--- The Aftermath ---
For the better part of the day thus far, everything had seemed so fast. From the news of the Ponyville's incoming high-profile visitors to the long-needed reunion with Spike, as well as everything else in between. All of it had happened so fast and frantic without any time to process any of it, Twilight's head was still spinning from all of it. But now that the initial crisis had been averted, for the time being, everything started to be move at an exponentially slower pace. At some point after the confrontation with those town guards, Twilight and Spike had been invited into the rustic farmhouse by that cannon-wielding grandmother, Granny Smith, as she introduced herself. The old mare didn't give a reason behind this undeserved kindness, and she wasn't taking no for an answer, though Twilight wasn't in the questioning or defiant mood after everything that had transpired today. It probably had something to do with Apple Bloom's intervention seeing as how she wasn't far from the scene, silently staring in amazement at Twilight's wings, so it wasn't exactly necessary to ask.
Spike was just as unwilling to question the elder on her motivations and instead chose to silently follow towards the rustic farmhouse where the Apple Family lived their lives. Soon after walking into the quaint little home, Granny Smith was quick to point the two of them towards the bathroom. In her own words, Twilight and Spike looked like something that the dog left behind, ate, and then left behind again. Twilight didn't take to kindly to that metaphor, but she couldn't disagree with it either. A full day of rampaging around Ponyville had left her worse for wear, covered in sweat and grime from her makeshift marathon. Spike wasn't faring much better either, covered in dirt and other filth from his time underneath that dogpile. So she didn't even bother trying to refute the offer to get the two of them cleaned up.
And that was how the two of them ended up where they were now. Situated in an almost disturbingly apple-themed bathroom surrounded by the sounds of rushing water and soothing steam. Twilight worked diligently to help Spike get some of the filth out from underneath his scales in the shower—the alicorn having already freshened herself up with a few flourishes of magic. But scales were harder to get under then simple fur was, so the manual method was what they had to go with here. Aside from the hiss of the showerhead and the pitter-patter of the water in the tub, the bathroom was eerily silent. Spike hadn't said a word since his reunion with Twilight and had done all he could to avoid direct eye-contact with the alicorn whenever he could. He wasn't going to try and run away again, that much was apparent, but the heartfelt reconciliation wasn't enough to abolish the drama between them. Though this silence was just as much Twilight's fault as it was her son's seeing how she wasn't exactly contributing much to the conversation either. Twilight knew she had a lot on her mind right now, she could only imagine just what was going on in his head right now.
"Twilight?" Spike was the first to break the silence. "I'm... I'm—"
"You don't need to apologize," Twilight spoke with almost bland indifference towards the attempted apology, still focused on the act of cleaning him up. "I don't blame you for any of this. It's not you're fault." She spoke only the truth as she helped scrub away the dirt that still stubbornly clung to Spike's frame. If anyone was to be held accountable for this horrible day, it was going to be Twilight herself. She wasn't about to shift the blame onto someone else when it deserved to fall upon her, and she especially wasn't going to let Spike blamed himself either. "I said things that hurt you, and you reacted. I'd probably do the same thing if I were you."
"That's not what I'm talking about..." Great shame was held in the long dragon's tone as he hung his head in shame. And it was now that Twilight fully understand what it was that Spike was trying to show remorse for, memories of earlier today flooding back to her as he grimaced at her reaction.
The story she had told Pinkie and Rarity in her moment of absolute weakness echoed mockingly in her mind. How she had not only bore her soul out for those two ponies but had done so in a way that had made her seem resentful towards Spike. Out of everything that had happened today, this was by far her biggest moment of shame. How she had forgotten Spike's presence within her home at the time was something she would never know, and frankly, she hoped she would never find out. But the fact still stood that what she had said hurt Spike, badly. And she needed to rectify that.
The problem being she currently didn't know how to do that.
"I ruined your life," Spike continued with great distress, his newly forming tears being lost amongst the running water. "How can you not be—"
"No, you didn't," Twilight finished for him, magically reaching out and gently forcing the dragon to look at her. Her eyes bore deep into his own, an effort on her part to try and convey her feelings without any confusion or misunderstanding. "I don't ever want to hear you say that again. You did not ruin my life."
This only seemed to make the long dragon more distressed. "But what about—"
"Spike, what happened to me was my own fault. I've known that since day one, and I've never blamed you for it." Twilight held the highest form of sincerity in her tone, pulling him closer to further get her point across. "You did not ruin my life. If anything, you gave me a reason to keep living it. You're my son, and I love you. Don't ever forget that. Okay?"
Once again the conversation was enveloped by mostly-silence, with Spike just sitting there staring back into Twilight's eyes even after she let him go. Twilight really couldn't tell for sure what was running through his head right now, but her words seemed to have reached him in some capacity and that was enough for her. After a short while, she broke the eye-contact and returned to helping to clean out his scales. He did the same, gently picking at what few little dirty areas were left after all their work thus far. It didn't take long after that for Twilight to be satisfied, switching off the water and quickly drying off Spike with a magic-made gust of air just to save time.
"Do you really mean that?" Spike finally asked with cautious optimism as he climbed out of the tub. "About me... being your son?"
Twilight smiled for the first time in what felt like ages. "Of course. I hatched your egg, I raised you, what else would you be?"
"... Do I have to start calling you mom?"
Twilight sat there for a moment, she honestly wasn't expecting Spike to ask that. And for the life of her, she couldn't come up with a solid answer. All-day long she had been calling him her son, yet she had never once expected Spike to ever use that title. Not because she didn't want him to, it just hadn't been something that had ever crossed her mind. Upon putting some honest thought into it for a moment, Twilight couldn't honestly put a pin in what her preference on the matter was. He'd spent so long using her name that he abruptly switching to "mom" would just feel off. But at the same time, she didn't want to alienate him, that was the last thing their currently fragile relationship needed. And so she gave him the only answer that she felt comfortable with.
"Only if you want to."
"... Okay."
With that, the two were done with their business in the washroom. It took only a few short moments to restore it to the state it had been in when they had got here—the least Twilight could do after being allowed to use the space for her purposes. Once that was done they two of them strode on over to the door and swung it open, only to be blocked off by a blockade of little ponies. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle stood with one ear pressed to where the door used to be before quickly noticing its sudden absence and looking up to Twilight, eyes wide with the shock. Their mouths hung slightly agape as they gazed at the alicorn before them, still in utter shock about what it was they were looking at. Twilight and Spike, in turn, looked back at them with their looks of surprise and confusion.
"Oh. You three again." Twilight was the first to speak in a deadpan tone, taking the time to eye each of the fillies in turn. "Alright, what do you three want?"
That's all it took to get the trio to snap out of their self-induced trance. Where once their eyes were glued on Twilight, they were now anywhere but. The astonishment they held was replaced by great embarrassment, with Sweetie Belle's horn flashing to light and drawing attention to what they had brought with them. The gentle green glow worked to present Twilight's torn and burnt cloak back to its owner, and the three fillies squirmed to not just run away on the spot.
"We... w-were just trying to help Spike..." Apple Bloom was the first one to break, looking back up at Twilight with a look of almost painful remorse.
"We thought you were gonna try and hurt him," Scootaloo chimed in as if to add some context to their actions. "He... didn't tell us that you were his mom... or that you were an alicorn..."
"We're, uh... we're sorry..." Sweetie Belle mumbled weakly, pushing the torn sheet of fabric closer to Twilight. Out of the three of them, she looked the most guilty over this whole endeavor.
"Oh, right. That." Twilight remained outwardly blank as she gently took the cloth from Sweetie's magic into her own.
She gazed upon the torn garment with this bittersweet sense of nostalgia, looking back on the six long years she had spent hiding under this dusty old blanket. Six years that had been rendered almost entirely moot in one day by a few unfortunate circumstances and the hasty actions of a couple of unsuspecting ponies. Speaking of, Twilight looked again to three of those very ponies. The children had once again broken eye contact with her and were either looking away entirely or had their eyes shut tight. And it wasn't exactly hard to see why that was, they were trying not to stare. Or they were expecting some kind of great retribution to come for their transgressions—it wasn't hard to believe that they had heard Twilight's screaming at the guards earlier. It only made sense that they'd be a bit trepidatious around the alicorn at this moment in time.
Spike took notice of the way they were acting and how Twilight was gazing at them, great worry coming over him as he stepped forward to intervene. "Twilight, they were just—"
"Thank you for helping Spike," Twilight didn't give Spike a chance to finish, and a small smile crept over her face. She waited for the three fillies to stop cowering and look at her before going on. She held up her decimated robe and shook it about lightly back and forth to draw their attention to it. "I'm not happy about this, but how were you supposed to know? I can't be mad at you for that. Especially after you helped Spike when he needed it most. Thank you."
That was all she had to say on the subject, giving the torn fabric back to the young unicorn before gently stepping past them and down the hallway. Spike was quick to scamper past his three new friends to catch up with Twilight, looking up at her with confusion and awe. As they departed, the three fillies they left behind could be heard breathing a sigh of relief at what had just happened. It wasn't long after that something akin to celebration began to echo out from the trio. Ecstatic at how well that interaction had gone, as well as successfully reuniting Spike with Twilight. Based on this, and an earlier statement from Scootaloo, Twilight was able to piece together fairly easily that Spike had explained in part his situation to them and that they'd agreed to help him.
"They seem nice," Twilight idly commented, sparing a glance in Spike's dirrection.
"Y-yeah..." A nervous sounding chuckle managed to find its way out of Spike's mouth as he continued. "They're really nice..."
The smile on Twilight's face grew a bit more with Spike's answer. Even if it hadn't been under the most ideal of circumstances, Spike had managed to end up meeting a few other ponies after all today. It wasn't much of a victory given how the rest of the day would likely go from here, but it felt good to revel in the feeling of something going right for a change. Hopefully, those three fillies and Twilight's other companions could come together to try and get the town off of Spike's back if nothing else. It certainly wouldn't be easy, but it would at least be possible to get them to stop turning the town upsidedown in an attempt to find him.
There was some sense of optimism about how it all could go as Twilight made her way back through the Apple Family home. Before Twilight was going to do anything else, she at least needed to thank Granny Smith again for her intervention and sanctuary. But those plans were cut short when the front door was abruptly swung open with a crash, only just missing Twilight by a fraction of an inch, followed by Applejack and Fluttershy rushing in. Both of them looked to be greatly distressed and alarmed, Applejack more so, almost as much as Twilight had been earlier.
"Granny?! I heard the family cannon go off! Please tell me you didn't—" Applejack cut her statement short when she caught sight of Twilight, and there were a series of visible and distinct reactions that she cycled through in very quick succession.
The first was a sense of surprise, caused by unexpectedly seeing Twilight in her home, which was an understandable sentiment. Then there was the moment where Applejack noticed Spike, which prompted a momentary feeling of confusion before the pieces clicked together in her head. This got her to smile with relief and joy at the prospect of Twilight's reunion with her son, a smile that was very quickly wiped off her face when she noticed the wings on Twilight's back. Over the day, Twilight had seen many reactions to her true nature and most of them were identical. Wide eyes, agape mouth, damning silence, these were the most dominant traits that she'd noticed thus far. And Applejack had all of them in spades, blatantly staring in disbelief at the alicorn in the room.
Then there was Fluttershy. She hadn't entered as frantically as Applejack had and thus wasn't flailing her head about trying to find Granny Smith. She was just along for the ride in Applejack's mission to check in on her family even though she was still clearly worried. It wasn't until after Applejack had noticed Twilight's exposed wings that Fluttershy even registered that she was even here with them right now, and her reaction was a bit different, but it did untimely end the same way.
"Oh, good! You found Spike!" There was a massive burden lifted off of Fluttershy's shoulders as she walked on over to check up on the long dragon in question, that relief only growing when she saw that he wasn't hurt. It was now that her attention shifted back to Twilight. "Where was he? When did you—" And that was where she stopped short, as this was when she took notice of the very blatant wings protruding from Twilight's back, and all was silent once again.
"What's all the racket about?!" Granny Smith came barging into the scene with a bitter outrage aimed towards her older granddaughter. Her focus was solely on Applejack and how she had barged into the house as she did. "What in the world's gotten into ya?! What's with all the shoutin'?!"
Applejack didn't say a word, instead she just reached up with a hoof and simply pushed her granny's face to point towards Twilight in an almost comedically slow fashion. "She's an alicorn..." Granny Smith fought the force of the pushing hoof with seemingly no effort as she turned her agitated eyes back to Applejack.
"O' course she's an alicorn, ya ding dang igit! Ah've seen her walkin' 'round town b'fore, why'd you think she had that big blanket with her all the time?!" Granny Smith's outraged outburst held some decent logic behind it, and she wasn't the first person to point out the flaw in Twilight's masterfully-made disguise, but hearing it out loud nailed the point in that maybe it wasn't as masterful as Twilight had convinced herself.
"I just figured she had some horrible, disfiguring scar..." Fluttershy piped up, still taking in Twilight for all she was worth, "I know that kind of thing can be demoralizing..."
That wasn't too far off from the explanations Twilight had heard over the years, in all honesty.
"And quit starin' at her like that, ya ninny! It's RUDE." Granny Smith blared out again, jabbing a bony hoof into Applejack's chest with enough force to make the significantly stronger-looking mare recoil a tiny bit. "Ah helped raise you kids better than that!"
"S-sorry, granny," Applejack pulled her eyes off of Twilight and threw them down at the floor, "A-and sorry, Twilight..."
"It's fine... I need to get used to it soon anyway." Twilight didn't want to admit that, but it was a sad reality that she would have to face sooner rather than later. Her cover was blown irreparably at this point, especially after her standoff with the town guards, that was unavoidable. News of her true nature was likely spreading like wildfire among the town's law enforcers by this point. Though Granny Smith's intervention just now did bring up a question that Twilight had been meaning to ask.
"But... if I may... why aren't you making a big deal out of this?" The question was directed towards Granny Smith herself, rightfully so given how she had been reacting to everything.
Granny Smith turned to Twilight with a blank, yet still somehow bitter, expression. "Child, Ah am a hundred and six years old. Nothin' surprises me anymore."
"Well, alright then." Spike gave the older mare a deadpan glare.
"I'm not going to argue with that." The answer wasn't necessarily a good one, but it was more of an answer then Twilight had been expecting so she couldn't complain. And after a moment of taking that in, it was time for Twilight to address the other problem in the room. With a deep breath, she turned to address Fluttershy and Applejack. "So... I have some apologies to make, and you two are on that list."
"If it's about... this," Fluttershy gestured towards Twilight and her wings in particular, "I'm not exactly the person to cry foul about people having secrets..."
"That's... part of it. I also need to—" A loud series of knocks upon the wooden door served to cut Twilight off immediately. And it didn't take long for anyone to figure out the identity of the interloper.
"Ponyville Town Guard, open up!" The guard shouted from beyond the wooden barrier. It didn't take long for the town guards to get their spines back, Twilight idly thought in irritation.
Applejack groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, what do they want?"
"Probably somethin' 'bout me shootin' the cannon at 'em earlier," Granny Smith answered with casual indifference, "Or it's somethin' to do with wingycorn over there blastin' 'em in the face."
These two statements got a potent reaction out of Applejack. It looked like she couldn't decide on who it was she wanted to yell at for their actions, looking back and forth between Twilight and her Granny with this almost constipated expression. In the end, she never did decide who she wanted to yell at and instead settled for answering the door. She just mindlessly moved back to the door and swung it open, greeting the town guard as casually as she could given the current circumstances.
"Good afternoon, ma'am, I'm looking for a mare named Twilight Sparkle," the guard began in a professionally grumpy sounding voice,
Granny Smith was quick to peer from over her granddaughter's shoulder. "Yer not here 'bout the cannon?"
"No, Miss Smith, we're not taking your cannon," the guard spoke in this condescendingly mundane tone, almost as if this wasn't the first time he had said something like this. "And nobody down at the precinct wants to try after what happened last time. But I still need to know if anyone here has seen Twilight Sparkle."
Applejack furrowed her brow aggressively towards the stallion. "And why's that?"
"Well, if you must know, I've been informed that she's dangerous, has assaulted some of my peers, and is currently harboring a dangerous unknown creature."
Twilight's blood began to boil once more thanks to the stallion's accusations, enough so to prompt her to step into view of the doorframe. She glared into the guard's very soul with significant malice, though she managed to keep that grudge out of her tone and spoke in a fairly calm and respectable way.
"That 'dangerous creature' has a name. It's Spike," She began slowly, taking the time to slightly adjust her wings in such a way to catch the guard's attention. And now that she could peer out the door beyond Applejack, she could see that this stallion wasn't alone in his search for her. Two other guards were flanking him on either side, and they had very noticeable reactions when Twilight walked into view. Understandably so, given how they were a part of the earlier standoff. "He isn't dangerous, he is my son. Your peers were 'assaulted' because they were hurting him."
"Well now... this simplifies things a bit..." After taking a moment to take that in, the guard cleared his throat before going on. "But in any case, you've still assaulted guard personnel, on top of other things. I'm going to need you to come with me. Willingly, preferably."
Twilight stood there within the house staring at the guard for some time in deep thought. Now that she was finally over the day-long mental breakdown she was finally able to think with rational and logic again. With her arguably best trait restored, it was easy enough to figure out that further retaliation against the township's police force wouldn't be ideal. It would be mindlessly easy, there was no feasible way for these small-town guards to possibly stand any real chance against alicorn magic, they lacked the resources and numbers to likely even consider it. And it was clear that they were also aware of the almost immeasurable gap between them and Twilight, evidence by their more civilized tactics of simply asking Twilight to come along with them. The only other thing that they could do at this point would be to send out to Canterlot for backup, as what better way to deal with a rogue alicorn than with a significantly more powerful one?
Her thoughts shifted to Spike as she turned to look at his reaction to all of this. He seemed worried, as did the three ponies present for this interaction, seemingly curious as to why she was even bothering talking with these people. But all Twilight could focus on was the repercussions of Spike's romp about Ponyville, and how he had earned the attention of just about every living thing in the township, with most if not all of them were under the impression that he was some kind of feral beast. Something that wouldn't be an issue if he and Twilight were to simply just leave town, but that was something that wasn't exactly possible at the moment. If only because of those three little ponies who had gone out of their way to help Spike in his time of need. Spike's mental stability was probably still fairly fragile after everything that had gone on today, and the last thing he needed right now was to be suddenly uprooted from what had become his routine this past month. Especially after he finally made some friends, even if that desire had been what started this whole mess.
But when Twilight glanced back over to the guard, there was a spark of inspiration that struck. While the town guards weren't exactly hospitable at the moment, they could provide an interesting opportunity. Maybe not the best opportunity, but it couldn't make things any worse than how they were right now. Or at least, they couldn't make things worse for Spike. It was a risky gambit, and a difficult wager to make, but if it worked out the payoff would be worth her while.
"Alright, I'm not above the law. I'll go with you." Twilight's words garnered more than a little surprise from those around her, and not just the guards.
Applejack was the first to ask the obvious question. "Uhh... Twilight? What're you doing?"
"Accepting the consequences of my actions," Twilight explained as she kindly gestured for Applejack to move out of the way. "Come on, Spike, let's go." Spike only hesitated for a moment before rushing up to Twilight's side.
This got the guard's ears to perk up. "You're bringing the—... you're... the creature?"
"That's... actually not a half-bad idea," Fluttershy spoke up after a moment's consideration, "Show them that Spike's not dangerous..."
"My thought exactly," Twilight almost chuckled as she and Spike stepped outside, an obvious attempt to hide just how nervous she was about what she was about to do. Doing her best to hide her anxiety, she looked back towards the small group of guards. "So, I'll go with you to where ever it is we need to go, so we can talk this out. But he doesn't leave my side, and nobody touches him. Fair?"
While the two other guards were busy assessing Spike as he did his best to stay hidden behind Twilight, the third spent his time thinking over Twilight's offer. He was surprisingly composed despite the alicorn and dragon standing before him. How or why he wasn't bothered by these two very unusual phenomenons was a mystery, but one that didn't really matter in the long run.
"That's... not exactly how we wanted this to go down... but I suppose you're not giving us a choice?"
"Not really, no. You take my deal, or we take off."
The guard sighed and reluctantly agreed to the terms presented before him. Twilight's claims weren't ridiculously outrageous in the grand scheme of things, so it wasn't as if she was particularly screwing them over. Before going with them Twilight took the time to address her friends once more, finally getting around to thanking Granny Smith for the hospitality and the other two for their help in searching for Spike. It wasn't by any means the last time Twilight was going to be seeing any of them, yet from the outside looking in the short discussion did very much look like they were parting ways. Once that was said and done, one of the guards produced a set on manacles to Twilight with a nervous chuckle. The intent was clear enough, but all it took was a raised eyebrow on Twilight's behalf to shoot the idea down. The cuffs weren't needed seeing as how she was going with them willingly, and they wouldn't exactly do much against a pony who could break the bonds without much effort.
With nothing further to delay them, they were on their way. Spike clearly had his concerns over what was going on, but seeing Twilight's outward confidence about the whole thing was enough to keep him calm. Though in truth, she was probably more nervous then he was about all of this. There were some fairly high stakes that Twilight was gambling with right now, and it could blow up horrifically in her face if things didn't go well. They were going to be escorted through a sizable chunk of Ponyville if they were going to the town guard's little base of operations, meaning they were going to be seen by at least some people. Seeing Spike with an escort of town guards should at least get the citizens to calm down in their efforts to find him, and hopefully keep some of the rowdier ponies from trying to tackle him. But that wasn't what was making the hairs on the back of Twilight's neck stand on end. No, it was her backup plan which had her the most nervous, and it was already too late to change it now, seeing as how she had chosen to leave the torn remnants of her cloak back at the Apple Family Home.
After all, the sight of an alicorn walking through town would surely take some of the unneeded attention off of Spike. She had already been revealed to far too many ponies on this day, and news of her status was going to get out one way or the other. It was beyond her control at this point, sooner or later the news would spread. So if nothing else, Twilight could at least expose herself on her terms. In her head, she kept telling herself that this was a necessary measure to get the spotlight off of Spike, but it still didn't alleviate the unrelenting tension that was once again building in her chest.
Today had been a very long day, and it was still far from over.