Under the Hill
B_25
The tears were fresh and never-ending. He tried to stop them. To push them back and act like they weren't happening. To deny their occurrence, that he wasn't in a state that allowed them—to fool himself that crying wasn't something he did at all.
But he cried. And ran. Stumbling and falling and getting back up and heading nowhere. Everything was big and vast and hallways stretched toward a horizon and ceilings were something that did not exist. Everything was blurry because of his eyes.
Blurred from the tears.
Blurred from a still-developing youth.
There were shouts behind him. She hadn't chased him. Not since she yelled and not since he slammed the door. There was a huff and a string of words that cut him. Then he ran. And ran. Past statues of guards and passing ponies in outfits too extravagant to be comprehended.
But soon enough, somehow and somewhere, he was outside, in a garden the size of a yard, situated on a balcony. Grass swept around him, the blades of emerald tugged by the breeze. Flowers grew in patches at his sides. He kept forward to the start of a small hill—one with a lone oak tree.
And to the left was the marble railing overseeing a green stretch of the world. The disc housing a city loomed directly below. In the beyond, hills of grass wept outward. Towns and villages were but blips of brown with moving, colourful dots.
A voice called from behind.
Spike looked over his shoulder to see a blur of intermixed colours. Fear seizing his heart, he scrambled to the ground, looking around for a way out. Ahead, he saw the answer: a small, round passage beneath the hill. Something meant for critters to pass through. Without hesitance, he scampered toward it, crawling within the tight space.
There was a huff and then words. Spike curled into himself in the middle of the crawlspace. He continuously looked at the entrance and the exit, waiting. Hooves appeared. Peeking into the tunnel, feeling around it. The dragon curled to avoid their touch.
They spoke. Words that were gentle with a voice that was not. A trick to lure him out. He wouldn't listen. He would not stay at this castle for much longer. He would escape into a world that was free and void of mean little ponies. He would get away from these creatures that he did not understand. Mean ponies pretending to be nice.
The tunnel was dark. And cramped. Air was dense, and the breeze teased fresh oxygen. But he was safe here. Alone. Nopony could hurt him. It would be difficult. Could he force himself to fall asleep here? To avoid detection long enough for the ponies to forget him?
How would he eat? Apples from the tree? Would he need to sneak into the bakery's trash after dark?
Part of him already missed his room. Part of him already missed her. His heart bled with every beat on why ponies he loved could be so mean to him. It didn't make sense. She hurt him so easily. Twilight shouldn’t be like that.
Why was she like that?
He couldn't go back. Not like this and not after that. Even if everything was hashed over, things would return to how they were. The little cuts and the hidden hurts. The toughness of daily existence in that place. He couldn't take that. It was cramped and dark and would become cold in this little tunnel beneath the hill.
But at least he was alone, and survival would be his only pain.
His heartbeat relaxed at the notion.
You could choose your pain in this life. And, to him, it would hurt less to live in this tunnel than it would be to live with her.
But then came the hoofsteps. The giantess walked softly. Her approach dismissed those around his hill. No words. Not a command. The hooves retreated from his home, and the sounds of their steps went far, far away. Soon there were no sounds. Only that of the wind, the crinkling of branches, and the whistle carried through the grass.
Two forehooves stepped before his entrance, the view capped at their ankles. Whiteness, without a pinprick of imperfection. Steady and still. Power radiated from their form. From the hooves alone, the dragon knew he was dealing with a goddess, a religious, omnipotent deity, here to punish the sinner.
The dragon tried to steady himself. To be big and strong in the face of she who could end the world—who could summon lightning, zapping him from existence... all inside a blink. Her eyes, pure whiteness, while winds whipped.
He steadied himself.
And failed upon hearing a knock on top of the hill.
"Is anyone home?"
Spike sniffed and huffed, sobbing out a few cries, curling into himself more—until finding it impossible. Having given himself away, he forced himself to speak. "N-No."
"N-No?" the voice repeated gently with a laugh, not one he could be upset with. It wasn't her laugh. That mocking, childish laugh, that cut through his scales. No, this was a soft laugh. One meant to reassure. "Well, that is a shame. I had brought some cookies with me. Ones covered in emerald sprinkles that, sadly, my stomach just cannot handle. Oh well."
The forehooves lowered and pooled beneath the goddess’s fluffy chest. Prismatic mane billowed without assistance. It covered half of her face. That sweet, serene expression soothing his cuts.
"Since there is none in this lovely tunnel way," began the goddess as she leaned forward, inching her muzzle inside the entrance, "I suppose I could use it for my afternoon nap."
Spike turned and fell and crawled backward with a raised claw to the intruder. "N-No! Stop! I'm here! Stop, stop!"
Celestia smiled at him. "My! Spike! What a pleasure to see you here! I thought that none were home but—oh, I suppose my ears aren't what they used to be." Celestia turned her head within the tight space, tapping the side of her head with a hoof. "Mhmm. Maybe something's bloc—aha!"
A golden aura shimmered into existence, floating a cookie from behind the princess's ear, the treat floating before her muzzle. Shock and surprise infused her expression. Her eyes passed over to the dragon in excitement. "That's where I'd been keeping that cookie. Good heavens, I nearly feared that I had lost it."
The treat floated close to him and, with his palm still facing her, the snack pressed into his scales, and the magic gently closed his talons around it. Then the magic ceased, and the princess lay on the ground. Her head still filled the entrance of the tunnel while her jaw lay on the base of it.
Spike looked at her, too confused to keep up with his game of being angry. "I-I'm... n-not talking to anyone."
Celestia's lips pushed together; she looked to the tunnel's ceiling. "Last I checked, you're not supposed to talk while you eat, right?"
Spike looked at her, but then he looked back at the cookie and, assisted by the growl in his stomach... chomped away at the snack. Bite after bite, swallow after swallow, the snack filled him due to the density of the shaved emerald.
Although some of his anger vanished when he finished, he still glared at the princess. Her mane washed over her forehead and pooled around her face. It clumped within the tunnel as her lone, curious eye remained fixed on him.
"I'm running away."
"Are you now?" Celestia asked not to test him... but to reveal pain and curiosity in her voice. "Where will you go?"
"Somewhere not here," the dragon answered while pulling his tail between his legs. He hugged it to his chest. "I don't like it here. I don't like the ponies here—and they don't like me either." His snout nuzzled into his knees. "I just want to go away. I just want to be alone."
"I've felt that way too." Celestia's muzzle rested on the ground. Prismatic mane pooled around her head. "Where nopony understood me, and I thought I would be better by myself. But I didn't like being alone, either."
Spike carefully peeked out at her from the side of his tail.
"I was upset, too, when I said the same thing." Celestia looked at him with delicate eyes. "But the truth was that I didn't want to be alone. I said I never wanted to see my sister again—but I never meant it. But she hurt me, some time ago. And the pain was just so big that I just wanted to go away."
His eyes glimmered. He choked on his next sob but unfurled from himself. "I don't think Twilight likes me."
"What makes you say that?"
Spike looked at his feet. "She's always yelling at me. Always... angry about something. I-I don't get things r-right and—and she gets really mean! I hate her! I hate Twilight Sparkle!"
Celestia didn't admonish him. She let the anger flush through him as it was needed. Once the words were out of him, the outburst burned through its course... the dragon wiggled into himself, suddenly uncomfortable with the air around him.
"Do you think that Twilight Sparkle makes mistakes too?"
He looked at her immediately.
"It's easy to forget that we make mistakes without realizing it." Celestia's head rose in the tunnel. "And sometimes, we're too caught up in something to admit it. We have to gently let others know how we feel, or how they hurt us. We don't always know the depth of pain caused by a couple of words."
Spike recognized the truth in those words. That tingle, like strings of a harp being plucked inside his heart. It caused him to shiver. It caused him the desire for another outburst. But the presence of another soothed him. That openness. That acceptance without judgement. It lowered his defences. It caressed his wounded soul into coming out.
"T-Twilight and I... w-we... th-there was a-a fi-fight and..." He breathed through his mouth as terribleness tingled in his voice. Everything within felt carried out in his exhale. Like nothing was left inside his body when he was done. "I-I made a mistake, and she was mean about it. Very mean. And I just... just couldn't...”
Celestia sniffled.
Something wet touched the corner of her eye.
"It sounds like you've been holding back for a very long time."
Spike looked down again. Twilight hurt him. She would yell or groan. Say things that easily hurt him. That pain and those feelings were real, but they weren't the whole truth. He wiped his eyes. Following this feeling by speaking about it.
"She's not always mean." The words surprised him. He never expected to speak of her defence—nearly forgetting Twilight Sparkle could be nice. "Sometimes we'll talk. And share a blanket and read a book. Sometimes she can be nice. A-And sometimes, she can be mean.”
Celestia looked to the side of the tunnel, inspecting it, though he was unsure if she was really looking at anything in particular. "Indeed. That's what makes it hurt more, right? They can be nice, and they can be mean. You aren't sure which one they really are."
She then smiled at him. "The truth is that we aren't always nice, and we aren't always mean. Parts of you are nice while other parts of you aren't. You love Twilight Sparkle, but, at the same time, because of the hurt she's caused you—you've probably felt some terrible things about her. Terrible things that cause you not to feel good."
She looked deeply into his eyes. "Am I right in saying that?"
He withstood her gaze for a moment.
Then nodded.
"Wondering always hurts the most," Celestia followed. "Do they still like me? Or do they really hate me? How do they feel about me, or about what happened? You can run away if you like. But everything will only hurt differently."
She pulled away only to offer her hoof. "And I know it's hard, but take a moment to think about Twilight. Do you really think she wants you gone? She might say it, sometimes—and she shouldn't. But beneath the surface... to those times the two of you spent beneath the blanket before the fireplace. Do you really think she would want you gone? To no longer have you around?"
Her hoof stopped before him.
"Ponies might think and feel and say what they do about you," Celestia said. "Mean things, because they don't know better. But you're a good kid. Everyone will see that soon. And in time, nearly nopony will treat you differently. But that only happens if you come out from under the hill."
She pleaded with him. "Things only change when you come out from under the hill."
He watched her hoof. Thought it to be a trap. But nothing in his heart told him that. He knew that he would have to face the world once he came out. That he would be taken through the halls, sobbing. That he would have to meet Twilight and talk about what happened. It scared him.
But his claw took the hoof.
It guided him out into the light. It brought him into the goddess that he feared would smite him. The white, fluffy wall consumed him. Brushed into his scales, providing a dense layering. Forelegs held him tightly.
"Spike?"
The voice wasn't Celestia's. But it was swollen, and careful with its words. It sounded from the other side of the garden. He wiggled harder against the large mare... afraid to see what stood on the other side.
"I'm.. I..." An exhale. "Sorry."'
He blinked.
"Sorry. S-So sorry. Sorry that I... o-oh... meant none of it... never..."
His shoulders raised as tears burned the corners of his eyes. He pushed away safety and waddled into freedom. Stepping beside the princess, he saw the unicorn filly, a blur of purple that stood over a haze of green. She'd collapsed into herself, sitting on her haunches, lowered on her forelegs.
Crying.
"I didn't mean it." Twilight looked at the grass. "I-I swear I didn't mean it. I was just... mad.” Her chin rose, and he saw her swollen eyes. "That book... i-it meant a lot. The princess gave it, and I said to keep away from the shelves. Then you burped, and I got so mad, and I... sorry. Shouldn't have—sorry."
Spike watched her for a moment before looking up at Celestia. She smiled at him still. Expectations were in her eyes. Not because she was imposing something on him—but because of what she saw deep inside his heart. Spike looked over his shoulder to the land beyond the railing, where he would be free and alone. Nopony to fight or to deal with. All left to his lonesome.
He walked toward Twilight. Her head lifted to watch him approach. They were hugging, unsure of its beginning. Twilight clutched him tight with a foreleg, tightened by the fear that it could have never happened again.
"Y-You... were right," the words floated from his mouth, but the mare shushed him, resting her chin over his back. He rested against the side of her neck. "I shouldn't have been near those books."
Her head shook, and her mane brushed against him. "No. You're still l-learning to control your flames. You can't help it when you burp." She swallowed and fell into him deeper. "I wanted you to keep away because I knew that would happen... but just because I'm right doesn't mean I have the right to be that mean. I just... just got so used to it. I-I never knew how much it hurt you and I... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...”
Spike fell into her. "I-I'm... sorry too."
The two were swallowed by long, white forelegs that bunched the three together.
"I'm proud of both of you," Celestia said while nuzzling the top of their heads. "It's hard to admit when you're in the wrong. But so long as you two care for each other—there's nothing you can't talk out. Promise me. Promise me that you two will never leave each other."
She pulled away so the two could look up at the princess.
"It would hurt to see such a friendship fade away."
Coldness sliced into his scales with its frigid bites. Freezing rain created puddles in the muddy grass beneath his foot. There was the gross squelching and splashing to his steps. Beyond his eyes, darkness loomed, denying view of the horizon, creating a mystery to his surroundings.
The dragon stumbled to the hill as the world's end remained around him.
Then he stopped before its base and looked to the sky. He could see nothing of the clouds—barely anything of the rain. But it pelted his face the same. Terribleness cast upon him from nowhere. With shoulders relaxing behind him, he tilted his head up, embracing the downpour.
His head lowered to his feet. There was a tunnel before them, a tiny one that led to the other side of the hill. He smiled unconsciously. Unable to retract the mirth. His eyes lifted to the top of the elevation. She lingered there. Silent and still.
"Hey..." He barely knew his own voice, not expecting it to sound after the squeezing in his throat. It hurt to speak. Pained him with every syllable. "It's been a while. A while too long, it seems. Funny, how that works."
His head slumped forward. "All the time in the world when you're young. But once you're older... a visit seems impossible. You're just so busy, and even when you come up—it... i-it's just not the same."
His body shook.
"I knew that time was passing quickly. That you were g-getting older, and..." His eyes squeezed tightly to repress something leaking out. "There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do to bring things to the way they were. Things just—they changed. And I couldn't handle it. Wanted to pretend it wasn't happening so long as I wasn't seeing it."
His eyes tightened further.
"I knew it when I left. Knew it that exact moment when we hugged. You knew it too. I know you did." He swallowed and swallowed again, a torrent rising up, unable to be denied. "We both knew that was it. That we wouldn't see each other again. We both knew it, and... a-and we went on. Went on like nothing was different. Like I'd see you again. Like you would..."
Sobs broke from his heart and into his lungs.
“I hate this life. I hate it. We both knew this would be the last time, and did nothing special. Nothing to cement it. No wailing or crying or denying. Nothing. Just... too busy to give it much regard. Just... t-too many of too many things...."
His claw wiped a tear.
"I became something." The words surprised him. He had no clue of his heart, the extension of his feelings—none of the above unless he talked them through. And it was only in talking to her that he saw them in any sort of gentle light. "Wanted to make you proud. To prove that I could be something on my own. Thought that my life would be complete afterward. But it was as you said—I was just alone, and I didn't want to be alone."
His feet took him to the top of the hill. To fall and cross before the special tombstone. His claw laid on its top, feeling across its stone. Clutching it, clinging to it, unable to find that fuzzy warmth from a snowy coat. His scales protected him from the coldness and the rain. But they didn't protect him from the darkness that was all around him.
"I'm still useless, mom," the baby dragon finally said. "You were so gentle and loving and understanding. You could see why everyone was upset and get them to connect. It was who you were that allowed everyone to surrender to your compassion. Only someone as good and pure as you could do that. And I'm nothing like that."
He smiled at his uselessness. "Your words brought me out from under the hill... but mine can do nothing for you. They can't help you. They never will." He slumped over the grave and hugged it, clung to it. He sobbed freely. "I'm just the greedy dragon that takes... unable to do anything for anyone except myself."
"But that's not true."
The voice roused him from the grave. Caused him not to let go... but to curve to see the intruder on the sacred land. Blackness blanketed the balcony garden. But he saw her. The dark hue of lavender set against the darkness. The silhouette of a friend he hadn't seen for a time longer.
"Twi... T-Twilight?"
The princess smiled. A brighter purple began to radiate from her. It cast the area in a soft glow, a bubble in the darkness. She strode a few feet closer with her mane uplifted from the wind. She braved the cold without mention of it. "And you misinterpret Celestia."
Spike looked down at the base of the hill. Twilight had chosen to pause there, who glanced at the grave, seeming warmed by it. She then looked back to her dragon. "It's those tears that are blinding you. That sadness that... you let cloud your head. Think about it for a moment. Take everything that you feel away." She stepped forward and bowed her head. "What made Celestia happiest?"
His expression melted. So did the lies manufactured by the coldness. The answer struck him with sudden warmth. That unique tingling across his scales that blocked the cold. His lips trembled in not wanting to admit the answer. Not to admit that someone could be so pure, and him not taking advantage of it.
"H-Helping others," he answered as though it were a fake, cliche answer. "And seeing them come together."
Twilight beamed at him upon reaching the top of the hills. Standing before the grave of her mentor, she read its engravings, something twinkling in her eyes as she did so. Then to him, she offered a hoof.
"You may think yourself useless, profiting from a tombstone, helpless to help a bygone beloved." Her wings unfurled as she sat down, opening herself up. "You think it's pointless talking to her tombstone. But if Celestia knew she was still helping you from beyond the grave... Spike, don't you think that would make her extremely happy?"
He collapsed from the grave. Crawled through the drench, freezing grass to the offered hoof. He took it, pulled from the ground into Twilight's hold. He fell into her fluffy chest while his head rested on her shoulders. Twilight returned the gesture, doing precisely the same, closing her forelegs around his back—using her wings to keep out the rain.
"I've missed you, Twilight."
Twilight nuzzled into his frill. "I've missed you too. C'mon."
She pulled away without letting go.
"Let's get out of the rain."