“And that, Spike, is why you are the quintessential metrosexual,” the Princess of Love concluded.
Spike sighed as he took a sip of sherry in front of the marble fireplace of his royal apartment. The Canterlot Royal Opera's performance of Aida was playing on the gramophone.
“I just can’t believe I didn’t realize how much I’ve become like Rarity," Spike said. "I guess I’ve just become so spoiled living as a royal advisor.”
Princess Cadence, sitting opposite from Spike, helped herself to another glass of sherry. She suddenly had a thought. “Well…perhaps I've been looking at it the wrong way.”
“Oh?”
“How long has it been since you last saw Rarity?”
Spike took a while to answer. “Last month, at the Council of Friendship.”
The two of them chatted for a few minutes, he about the latest goings-on in the Royal Palace, she about her recent trip to Yakyakistan. They had a few drinks together at the after-party, but that was it.
“You don’t see her as often,” Princess Cadence said. “Maybe you started seeing Gabby as you got older, but you still had that assurance that Rarity would still be there, so long as you lived in Ponyville. But then you moved away. And so did she. Perhaps you subconsciously adapted her lifestyle, her fashion sense, her behaviors…so that you could sort of…have a piece of her with you.”
Spike chuckled it off. “Aww, c’mon, you’re pulling my leg.”
“Well, you got pretty upset when La Porte d'Argent ran out of your favorite sandalwood conditioner.”
“Well, I had every right to upset. I always use the sandalwood conditioner. They’d run out of Rarity’s conditioner, and I wasn’t going to—”
Cadence cut him off. She smirked. “Did you hear what you just said?”
“What?”
“You said ‘Rarity’s conditioner.’ As if…it’s a symbol of her that had been taken away from you.”
It hurt worse than when he thought he’d turned into Rarity Jr.
“You really do miss her, don’t you, Spike?” Cadence said.
Spike stood silent and wide-eyed. The color drained from Spike’s sandalwood-oil-conditioned face.
Princess Cadence stopped herself from saying something that might hurt Spike’s feelings even more.
“I…I miss her” were the only words that managed to come of Spike’s mouth, before he started crying. The 300-pound full grown dragon, drenched in sandalwood scale conditioner and wearing a soft pink Somanbulan cotton bathrobe, burst into boyish tears.
There was still that little boy inside. That little boy dragon that still missed his lovely lady Rarity.
After some consoling, Princess Cadence left Spike’s apartment because she had to wake up early the next day. She was in town for the Crystal Empire trade symposium. It was almost midnight. Spike extinguished the fireplace. He hovered a few feet in the air, then sank into his empty feather bed.
Lying in bed, he took out a quill and ink, and a piece of parchment. He tore off the royal letterhead at the top.
He began writing.
Dearest Rarity,