//------------------------------// // IV - Princess and Hero // Story: Not Enough Love // by B_25 //------------------------------// ~ IV ~ Princess and Hero Spike would be mine. We’d been together too long for me to lose him now. When it came to the social interactions between a male and a mare, I knew I was inexperienced—an art learned by awkward teenagers and early adults. If I truly understood what I would be missing when I opted out... But, thankfully, that didn’t matter as much when it came to Spikey. Starlight was still after him. Trying to touch him, bring him back to her own room. She became less shameful about it. But now that he knew... he barely met any of her advances. And the time we spent together grew. I found every excuse I could to bring him closer. Inviting him to my room to help with dresses—your experience will Rarity must have paid off in more ways than one, right?—and discuss prospects. More often than not, we found ourselves sitting together, seconds away from midnight, me leaning against him, talking about nothing. It was always matters of being a princess. What tore us away. I felt shameful in using that card, but... but I didn’t have any other reason to be so close to him other than that. Ever time we talked about my social changes... he would twitch. I hated it. But there wasn’t anything I could do. Or anything I was willing to do, yet. But over the course of the week, we became closer, our mornings meeting before the coffee machine, talking about anything, merely being close. It was hard to look at him now. Even when I stood up and leaned against the counter, I only came to his shoulders. My face always covered by a tilted mug. I tried to do everything I could to let him know I was available. Pressing my body against his. Sliding our slides together. Things we’ve done before now done again for a different reason. But each time I lost myself in the contact. The purpose fading as his warmth invaded my mind. And then it came time for all us to Canterlot. I’d stayed up late before the journey so that, when we reached the carriage that would fly us away, that I could be excused to lay my body against his. His sharp claw swept over me at once. Rubbing down my back. Allowing my head to rest on his chest as the mighty beatings of his heart lulled me to sleep. “Would you get a load of this, hey?” Spike walked in front of me as he passed the archway from castle to garden, the sky dark though its stars bright, a beautiful sight we hadn’t seen for a time. His claws held out from his thighs as if to bask in it all. “It’s been long. Far too long.” “Y-You’re telling me, Spikey.” I glanced over my shoulder to the long hall we’d come from, the giant windows on either side illuminating the carpet with a thin moonlight. The door afar kept open, another mare trying to stalk us but, with a cause of my nod—two guards stepped in her way. “Certainly takes you back, doesn’t it?” I watched with a bigger smile than I should of at seeing Starlight being escorted down the hall. Whatever scheme she had, no matter its brilliance—it had no power over a princess. But it was hard to explain my smile when I turned back to the dragon staring at me. “Doesn’t mean anything unless I’m back here with you.” Spike lowered onto his knee so his eyes could meet mine. How sharp they were despite their roundness. That serious and goofy expression he always seemed to have. “But why are we back here, Twilight? The castle is here to celebrate you tonight.” That one was going to be harder to answer. “The party doesn’t start for another hour or so... s-so... I figured we could, y-you know, hang around and... stuff.” Spike blinked. “Is that the same eloquence you’re going to use in your speech?” “K-Knock it off!” I growled with my muzzle, although feeling the hot blushes on either side. “I’m just nervous, alright? Never done something like this before.” “Done what?” O-Oh, dear Celestia. “Geeze, Spike, I don’t know.” I huffed and turned. My eyes clenched. No! Don’t throw a fit! “Maybe the fact that hundreds of ponies are gathered inside the castle and a thousand outside of it all to celebrate the fact that I have some wings? To mark my progress from student to princess? That I have to show I truly went from being some sort of egghead to a composed ruler like Celestia and show that her faith wasn’t misplaced? Should I drum up another thousand reasons for you?” “...if I tell you that you overthink, will I get a kick to the head?” I snorted, exhaling steam. Such a terrible joke, most of his were, that still lifted something out of me, anger and rage all the same. I didn’t want to laugh, but I did. A harsh chuckle half-real and half-not. “Maybe we can negotiate a blast to the chest.” “Will it be a soft blast?” “Have you ever experience a soft blast before?” “There’s a first time for everything?” “Wanna chance that now?” “Think I’ll withhold my comment.” Spike nodded—but not before raising a digit as well. “And the relish. Also hold the relish.” I shook my head. “I swear! You’re such a dork sometimes.” “Twilight Sparkle is saying that to me? Our friends really are having a bad influence on you.” Spike shook his head and crossed his arms, turning away but keeping the side of his gaze set on me. “Remind me to talk to Rainbow Dash after this. I need to have a word with her.” “Pretty sure she’s with the other ponies mingling in the ball.” I snickered and tapped a hoof against his cheek, enjoying the sensation, loving the situation. “Wanna confront her now?” “So you two can attack me with the attitude at once?” Spike held up a palm and kept it raised. “Think I’d have better luck with having tea with Chrysalis at this point. Better my love sucked out.” I smiled. Something overtook me. My hoof raised and pressed on this palm, keeping there, filling the space out. “But you love me, don’t you?” “With how much love you take from me? I’d almost think you were Chrysalis in disguise.” But his digits wrapped over the curve of my hoof, clamping around my roundness, giving my softness a little squeeze. “But you know that I love you, Twi. Couldn’t stop myself at this point even if I tried.” I smiled and beamed a little too higher. “We’ve been together through thick and thin, right? You’ve... become nothing short of perfection as of late.” Spike laughed and coughed and his eyes becoming weighed down. “Always smart, always talented, always powerful. Things always seem to go your way.” I don’t know why I suddenly hurt so much on hearing those words... but didn’t say anything in spite of it. “But... the truth of the matter is that I hope ponies see you for the mare beneath it all.” Spike smiled at me—even though he was looking down. “The way your mane frizzes up in the morning is cuter than you could ever know. How tired and dead you look as you dip your muzzle into a cup a coffee.” I laughed. “And here I thought you were trying to talk me up.” “Because I am.” His gaze lifted as his determination returned. “Because a mare like you shouldn’t have to sweat what others are going to think. You already have so much right about you. I know you, Twilight. You’ve never given anypony cause to think you as being anything but the best. Anything said otherwise is just pure lies.” “H-Heh. Thanks, Spike.” “Just... don’t lose yourself like that again.” Spike leaned in close and threw an arm around me, hugging around my neck, resting his head against the back of my own. “You always have it in you, Twilight. Our bantering back there? The moment you stopped being so self-conscious you were back to normal. That’s all you need to show those ponies. Just don’t be self-conscious.” “I... supposed you’re right on that one.” I threw my other hoof around his neck as we kept within the hug for a few seconds longer, not realizing how badly I needed the contact. After a few seconds, however, we broke the embrace. “Hey, Spike?” “Yeah, Twilight?” “Do you think we could play a game?” “Play a game?” Spike blinked upon returning to his proper height. “Haven’t heard you say something like that in years. What do you mean by a game? Like when we were kids?” “It was here that we always used to play, wasn’t it?” Spike smiled and laughed as his eyes sparkled with light. “Suppose that was the case. We talking about hide and seek here?” “Spiiike.” I giggled as my favorite way of saying his name passed through my lips. I took a step to his side, snuggling against his hip—loving the blanket of his arm rolling over my form. “Think deep than that.” “It’s... been even longer since we’ve done something like that.” Even by the shiver in his body I could feel his mind being swept up in a memory. One warm to enter but cold to leave. Maybe if only because the dreams then only became true for one of us. “The princess and the hero. You remember how that started?” “It’s something I could never forget.” I kept still and gaze to the twinkling sky. “You caught me reading books about princesses when I was supposed to be studying for an exam.” “And you found me role-playing with a sword in the closest.” “We decided not to shame the other for our little fantasies.” “And when we agreed upon that, we figured we might as well play-pretend.” Spike glanced down at me and, despite his smile, his eyes seemed sad. “Though I suppose after all this time, one of us doesn’t need to play pretend anymore.” “But, my dear hero!” I slipped out of his hold while arching a foreleg into the air, draping it over my forehead. Leaning to the left, I feigned a faint. “Your princess has spent so many years alone in her horrible castle! Mind stolen by books and body taken by nobles! How I wish to be free! Why can’t a fire breathing dragon come and save me?” Spike chuckled and then struggled. The conflict in him was easy to see. I smiled as the poor boy wanted to desperately to break away into that role. I knew the one. Starlight may have pulled on the character he liked to play—but I knew what he truly wanted underneath it all. Something sweeter than a sharp tongue. “Of course I’ll save you!” Spike dashed forward in a concise step. He arched to the ground and picked up a stick, one left by the trees of the garden, tilting it toward our invisible foes. “There’s no way I’d ever let a mare live such a dull life! I don’t care if they call me a raging, fire breathing dragon—I’d set this whole castle on fire if it met you’d be free!” I giggled as I fell forward, stumbling in my steps, leaning closer to him, but falling away with every sway of my legs. I threw my hoof out toward him. “But there are too many of them! Surely one dragon cannot take them all?” “My sword burns with the hottest rage when I think of you!” Without even pausing to give thought to his character, the sprinted to me and, sweeping me off my legs with a stroke of his arm then took off running. “No matter the threat or the foe. I’ll always be there for you. None can withstand the passion of my blade!” It was so dumb, so dorky, so forced and so out there. But as his arm cradled the entirety of my frame, I then found myself caring less and less. What did it matter how others saw us? That his fantasy of being a sword-wielding hero was anything but his current life? So long as he held me close, his broad chest, my new bed, the beating of his heart lulling me into a calm... I’d fall in love with a hero even if he was pretending. And there was magic it to, the turns of his body, swinging his stick, beating the invisible forces away. Actually sliding back a leg as if taking a hit, jutting me around—but not once giving me cause to fall. “I don’t care what I have to do, who I have to face, or how much stronger I have to become.” Spike shook his head before lifting it, gazing at his non-existent enemy with burning intensity. Even his body warmed. The heated scales pleasant against my furs. “Twilight gives me my will to live. To take on anything and to go anywhere. So like hell I’m just going to give her to anyone!” He pointed his stick into the air with the tip pointed at the moon overhead. Like a call for more power and magic, he held his pose, keeping me close, making me feel protected. So foolish. But it was always his dream in his less cynical years to be a hero. No sense in poking him around on something he rarely did anymore. “And just because I can’t be with her,” Spike state in a growl, “just because a princess is too good for a mere dragon... doesn’t mean I won’t always be there for her anyway!” And with that, he turned and ran. Winds rushed over me... though I was far too gone to feel them. “Let’s go, Twilight!” His words hurt me, and yet, I broke out of my daze. Lying back on the curve of his wrist, I looked up to his head so far away, the underside of his sharp muzzle. He looked around for a place to rest, but at least once, his eyes settled down on me. “Hero oh hero! Carry me away to somewhere safe.” I leaned up out of his hold. I’d been worried my added height and weight of being a princess would have been too much for him to carry... but apparently, I wasn’t the only one to have grown. “Please protect me. I feel safer with you around.” And then I kissed him on his cheek. It took a few seconds for him to find a spot. His body slowed as we approached the great tree of the small field, the one with a base hollow of limbs, one that gazed over the golden railings to the moon beyond. Pressing his back against the bark, he slowly slid down, my body collecting into his lap. “I think we’re safe,” Spike said in a hushed breath. He looked at me with a small smile. “And how are you feeling, my princess?” “Like I was a filly instead of a mare.” I nuzzled my head against his chest, delighting when his claw draped over my mane. He rubbed the spot, brushing my hairs, the smoothness pleasant. “Life becomes rather complicated as you become older, doesn’t it?” “Says the filly who apparently was doing calculus before she could walk.” “That’s just an exaggeration from Shiny... slightly.” “But yeah.” Spike’s head leaned back against the wood as he stared out to the sky. “We’ve always lived a bit different from the rest. But I always thought it would be you and I until the end of time. You’d become a teacher or somethin’, and I would be... well, whatever a number-one assistant does then.” I giggled. “But then we moved to Ponyville and made some friends.” “I already had friends before.” “Spiiike.’ “Alright. So we both made some friends, beat some foes, and one of us got a crown.” I waved my hoof in the air. “But you also got to fall in love. That counts for a point?” “For a mare that said no? Point removed.” “Better than finding no stallion... appealing.” “How about a mare, then?” “You still asking for that buck to the chest?” “Wouldn’t judge you differently.” I shook my head, sighing, boys. “Think... you’d ever fall in love again?” Spike actually blinked at that. Even with my curled against him, I didn’t feel anything different about his body. We’re so close that we don’t have anything to fear from the other—even when it’s based on them. I was lucky to have such a connection with another. “I... dunno.” Spike exhaled heavily. “After what happened with Rarity and those other mares I... I just didn’t see anything working out.” He then shook his head. “Knew I probably fell in with just the wrong mares but, when that keeps being the trend... I guess it slowly evolves into a theme.” “Don’t think a mare could ever love you back?” “I don’t know, Twilight, I really don’t.” Spike tilted his head back. The corners of his eyes were glinting. Were those... tears? “Seems like I’m able to love them easily. There’s just... so much about some of them that are perfect.” He blew harsh winds through his lips. “But when I think of that reversing... I... I just don’t see what they could see in me.” He lowered his head. “But loving them. That’s enough for me. To fall in love over and over. With their laughs and their words. It all sounds so silly and strange to say outright. But I’ve always thought like that. The girls I liked have always been fantastic.” “A-And... me?” “I’ve always loved you, Twilight.” “N-N-Not that kind of love, Spike.” “I’ve always loved you, Twilight.” I stopped. Mind and body and soul. Everything shut down and turned off. My hooves were cold. Skin done the same. The only warmth coming from within, flushing out from my heart, an unstable thing itself. “I... h-how... w-w-when?” “For such a smart mare—you should know what ‘always’ means.” Spike lifted his face and gazed outward... but his eyes didn’t look like they saw anything. “Ever since the first day we met, I’ve loved you. I-I mean, there was a reason why I wanted to be your assistant.” I blinked. “But... that was Celestia?” “That was Celestia after she told me we didn’t have a reason to be together.” Spike was supposed to take a breath, and yet, nothing came into his lungs. “It killed me. We barely even had a connection or a reason to stay together. But, for whatever reason, the idea of being away from you... how manly is it to say I bawled my eyes out?” I was fighting to not be doing the same myself. “So I invented the reason you needed an assistant to help you.” Spike smiled. An honest one. A real one. “I didn’t care what I became so long as I could become close to you. I’d be your cook, I’d be your maid, I’d be your anything. Just anything to keep close to you.” “B-Because you loved me?” “Because I loved you.” Spike looked down at me with those shiny eyes of his, glossy now, from a sheen of tears I both loved and hated to see. “And I always knew you were too good for me. Smart. Pretty. Never seems like I can never find the right word for you.” I was touched... but why... why did it feel like there was something horrible behind it? “A-And, one day... you... you would leave me behind.” His breaths were shaky and the tears streaming down hard to watch. My own were wobbly—same with the hoof that wiped his away instead. “My greatest fear is you not needing me anymore. And... and it wasn’t unfounded either. Not with how talented you were becoming... and all the nothing that I remained.” “Spike.” The word cut the walls of my throat to say. “You know that I’ve never ranked anyone by their supposed worth. That’s never been the case with you.” And I shook my muzzle, worsening the stinging in my eyes. “And it will never be the case with you.” “Is that so? You’re a princess now, aren’t you?” His shoulders dropped and his feet pushed out against the ground. Every tense muscles gone relaxed. Too relaxed. Like a body that’s lost its life. “Powerful in magic. High in status. Plenty in friends.” His jaw lowered and his mouth kept open. “All the roles I could have proved useful in your life... all of them have finally been taken up now, haven’t they?” “Y-You’re not replaceable?” “Not much of your life would change if I was gone.” Finally, his eyes flicked down at me and kept to an uncomfortable angle. “You have a friend for every purpose. Guards that are proper heroes. My biggest fear is being useless, but... for you, to you... that’s kinda become true, hasn’t it?” I’d never wanted to hurt a crying dragon so much in my life. Furs set aflame and a heart enraged by the lies sold as truth. My eyes squeezed. How could he be so clueless? Here, I thought I wouldn’t be good enough, and now... “I went on a date once.” Spike blinked on hearing those words. But by the time his eyes settled on me... I was already looking away. “You already knew who it was with.” I blew a hot breath. “Tried it more as an experiment than anything else. Figured... my status as a princess... I... that it would help in the... romantic... regards.” I wanted to bite my tongue—but that wouldn’t help my case. “This stallion was overjoyed to be with me. The idea of me at least. What ponies see. Their thoughts and feelings from what they see on the surface. The image of being a proper princess like Celestia, you know?” Even though I couldn’t see it, I could feel him nod, his body expanding around me again. “But as this stallion got to know me more, you know, the mare beneath the crown... well, let’s say I’m not exactly a hot market item.” I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to repress the images of the past. “Broke down once, and it broke his illusion of me. Realized then that most of the stallions that saw me... never quite actually saw me.” I dipped my muzzle. “The girls are always there for me. Always willing to pick me up and keep me going. But when it comes to guys? Maybe there are a few good ones out there.” I sighed, but with a smile. “Count me at my lowest, with all the troubles I find myself in, topped with the pains of being a princess? There’s... only one good one that fits the test.” I glanced back at Spike. “Speaking from experience, of course.” I looked at him, and I looked at him. How life slowly returned to his limbs. Arms lifting and kicked moving. Head straightening and eyes glowing brighter. Such a sharp muzzle for such a goofy boy. “You say I could do better, Spike... yet no other stallion, no other mare, no one at all has the one thing that you have.” I turned in his lab and weighed my body against his, arching into the air, feeling my forehooves rest upon his chest. I aimed for precisely what I wanted as my eyes became half-lidded. Him. Much like the greed he had succeeded in locking away. I wanted him. “There’s a deeper element you’ve failed to notice inside that analysis of yours.” I licked my lips with a giggle, going in. “Those other ponies may be there. Maybe they fill those small roles you were talking about.” And then I outright laughed as the heat in my chest then reached it apex. “But out everyone else, none of had the desire to become all those roles, to invent excuses to be closer to me.” Finally. Hovering inches before his muzzle, my body propped up against his, our breaths clashed against the other. Both of us panting. Thirsty and tired. For one of the few times in my life, I decided now to listen to my ingenious mind and, instead, allowed the beating of my virgin heart to do the talking. “Consistency, more than confidence, is intensely sexy.” Maybe I’d taken a line from Starlight after all, or maybe there were aspects of myself, buried, given cause to rise. “No one else has wanted to be with me that badly. To become so much only to become closer to me. And if you really knew went on inside of here.” My hoof went for one of his fallen claws and lifted it to my heart. His palm slid over the bottom curve of my barrel, burying itself within the fluff, the touch divine, although having him feeling my beating heart only made me all the more sensitive. “You’d know... my biggest fear was of you leaving me.” I didn’t give him time to talk. No chance to fly away in words words of movement. I pressed my muzzle forward and caught the end of his, feeling the slim, scaley lips take against my own, a smoothness I moaned into. Sloppy. But, when those lips meshed against my own—moaning hungrily—I don’t think any of us cared for our mutual inexperience. For what Starlight could give him in all that was sexual. I could do the same in romance. Where she made him feel more like a playboy. But I could make him feel like the hero he actually was. “Why... can’t you see much you matter?” The words came out before my breaths, each of them washing warmly over his cheek. He kept close. A closeness I didn’t know I crave. My desires of my body gone ignored to far too long. “I’d trade everything to be with you, Spike. You complete me.” I took a step back, parting from my lover, knowing my time was coming to an end. “Even if it may not feel like it to you—you’re my hero.” Spike leaned forward and caught me quickly on the lips. “And... you’re my princess.” “I love you, Spike.” “I love you too, Twilight.” It hurt to walk back—but it had to be done. The soft crushing of grass tickled the underside of my hooves as I continued to back away. More and more, I was leaving my perfect dragon behind. Laid back against the tree, our tree, waiting there for me. No matter what happened to me next. He would always be waiting for me. And nothing could be more sexy or romantic in all the world. ~ Spike ~ I almost didn’t want to let those pair of lips go, so plush and soft against my own, tickles of fuzz against my scales, a warmth I wanted to devour. Just to be pressed against her body and our lips always locked. It wasn’t because I was hungry; it was because my hollowness slowly became filled by them. But even as I stood to the evening breeze, I heard something close to a squeak. There wasn’t anyone around. Only the sky afar and the grass below. This was a closed-off area. Guards were condemned from birth to never make a sound. Something was off. I followed the shuffling of noise across the field, stepping up on two steps to a pathway marked with two guards on either side. I didn’t want to leave the gardens behind, but... something about that sound. The pitch. Only I could hear it. Its cry ripping off my scales one by one. This is a bad idea and you know it. The voice spoke and I couldn’t stop it. Just like how I couldn’t stop my legs from finding the source of the noise. Sometimes you have to give yourself trouble even if it won’t make a difference. Twilight’s going to be scared giving her first proper speech as a princess. She needs you there to support her. That, and when it comes to the ball... it’ll be your first dance with a mare. My face prickled with needles as my nerves became shot. That... that had been my first kiss. And I’d given it to my best friend. Marefriend? Twilight and I had tried many firsts together. In a strangely beautiful way... it made sense the same would be true when it came to a relationship and romance. But when I stumbled into the first wing of the side of the castle, a spire of a tower step across the small structure... I saw something I shouldn’t have. My feet stopped, and my thoughts of love dropped. Frozen in the night breeze, I saw the mare who sneezed while she silently screamed. Starlight. Starlight Glimmer. In the box tower above, she sat, before the window with binoculars around her neck, muzzle buried between her crossed forelegs. Though no sounds came through the pitch of her tears seeped through the slits on the sides of the glass. She was too far gone to hear or see me. Something which my cowardice was thankful for. I glanced back the way I came, the gardens visible only barely but, to one above, granted a clear sight. Closing my eyes and curling my claws, I bit my lips and waited for blood—drawing none. I should have gone up to comfort. To sit down and talk it all out. But not to break up with her. For even as I had gazed at her, I saw the mare from the club. The one that made me feel like a player. I asked my heart which mare I liked more and, despite the depth Twilight and I had, the searching for something new, together, rang true with Starlight and I. Much like Twilight, I loved Starlight the same, unable to understand my own brain. My damn greed coming out again. Was this what I was fated to be? Even as I walked into the castle, away from my duty as a gentle drake and into the damning freedom of the long hallway... I hated how I couldn’t be satisfied with just one mare. It wasn’t that I didn’t love them. Both of them owned parts of me. I wanted to give them both everything. They both were perfect in their own way. I walked like I was drunk across the carpet. Ponies appeared on either side of me. Nobles and those notable. Some glancing at me with concern and some not looking at me at all. Everyone here gathered for Twilight’s sake. Twilight. Twilight. She would be better off with any of these stallions here. I gazed to some as I kept stumbling forward. Dressed dudes with polished tongues. Accomplishment in some way in order to be here. Not simply because they were born as a dragon but because they did something worthwhile of their own will to net themselves a spot here. What did any mare see in me at all? Sickness. The swirling of awfulness splashing around my belly. Height of love gone within into something sour. Something that filled me now drained me completely. How could something pure and rich and the essence of life cause me nothing but sickness into death instead? The blow knocked me right and through a pair of doors. The guards in gold made a move to catch me—but I barreled through them instead. Hunched forward onto a sudden round railing, I looked at my feet, finding myself on a small balcony high above the chamber. The chamber filled to the brim with ponies of all sorts, gathered everywhere, all set around the small platform near the back of it all. Twilight was standing and talking with Princess Celestia and Luna smiling behind her. Everything looked so merry. And I felt so apart from it all. Despite her previous words... none of them seemed true now. But mine did. Twilight smiled and broke into a speech that, even though I couldn’t hear the words, the passion came through. The fluff on her chest brushing out, and her ears cutely perked. How I wished I could have her all. When I then realized my own greed. Supporting my elbow onto the railing, I pressed my palm into my face, trying to repress the pounding of my brain. This was all too good for me. Twilight was too good for me. Especially when I was a dragon who’s greed only wanted more. I nearly vomited as I fell back. Through those doors and away from the show I wanted to watch. Seeing Twilight happy, even if it killed me, was worth any pains. But I could do it only as another faceless stranger. Being there as someone that mattered to her... I wasn’t good enough to hold such a role. And even though I promised to be there for her, always, no matter what. I turned to leave, limping through the hallway clearing for me, knowing the path opening would take me away from here. It was as if the unconscious world agreed. That I needed to go. Not to be a part of here. That I didn’t belong and it was allowing me to be spat back out. A choice was needing to be made. And I wasn’t in the right mind to make a call. It started to rain as I left the castle. The sky was dark, black clouds and no moon, the rain cold, chilling, freezing my scales. The pain felt rewarding. I shambled out, the two guards stalked out front pulling the gold of the gate out of the way. The squeak of metal scratching my ears. I walked even though I had no place to go. That was a lie. There was only one mare in all of this city that could help me with the matters of mares. Ironic, all things considering.