Faded Flame

by Ink Stroke

Bonds

Trottingham, 3 hours ago...

"Damn it, where is she hiding?" Spike made his way through yet another crowded street of the city he currently resided in, continuing his tiring search for the alabaster unicorn hidden among the masses. He had gone from pony to pony, asking every single one of them whether or not they'd seen her. After all, Rarity was pretty much the mare with the highest level of aristocracy in the surrounding area, so everypony around knew who she was. His questions received mixed results, pointing him in different directions that led to various celebrations scattered around the city that he had no wishes of attending.

For just a single second, the purple dragon contemplated with admirable interest the lengths Rarity had gone to in order to hide from him, but it was cut short as he returned to his tedious hunt. He was almost positive she was jumping from location to location to throw off his unending search, and the tactic was very much effective against him.

His emerald eyes trailed up into the sky, which was beginning to darken due to the sun's slow decent from its apex position. The drake started cursing inside his head, knowing that each minute spent in his search was time that he could possibly need to reach Ponyville in time. Everything was starting to fall apart for him. Rarity was still concealed from his piercing gaze, Twilight was still alone inside her library, and he hadn't the slightest idea of how to attend to both of those problems at the same time.

Spike briefly considered leaving a letter back in the boutique that would explain everything to the fashionable designer, but he discarded it as quickly as it entered his head. If he was going to settle things with Rarity, he would do it face to face like a man.

His snout twitched as a familiar scent reached his senses, drawing his attention to a small cocktail party taking place in a public park. Living in a boutique for so long had increased many of his natural senses, smell being one of them since his marefriend had a tendency to spray herself with strong perfumes she made herself, testing them out by asking Spike what he thought about them. They were a little too strong for his liking, but now the overpowering aroma served as a beacon he used to slowly track down the hidden mare. His curious sniffing caught the attention of various of the ponies socializing around him, making them all turn their heads to look on as he got closer to a white mare wearing a violet dress that matched her mane perfectly.

The fashionably dressed unicorn noticed that everyone was looking at something behind her, and her heart caught in her throat when the dragon that had finally managed to find her down called out.

"Rarity?" Spike walked closer to the alabaster mare he had been looking for all afternoon, readying himself for what he had to say. He coughed as he was left standing in a cloud of dust, rubbing away the blinding dirt with his claws just in time to see Rarity round the corner of the street. He groaned internally, not at all happy with the prospect of having to chase her down again.

Spike blasted away from the public cocktail party on all fours, reaching speeds that no pony on land could ever hope to outrun. Still, the fashion designer already had a good head-start, and he was having difficulties tracing down the scent while he ran. He followed his nose down an alleyway, thinking that he had finally cornered her, but it was all just a well played trick. She had abandoned her perfume-doused dress to distract him while she kept running, letting him know that she desperately wanted to avoid talking with him. Rarity would rather take a punch to the gut than leave one of her creations lying on the filthy floor, yet she left one of her favorites in a grimy alleyway as nothing more than a final attempt to stop Spike from catching up to her.

He shook his head to stop his unnecessary observations, every second he wasted thinking was another second Rarity had to escape. The violet silk stayed behind as the purple dragon dashed past filthy puddles of water on the floor, splashing his legs with cold water that stung him as the rushing wind chilled it even further. The number of houses blurring at his sides began to thin as he reached Trottingham's city limits, and the cobblestone pavement underneath his feet turned into a dirt road.

He caught sight of Rarity in the distance, running up a grassy hill that hadn't been reached by the city's industrialization yet, but there wasn't anywhere else to run after that. She might have been willing to abandon her dress, but there was no way she would ever go into the Whitetail Woods on her own, much less near nightfall. There were stories about seclusive creatures in there, not exactly as savage and primal as the ones from the Everfree, but most of them were rumored to be just as mischievous.

Spike could tell the Rarity had already exhausted herself, seeing the shine of the setting sun reflect off of the sheen of sweat coating her huffing body as she leaned against a lone tree. The dragon rose back to his bipedal stance, walking slowly towards the tired mare with his nerves steeled for what he was about to do.

"Rarity, please stop running. We need to talk, now." impending doom filled the air between the two of them, and silence reigned the small field they were in as they waited for one another to speak. Rarity took up the offer to talk, yet what she said was almost imperceptible to Spike's excellent ears.

"It's...It's all my fault, isn't it?" the unicorn looked up from the floor, clashing her sapphire eyes in a deep stare against the emerald ones of the drake that had chased her across the entire city. They held none of the usual enthusiastic energy she carried around everyday, nor did her expression seem as composed as she usually molded herself. No, her eyes trembled to match the expression of sheer nervousness plaguing her otherwise pristine face, assuring the dragon even further that she understood perfectly why he wanted to talk to her.

"No. Don't you dare blame yourself for all of this." Spike had to face the facts that he had blocked out in their last conversation due to his repressed frustration, whether he liked them or not, "I'm not exactly innocent about this either. All of this is because of me wanting more attention, like a selfish child, but I can't change who I am. And I'm not only damaging our relationship with that little flaw of mine, I'm damaging your entire life, Rarity."

"That's not true! You've done nothing but good for me." the welled up tears in the white mares eyes found a way to escape, riding her emotional agony all the way down her cheeks to drip down on the healthy grass, tainting it with sorrow no one ever wishes to face

"Have I really? When you wanted to move here, I gave you a hard time as you tried to convince me to leave. When you decided to set up a new boutique, I opposed where you decided to place it. Now, you want to move to Canterlot to find the fortune and fame you've always dreamed of, always strived for throughout your life, and I'm just a roadblock in your way." Spike let a shame he didn't know he had harbored surge through him. He had made Rarity seem as if she were the criminal the last time he spoke to her, but know that he looked back on everything in the past, he was just as big of a uncooperative being as she was.

Both the unicorn and the dragon turned their heads towards the cold ground, asking themselves if that was really what their supposedly 'Perfect' life actually was behind the facade that had been unknown to either of them for so long. Spike behaving like a neglected child demanding attention that wasn't being given to him while Rarity was the obliviously ignorant mare that had her sights set so far in the distance that she couldn't see the difficulties of the present. Both of those were flaws that created artificial devotion within them to try and keep their shattering world together out of fear of facing the reality, but the protective pane of lies had not only cracked on that night, it had been completely erased from history.

When all is said and done, what is left to fill the void?

"I'm s-so sorry." Spike found himself in a hug with the unicorn he had called his marefriend for the past five years, not exactly knowing how he got there, but technicalities didn't matter to him at the moment. He wrapped his arms around her neck, embracing her to share the sorrow that he was equally responsible for bringing about.

"I'm sorry too, Rare, but we can't live like this anymore. I want you to be successful with your life, and I know that I'll always be that extra weight you don't need holding you down if I don't let you go." Spike pulled away from the hug to look her in the eyes as he spoke, "We'll always be friends, there's no doubt in my mind about that, but maybe that's just as close as we can be without obstructing one another."

"It just...it hurts so much." the tears spilled from her sapphire eyes freely at that point, nothing would be able to stop them from their rush even if she tried her hardest. It was just too much for her to handle, to finally see how drastically different her life actually was rather than what she believed it to be, to know that it was the end of the one relationship she ever hoped would fill the emptiness in her heart.

"It hurts me to do this as well, it really does, but we can't pretend like nothing's wrong anymore. You and I need to take some time apart to straighten out what we have in our lives. I'm going back to Ponyville to fix things with Twilight, if that's even possible at this point, and you should pursue your dream with this chance you have. Go to Canterlot to set up your new boutique, like you've always wanted, and don't let Sweetie Belle out of your sight while you're there. She's becoming a star, but I've seen what happens to the new celebrities in that city, and none of them have ever turned out as a happily ever after tale."

Spike had already slipped out of the embrace they had shared moments ago, searching for anything he could say to seal the deal, so to speak. He felt nothing, nothing but shame and agonizing pain in his heart for having to do what he did, and it all came to be because of a rushed decision that could have been avoided if he had been more careful. His childish infatuation all those years ago had potentially destroyed any normal relationship he could ever hope to have with Rarity ever again. Perhaps they would never call each other 'Friend' again, only time would tell if their scars would ever fade away, or if the wound left behind was indeed too deep to ever be overlooked in the future.

"I think I should leave...Rarity?" his departing line transitioned into a bewildered question as he noticed the forlorn look in the unicorn's eyes, which were bland in comparison to their usual bright appearance. Her makeup had all but completely fallen away from her face, leaving streaks of darkness painted across her neutral expression. Spike feared that he had caused some kind of mental instability, though that was very much unlikely, and that unlikelihood was proven correct when she nodded numbly. He thought that he saw her lips mouth unheard words, but it was clear enough to him that the conversation was over.

Rarity didn't move at all as he walked away with his head dipped in shame, casting looks back at her as he set off into the sunset, and even then she remained immobile. The clouds cleared away, leaving the sky bare for all awake to adore its spectacular display of the cosmos, but she didn't pay it any more attention than to the horizon her eyes had drifted off to. Raging silence filled the vastness of the Melodic Prairie's mutely rustling expanse, only being accented by the frozen mare atop the hill.

'It's all my fault.' her body remained paralyzed as her mind shifted into overdrive, going to the one place Spike had specifically tried to divert her from just moments ago before he departed.

'I wasn't good enough,' her horn light up as she removed her pearly earrings, tossing them into the field as if they were nothing more than simple stones among a common quarry.

'I wasn't pretty enough,' next, she kicked off her opal heels, burying them into the dirt with the strength with which she stomped them with.

'and most of all, I wasn't generous enough!' her hair clips snapped off as her curls were released to their naturally flowing style, draping down across her neck as they nearly covered her eyes. She hated herself for not being the perfect mare she strived to be, swearing in the name of Celestia that she would better herself in any way she could, no matter the costs. She was determined to not let her love life with the dragon end there, not willing to let go of her fantasy life without a fight. Infatuated determination took control of her since that moment, and her eyes regained their sparkle of determination, but it wasn't the same luster as the one she had before. No, this one shone with lies that were yet to be overlooked, realities that may well never come to be traveled, all created by the mind of a mare who had expectations too high for the horrid reality that life truly was behind its glamorous facade.

'I'll show him just how far I'm willing to go to win him back.'
______________________________________________________________________

Spike ran.

He ran from everything he wanted to leave behind, not being able to withstand much more of the torture he had put himself through. The shame was still there though, taking the first class ride as the forefront of his mind right in between sorrow and guilt. It seemed to the purple dragon that he had talked enough on that day, yet he found himself yearning for another conversation, one that would provide a shoulder to lean on for him.

His rampant emotions coalesced into a few tears leaking out of his emerald eyes, and they stung his face as they were chilled by the wind rushing past him. They were drops of poison that tainted the rustling grass underneath him, poison so strong that it almost seemed to cause the plant's life to wilt away just from the agonizing pain embedded within them.

The drake's slightly blurred vision turned towards the twinkling night sky, cursing himself for every star he could point out. He knew that he was extremely late, and that didn't exactly start him off on the right foot considering he wanted to patch things up with his best friend after four complete years of interactive neglection. One stray thought tumbled into his mind's eye, one that showed Twilight at her doorstep with her arms crossed and a disapproving frown on her face.

"I thought I could trust you. I guess I was wrong, again." she walked back inside the library before sealing him out forever, leaving him alone in the cold world around him.

Spike shook his head, clearing away the daydreamed nightmare as he sped up his quadrupedal dash. He didn't understand why he had such a horrendous terror towards abandonment, or why it had increased so dramatically since the adventure to the Crystal Empire he had gone on when he was younger. From the day he had been hexed into believe that Twilight disowned him by Sombra's shadow magic, Spike felt that very fear concentrated to degrees that haunted his sleepless nights, but there was always one curious consistency.

It was always Twilight.

No matter the circumstances, it was always that lavender unicorn slamming her door shut to keep him out of her world, and watching her do it as a dragoness stung no less than watching her block him out as a pony. Perhaps it was the fact that they had grown up together having no one else to call a friend than each other, or it could be that they had rubbed off on one another so much over the years, but that was a past that could only be revisited in memories.

Spike pushed himself even more, feeling his muscles go sore as he reached his maximum limitation. He wouldn't fail her like he had in the past, not ever again. The foliage of the path leading to Ponyville thinned away to give way to the lightly industrialized town itself, which had its lights flaring up into the dark sky. There were a couple of ponies walking on the paved sidewalks, many of which the dragon had never seen in the town when he still lived there, but he spared no time for formal pleasantries as he rushed down the roads leading to the growing city's center.

The drake screeched to a halt on his aching limbs as he neared the Golden Oaks Library, barely managing to stop himself from busting his head against the solid doorway leading inside the tree house. He took a couple of seconds to regain his breath, taking in greedy gulps of precious oxygen as his cold-blooded system used up all of the excessive heat on his body. When he felt that he was presentable, Spike reached out and knocked on the door, readying his 'I'm sorry for being late' face for the owner of the house.

No one answered.

A slight tinge of paranoid fear entered his mind because of that. He knew that the librarian he knew would have at least given a sign that she was inside. He lifted his balled claw to tap against the wooden passage again.

Silence reigned yet again.

His worst terrors began to creep their way out of his subconscious mind, each one looking even more similar to the situation he was in than the last. They whispered darkly into his ears, telling him that he would never be able to see his best friend again, that he would never be able to get the forgiveness he doesn't deserve. Those malicious voices spurred his tears again as he began to believe the worst possible reality. Just before he gave into the darkness of doubt, a beacon of hope cut through the smog in the form of a old memory. It led him underneath the doormat he stood on, giving him the key to escape his nightmares by revealing a literal key.

Spike let a smile spread his face as he picked up the spare key to the house, one that Twilight had made for him after he developed the tendency to lock himself outside when he went to check the mail. Wasting no time at all, the dragon inserted the golden key into the doorway's locking mechanism, granting him entry into the library.

The sight inside was nothing like what he saw last time. Books were strewn around on the floor, the dead fireplace only served as a reminder of the cold in the air, and the lack of light would have been blinding had Spike's eyes not been biologically adapted for the dark. Two factors drew his attention towards the kitchen's archway, the first being a sole flickering light emanating from the room itself, and the second would be a sharp stench in the air that led towards the light. Following his senses, the purple drake mutely walked across the seemingly abandoned library, thinking about what could be waiting for him inside of the kitchen. Of course, he didn't have to think much more as he stepped into the lit up room, but it wasn't exactly something he wanted to see.

"Twilight!"

Spike dropped everything going on in his head to rush towards the downed dragoness, nearly tripping over an empty bottle that likely explained the concentrated smell in the area. Twilight was sprawled out on the floor, clutching a glass in her claw as she slept. The wall she was facing from her spot on the ground had two puncture marks on it, without a doubt a mark left by her twin horns impaling it before she passed out.

The purple drake knelt down by his lifelong friend's side, placing one hand under her head so that he could turn her onto her back without harming her fragile neck. He immediately noticed that the bottle he had just avoided tumbling over wasn't the main source of the alcoholic smell, but he couldn't believe what his senses were telling him. Twilight was the farthest a living being could be from a drunk, never touching the vile liquid in her life alongside Spike, yet here she smelled as if she had doused herself with the strong drink just minutes ago. He only had enough time to take in the fact that her face was coated in tears, both old and fresh, before her eyelids slipped away lazily, revealing the precious amethyst eyes hidden behind them.

It took Twilight a couple of seconds to realize that there was a face in front of hers, a couple of more for her to process that it was Spike who was holding her head up, and even more time for the message to pass through the drunken haze her mind was in.

"Shpike? Is that you?" her head swam in the mind numbing faux euphoria she was cursed with because of the amount of alcohol she had ingested before she passed out, but no amount of wine could change the fact that she was Twilight Sparkle. And, if anyone had a mind that could be able to maintain a degree of rational thinking after downing an entire bottle of strong drink, that would be Twilight.

"Of course it's me Twi. I'm sorry I'm late, but I'm here, just like I promised." the purple drake decided to set aside his personal issues to deal with the new sight of his drunken companion, knowing that it would probably be a waste of time explaining his break-up while she was in her intoxicated state.

"J-just like you...promised?" the thick smog that had formed inside her head due to the accursed drink she drank began to dissipate as the cogs in her consciousness started to spin faster, responding to the unintentional catalyst he had slipped into his speech. His four, final words were what set her off, unlocking the wells of repressed pains inside of her that she had desperately attempted to drown out with alcohol.

Spike grabbed her claws with his own, helping her to stand on her shaky legs. He was about to offer her to lean against him so that she could balance herself better, but she took matters into her own accord and threw herself at him, locking her arms right under his own as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. The tears came, tears long overdue to be shed that had been hidden away because of what they contained within, for they weren't all of sadness. Some boiled with her untamed rage, more of them felt as if they dug directly into the drake's skin with the cold talons of depression, but one type of tear outmatched every other one, both in frequency and power.

These were the tears of betrayal.

Every single one of them carried a memory inside of them, nights she spent alone with nobody to wish away her horrible dream terrors that haunted her, the five birthdays that she was forced to put a hollow smile on her face so the one of her pink friend wouldn't disappear, and every last moment she lacked the one being with whom she could trust with her deepest and most painful secrets.

Spike mimicked her in every way, from the warm embrace of compassion to the tears of past agonies, wondering every step of the way how he had managed to overlook such a dent in his heart for so long. The damage done was still there, wrapped in a bandage of facades and distracting trivialities that had masked the five year old infection underneath, allowing it to spread throughout their systems unbeknownst to them.

The bandage was ripped off on that night.

The salty cascades pouring from their eyes slowed as the venom within them became less and less concentrated, slowly being drained away from their bodies. Stuttered sobs still rang out in contrast to the deafening silence, getting rid of the majority of the traces of toxic negativity within their subconscious minds save for a few stray roots still grasping onto their hosts like a parasitic animal.

Through the hidden pain that had finally been uncovered and the tears of melancholy, a sense of satisfactory bliss pulsed throughout the draconic duo's bodies, leaving naught but the cores of their very beings left exposed to one another, each one knowing that they would never hurt the other out of their free will. It was a rare occurrence that not many got to share in their lifetimes, to share who you truly are with the one closest to you, and it was all because those who never truly achieved their symbiotic harmony were too cowardly to put in the key catalyst.

Trust.

The lifelong companions shared it fully, nurturing it ever since the first day they met, strengthening it to the point that no simple betrayal would ever be able to extinguish the fire of loyalty they harbor in their hearts. They didn't need to speak as they maintained their embrace beside the flickering candlelight, no words were required to express what they could just as easily show with a sign of affection as subtle as a nearly imperceptible nuzzle.

The night was young and bright, but it would have to wait until another day to shine down upon the draconic comrades. One had suffered a stab to the heart with a blade of guilt while the other had begun to give up hope on reality itself, yet they both shared the draining consequence on their energy, leaving them on the brink of blessed unconsciousness.

The dragoness began to shift between the waking world and the dreamscape, having a hard time telling both of them apart as her drunken haze fused with the one brought about by her drowsiness. Her potent lethargy almost seemed to transfer onto the purple drake she was sharing the moment with, extracting a yawn from him that put an end to his minuscel sniffles.

Spike understood that not much more needed to, or could be, done on that night. The previously unstable emotions that had rocked Twilight and him before their wordlessly affectionate embrace had settled down to adequate levels, and all that was left to do was to put an end to that page of their story to begin the next by saying goodnight to Luna's nighttime shift.

The dragon and the dragoness wobbled their way through the still library shoulder to shoulder, keeping their mutual silence with gentle expressions blessing their faces. The stairway leading up to the master bedroom was a challenge to them, mostly due to the bad motor-coordination skills Twilight had at the time, but they eventually triumphed in completing their quest to the second floor of the house.

A tiny squeak echoed through the empty halls of the oaken building as the door to the bedroom was opened, allowing the duo to step through into the organized space inside. Warmth dominated Spike's beating heart as he took in a sight he wasn't expecting to see in the bedroom he hadn't entered for the past half decade.

His small basket still rested on the right side of the floor next to the bed, exactly where he remembered leaving it before he left. Of course, warming his heart was all it could do at that point due to the fact that he was twice as big as he was the last time he slept inside of it, so he set Twilight on her bed before starting to make his way downstairs to another night of sleeping on a couch.

"Spike?" the slur in her soft voice was gone as she whispered out her beckoning call, drawing his attention instantly. Her eyelids kept trying to close on their own, and a yawn interrupted her from continuing for a couple of seconds, "Can you sleep over tonight? I don't want to be alone...not again."

A small bud of guilt sprouted from the negative roots still embedded inside his subconscious mind when he caught onto the almost imperceptible end to her fearful confession. He shook his head and was about to tell her that he would be right downstairs in case she needed anything, but she patted the spot next to her before he could start talking. He didn't even hesitate to take the offer of sleeping on a bed, mostly because it was what she wanted, but he couldn't exactly deny that just the idea of sleeping on the living room couch brought an ache to his back.

Spike nodded again in acceptance to her proposition, making his way around the room to the opposite side of the bed. The plush cozy mattress sunk in slightly as his weight bore down on it, and a purple aurora brought the blanket up to his neck, shielding him from the cool chill in the environment.

The two draconic partners faced each other as sleep's euphoric grasp began to take hold over their minds. Twilight somehow managed to summon enough willpower past the inhibitors of drowsiness and drunkenness to be able to speak on last thing before passing out.

"I missed you, my number one assistant."

Spike's old title brought a smile to his face and a gloss to his emerald eyes. He loved hearing it then just as much as the first day he had been awarded with it, and it always seemed to carry a rush of fond childhood memories along with it. The deposits of poison still lingering in his mind were blocked off from spreading any further by the visions of the past, simpler times where he and Twilight didn't have to go through such drastic bumps in their relationship with one another, times where it was just him and her having each other's back as they resisted the hate thrown at them. Reality had given him a gift that many in the world underestimate, a gift that would change the path his life would take forever, and that was called hope. Sleep reached out to him, and he gratefully gave in to the wonders awaiting him in the dreamscape, barely managing to respond to the sleeping dragoness next to him before he too slipped into the unconscious realm.