//------------------------------// // warm winter // Story: Ponies and Mons // by ezio dementay //------------------------------// Okay I know I said this in a blog post, but this chapter takes place during winter, just reminding you all and to those who haven’t seen the blog post. It was winter in Ponyville, the town was covered in a blanket of snow as it was one of the biggest winters in recent memory, and about three inches of snow everywhere and everypony had to work hard to clear it up ready for the next season, except for one. Spike was in his home, resting in his bed and covering himself in multiple layers of covers, blankets and bed sheets just to stay warm and to forget about the prank from a previous winter wrap up before and it was one of the worst winters ever, at least concerning dragons, but Spike planned to stay indoors and that was that. Twilight came upstairs with some hot chocolate for Spike, giving it to him and him drinking the whole thing in ten seconds flat and hiding back under the covers again. “Spike, you know that everypony has to help with the clear up, sorry but you're still helping,” Twilight said sternly, taking the covers off Spike with her magic, but Spike still looked a bit scared, trying to find a good excuse. “You said everypony, not everyone, so I’ll just stay here and look after the Eevee’s” Spike hoped this would suffice but sadly it did not. “Both of them are helping me and Fluttershy make sure all the frogs are okay, and you need to help too Spike,” he knew that there was no way out so he sadly go out of bed, put on a coat and went down stairs, putting on three pairs of gloves and then heading outside. Twilight ran off to help Fluttershy with her two Eevee’s behind her, but Spike decided to go to the frozen lake, seeing as no one was there and no one would notice if he was gone, and with this plan in mind he set off. As he walked through Ponyville, he saw all the fillies and colts with their pets, Scootaloo’s Blaziken was burning the snow off the roofs of some houses, Sweetie belle's Butterfly and Cricket pet were carrying some vegetables and fruits and Snip’s Delibird was throwing parcels full of pie, causing more trouble than help. Spike thought to himself about having a pet, but realising that animals didn’t like him due to when the Eevee’s leaped on him and started to bite him a bit and only getting a telling off from Twilight made him think that wasn’t going to work, “Maybe I could get a egg or something, I don’t know.” Spike sighed with a sad look on his face, heading out of Ponyville. He kept walking, going further and further away from Ponyville till he came across a frozen lake, not the one where the prank happened, but it made him nervous of the river in any case, keeping a decent distance away. As he walked around, he heard whimpering in the distance, and ran over to it, thinking it was a injured mare, or maybe rarity but what he found was a small bird on the floor, covered in snow and shivering half to death. Spike saw some small flames coming from the birds head, thinking it was a phoenix, he picked it up and blew some small flames on it, which seemed to wake it up from its snow covered slumber, but the bird seemed like it had been frozen solid and was half dead at the moment. “Oh man, you poor thing,” Spike held the bird caringly in his arms, placing one of his coats on the bird, trying his best to keep it warm, but the bird still sneezed and shivered, not letting up or showing any sign of recovery or getting better in any way. Spike simply ran back to the library, setting the bird down on his bed and covering it in multiple covers, running to get a book on phoenixes. He ran down stairs, tripping on the last two stairs and falling down but getting up soon after and looking through multiple books on phoenixes “Feather care, recipes for medicines, how to comb their feathers ahh!” spike went through multiple books, before finding a basic book on phoenix care. “As with any ill or injured animal, tend to its wounds or symptoms, however a phoenix requires warm conditions, a recommendation would be to use fire,” Spike smiled and ran upstairs, breathing a continuous flame onto the bird, making it whimper slightly less, but it was still whimpering in great amounts though. Spike ran down stairs a second time, going to the kitchen and making a large cup hot chocolate before running back upstairs and helping the bird to drink, “Here you go, nice and warm.” the bird swallowed the drink reluctantly, mostly because of how sick the bird was, but it smiled at the taste at least. “Hold on, I’ll get you some more pillows,” Spike went down stairs, but was greeted by Twilight, and she was not happy to see him. “What are you doing here spike?!” Twilight exclaimed, her face showing a great deal of anger at him, “Why aren’t you helping!?” she asked him though Spike was not really scared or worried, he had a good reason. “Twilight I needed-“ Spike was cut off by Twilight, her voice carried more rage now than ever. “Needed to take a nap in private? Typical…” Spike felt like Twilight had been replaced by some cruel monster when she said that, but it was the real Twilight, saying such a mean thing. “Hey that’s not fair, and I wasn’t taking a nap, I was helping someone!” Spike exclaimed loudly, his voice reaching yelling levels, but he tried to calm down “I found a phoenix in the snow, so I took it back home and I’ve been looking after it.” Twilight looked even madder now “If you wanted to get out of doing any work, you could just of gotten a cold, but inst-“before Twilight finished, Spike ran upstairs. Twilight followed, expecting Spike to be in his bed taking a nap and being lazy, but instead, he was holding a little phoenix in his arms, stroking it’s head carefully “I found her in the snow, and she was really sick, so I brought her back here” Spike said, looking at twilight nervously before stroking the bird again. Twilight looked at Spike, being ashamed at what she had said before, thinking Spike had lied to her “I’ll… I’ll make some hot chocolate for her” Twilight went down stairs, with Spike still stroking the little bird. “There there, you can stay here for as long as you need to, I think Twilight likes you,” the bird smiled, saying “Moltres” in a small voice “That’s a cute name.” Spike smiled, putting Moltres back into bed, feeding her the hot chocolate slowly. “Spike” Twilight said, she had come back upstairs with sorrow look on her face “I am sorry for calling you lazy,” Spike looked at twilight with annoyance, “Why would you call me lazy anyway? I do all the work in this house, I clean, mop, cook all day long, and I organise your books in alphabetical order, colour order and order of the authors name, and you call me lazy because I didn’t want to go outside and get frozen!?” Spike yelled at her, with Twilight looking even more ashamed now. “I’m sorry I just thought-“ “Yeah you just thought, now why don’t you go back and help Fluttershy or something, Moltres is still sick.” Spike looked away from Twilight and went back to tending to Moltres with some bandages he found, along with some warm covers and some more pillows. “Sure, see you later.” Twilight left, putting on her scarf a going out of the door. Spike rubbed his head in confusion, thinking why he said all that to Twilight “I don’t mind doing all this work, but she called me lazy, did she think I did nothing for her!? That’s not even fair!” Spike felt a warm wing hug him tight, seeing the small phoenix had gotten up and walked over to him, and hugged him caringly. He hugged back, making sure not to hurt Moltres, but just enough so she was enjoying having a friend hug back, with spike smiling while hugging her. Well I hope you like this chapter, I sure had a lot of fun writing this chapter, it was a ton of fun!