The group of fillies walked over into the forest, all led by Fluttershy, who was honing in on the source of the crying. It was getting closer, but then it stopped. "Oh No!" gasped Fluttershy when the crying stopped, but her frantic gasp only made the crying start up again, but now it was even louder and sounded even more scared. Fluttershy and the others let out a sigh of relief when they heard the sound of crying return.
"Thank goodness." Sighed Fluttershy, she continued to walk through the forest, and it didn't take them long to find a tree stump with a basket on it, from what they saw, there were no predators around, so they made their way to the source of the crying. Fluttershy was about to look into the basket, but she was stopped by AJ.
"Hold your hoofs, sugar cube." Said AJ holding out her hoof between the filly and the stump. "We don't know what's in that basket, and I don't want to lose a pony on my watch." Said AJ, but the sound of crying was even louder than before. This only drove Fluttershy to help the creature crying.
Fluttershy shook her head. "No, can't you hear it, it's scared." Said Fluttershy as she got passed AJ's hoof, and reared up on her legs to reach the top of the stump, and the sight she saw was not what she was expecting, Fluttershy ducked her head out of fear.
The other girls looked at the reaction of the flip-flopping filly that not 10 seconds ago was determined to help the creature in the basket and now she is hiding from it. AJ, Rarity, Rainbow, and Pinkie walked over to the basket and looked inside of it. The moment the others saw the contents of the basket they copied the motions of Fluttershy.
"Is that what I think it is?" Asked all the girls, Fluttershy nodded. Spike stopped crying, as she moved her head back up and this time slowly peeked into the basket, but this time she was met halfway, Spike having had enough of all the scary noises decided that the best course of action was to find his mother, he was hungry, tired from all the crying, and wanted some attention, so he decided to start moving around hoping to get somethings attention. It worked, as he looked into the cyan eyes of who he thought was his mother. Spike smiled at seeing his mother and moved closer to her, he reached out a claw hoping to touch her, but he was still a baby and couldn't crawl too well, so he face planted in his basket. Spike started to cry again, which made Fluttershy duck again.
"OH NO, it saw me." Cried Fluttershy, scared that she was going to die, but all Spike was able to do right now was cry, still upset from hitting his head, and the fact that he didn't see his mommy anymore.
Rainbow was the next to look up and decided to confront the dragon, for making her friend cry. "Hey, you little..." Said Rainbow but the rest died in her throat the moment she saw Spike looking at her, he was now whimpering, but the moment he saw his new mommy, he became confused as he thought. 'Are you my mommy, what happened to other mommy?' And not wanting this new mommy to go away he tried again to reach her, and this time he was a little more successful, but only with his first step, the second step was met with the same result, and the same reaction from the baby dragon, and the same result from the filly, as she copied the motions of Fluttershy.
Pinkie was next as she stretched her neck to look into the basket. Spike was again whimpering, seeing that his two mommies weren't helping him. But then he heard some weird sounds, so he stopped crying and looked at the source of the noises, he started to giggle when he looked at his next mommy, 'Are you, my mommy, where are my other mommies?' thought Spike as he watched Pinkie making silly faces, because of Pinkie. Spike again tried to reach his newest mommy, and this time he was able to actually crawl closer to her. He reached out to touch pinkie wanting to be held, but her head was yanked back down by Rainbow Dash. "Hey, what are you doing?" Asked Pinkie, not happy about the interruption.
"Saving you." retorted Rainbow, "Are you crazy, that is a dragon, they're dangerous."
"But he was crying."
"And you would be too if he started to spew fire at you."
Rarity sighed as she decided it was her turn to try and look at the dragon in the basket again. She slowly craned her head and looked at the baby dragon, he looked upset that his newest mommy went where ever his other 2 mommies went, he was getting really tired of all this, he was still hungry and finally figured out how to use his nose, he smelt something yummy somewhere in his basket, so he decided to dig around the blanket, and there he found the source of the yummy smell, there sitting in his basket was a yummy chunk of calcite, Spike used his hands to grab the gem and he started to suckle on it hoping to finally eat something, but the moment Spike was finally eating something, the gem was surrounded in a blue glow and moved away from his reach. Spike started to cry seeing that no matter what he did nothing is going his way. Rarity was lifting the gem away from him, out of fear of him getting hurt by the gem. "No." Said Rarity as she moved the gem to her side. "This is a gem, there not for eating." Said Rarity. Spike looked at his next mommy, the mommy who just took away his food, the food that he was very hungry for, he got angry and started to crawl to the gem again determined to get some food in his empty stomach. 'Why did this mommy take the yummy thing, I'm hungry.' thought Spike.
Spike was so determined to get the yummy thing he didn't notice that he was crawling straight towards the edge of the basket and the stump, the only one who noticed this was AJ. The moment Spike reached the edge of the stump, he took a step and in an instant he was falling to the ground, AJ knew that even as a baby, a high fall was dangerous, so she quickly reached out for the baby Spike and she was able to just barely snatch him from getting hurt. Spike started to cry, he was in a new world that was nothing like the one he was in. AJ was confused about what to do. "What do I do now?" Asked AJ, still holding Spike in her hooves. Spike looked at the one who was holding him. 'Are you my mommy too, maybe you can help me get that yummy thing from mean mommy.' Thought Spike as his stomach growled very loudly, drawing the attention of all the girls.
Fluttershy walked up to AJ and looked at Spike, his stomach growled again, telling everyone that he was very hungry. Fluttershy gasped. "Oh, you must be hungry." Said Fluttershy, Spike looked at Fluttershy. 'Finally, mommy noticed, she must know how to get that mean mommy to give me that yummy thing.' Thought Spike. Fluttershy looked at the one holding him. "Um, AJ was it?" Asked Fluttershy.
AJ nodded. "Um, yeah, sorry for not introducing myself earlier, the names Applejack, Fluttershy right?"
Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, now I'm guessing that he is hungry, could you hold him for a second so I can see if some dragon left some gems in the basket?"
"Um, sure." Said AJ as she was wherry to let Spike stay with her.
Fluttershy smiled. "Thanks." She then walked up to Rarity. "Um, can you give me that gem, he's clearly hungry?" Asked Fluttershy. "Um, if that's ok?"
"It certainly is not, he could choke on it." Said Rarity.
Fluttershy shook her head. "No, he won't, dragons can dissolve soft gems with their saliva alone." Said Fluttershy. "I know a lot about dragons."
Rarity was unsure, but she sighed as she moved the gem in her magic over to Spike. "Fine." The moment Spike saw that the gem was moving over to him he started to clap his little hands finally ready to eat his first meal. 'Finally, note to self stay close to shy mommy, she smart, and know-how to get food from mean mommy.' thought Spike. Spike grabbed the gem and quickly started to suckle on it making sure that his mean mommy didn't try and take it from him again. Rarity was watching the gem slowly dissolve as Spike drank the liquid gem.
Fluttershy smiled at seeing that Spike was finally getting some food in his clearly empty stomach, so she decided to see what else was in his basket, she used her wings to land on the stump and started to rummage around the basket, there she found a few more soft gems and a scroll. She flew off the stump and unrolled the scroll hoping to find some explanation of why there was a baby dragon in it. She read the scroll out loud. "Hello, this is Spike, I am unable to take care of him, please take him in and treat him as your own, I am sorry Spike, I hope you will be happy." Read Fluttershy, she gasped in shock, as she started to cry knowing that Spike was an orphan. All the other girls watched Fluttershy crying and wanting to know why they decided to walk over to the scroll and read it. Soon enough all the girls were crying.
"That's horrible." Said Rarity.
"Not cool." Said Rainbow.
"No wonder he was crying." Said Pinkie.
"The poor dear." Said Fluttershy.
"No good varmint, leaving her kin." Said AJ.
Spike was finished with the calcite chunk and now that his stomach was full he was finding it hard to stay awake, and the feeling of his strong mommy was nice and warm. Spike closed his eyes as the sound of the girls crying was overpowered by the sound of snoring. All the girls looked at the sleeping dragon in the hold of AJ, sound asleep. AJ looked at the other girls. "We're not leaving him here." Said AJ.
Fluttershy sighed. "It's more complicated than that. We can't leave him here." Fluttershy looked at Spike and walked over to him, she took Spike into her hooves. "Dragon's tend to imprint on anything they see in their first few hours of life, and we all saw the way he looked at us. He must think we're his mommies. If we leave him here, he will not survive, and it was clear whoever wrote that scroll wanted Spike to live with ponies." Fluttershy looked down at the still sleeping Spike as she nuzzled the baby dragon. "We need to take care of him, as his mothers."
All the girls looked at Fluttershy shocked, but one by one the sympathy they had for the dragon was making their decision for them. AJ walked up to the sleeping Spike, as she nuzzled his head. "Well, welcome to the Apple clan, Spike, I'm Applejack, and I'm your mommy, I will make sure you never feel alone again."
Rainbow Dash walked up to Spike as she quickly nuzzled Spike. "Don't worry Spike, I'm your cool mommy, Rainbow Dash, and I won't let anything happen to you."
Rarity was next as she kissed Spikes forehead. "I'm your other mommy, Rarity, and you already have an aunt, her name Sweetie Belle. I'm sorry for taking your gem earlier, sweetie. I didn't know, but I promise to make you know that you're always special."
Pinkie slowly walked up to Spike and somehow pulled a small cupcake out of her hair. "I'm Pinkie Pie, and I will always make you smile Spike, cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Said Pinkie as she stuck the cupcake into her eye.
Fluttershy craned her neck to nuzzle Spike one more time. "And I'm Fluttershy, and I'm your mommy as well, I will make sure to give you all the kindness that you deserve." Said Fluttershy as she looked at all of her fellow mothers. "Isn't that right girls?"
All the girls nodded. Fluttershy looked at their new son. "Welcome to your new life, Spike. We love you."