Hush Now
Five sinister forms, their oil-dark carapaces contrasted by floury white scientist coats, performed mysterious scientific procedures with glowing horns and shining steel tools. Gathered around their subject like priests to a sacrificial altar, they whispered technical jargon to each other in increasing excitement, until, finally....
“Yes! We've done it!” the head scientist changeling crowed out, rearing up in triumph.
Fortuitously, the queen of all the changelings chose that very moment to walk in and inspect her little pet experiment.
“Minions, report! What is your progress on the conversion?”
“The subject's internal sociopsychological mapping has just finished being entirely reversed, your highness!” The scientist stepped aside to reveal Spike, slumbering peacefully on a slab of slime-covered obsidian. “It took longer than we graphed out based on previous interactions with much less cuddly-wuddly, cutesy-wutesy dragons, but the subject has at last given in. He now hates all ponies just as much as we do.”
“Excellent! Arise, my faithful slave!”
“Yes, mistress,” Spike's mouth droned without his volition, an automatic response like a leg jerk after bumping your knee. His eyes glowed greener than usual as he rose up stiff-spined, a reptilian hiss escaping his mouth. “What is your command, mistress?”
The changeling queen gestured dramatically at a large magic crystal, its shine broken up by rapidly-shifting colors.
“Look there! Tell me what you see, my faithful slave.”
What he saw in the viewing crystal filled him with revulsion.
“Ponies,” he growled out, grinding his fangs together bitterly.
'Don't worry, Spike, we'll save you!' the images cried tearfully as they galloped, but it was a lie, he knew it was a lie. Nopony would risk its life for food.
“Yeeeees. And how do you feel about ponies, Spike?” she crooned, stroking the protruding scales along his back sinuously.
“Hate them. They hurt me. They ALWAYS hurt me....”
“And what does a big, fierce dragon like yourself do to things that hurt it?” she purred, twisting her head around his neck so that her lanky hair obscured his sight.
Spike had to think for a moment before the answer came to them.
“I...”
“Go on.”
“I gobble them up,” he said slowly, grinning and sliding his forked tongue over his lips.
His eyes glowed greener still.
“Yeeeees, yeeeeees. You gobble them up. Hahahah. HAHahahaaaahhhh. AHAHAHAHAHHHAAAHAAAHHHAAA!”
Spike screamed as he woke up, then grabbed at his mouth in sudden terror even greater than before. A dream. It'd been a stupid, stupid dream, but the danger was real. The ponies could have heard him. Wait, where was he? The last thing he remembered, he'd been climbing... down... and fallen....
He started to cry a little as the pain from his bumped head worked itself into his awareness. That answered that question. So he'd fallen and hurt himself and been unconscious for who knew how long. It was a miracle the ponies hadn't gotten him. Looking around, he couldn't see much except collapsed building and rubble, probably from that rocky spire Discord'd made. Was Discord even around anymore? Maybe he'd gotten bored. Or been beaten in the meantime.
“HURGLKURGKL!”
Warned by the rapidly enlarging shadow just in time, Spike rolled out of the way of a sudden stream of chunky peanut butter that splattered into a large puddle next to him on the ground. Looking up, he found a white, butterfly-winged weasel vomiting with an apologetic expression on its cute little face, its slender body roiling unhealthily with every heave.
Okay then, so Discord was still free. Awesome. Not.
“Uh... best of luck, man,” he told the weasel sympathetically, and then stumbled to his feet and wandered a few steeps to get his bearings.
The entire place was a mess. Not like an army had come through, just... a mess. Tarnished silverware strewn over the sidewalks, bales of hay stuck in windows, doors half-torn from their hinges, glass broken, paving oozing with marshmallow fluff. Buildings oriented every way but right side up. The few ponies he saw were preoccupied with everything from strangling each other with feather boas to using porcelain valuables as bowling balls to pay attention to him – at least as long as he kept out of immediate sight – and not a one of them exuded that air of snooty dignity that he'd come to find was standard for the sprawling mountain city's residents. Only the basic shape of the land remained intact enough to tell Spike that yes, he was still in Canterlot.
He hated to give up, hated to even admit the idea, but what was he supposed to do now? His biggest hope for countering the pony's hunger crazies had turned out to be the one behind it all, or at least lying to support it. He'd failed the riddle and still didn't know what the answer was, what the best thing to eat in Canterlot was supposed to be if it wasn't flippin' Princess. He was all alone, and even if he found his way back to a pony who wouldn't eat him on sight, none of them were gonna be any help in his quest.
Instead of letting himself give in to despair, though, Spike took the chance to walk the streets and enjoy the freedom of not being chased by ponies for a change. As long as he scuttled from hiding spot to hiding spot and kept his footsteps quiet, they totally didn't notice him, being too involved in their syrup-flinging contests and monocle yo-yo games. Every once in a while, one would tilt his or her head up quickly and sniff the air, and Spike knew well enough to hurry up and get out of town before they caught a good whiff of his scent after that. They were... distracted, not harmless.
Yeah, okay, he was getting back into the swing of things. Maybe he could find Discord and persuade the guy to change everything back, start up another riddle, something. Anything. He'd at least try, and if it didn't work, well, this kind of chaos might be a good starting ground for a real revolution. He'd find some ponies who were the right kind of crazy instead of the wrong kind, like maybe that gray one with the paper bag on her head, she looked harmless... and kinda familiar, actually. He couldn't remember where he'd seen her before, though. Somewhere around the castle? No, that wasn't it....
“There you are!”
“AAHH!”
Spike jumped his own height in the air, and then just stayed there as lavender magic glowed around him.
“Honestly, Spike, it took me FOREVER too – oh, are you hurt?” Twilight broke off, floating him closer to inspect him critically.
“Y-yes,” he whimpered pitifully. “I bumped my head! And you scared me.”
“Oh, hush now,” she said after scanning him over, dismissing his pains as soon as she'd taken stock of them. “Minor head trauma won't bruise the meat. Why'd you run away like that? No one likes a welcher, Spike!”
“I didn't even agree to that bet!”
“Well, you should've!” she countered angrily. “The Princess needs you! Needs us! In fact, she sent out an announcement that she wants to see any prey species with a sapience classification of three point eye eye or higher and above-average mobility aye-ess-aye-pee, and that was exactly three and a half hours and two minutes ago! We don't have any time to lose!”
Spike was used to not understanding most of the stuff Twilight said. That didn't make it any nicer to be thrown on her back like a pile of... a pile of something that came in piles, as she galloped at 'danger mode' speed through the uneven twists and turns of a Discord-mutated city. Her glow of magic around him keeping him in place never faltered, not even when she also used her magic to move aside two mean ponies, a vat of honey and a partridge in a pear tree without even slowing down. Just more evidence of how magical she was... and how hopeless trying to escape from her could be.
Maybe he should feel a little flattered that she thought his contribution as 'food' even counted enough to matter. Actually, the more he thought about that, the more it did make him feel better. The Princess, however loony she might be, had been able to look beyond herself at least a little, to understand how he felt. Maybe she'd tried to put some of that into Twilight, too.
And it was so easy to think of Twilight Sparkle as a hero dashing to the rescue when she was like this. Running through perils, against all odds, striving to make it back to the Princess and save the day. Just like his dream, where he'd seen ponies running... running to save him.
What a stupid, ridiculous thing to dream. Being brainwashed into thinking he hated ponies because they were actually sweet and loved him like a friend. Hah.
Dreams never meant anything real.
“Twilight?”
“Yeah?!” she half-yelled distractedly, shaking sweat from her face after building a staircase of fallen vases and sedans to get past a seemingly-impassable gorge of extra-rare T-bone steaks that had apparently grown the will to fight back and were snapping their bony ends together like jaws.
“I messed up, Twilight! My guess was wrong! I don't think Discord'll let us have another go at it!”
Okay, now that he'd screwed everything up for her precious Princess, he was sure to be inching his way closer to pony food. But it was okay, if she went crazy he could just grab that gutter and climb on it and rely on the peanut butter-puking fairy-weasels to distract her while he made his transition back to bein' on the lam....
“Oh, Spike, I wouldn't expect a baby dragon to defeat something like Discord,” she broke into his train of thoughts with shocking gentleness. “To be honest, it would've been more surprising if you had gotten it right. In retrospect, it was obvious that the Princess entrusted me to find the answer for you and use it against Discord that way, and it's my fault for failing. Don't worry, I'll take all the blame. If, you know, we survive this and everything.”
Spike stared at her ruler-straight mane as it bounced up and down with her movements, feeling a confusing mix of things he didn't really like feeling. Like uncertainty. And... a longing to hug her. Eww, okay, knock that off!
“But I'm just food, you could blame it on me and nopony would even be mad!”
“So? It's not true. I wouldn't lie to the Princess just to get out of a punishment I deserved anyway, even if it only hurt my emergency food supply!”
Oh. So it was about the Princess still. Wasn't that just super.
“Y'know, I think you may need to get out more,” he commented as she dodged past a domino cascade of awkwardly tap-dancing frogs. They were singing, too – actually pretty catchy. Hello my baby something something.
Following the gradually increasing crowds of terrified citizen ponies and barely less terrified guard ponies, they eventually found the Princess's new setup: one of the lower kitchens of the castle that had survived the structure's partial transformation into giant furniture. Curled up next to an iron stove that yawned open ominously like a mouth, the Princess softly issued orders as ponies went to and fro, tending to injuries, discussing Big Serious Plans, lamenting the damage to their city. There was even a nurse pony nagging at the Princess and checking her temperature now and then – the Princess seemed to be doing her best to ignore the attention. Most of them were complaining about not having enough to eat, and as Spike entered into eye range on Twilight's back, their bellies rumbled in unison like wet thunder.
He wasn't the only 'food' around, though. There were a couple diamond dogs kept on tight leashes by an alert guard, and a muscley blue-gray minotaur guy who was sitting in an oddly delicate legs-crossed posture while a light blue unicorn watched over him. Spike knew just enough letters by now to be able to understand the brand on the minotaur's thigh: GRADE B.
“Are all of you guardsponies so dense?” the blue unicorn was saying. “I told you, he simply cannot be trusted outside of my supervision! If the Princess would be so kind as to cast a simple invisibility spell or even a mere illusion, I could keep him in hoof and-”
“Her Rapaciousness has classified any unnecessary magic use around the elixirs as potential contaminants. Even a simple levitation spell within twenty yards could subtly alter the vibration of frequencies contained in them, rendering their potency against Discord questionable.”
“As if they're not questionable in the first place,” the blue unicorn muttered.
The guard raised an eyebrow and she blanched.
“What was that?”
“N-nothing, just a tickle in my throat,” the unicorn replied instantly, giggling nervously and then grimacing as soon as he wasn't looking at her.
“Twilight,” Princess Celestia said then, and it was obvious from the way she looked over that she had seen them earlier, but just had wanted to wait for a good moment to let them know.
The ponies shuffled aside as Twilight walked, head down, to her mentor.
“I'm afraid I have to report my failure, Princess. We – I mean I was unable to figure out the meaning behind Discord's riddle.”
“It was all my fault actually,” Spike said, and quickly regretted it as every single set of eyes in the room stared at him, most with extra anger added to the stock ever-present hunger. “Um. Sorry.”
“I'm sure you both did your best,” the Princess said with a good balance between seriousness and warmth, pausing to cough delicately into a hoofkerchief that the attendant nurse hoofed over with the smooth swiftness of an often-repeated action. “And Twilight, please lift your head. Don't be ashamed to look me in the eyes. You haven't failed. While it would have been interesting to see you succeed, all that you truly had to do was buy us time and distract Discord while I set a backup plan into motion. And you've done so. Discord is adept at bilocation, but also very prone to focusing the bulk of his attention on where his current whimsies lie. I'm not sure I would have been able to brew these without you two keeping him out of my mane.”
She nudged forward a small tray of ceramic stoppered jugs with her hooves. It seemed like a really strange motion, and Spike couldn't figure out why it seemed strange for the longest moment. Then he realized it was because he wasn't used to her... or unicorns, really... using their hooves for things instead of their horns. That had to be the 'contaminant' problem the guard had been jabbering on about.
So, this was their big solution, then. Poison Discord. Typically evil pony stuff. He wondered if they'd be sad that it would mess with the meat. Then again, for all he knew it was a flavor enhancer.
“These are powerful sleeping potions,” the Princess explained to Spike's surprise. “We attempted to use them before now... in fact, what was available of Canterlot's foremost huntsponies, the Wonderbolts, were called in to perform the service. But Discord is too wary of ponies, he knows that they're his enemies, and not even the fastest pegasus in Canterlot can get close enough to force him to drink the potion.”
“So you want to use prey to do it because he wouldn't think they could ever be a threat! That's brilliant, Princess!” Twilight said with near-total adoration. “Nopony could ever think of prey being armed with threatening magic potions!”
Spike got the feeling that he should be insulted at this point, but he just crossed his arms and kept his thoughts to himself, in this crowded room that stank of pony sweat and meats half-cooked.
“But wouldn't that be risky, relying on them like that? Especially with what's at stake!”
“That is what I, Trixie the Magnificent, have been trying to impart unto these simplet – ah, I mean, fine and upstanding guardsponies,” the blue unicorn corrected herself as she saw the Princess's eyes shift to her. Neither the Princess or Trixie changed expression even slightly during the little event, it was really kind of smooth. “Potions crafted by the Princess are too important to be placed in the care, however brief, of dogs, or griffins, or other such simple-minded creatures! There must be another way! Surely we can restrain the monster if only we-”
“Discord is not one for being restrained by anything except the most powerful forces, I'm afraid,” the Princess broke in wryly. Trixie's mouth shut with a click and she smiled at the Princess, but it was the kind of smile that had yelling held back behind the teeth. “While our tools may be unorthodox, I believe it will do us all good to have a little faith. All they have to do is sneak up on Discord while he's preoccupied tormenting my poor little ponies, uncork the bottle and throw the contents in his mouth. I'll take care of the rest after that. I filled the bottles quite full to be sure we had enough, but even just a single sip should be enough to put him into a deep, enchanted sleep.”
No way was Spike gonna ask what was gonna happen to Discord after that. He probably didn't wanna know anyway.
“Okay, I'll do it,” he offered, causing Twilight to crane her neck back to look at him awkwardly. “Discord's a big fat jerk anyway, and he's not... he's not gonna help me with what I wanted,” he said carefully, mindful of all the other ponies around. “So I might as well.”
Plus, it might make the ponies like him enough to not eat him, too.
“I'm glad to have your full cooperation in this matter, Spike. We should begin as soon as – are you alright?”
Spike snapped his yawning jaws back together with a blush. He was being rude. And ponies didn't like food being rude to their Princess.
“I'm really sorry, I'm just so tired... could I sneak in a quick nap first?” he pleaded.
“It has been a long day,” the Princess conceded even as Twilight frowned at him for not instantly doing whatever the Princess wanted without hesitation. “There's no need to push you so hard that you falter from being tired. We'll make attempts in waves, then. The canines first, to pick up Discord's scent, if possible. Trixie, would you mind sending your bull afterward if the dogs fail? His strength could be a useful asset if he can get close enough to use it.”
“Far be it from me to question the plans of royalty, of course,” Trixie said with a thin smile while Twilight shifted the focus of her frowny face to her, instead. “Iron, dear, do you remember what happens when food doesn't do as it's told?”
“Iron Will has the memory of a steel trap enmeshed in countless other steel traps!” the minotaur boomed, causing Spike and most of the ponies in the room to jump at the sudden volume. Only the Princess and Trixie remained unaffected. “If food wants its Grade B butt saved, it has to behave! I'll tie that Discord into so many knots you'll want to dip him in spicy mustard and eat him like a pretzel!”
The minotaur flexed his impressive biceps, followed by his chest muscles, followed by a few demonstrative hoof stamps like he was preparing to charge.
“I'm sure we have nothing to worry about,” the Princess said happily while the other ponies, Trixie and Twilight in particular, shifted around looking rather less certain than their leader.
Twilight sighed and shuffled over to a corner that was only occupied by a sack of something brown-stained and smelling just a little of blood. She fluffed it up like a pillow and set Spike on top of it.
“There. All comfy?”
Eager not to push his luck, Spike smiled widely and shook his head up and down, flopping on his side and folding his arms behind his head. Now he just had to get to sleep in a room full of ponies who were sniffing at him and licking their chops. Yep, that was his life alright.
“Are you sure you aren't hungry? It's pretty late... um, I think, and you haven't had any supper....”
“I got two lunches, it's cool Twi.”
“Alright. I'm going to go see if I can help out here a little while you catch some shuteye.”
He tried to sleep. He really did. And the sack of whatever horrible thing it was actually was pretty comfy. But no matter how he tried, he couldn't get his mind to stop burning up with unhappy ideas. All the bad things Discord could do while free... because of him. Finally knowing why ponies were how they were and it not even making a difference. The Princess and her weirdness.
Was he doing the right thing, helping the ponies out? Maybe he should just give up. Go back to Fluttershy and live with her, or be on his own again. Why did Twilight have to be so nice and so mean at the same time? And what was with her and the Princess anyway?
Then there was Discord's riddle. Did it mean anything or had it just been a wild goose chase? When ponies contemplate listening to their hearts or heads, the imps of their bellies tell them what to do instead. To retrieve all ponydom's missing empathetic thoughts, all you must do is find the finest dish in Canterlot. He'd been certain that nothing could beat alicorn, but that had been wrong. Would Discord have just said any answer was wrong, or was there a real answer there, and would knowing it even help if there was?
“Having trouble sleeping?” the Princess's voice asked from somewhere close, and he jerked up, looking around wildly.
“N-no, I'm not having any... I mean, it's real comfy and all, it's just... I'm sorry Princess, I didn't mean to waste time while your kingdom's being swarmed with carnivorous t-bone steaks!”
He peeked through his eyes while making a good combination of sleeping posture and cowering posture together, noticing that half the ponies were gone and replaced with new ponies, along with the diamond dogs and the minotaur being out. Twilight was... reading a book, really? Of course she was reading a book, and muttering to herself about 'asymmetric warfare' and 'unconventional occupation' and other vaguely military-sounding terms. Bless her dorky little heart, she was trying to read up on a way to beat Discord in case everything else didn't work, and with just the wrong kinda book, too. It wasn't like military strategist ponies would know anything about maniacal magical mutant monsters.
“That's alright, I'm sure it must be hard for you to relax in such a stressful time.”
He tensed as the shadow of one of her wings curled around him, followed by the wing itself. But all she did was sit close to him like that, one wing sheltering but not touching him. It would've been really nice if he hadn't known about her what he knew. He wished he'd never had that stupid conversation that he'd never be able to forget.
“Would you like some warm milk?”
Having the Princess pay so much attention to him wasn't doing anything to make it easier to sleep. Why was she doing all this? Talking to him, acting like he was something besides food. The other ponies were looking at her weird, too. Maybe she was like this with prey all the time? She was so unlike anything he'd expected from a ruler of ponies. Not a crazy tyrant, not a clueless shut-in dupe, not a sneaky politician.
Then it hit him that maybe she was trying to point out how inconsiderate he was being by asking for a nap in the middle of all this and then not even napping, in a reverse psychology-y way. The Princess herself asking him if he wanted a glass of milk... was she just making FUN of him?!
He looked up at her and couldn't pierce that tiny smile or those half-lidded eyes.
“That's okay, I'm cool, really,” he said meekly, hoping beyond hope that she'd just leave him alone now.
Her hoof tapped at her chin.
“Did you know that Discord isn't the only one who has some minor talent at bilocation?”
“Seeing as how I dunno what that word means, yeah, I had no idea,” he replied, immediately wincing as the ponies near enough to hear (thank goodness Twilight was lost in her world of the literature) scowled at him. Kay, maybe that'd been a little too snarky. Tone it down, Spike, you handsome but reckless devil.
“Bilocation means being in two places at once. It's not an entirely accurate moniker when applied to somepony like Discord, who, as a master of chaos, is capable of being in many places to wildly varying degrees, but it's a good approximation. For me, it relates to my ability to project a part of myself into dreams while the rest of me stays here. So you see, I guard the dreams of my little ponies just as much as I guard them as my subjects in the waking world.”
“That's...” Kinda creepy. “Cool, I guess, heheh.”
“I thought you might be comforted to know that, seeing as how you're a very useful emergency food supply right now, I intended to take it upon myself to see that you don't have any nightmares in the next little while.”
Great. Now he wasn't even safe from ponies in his dreams.
And he still couldn't tell if she was making fun of him or not, argh!
“That's really nice Princess, thanks a bunch.”
His best imitation sincere smile faltered under her prolonged stare, however gentle it was.
“And yet we're still talking instead of napping. What to do, what to do... hmm. Perhaps a lullaby?”
Oh. Well, that did sound kind of nice.
“It might drown out the sound of the peanut butter-puking weasels,” he offered with a hesitant smile.
“Huh, and here I'd thought they were ferrets. You learn something new every day, I suppose. Well then, let me see...” she mused, rubbing her hoof around her chin in tiny delicate circles. “When you're as old as I am you learn a lot of songs, but surprisingly few of them in the right dialect for this situation...”
“Please, Princess, there's no need to bother yourself with this triviality. I will sing the beast a lullaby,” one of the guard ponies butted in. He had a voice like a rust and gravel avalanche.
“Why, To-The-Hilt, are you saying that I can't sing?” the Princess rejoined with a pout, faking being wounded.
Mister Guard immediately backpedaled, as all good guards did over petty things.
“Of course not your Rapaciousness! I only meant that you have much more important things demanding your attention during this crisis!”
“I think we can spare a minute or two for soothing the not-terribly-savage beast, To-The-Hilt. But, oh dear... Twilight, do you remember that song your parents sang to you? You taught it to me when you were just a very little filly but I can scarcely remember the words now.”
“Hmm?” Twilight's ears perked while the rest of her remained entombed in the written word.
“The song your parents used to sing you to sleep with as a filly,” Princess Celestia repeated a little louder, amusement coming through past the emphasis.
“Oh... oh! Yes, of course Princess,” she replied quickly, putting the book down and shutting it after very carefully bookmarking her place. “I think you're spoiling him though. Normally he's out like a light! It's probably just nerves. Or maybe guilt from welching on that bet,” she added with a smirk.
Spike growled wordlessly and rolled over so he was facing the wall.
“Spike? Aren't you a little young to be gambling?” the Princess teased.
“Well, technically I was gambling for him as a proxy. He was supposed to let this homeless pony... at least we think he was homeless... get a taste test, but he just ran off instead.”
“I suppose it's become a bitwelch of a reflex for him by now. Nonetheless, no one likes a welcher, Spike.”
“Nrrrfffgggllrrrr.”
After a little more teasing that he didn't bother dignifying with responses beyond grunts and nods, they finally got down to the song. Which was actually a lot more soothing than he'd expected.
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to bed
Drifting off to sleep
An exciting day behind you
Drifting off to sleep
Let the joy of dream land find you
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to bed
The duet between the Princess's matronly voice and the younger Twilight's surprisingly silvery tune was amazingly nice, for something they hadn't practiced. Maybe they had done it together before. It felt all wrong in all the best possible ways, singing to him all the lies his heart wanted to believe about how nice ponies were, deep down. Where was the part about murdering and eating helpless critters? This was just a regular lullaby. A really nice... soothing... girly... lullaby....
He heard delicate feminine giggles just before he conked out.
Spike didn't dream any dreams that he remembered. Sleep was total, black, almost smothering. But waking back up was a slower, uncertain thing. Gradually climbing up into awareness by degrees, not really wanting to, but knowing he had to. Yawning and rubbing his eyes, ears already tuning in to the sounds of serious-sounding ponies arguing with each other about serious-sounding things.
He got his sight back in time to see a pair of guards cower and salute after a very light glare from what was apparently one of their superiors. The Princess's unmistakably glowy presence was gone, but Twilight was still here... paging through books with her hooves very awkwardly.
“Useless,” she muttered emotionlessly at one, tossing it aside and moving to the next. “Useless. Useless. Useless, useless, uselessssss...” Her voice had lowered to a creepy hiss, eyes narrowed. And did her mane look frizzier than usual? Yeah, it did. She looked like she needed a break like whoa.
“Twilight?” he asked hesitantly.
“Oh, hey Spike. Looks like our best option is to throw you at Discord with potion in hoof – um, hand – after all. Isn't that great?”
She had the smile of a very well-polished sickle.
“What happened to those other guys? The, you know, waves of dogs and stuff?”
Twilight's left eyelid twitched.
“Ponies kept eating them on the way to Discord. We kept rounding up more, and they kept eating them. It was impossible for the guards to stick with them all the way or they'd blow the creatures' cover.”
“Ponies.” Spike rolled his eyes.
“The Princess is out trying to keep the city from falling to pieces, but I don't know what else she can do at this point. Spike, I hate to say it... but you really can't mess this one up, okay? Because I don't know what we'll do if you do.”
“Besides eat me?” Okay, that kind of sarcasm was probably a bad idea, but he couldn't help it.
Twilight stared, then giggled. It was the sound of a pony coming, ever so slowly and gradually, unhinged. Even the other ponies glanced over at her nervously.
“Probably. You're a very smart little dragon.”
“Get it from the best,” he said for reasons he wasn't sure about, hopping off of his terrible bed and climbing up on her back. “So yeah, let's go save Equestria again, huh? Just like the Princess said!”
“Right... right.” She seemed to calm down at the mention of the Princess to ground her to reality, reaching down to clench one of the last few potions in her teeth and passing it up to him. The ceramic of it felt way colder than it should've, like ice, but slippery even though it was dry.
A brief chat with the guards and they had Discord's last known location (not that that meant a lot, but it was one of those things Twilight needed to stay grounded and at least pretend there was a serious plan instead of a lot of luck and wishing). With zero fanfare, they were off... in fact, the guardsponies seemed to expect them to fail, judging by a few mutters and dark looks. Spike couldn't really blame them. If you spent your whole life looking down on something, expecting that something to save your whole kingdom all of a sudden was a big pill to swallow, even if it was the Princess's own plan.
But it was simple enough. Get near Discord, uncork potion, throw contents into Discord's mouth. Probably while he's laughing like a villain or something.
Spike figured he could handle that.
Ponies try to eat him, sure, not like they weren't doing that already. It was such an ever-present problem by now that it didn't even register as a thing so much as background noise. Most of his guts were still worked up trying to figure out how he felt about his own failed plan, and Discord's part in it, and whether or not he would feel bad if he couldn't save the ponies.
They had sang him a pretty song, at least. He owed them something for that.
“I bet she didn't forget the song, ya know,” he told Twilight after a few moments of silence as she navigated by hoof through a sticky yellow-tan river of honey and barley that dominated one street. “She just wanted you to sing with her.”
“And you say I overthink things,” she quipped dryly, ducking underneath a flying propeller attached to a burning stool. “The Princess wouldn't just manipulate somepony like that, when she says something, she means it! Have you always been such a little cynic?”
“Every time a pony tries to eat me, my heart shrinks one size smaller,” he joked right back, unable to believe he was joking about it even while the words were coming out of his mouth. “So by now it's like... a fraction or something.”
“Darn, the heart is one of the most savory parts once you get a crock pot and – oh, sorry, sorry.”
He sighed and rested his head against her mane. There wasn't any point in saying anything back.
They couldn't muster up any energy to be surprised when Discord wasn't anywhere near the palm trees made of bumblebees that the guards had seen him at. With nothing left except to systematically check out the entire city, they headed to high ground where they could hopefully spot him from far off. Through bunches of very grumpy gray ponies, and topsy-turvy buildings, and streets paved with cheese. They climbed a hill that had been taken over by burrowing sparrows, narrowly avoided run-away circus knife throwers who'd replaced all their knives with sporks, and navigating around up along the stairs of an overlook tower that had been built for tourists, with a cute little 'pay a bit to see the view' machine at the top. The tower had been turned inside out so all the stabilizing parts were on the outside and all the nice smooth stones and footsteps and rails on the inside, so it was pretty tiring. And above it all, the sun and the moon chased each other in circles, barking, while the stars came and went with tweeting canary-like chirps.
“Alright,” Twilight said with a pant more of aggravation than tiredness as they got to the top, clopping her front hooves down with an air of finality. “Let's take a look around and see what we've got. You take north, I'll take south.”
“Yes ma'am, ma'am! Uh... north's thattaway, right?”
She sighed silently and pointed a hoof in the opposite direction from the one he was facing. Spike hopped down and took the indicated direction, putting one hand above his eyes mostly for the appearance of the thing than because it actually helped shield him from the crazy zigzagging sun.
Well, let's see what we have here....
Burning buildings, wrong way up buildings, half gone buildings, crazy ponies, broken pipes spilling bloody gunk all over, smoke, locusts, candied clouds and lollipop rain. Lots of chaos. Not so much Discord specifically. Seeing the expanse of the city laid out before him like a board game that'd been ruthlessly trampled over and every piece broken or askew, he wondered how one little dragon and one little unicorn could possibly make a difference when they'd already failed so hugely before at a much easier job.
No, he couldn't afford to let the ponies down. This wasn't just about a city, it was about their entire civilization, and Discord being the fault of all of it, so anything that took down Discord would get the ponies closer to being the way they were supposed to be. Plus Twilight would totally freak out if he just gave up, and he didn't need that stress.
At what point had he gotten attached to the ponies as a concept that running away seriously started feeling like giving up on himself?
“Anything on your end, Twi?” he asked after a good few more minutes of searching everything he could see till his eyes ached. “So far I've got nothin' over here.”
“Oh, if it weren't for the potion I could at least use my BBBFF's specialty prey reconnaissance divination,” Twilight growled, shaking her head. “Maybe we should find a pegasus, start an aerial-”
She stopped talking as she looked at him, eyes going wide as saucers.
“DISCORD!”
“What?! Where?!” Spike looked around wildly and couldn't see a thing that he hadn't seen before already. “I don't see him!”
“Look up!” she shrieked. He jerked his head up and didn't see anything but the stars doing creepy things to each other in twinkles. “Look up... without moving your head,” she clarified just a little more calmly.
Spike moved just his eyeballs.
And Discord was standing on top of his head. The avatar of chaos looked back down with an innocent smile and flapped his paw-hand in a wave.
“AHHHH! HE'S ON TOP OF ME GET HIM OFF I DON'T WANT TO TURN INTO A CRAZED MEAT EATER!!!!”
Spike ran around in circles, almost falling off the top of the tower a few times before being nudged back by Twilight's magic, until Discord got fed up with his 'furniture' moving and abandoned Spike's head to sit on top of the tower viewer.
“Such a flighty little fellow,” Discord said with a yawn, painting his nails neon green with a whole paintbrush while Spike hid behind Twilight and tried to calm down. “You'd think he'd been in danger his whole life or something.” Discord's lips turned upwards slightly. “Oh, wait. You should probably just steak him now and put the meat to good use, my unegalitarian equine.”
“Steak isn't a verb, Discord,” she snapped prudishly. “And what was with that appearing right on top of us like that? Is this just a game to you? Or is it some kind of metaphor, where you're trying to say that chaos is in all of us? If so, I happen to disagree!”
“What are you talking about? I just happen to think that dragon head fins make excellent toe deodorizers! So, tell me, everypony's just DYYYYINNNG to know... what harebrained scheme do you have to outthink the genius architect of anarchy, my little- GLRG.”
“Bullseye,” Spike said with satisfaction, wiping his hands together as the potion vanished down Discord's throat.
“You were supposed to uncork it first!” Twilight hissed.
“Details, details. What's it matter? It's all going to the same place, right?”
“Oh, how droll. Poison, really? Is THAT the best you can come up with?” Discord hacked a nasty cough and the cork shot out to embed itself in a nearby rock, quivering. “Hmm. Must've overexerted myself with that last boa-badger transmutation, I'm feeling a mite bit-”
And then he fell to the ground, out cold and snoring with a distinctive whistle.
“That was sudden. Huh, oh well. Hey Twi, hand me a big rock or something, will ya? Or you could just do that...” He mimed the force field thing as a guillotine motion at Discord's neck.
“No! That's not part of the plan! You already took a big risk making him swallow the entire container, what if he hadn't coughed out the cork?! We're going to leave him alone in his enchanted slumber and go back to the Princess to report so she can take care of it. Because that's what she said to do. Understand?”
“Alright, I guess.”
Just before following Twilight down, he paused to lift up his heel and give the producer of all his torment (who was looking, against all odds, like a cute, harmless old man-monster thing in his sleep) a good kick in the head. Then he stopped before his foot connected and put it back down. What was the point? It wouldn't help the ponies. It wouldn't undo all the dumb things he'd gone through in his life. Discord was a terrible person who deserved all sorts of terrible punishments, but Spike couldn't muster up any sadistic glee at it. It would've made him too much like a... pony... to do that. Whooping at knocking over buffalo gravestones for the fun of it.
He'd won. Without even trying that hard, really. That was enough.
So Spike left the hurting to others, and went obediently, silently, with Twilight back to the castle. Meanwhile, the chaos that had swallowed up the city showed no signs of slowing down even while its master was taking a nap break. It made him wonder if the Princess even had a plan to fix it all. If she even could.
The Princess was pleased as punch, in her so very mild way, and congratulated them both so profusely that Spike and Twilight matched each other for red blushes over purple cheeks. With Discord subdued, the Princess apparently had her own 'ways' of keeping him in dreamland, and without him stirring up new chaos, the old chaos could be subdued in time by unicorns working together. The castle would be the biggest loss, but as far as the Princess was concerned, 'that dusty old thing was long overdue for a renovation anyway.'
There were no rewards. He wasn't sure why he'd expected one in the first place. Nopony recognized his part in the oddly anticlimactic defeat of Discord – which didn't seem to do anything to make the ponies any less hungry. As the days passed and life slowly got back to normal, Spike got to watch the cleanup and reconstruction efforts from a hotel room window that he shared with Twilight, and the only real difference now was that Twilight at least trusted him enough to let him sleep in the same room. That was progress, though. Tiny progress, but progress.
She didn't let his studies slack. Reading was not optional, and he slogged through it with her help, complaining just a bit more than was honest. He asked her to read the papers a few times when he saw their pictures in it. As far as those rags were concerned, he'd just been a tool the Princess's student had used to throw the bottle. And even the student had just been put in the right place by the Princess, whose potion had done all the heavy lifting.
No glory for ol' Spikey, but glory would've gotten him attention he didn't need anyway. In many ways, he was just glad that things could return to something like 'normal,' even if uncovering ancient history hadn't done a thing to get him a way to change the future. He knew more than he ever had before about ponies, he knew SO MUCH, and it was all useless.
The ponies actually seemed worse, overall. There were a lot of oddly gray ones around now that didn't seem to want to do anything except fight or be silly. Apparently victims of Discord's magic, the ones that weren't hospitalized mostly became migratory hobos that left the city to get into trouble elsewhere. Every once in a while there'd be a 'civilized' one, though, getting into fights in the street, picking pockets, yelling at ponies for no reason before their friends and family dragged them off or pacified them with some bribe or other. It was not an improvement, and several times Twilight saved his life keeping him from being snatched up and gobbled by them as they were walking through the streets.
Nice of them to leave Discord in a permanent snoozefest instead of eating him though. Weirdly nice. So nice that it actually bothered Spike a little, kept him up at nights, wondering why they'd been so merciful. Was the Princess just nice like that sometimes, or was there a reason why she didn't eat him? Of course, it wasn't the only thing keeping him up at nights, either.
The dreams didn't help.
In fact, after trying a few bad-tasting syrup sleeping remedies Twilight dug up, after screaming himself and her awake a few times, he decided to ask the Princess about them. A little of that 'no bad dreams' magic would do him good. And it wasn't the only thing he wanted to ask. If he really let himself, he thought maybe he'd just keep on asking questions until he ran out of breath, the biggest one always being 'WHY?!'
He didn't ask that one because he was a little scared that the answer she'd give him would be even worse than not knowing.
There was a good opportunity one day when things were starting to settle down and the Princess had visited Twilight's hotel room to catch up over cups of baby vole tea. He'd made the tea because Twilight had forgotten to with all the other preparations like dusting the tops of the fan and cleaning under the bed and measuring out the carpet so it was perfectly aligned. As he was pouring the cups, for a second he forgot to think of the baby voles as former living things and not just lumps of flavor – and he remembered that he'd forgotten, and nearly spilled the kettle as he started. He joked about inferior baby dragon reflexes and Twilight laughed it off while the Princess smiled silently and knowingly at him.
As much as Twilight loved to talk, even she had to breathe and, sometimes, even, stop to think when asked a question. It was during one of those little lulls, when the Princess asked her something and she had to go fetch a book to look up the EXACT answer, that Spike worked his way nervously into addressing the Princess.
“So, uh, Princess...”
“Yes, Spike? What can I do for you?”
As her eyes locked onto him, his brain locked onto memories of the nightmares that'd been haunting his bedtime for weeks now.
Discord was yelling. His voice was echoing all around even though there was nothing to cause it, as if his fear was intense enough to make the sound bounce around all on its own. He sounded scared, but he was laughing too.
“Come on Spikey, be a pal! I gave you a fair chance, didn't I?! But SHE doesn't give me any chances! She never lets me have a moment's rest, Spike!”
“I was just wondering about something.”
“And what would that be?”
Discord's mismatched hands were clutching at him, not in threat of violence, but in desperation.
“What kind of a way is this for me to go down in history, eh?! Every story deserves an ENDING, Spike, don't you think?! I can't do anything in this dream world, it's all chaos so there's no way for me to stand out! But that's not the worst, the worst, ohhhh Spike... hahahah....”
Was Discord laughing or sobbing? Maybe both. Not all of his fingers were there; the places where they'd been bitten off halfway or entirely oozed fresh blood, staining Spike's scales.
“Why didn't you just kill Discord? That's what you do to everything that threatens your kingdom, right?”
She raised one eyebrow.
“Threatens? Whatever do you mean?”
“I thought I would be safe at first, I thought she was still so WEAK,” Discord wheezed with a hysterical giggle, the pupil of one eye pinwheeling crazily. Flecks of bloody spit splattered Spike's face through those ragged, torn lips. “It's just a DREAM, you see! You see?! No matter what she does, she can't kill me! And I thought that would make me saaaafe,” he half-sang, letting Spike go to sway vaguely, staring at nothing.
“Discord tried to turn your city into the chaos capital of the world! Plus he... you know....”
“Oh, is that all. As you can see, repairs are well underway and things are getting back to normal. As for that second matter, well. In some ways it's as much an improvement as anything, from my – admittedly arbitrary – point of view. In any case, I'm not one to hold a grudge against a helpless creature, however wretched.”
“No matter what she does, she can't kill me,” Discord repeated. “But I didn't realize that that meant that no matter what she does, I can't DIE! Do you know what that means, Spike?! Spike! You drugged me, where's your conscience, where's your compassion?! Look, I'll, I'll even give you another flip...”
Discord pulled out a bit from nowhere. It was barely legible through the blood on it, but as Discord clumsily turned it over in his mutilated hands, Spike could see that one side was heads and the other was tails.
“See, we'll start fresh. Just wake me up, Spike,” Discord wheedled, tears running down his cheeks and soaking in his dirty, torn beard. “You can have a new chance, you'll find the answer, we'll fix the ponies, whatever you want. Just, please, wake-”
“If you say so,” Spike said with a strained smile. He couldn't ask more than that. Not with the nightmare playing through his brain like a master at piano keys, plinkity plink. “I've been having trouble sleeping lately,” he changed the subject, seemingly. “Do ya think you could do that thing again where you made me not have bad dreams for a little while? I've tried everything.”
Clop.
Clop.
Clop.
Clippity-clappity-clop.
The sound of gold-shod hooves against the ground. There was no telling what the ground had been made of before now, but as Spike looked at it, daring to pull his eyes away from Discord's wounded and frantic form, he saw that the ground was all bones. White and yellow, broken and whole, dragon and pony and everything else in the world.
“Oh no, no no no, I'm not ready yet, I can't I can't I caaaaan't,” Discord whispered, his voice sounding weak and deranged, the sound of an old man gone bad in the head and helpless with it. “She's coming again, she never stops! Make her stop, Spike! MAKE HER STOOOOOP!”
Discord raised himself up, waving his arms in the air, and Spike beheld an underbelly that was torn open, spilling out guts and organs, glistening. Discord should have been dead, but this was a place where death didn't have any meaning.
But pain had meaning.
“Why, certainly, Spike, I would be happy to. It's the least I can do for a brave little dragon who helped us all in our time of need. How long do you think you'll be needing my assistance?”
That had not occurred to him.
“Uh. I dunno, maybe, maybe we can try it for a few days and see if it's better after that? I'm really sorry to be all inconvenient and stuff, Princess....”
Spike looked over towards the source of the clops, and saw the Princess approaching, a beautifully white form with a pale rainbow mane, although the darkest, bluest stripe of it also sparkled sharply with starlight. Her tail swayed back and forth like a cat's as she approached, not hurrying – why should she? Nothing could catch her or be a danger to her here.
Her expression wasn't one of a bully intimidating a victim, or a hungry predator, or even that of a majestic ruler looking down on a peasant. It was a motherly expression, wry, soft but stern. Like she was coming to punish a naughty child for his own good. Shame on you, was what her face said. You should have known better. Why did you have to misbehave? Shame on you.
Her snout was covered in blood.
Twilight was back, and unhappy with him for taking up the Princess's time.
“Spike! You shouldn't bother the Princess with such a little problem, she's really busy! I'm sure we can find the right sleeping aid if we keep at it, there's still five more apothecaries to try out in this district alone!”
“Sorry Twilight....”
“Don't be silly, my faithful student. As long as Spike is in Canterlot, I'll be more than happy to help keep his bad dreams away from him. Okay, Spike?”
Somehow, as Spike looked into her royal eyes, he thought that was a threat of some kind, even if there was nothing but kindness in her voice, her face, her smile. Her smile showing off her white, white teeth.
“No, nooooo!” Discord wailed, abandoning Spike to run, leaving a dark trail of blood punctuated with fallen flesh behind him.
The Princess laughed and quickened her pace. It was still slow, though. A playful almost-trot suited to roughhousing with very little ponies, maybe. Her mouth gaped open and her tongue lolled out just a little as she panted less from the effort than from the enjoyment of doing so, her teeth whiter and larger and sharper than they had a right to be in a mouth that slender.
Spike could only watch and tremble and hope she wouldn't turn her eyes onto him.
“Okay, Princess. Thanks a lot.”
“You're very welcome.”
Eager not to get on Twilight's bad side again, he quickly went back to his role as tea-server and let the student and the mentor finish their lesson plan. Today's was about the nature of magically-induced fermentation of a creature's flesh stored in its own innards. An archmage could use the theories involved to literally flip a prey species inside out and then cook it inside itself, creating an instant meal from what had been a living thing just seconds before. Twilight was a long way away from such power, of course. The Princess? She didn't say, but she talked about it with the same casual familiarity that Spike would have used to talk about molting.
That night, as Twilight tucked him into his basket (had to keep the meat unbruised and stored securely!), he tried not to feel like the sides of the basket were reminding him of jaws closing in on him, closing to swallow him forever.
The Princess had said he'd have good dreams, and she didn't lie. As far as he knew, anyway. What would happen if he brought up the things she'd said when Twilight was around? It would be so, so risky, though. And he was comfortable here. Not exactly safe, but he was learning stuff, he'd spelled four new words today, and he was well-fed and had his own bed, sort of. It could've been a lot worse. If only he could just get Twilight to promise not to eat him he might have been content to stay with her, here, in Canterlot, the center of ponydom.
And give up on saving them.
So maybe it was best that she didn't make that promise, right?
The lights went out... all except for the one at Twilight's little study desk. That was going to stay on for a while yet. He could never get her to go to bed on time.
“Maybe it was peacock,” he suggested after a few minutes of trying to sleep.
“Peacock's overrated, the aesthetics of the plumage really don't impart flavor or nutritional value,” she replied instantly without looking up from her studies, the only other noise the scritch of quill against scroll.
That was a kind of game they had now, guessing the answer to Discord's riddle. Not like it mattered. The imps of their bellies were still hungry as ever.
The imps... of their... bellies....
A long-ago memory flashed Spike back, back to when he'd been staying with another pony who'd been as nice as possible. But still hungry. He remembered seeing something insane, something that hadn't made sense, before he'd left.
A mouth. Teeth. Pressing up against the inside of Fluttershy's stomach.
When ponies contemplate listening to their hearts or heads, the imps of their bellies tell them what to do instead.
Spike suddenly hated himself for not seeing it before. It was SO OBVIOUS. He stared through the dimness at Twilight's stomach, but it was too shadowy to see anything. How often did he even look at a pony's stomach? Pretty much never. He was always looking at their heads, their mouths, their hooves, but their tummies?
What if it was an ACTUAL imp?
If it was a real imp, a real thing, that meant that it could be taken out of them, didn't it?
But that didn't make sense as the first part of the riddle, since the second part plainly said the 'finest dish in Canterlot' was what would make the ponies normal again. Unless... the finest dish was the thing that was supposed to get rid of the imps, either by pushing them out or by just poisoning them.
It would be a, a violent bodily rejection of directly opposed substances. Spike had overheard enough of the biological stuff when Twilight talked to herself to be able to guess at the theory. Emesis, that was what it was called. There were medicines, oils and extracts, that you took specifically to puke up poisons. This was just the same thing, except the poison was something that didn't kill you.
And it was in Canterlot.
What was it... what WAS IT....
The Elements of Harmony had been the only thing he knew to beat Discord that wasn't related to Discord's own magic in some way. Ponies had used them, and there were five Elements, right?
No, there'd been six.
Niceness... no, kindness. And Generousness? Generosity. And Laughter, that one was easy, and Honesty, also easy, and... Faith? No no no, it was Loyalty, LOYALTY. What'd been the last one again?
He looked over at Twilight, stared at the gentle purple glow swallowing up her quill, and then he smiled grimly.
Magic.
And then he remembered something else about Discord, a crazy mirage that Discord had shown him. A parallel world, maybe just a dream, probably not real. But still... such a coincidence.
Too much of a coincidence.
“I gave you a fair chance, didn't I?!”
Yeah, Discord. Yeah, you did, you evil jerk. Had to give credit where it was due.
“Twilight?”
“Spike? You should really try to sleep. It's pretty late.”
“I know,” he said, not pointing out that the same applied to her. “I just wanted to ask... have you ever met a pony other than the Princess with more powerful magic than you?”
“Oh, hush now, Spike, flattery won't get you anywhere!”
“I'm being serious!”
“Well... I guess not...” she admitted grudgingly, pausing in her work, her quill floating patiently nearby as she turned to look at him. “But I've lived most of my life in Canterlot and, um, I don't get out much. So that's not really saying anything. What's this all about, Spike?”
He wanted to yell and scream and cackle. His mind burned with the possibilities, with the ideas. He had clues, a new lead, a new hope to be crushed. But he was gonna fight for this one and make the ponies crush it the hard way. Oh yeah.
Six ponies, six elements, and it would be imp-busting time, if he knew as much as he thought he did. It was worth a try, wasn't it?
But he was tired and he didn't want to say things wrong. Tomorrow, he'd talk to her. Tomorrow he would start his revolution up again. Tonight... he had to hope he could get a good night's sleep.
“Nothin', I just wondered is all. G'night Twilight.”
“Goodnight, Spike.”
Spike closed his eyes.
Clop.
Clop.
Clop.
Clippity-clappity-clop.
“Sweet dreams, my little dragon.”