Two Weeks

by NotARealPonydotcom

Card Games

The blue again. But I know I'm dreaming. Maybe.

The smile is waiting for me, along with its eyes. It looks strange, with its whiteness contrasting the indigo ocean around it and I.

"Having fun?"

"Yeah. Thanks for asking." This can't be the only reason I'm here, to simply float and chat with a color. I look around (I can turn my head now, though the rest of my body, if it exists, is immobile), and ask, "Why is it so blue in here?"

"Do you think we are inside?"

I look around again. "Huh. Guess not." There's no room in the universe that can hold this much blue. I take a closer look, and spot swirls of black in the blue. "Hmm. That's new."

"No." The smile can be very blunt.

"How can you tell?" I retort, rather rudely. "You've only had eyes for, like, a minute."

For the first time, the smile becomes the frown. There's a ripple in the universe, and more black swirls become visible. And is that a drop of white I see?

"You mean you cannot see me?"

I laugh. Funny. "Of course I can. You're the smile. Only, you're frowning now."

Yes, it definitely is. There's more ripples, and I can hear something tapping faintly in the background. I feel the blue hold my face, and I try to slip away. I succeed, but it's because I am about to wake up.

The smile-frown's parting message is, "Oh dear."

Wake up. Don't open your eyes, Spike. You have to remember the dream this time. It was the same as the last one you tried to remember, you just have to remember what they were both about. It wasn't complex. There was one thing, one thing there that talked to you. It was smiling. Come on, you've got that, now just pull in the rest...

The blue. The smile. The "in-between." Everything floods from subconscious to conscious. I was floating around in this blue soupy stuff, like an ocean. Somepony was there, somepony made of only a smile and two eyes. Except it wasn't a smile in the end. When I left it, the smile was a frown.

My eyes open and stare at a wall my bed is pushed up against. Only, this isn't my bed. My bed is open on both sides. My remembrance game has cost me my knowledge of reality, so I just lay in this bed that isn't mine and wait for the rest of me to wake up after my brain. I turn over in bed and face the rest of the room I'm in. Twilight's basement. Memories breach the floodgates and pour in after the dreams. I'm in Dragonsville, as a guest of Twilight Sparkle, who here is not my sister but the town librarian whom I've only known for a day, maybe less. I am not Spike, either. Spike is her assistant, a unicorn who is head-over-hooves in love with a dragoness called Rarity, whom I also happen to be in love with.

A sick feeling washes over me when I remember how I acted. Why was I like that yesterday? Everything was fine until Spike came upstairs and saw Rarity. Was it jealousy? I don't doubt it: I've been in love with her for the longest time. Still, though, I completely hated the pony-me that day; everything he said or did, whether it involved Rarity or not, was repulsive to me. I remember how much I wanted him away from me, how much better I felt when he went into another room to get more drinks, or when he left after he cut his hoof open. What kind of creature hates themselves for doing something they've done for years? If anything, I should be helping him, since I can't stay here forever. I have to get back to Ponyville. In fact, I should get out of bed right now and get to work on that. The first thing to do is...find a spell book. Yes! On what, though? Travel between dimensions? Yes! Good job, brain. Now you just have to get out of bed, go upstairs, and you can get started on getting back to your world with your Twilight and your room and your Rarity...

Rarity. Oh crap. I have to go to work today.

I leap out of bed and almost knock over a stool near the head of the bed that hadn't been there when I fell asleep the night before (actually, it was daytime). On it is a bowl of gemstones and a note. I snatch it up, along with a ruby (I'm starving) and read:

Why is my name the only one not abbreviated? Whatever. I gulp down the ruby, along with a handful of amazingly ripe citrines before taking the bowl with me upstairs. The library is empty (at least, in the main room: the maze of shelves is still a mystery to me), so I trod over to the kitchen to return the rest of the gems. Even before I reach the door, I can hear the pans being washed. Repulsion. I know who it is before I see his face.

Spike's sitting at a table near the cleaning cabinet (if everything is here as it is in Ponyville, then I know this place perfectly), playing with a deck of cards. The dishes are doing themselves, controlled by his magic. The cards are also held in his magical grip, shuffling themselves, while his hooves are busy feeding him a pancake. He gives me only a passing glance. He knew it was me behind the kitchen door, too.

"Oh. It's you." Somepony's not happy to see me. And neither am I (but why?).

"Yeah." I can't stop staring at the cards shuffling. They're moving up and forward and left and down and every which way imaginable, unfolding and refolding, spreading out into a fan shape, then a spiral, then back to a deck. He doesn't say anything until he's done shuffling. The plates are done in the sink. Time for silverware.

"Twilight's not here."

"Okay."

"You should get going. Don't want Rarity to wait."

I check the clock on the wall. "It's only 9:00. I have an hour to kill."

"Oh." Do I really sound this venomous when I'm jealous? "I didn't know when you had to be there. I was busy trying not to use my hoof."

I look at said hoof, and find that it is completely healed. No scab, no scar, nothing. As if he never broke that glass at all. I step over to the table and set down the bowl of gems. In the sink, spoons are being scrubbed vigorously. Spike is not looking at me anymore. He is focused on a group of six card piles in front of him. He's perfectly motionless. The only sign that he's alive is the occasional glow of the horn that brings several cards from a larger deck floating above his head the piles over to him. He glances at them, discards all but one, and places a black queen on a red king.

"Solitaire, huh?"

"Mm-hmm. I'm best at it." Celestia, he sounds so lonely.

"Know any two-player games?" The look I get tells me yes, among other, less than polite answers. "So, uh, wanna play one?"

"Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Not for another hour." I really don't want to be this guy's enemy,or at least not openly. He sighs and nods to the chair across from him, and starts to shuffle the cards again. The forks are being dried off and placed in neat little rows on the rack next to the sink. I watch him shuffle for a while, and get an idea that might just make Spike hate me a little less. So I ask him if he gambles.

"What do you want to bet?" Just like me. Huh.

"How about our jobs?" I wait for him to ask me to explain, but he just gives me another deadpan look (man, I am really weird when I'm unfriendly!). So I explain anyway: "I'm not an idiot. I know why that glass shattered in your grip yesterday. You want to work with that pretty young dragoness." His eye twitches. "You like her, obviously." Twitchy-twitch. "So, I'll play a game of your choice: you win, I'll let you go in my stead. Deal?" I hold out a claw to shake with. He eyes it suspiciously, then gives me a mischievous grin and puts his healed-up hoof in it. It's a deal.

"Alright," Spike explains, setting the shuffled deck on the table. "Here's how this game works: you flip a card, I flip a card, you flip a card, and so on. Whoever flips over the..." He thinks for a minute. "...Queen of Diamonds, loses. Got it?"

"That's all?"

"That's all."

I agree and flip the first card. It's the Queen of Diamonds. Spike's grin is so wide, Pinkie would be impressed.

"Would ya look at that?"

He meets my gaze, and the split-second falter in his grin tells me what I need to know. I pick up the deck and shuffle it myself. Spike is too busy giggling (and wiping knives) to stop me. So he does feel as angry towards me as I do to him. The shuffling's done. I slam the deck back on the table.

"You first this time. No magic. And the stakes have changed." He stops snickering. Good. "In case you hadn't guessed yet, and I'm sure you have, because you're such a smart little colt, I really want to spend time with this dragin. So now, you have to win five games now. I shuffle. No magic. Each win gets you or me one point and one question. I want to know more about this place, Dragonsville. Maybe find out where a good restaurant is." Celestia, it feels so good being bad (but it shouldn't!). Spike's not backing down, but the remark about dinner makes his eye twitch again. There's a pause. The only sound is the scrubbing of knives.

"Fine." The knives fall into the sink. No magic. Spike takes a card, and the games begin.

Round one. He flips. Three of Spades. I flip. Eight of Hearts. He flips. King of Diamonds. I flip. King of Hearts. Three of Diamonds. Nine of Spades. Two of Clubs. Jack of Hearts. Ace of Diamonds. Queen of Hearts. Two of Hearts. Seven of Clubs. Ace of Clubs. Jack of Spades. Four of Diamonds. Queen of Diamonds. I win.

"How did you heal your hoof so fast?"

He wasn't expecting that as my first question. He looks at his hoof, then back to me.

"I have an entire wall of spell books in my room. About a third of them are on beneficial magic, and half of those are on healing magic."

"I didn't know unicorn magic and draconic magic were the same."

"They aren't. I'm just very clever. You have to be, when you're Twilight Sparkle's Number 1 Assistant."

"Okay." Okay. Return the flipped cards to the deck, shuffle, set it down again, here we go.

Round Two. Spike first. Queen of Hearts. Me. Queen of Diamonds. Spike wins.

"What?" I need to shuffle better. Spike laughs at my disbelief, then thinks about his question.

"How do you know why I broke the glass?"

"I know plenty about love, kid. And you? You're in it."

"So are you, from what yesterday's little drink session showed me."

This is starting to feel like a police interrogation. No, that's wrong. It's more like a detective film. I remember Sherclop Holmes with Robert Hoofney Jr. I still prefer Beneighdict Cumberbatch. I'm getting off track.

"I'm not in love, kid."

"Sure you're not. C'mon, shuffle. And don't call me 'kid.'"

Round Three. Spike's first again. Two of Diamonds. My flip. Ace of Spades. King of Spades. Black Joker. Four of Clubs. Queen of Clubs. Three of Hearts. Eight of Spades. Four of Diamonds. Queen of Clubs. King of Diamonds. Ace of Clubs. Queen of Diamonds. Spike wins again.

"Where are you from?"

"Out of town. Next round." I reach for the deck. Spike's hoof slams down on it before I can touch it.

"Uh-uh. I need a name."

"I can't remember. I've got amnesia."

"That's a load of crap. Where are you from?"

Oh no. I don't know any places for certain here. He's got me. Quick, think, what would Canterlot have been changed to? Drakealot? No. My brain's moving too fast for any other part of me to work. I hardly register Spike's smirk growing wider the longer I hold my pause. Finally, I give up, and give him a name.

"The Badlands! I'm from the Badlands."

Is it real? Is it populated by dragons, like in my world? Come on, come on, come on...

"See? That wasn't so hard. A nice, simple question." Spike's hoof slides off the deck. I resist sighing in relief, and shuffle.

Round Four lasts about half the deck, and ends with me turning the Queen of Diamonds over again. Spike has three points, I have one.

"How come you don't have a cutie mark?"

"I don't know. It's normally there."

"Oh yeah? And what is it?"

I pause too long. Spike smirks again and leans back in his chair.

"So, an adult dragon with no cutie mark. Veeeeery suspicious."

"Whatever. You got your answer." Collect the cards, shuffle, ready set go.

Round Five. After forty cards are tossed aside, Spike finally pulls the Queen of Diamonds. It's my turn to ask a question.

"How did a unicorn end up living in a town, no, a country, populated primarily by dragons?"

Spike's hesitant to answer. Finally, he tells me a story about a unicorn and a princess.

"My mother was a stranger in this land. She was pregnant with me when she was attacked by a hoard of feral drakes. She fended them off, but was mortally wounded. She was found by a group of Royal Guard members who informed Celestia that a unicorn had appeared in Serpentia for the first time in, oh, a century. She took care of my mother long enough for me to be born, and when she passed away I was raised by Celestia until I was old enough to read, write, and speak properly. Then I was assigned a job: assist the dragin Twilight Sparkle in her studies as long as necessary. So here I am."

Of course his story's different from mine: you can't hatch a unicorn. I'm satisfied with that answer, so I take the deck and start the next round.

Round Six. Spike wins. I feel nervousness clenching my stomach tightly. I don't want to lose my date with Rarity. I watch him lean back in his chair again. Cocky horse-brain.

"What was that spark thing that happened back in the book-maze? When the books all went flying?"

"I have no idea."

Again, his face flashes with disappointment. "Damn. I really thought you'd know."

I think I do, but I don't tell him that. Instead, I shuffle. I can't lose this round.

I don't. Round Seven, ninth card in, Spike flips the Queen of Diamonds. 4-3, his favor.

"Where is the shop Rarity works at?" I'm worried he won't answer when his eye twitches again, but he does, albeit hesitantly.

"From here, it's a walk straight through the main market, then a left when you get to the Sugarcube Corner. You'll know it when you see it." He pauses, then adds, "If you see it."

"Mm-hmm." Right. I still need two more points. Cards, shuffle, let's go.

Round Eight makes me almost wet myself. The Queen of Diamonds is literally the last possible card Spike could have drawn. Even he's relieved to see it, though it means that the next round could be for my win.

"Are you going to tell anydragon about this game we've had?"

He considers.

"No, but only if you win. If I win, I'll tell Rarity all about where your from and your little fib about not having a cutie mark."

"You absolute dick."

"Ain't I a stinker?"

Our banter is so perfect it feels scripted. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that we're the same being.

Last Round. Shuffle. Spike first. I keep a perfectly straight face as he takes the first card off the deck.

It's the Queen of Diamonds.

"NO!"

"YES!"

We've shouted at the exact same time. I look up from the deck and meet his poisonous glare. I respond with a smirk.

"Well, this was fun. I'll have to try this again, when there's more players available." I get up and head for the door. It's 9:37. Don't want to be late. I reach the door, but when I push it open, it responds by glowing emerald and slamming shut. I turn around, and Spike is almost standing on the table, his face contorted into an expression of rage and jealousy. His eyes are glowing bright green, and I think of the times when Twilight's used her Element of Harmony. She had eyes like that, too.

Oh boy. I think I'm in trouble.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you." He says it so seriously that a shiver runs down my spine. His voice sounds amplified. I give him a nod of compliance, and he stops glowing. The door opens behind me.

"Have fun," he says (threatens?), and I'm out of there like a lightning bolt. The further away I get, the better I'll feel. I know it.