//------------------------------// // Cold // Story: Seven Hour Bubble Bath // by Hasty Revision //------------------------------// Spike was cold. Truthfully, he was almost never warm. Canterlot was a chilly place at the best of times being way up in the mountains, but winter was even colder. Even Celestia's bedroom, where his basket currently sat, was cold. If he really tried he could count up all the times he'd been comfortably warm. Almost. He had a little trouble remembering what numbers came next once he ran out of talons to count on. Twilight would know. Twilight knew everything about everything. Celestia knew even more than everything. Twilight had told him Celestia knew more than her so it had to be true. Twilight would also know how to stop being cold. He'd tried things to get warm before but he wasn't supposed to do them again. Twilight had thrown a fit when he'd tried to start a fire in the fireplace to lay in. She threw a bigger one when he tried to set his bed on fire instead. There was now a strict “no fires allowed” policy. He wasn't even supposed to blow flames on his claws. She hadn't been around much lately, though. Maybe that meant he could make fires again? But, then again, Celestia had also said not to make them on his own. Just that morning she'd sat him down and asked him if he could be a big, mature dragon and look after himself for a little while. He'd promised he'd be a good dragon and he meant to stick to his word. So, no fire. But he was still cold. He buried himself a little deeper in his basket. What would Twilight do? If she were cold she'd come up with a solution. He wished he was smart like that. He also wished she would come by to play more often, like she used to. She'd been gone more and more, leaving him alone with Celestia, Cadance and the servants almost all the time whenever he visited the palace. Cadance was busier and busier too, and he hardly ever got to see Shining Armor anymore unless he was with Twilight or Cadance. He threw off his blanket and clambered up and over the side of his basket, nearly tipping the whole thing on top of himself before he finally made it to the plush, purple carpet. Unsteadily, he shifted his weight onto his back legs and lifted himself upright, careful to hold up his tail to balance himself so he wouldn't fall on his face. A tottering reach back over the basket rim and a flick of his arm later and his beloved blanket was draped over his shoulder like one of those half-capes some old fashioned noble unicorns liked so much. There wasn't anything he could do about being lonely, but maybe he could figure out something new for the cold. He just had to think like Twilight and he knew exactly where Twilight would start. He was going to make a checklist. The more time he spent on the checklist the more excited he became. There was more this checklist could do than just helping him to get warm. After all, Twilight loved checklists so maybe if he got good at making them she'd want to spend time with him again. Getting started had certainly been hard work, and Celestia had always said that hard work paid off in the end. The first obstacle he'd had to overcome was the fact that all the scrolls, ink and quills were on Celestia's desk in the study. He was very lucky that Celestia hadn't latched the door from the bedroom to the study that morning, so all he had to do was push it open. Getting the tools was harder. Celestia had asked him not to climb the furniture anymore because his talons destroyed the wood. He'd spent a good long while trying to think of some way to climb without digging in his talons before he struck on the idea of flopping his blanket up and over the edge of the desk to knock things down. Most of the ink had even stayed in the bottle! Writing materials secured, he'd sat down in the middle of the study and gotten to work. He'd watched Twilight and Celestia write a hundred times, how hard could it be? It was just lines on paper. He'd certainly put a lot of lines down. Lots of loopy, squiggly lines, with nice square boxes next to them for checking, just like Twilight's lists. And, just like Twilight's lists, it was super long. He made sure to start at the very, very top of the scroll and work his way all the way to the bottom. He had to fit as many lines in as he possibly could or he was positive it wouldn't work. The scroll didn't make it easy either. The drying ink kept trying to stick to his feet when he walked down the scroll to the next blank area or when he tried to go back up and squeeze in just one more line into a gap. After what was almost definitely hours and hours of grueling effort Spike was able to sit back, look upon his hard work and receive his reward! Any moment now. Ink dripped off the corner of the desk, snow drifted past the window, more ink crept down the side of his scaly face from where he'd accidentally wiped some across his forehead, and yet he was still cold. He dropped the quill into a puddle of ink and crawled his way up the inky length of the scroll to the very top. He'd done everything right, hadn't he? Were the lines not squiggly enough? What about the boxes? Sure, he hadn't perfectly closed all of them but they were still boxes, right? Twilight always said that checklists were the solution to any tricky problem so why hadn't it worked? He sat back and scratched the base of his head spikes. He had the scroll, the quill, the ink, the boxes, the squiggles, what else did a checklist need? When the answer finally struck him he smacked himself in the forehead with a little purple palm. “The checks!” Not wasting a moment, he picked up the quill (tearing a few threads from the carpet along with it) and started checking each and every box, careful to say “Check!” for each and every one. He put an extra big check in the very last box then stepped back to admire the now well and truly completed checklist. ...Why wasn't it working? He got down on his knees and poked the scroll with a talon. When that produced no results he pinched it and gave it a gentle shake. Then a less gentle shake. Then a full on thrashing and snarling through clenched teeth. Finally he leaped back to his feet and kicked the useless paper away with an inky foot. “Stupid checklist. I'm going back to bed.” He reached for his blanket but pulled up just shy of grabbing it. His claw was covered in damp ink. Now that he thought about it, both of them were. And a lot of his belly scales. And his feet, sides, and, well, everything. His little shoulders slumped heavily in sync with his frills. “Great. Now they'll give me a bath, too.” Baths were boring. He just had to sit there and get scrubbed by floating brushes for what felt like forever. As far as he was concerned it was time he'd rather spend coloring or playing pretend. Just about the only good thing about it was the water-- ...The just barely warm water. A grin found its way back on his face. Maybe that checklist had worked after all...