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// 4 - Face to Face 
// Story: Dog Years 
// by AugieDog 
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It took them four days to find him.

Or at least, he figured it was four days. A couple or six hours after leaving the castle and the mirror and...and everything, he'd slammed into the top of some mountain range and dragged himself into a cold, clammy cave he found there. The light washing in from the opening had then faded and returned three times before he heard claws or hooves or whatever scrabbling along the cliff face outside.

Which meant this was now the fourth day, the fourth day of thoughts and feelings crashing over him like waves across a breakwater during a storm—

And wasn't that a stupidly poetic image! Spike covered the thing that wasn't his head anymore with the long, thick, scaly tail that wasn't his tail and the paws that weren't even paws and wished he could just cuddle against Twilight and—

And that brought on even more of the crashing waves. At least the rock walls and ceiling of this cave were handy for tearing chunks from and crushing them to rubble. Sometimes he even found gems, and the aromas that tickled his snout and rumbled his stomach led him to chomp those down. A dog had to eat, after all.

Even when he wasn't a dog...

He'd slept some during those four days, he knew, because being furious, he discovered, was just plain exhausting. And since he was getting it from both sides, angry at himself for the way he'd acted while also angry at Twilight for the way she'd acted, only in sleep could he get away from all the compounding piles of awfulness.

So he was almost sure it was four days after sliding into this hole that the sound of someone or something clattering over the stones at the cave mouth behind him rustled his ears. He just wasn't sure at all what he wanted to do about it...

"Wow," that voice that was almost his own said. "I didn't know there were unclaimed caves this big anywhere around Equestria. Talk about your prime real estate!"

"Go away," Spike rumbled without opening his eyes or uncurling from the knot he'd made of himself.

"Are you kidding?" The way the voice echoed told him its source was moving, coming into the cave and skirting along the wall toward Spike's head. "And pass up the chance to see what I'm gonna look like in a thousand years? 'Cause I've gotta say: pretty awesome."

Which made Spike uncover his face and crack his eyelids to glare at the smaller dragon. "You've been hanging out with Rainbow too much."

The dragon shrugged, a gesture that looked more human coming from a bipedal creature than it had when the princess had done it all those days ago outside the castle. "I like spending time with all my friends." A flap of his wings brought him up to perch on an outcrop of rock closer to Spike's eye level. "I'd like to spend time with you, too, if that'd be okay."

The word "time" stuck like a couple dozen pins into Spike's head. "'Cause I've got nothing but time, you mean?" He didn't bother swallowing his growl. "I'm a magical dragon now, right? So I get to live while she dies!"

"And if you could save her?" The other dragon had folded one hind leg over the other, had cupped his knee with his foreclaws and was leaning back on the outcropping, his wings slightly spread. The pose made Spike think of those cartoons he'd seen watching TV while Twilight was at work where a character has a little angel or devil sitting on their shoulder.

This guy, though, was clearly the devil. "Really?" Spike asked, letting his lips pull back from his teeth. "You want me to say I'd force her into the same thing she forced on me? That's your plan?"

"So you're saying you wouldn't." The guy didn't even blink.

Fortunately, Spike had spent the past four days slashing and crushing rock from the roof of the cave, so he knew from experience that it was big enough now for him to leap onto his hind feet and wave his forearms. "Well, of course I'd save her! I'd do anything for her! I'm her dog! That's what dogs do!" He lunged forward and crooked a claw at the little guy's chest, a claw, he couldn't help noticing, that was longer than the guy was wide. "What we don't do is make decisions! Humans do that!"

"Huh." Not a single waver of fear scent brushed Spike's snout, but then he didn't know if dragons could smell the same things dogs could. Still, the little guy stayed sitting calmly even with the tip of Spike's claw hardly a whisker's width from his purple scales. "'Cause it seems to me this all started when you decided to let yourself die."

As much as Spike tried to keep it steady, his claw started shaking. "That wasn't a decision." He could barely get the words out. "When the alternatives are dying in her arms or living forever without her, there...there's no choice. None at all." He flopped onto his belly, dust and dirt from the floor bursting into a cloud around him. "You wouldn't understand."

"Maybe," that oh-so-similar voice said quietly. "But I do know that my Twilight's got a whole squadron of magical researchers looking into the processes of aging and death and all, trying to see if there's anything we can do for our brother and our pony friends before we reach the same point your Twilight has."

Despite himself, Spike looked over at him. "Your brother?"

"Shining Armor." The guy gave a little grin. "Doesn't every universe have one?"

"He's Twilight's brother. Or—" If Spike had still had fur on his neck, he knew it would have been bristling. "You think of your Twilight as your sister?"

Bringing a hand up in front of himself, the other Spike waggled it back and forth. "I mean, she hatched me way back when, sure, but I can't say I've ever thought of her as my mother. Big sister, first friend, role model, employer: things like that." He cocked his head. "I'm guessing you and your Twilight have a slightly different relationship?"

Her face appeared in Spike's memory, and every bit of his anger evaporated. "She's my goddess," he whispered, a phrase that had floated across his mind every time he'd looked at her for more than a decade even though he'd never allowed himself to say out loud. "She's been my goddess for longer than I can really remember, since before I got the ability to think the way humans and the rest of you do. For the entirety of my existence, it's been the same way: when she was with me, everything was perfect, and when she wasn't, everything was miserable..."

"Whoa." The guy was sitting forward, his eyes wide. "So when you said you loved her—"

"I meant madly, passionately, totally, and wholeheartedly." Spike could suddenly feel every rock he was lying on jabbing against his scales. "She's the world to me, and without her, I'm nothing...or at least nothing that I want to be." He stretched along the cave floor, sharp, yes, but somehow cooling, too. "Getting to talk with her and know her and share her life since that first bit of magic sucked me up and spit me out, it's been heaven. Sheer, unadulterated heaven. And while I know she'll be sad when I die, I know just as well that she'll get over it. Humans always do. But living without her? I...I can't do it, Spike. I can't..."

He shut his eyes, let the darkness and the silence settle over him.

Not that things stayed silent for long. "You forgive her betraying you, then?" that voice asked like the voice of his conscience set free.

Some of his earlier anger prodded at him, but all this talking had pretty much ground it away to ashes. "She's Twilight," he said, raising his head. "I'm betting yours acts without thinking now and again, too."

The other Spike was nodding, a glint in his eye. "And she always works to fix it when she's messed up."

A sort of crunchy spiciness filled the air, and Spike raised his head further. "You...you mean—" He rolled around so he was on his paws and belly, stuck his face, bigger than the other Spike's whole body, practically right up against him. "This? Me? They've figured out a way to—?" He didn't dare let himself say it.

Excitement bubbled in the other Spike's scent. "When you flew off, I don't think I've ever seen my Twilight as mad as she was at yours. Yours lay there awhile just sobbing about being sorry while mine yelled at her, but then she jumped up and started yelling back a whole lot of talk about universes and nexuses and I don't know what all." He gave another of his shrugs. "Long story short, they dug a pond in the field behind the old castle in Ponyville and moved the mirror spell over onto it. They think it should be big enough for you to get home."