divided them and how impossible it seemed it could ever be closed again.

Which was probably what led Spike to say what he did next. “But I don’t think that means we have to be enemies still,” he spoke abruptly.

Twilight turned her heard to stare at him, eyes suddenly alight with the smallest flares of hope. To his mild surprise, Spike felt heartened seeing that hope in Twilight again, no matter how small.

But he took in a deep breath and kept speaking, turning stern and dark. “But you have to promise me, Twilight…that you will never do something like this to me, or anyone, ever again.”

“I promise, I promise I will, Spike,” Twilight immediately vowed, almost too quickly, but her eagerness to have that chance to prove herself was quite clear. “I swear to you, I have absolutely no desire to make this same mistake again, not after all the damage I’ve seen it cause, damage I could’ve prevented. I swear it on my life, Spike.”

Spike remained uncertain though. “Do you?” he challenged firmly.

So Twilight took it a step further, proceeding to mime out a familiar motion. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she recited the rhyme solemnly. She then lowered her hoof and regarded Spike watching her. “I foolishly nearly pushed you away once before, Spike. I have no want to do anything that could do that to you again.”

“FOREVER!” the voice of Pinkie Pie unexpectedly echoed out from somewhere else in the hive, startling the dragon and alicorn as they twisted their heads around, peering down the corridor in the direction the shout came from.

No sooner had Pinkie’s shout echoed out though did the voice of Rarity suddenly and loudly follow. “PINKIE! YOU MADE ME SPILL WATER ALL DOWN MY FRONT!”

The two sat and stared as the echoes of the random exclamations faded away, needing a second of silence for it to sink in. But it was shattered when Spike involuntarily snorted and suddenly the two were in hysterics, the peals of their laughter ringing off the walls of the resinous hive corridor. It was cathartic, releasing. For a moment all the grief and pain and sadness they had been weighed down with was swept away, gone from sight, and all that remained was the joy of laughter. It got Spike thinking about better times, when there was no animosity between him and Twilight, and longing for the days when they could hang about, joking and laughing like this. It with that thought that made him realize that those days were over, not coming back, and just how much he was going to miss that.

And in moments, his laughter had transformed into sobbing. Whether out of realizing the same things herself, or simply picking up on Spike’s emotions, Twilight joined in with the sobbing shortly thereafter. For several long moments the two just sat there, sitting apart from each other and weeping over the situation they had put themselves in.

“Oh, Twilight,” Spike moaned as he leaned his head back against the wall, “just what have we both lost from all of this?”

Twilight averted her gaze before replying. “Too much, Spike,” she replied. She stopped to wipe at her eyes with one hoof, but it didn’t help as she kept on shedding new tears afterwards. She looked back at the dragon, the sorrow clear on her face. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated again. She leaned her head back against the wall too, closing her eyes and heaving a heavy sigh as she fought to regain her composure. She lapsed into thought for a moment, but then spoke again. “Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

Spike was quiet for a second. “I don’t know, Twilight,” he admitted truthfully. His gaze turned distant as he thought of Thorax, longing for his dearly departed friend. He felt his heart flutter sadly at the memories and he was forced to sigh, bracing himself. “But…I think he’d want me to at least try.”

Twilight watched him for a moment. “Tell me about him,” she requested gently. “Please.”

Spike processed the request for a second before slowly nodding his head. “Okay.”

And while Twilight quietly listened, he began to relate to her everything he had ever known about the changeling named Thorax.