Chapter 2: Scale It Back
The next morning, Twilight awoke to the light of Celestia's morning sun shining into the library. The purple mare stretched her limbs out with a yawn before crawling out of bed. She trotted to her dresser to magically take a brush to her messy bedmane. While brushing, she looked to the Spike's bed and saw the dragon sleeping peacefully, just as he was before she went to bed. As she was finishing her grooming, her assistant woke up and opened an eye towards her.
Twilight noticed and smiled, "Good morning, sleepy head."
Spike yawned, "Good morning, Twilight. What's on the agenda for today?"
Twilight set her brush down before thinking, "Other than just sending a letter to Princess Celestia, I think we just have to finish reorganizing the library."
"Awesome, just let me get some breakfast," the dragon said as he got up and stood up on his bed on all four. However, this startled the purple mare, causing her to take a step back. To Twilight, Spike had grown bigger overnight. "What? What's wrong?" Spike asked, looking down at the purple pony.
"Sp-Spike….you've grown….so fast…." Twilight took a step forward to examine him more, "It seems you've grown at double your size overnight."
"Really?" Spike looked down on himself, noticing that Twilight was telling the truth. In his swinging of his new long neck, he hit his head against the wall. "Oww…." He grabbed his head with one of his claws to where he hit his head.
"Let's go downstairs, you can move easier. And please be careful," Twilight said, leading the way down to the main library room. Spike followed, careful to not hit anything with his large wings or his massive tail.
Once downstairs, the purple mare galloped to her desk to get the letter for Celestia, "Here Spike, send this to Princess Celestia. With luck, she will have some answers to help with your….sudden growth."
Spike, who was careful to not break anything, nodded and burned the letter as he normally did. In a puff of magic, the letter was gone and teleported to Canterlot. "Now what?" the dragon asked with concern.
"Now we wait," Twilight replied.
Both of them stared at each other for a few minutes awkwardly. Twilight tried to look at anything that was not her large assistant. Spike was nervous himself. He didn't want to move because he had a fear that he would move one part of his body and it would destroy half of the library.
"So….uh….how are you feeling, Spike?" Twilight broke the silence, hoping to relieve the tension that filled the air.
"Other than being as large as an apple tree, just hungry," Spike lightly joked. It was obvious he was hungry, his stomach made that apparent.
"Well, no eating until we figure out what is happening, understood? I'm really worried, and I just hope we can find out what the cause is," Twilight spoke as she trotted towards the dragon. She took a look at her assistant's new dragon body.
"I agree, I just want to be back to my normal size," Spike replied.
Another pause occurred between the two, but Twilight was quick to break it, "Any feeling of a letter yet?"
Spike was silent before replying, "Nothing yet, but we did just sen-" He was cut off by a loud and fiery burp. Out of his mouth flew a scroll, landing in front of the purple pony. "Wow, that has to be a record for the Princess."
"It must! She's never been so quick before," Twilight picked up the scroll with her magic and opened it up, "Must have some good news then!"
Twilight read the letter to herself:
My faithful student Twilight Sparkle,
Upon receiving your letter, I had to reply immediately after reading about Spike's rapid change. While it is not uncommon for dragons to go through sudden growth spurts, it seems Spike's are actually delayed and rapid. Seeing how he is the only dragon in Ponyville, I regret to inform you that Spike must depart from Ponyville for the safety of both him as well as the citizens. I understand this is not an easy decision, but this is in accordance to an official decree of Equestria's past.
Please give Spike my regards.
Signed,
Princess Celestia
The purple unicorn was speechless. The letter from the Princess that she hoped would give an answer to Spike's sudden growth and size paralyzed her from hoof to horn. But what really struck to Twilight's core was what her assistant said with optimism:
"So, what does the Princess have to say?"