Between an Apple and a Hard Place
Returning home very late, Spike tried to sneak into the library, not wanting to wake the sleeping unicorn. But as he slowly cracked the door open, he noticed a large pile of notebooks near what was Twilight’s desk. It definitely was not like her to leave her work area in such disarray. Approaching the mound of what he now recognized to be the journals he had shown Twilight, he took the first off only to find a purple horn underneath it.
“Twilight…?” Spike asked quietly, which caused the pile to begin to stir. “Twilight!”
“Oooooh…” the unicorn moaned as she shook off the books covering her body. “Spike? You’re home early…”
“Umm… it’s nighttime already, Twilight,” her assistant informed the ignorant unicorn.
“Huh?” Twilight stuck her head out the nearest window and saw the shadowy night, whose only light was a crescent moon. The only thing visibly out was her pet owl that was resting on an outside branch, hooting to its heart content.
“Are you alright, Twilight? You seem kind of…” Spike cut himself off, not wanting to insult Twilight too badly. “Tired…”
“Oh… Sorry, I guess I overdid it with the studying again,” Twilight lied, patting down her wild mane. “You should probably head of to bed, Spike! It’s way past your bedtime!”
“You don’t want me to help you out here?” Spike said, taking up an arm full of books.
“Oh! No, no… I can take care of it myself…” the purple unicorn said, levitating many of the journals and organizing them into neat stacks. “You go get your rest.”
“But I wanted to tell you something!” the young dragon said with an added yawn.
“Now, now, Spike. Whatever you need to tell me can wait until morning,” Twilight said, levitating him up to his bed and tucking him in.
“Ok… But you’ll listen to me tomorrow, right?” Spike yawned, turning over onto his side.
“Of course I will, Spike,” the unicorn patted her young assistant’s head. “Good night…”
Heading back to her mess, Twilight gave a great sigh of disappointment. Even through her amazing effort to find when her feelings developed, she had come up empty hoofed. She had nowhere else to turn to find the answer she looked for, but her memories of their time at Canterlot. With all those flashbacks she had about all the things she had taken for granted that Spike did for her, it was no mystery to her about why she fell for him. Thinking about it more and more, she began to realize that when perhaps did not matter as much as she stressed that it did. What she needed to do now focus on earning his affections, already wasting so much time after she found out that the unicorn that he loved loved him back.
As she stored the journals back in their rightful place, she noticed a lone journal, somewhat different than the rest, hidden against the back of the drawer. When she opened it, she found that it could not be hers by any stretch of the imagination. The penmanship was nothing close to that of any of the other journals she had written, it was much cruder. Almost as if the writer was just learning to write.
“No…” Twilight said to herself as a thought popped into her head. “Was Spike keeping a journal when we were in Canterlot too?”
She read through the barely legible beginning pages and found that the writer often referred to her in third person, so it was not possible that it was somehow hers or perhaps a remnant of the old occupants of the library. Another clue was a slightly singed page, perhaps burnt when the young dragon was still learning to control his fire-breath. And finally, the biggest clue was when the writer mentioned his claws growing sharper and bigger. It could not be anyone else but Spike, as far as Twilight considered.
Unfortunately, since Spike was just learning to write properly while he kept this particular journal, his writing was large, spread out and barely legible. A single entry took up a large chunk of the journal as a whole, without it having too much substance to it. The information she was able to get from the journal dealt with how it felt for him to be growing up, learning to write and life with her, in a very general sense, due to his vocabulary being very limited back then. Even more disappointing, it was cut short by what seemed like years that they spent together. However, there was a bit of serendipity in this.
If Spike had kept one journal by himself, without having been asked by her to do so, he might have kept another journal or perhaps even more, which would grow more detailed and help her get into his mindset, giving her the upper hand in this battle for his affections. However, Twilight kept in mind that she did not know where these other journals might be, if they even existed. Second, she already lost a lot of headway with him with the whole fiasco of finding the origins of her feelings, so she could not afford to waste too much time looking for and reading up on the dragon’s possible entries. She was the underdog in this fight, seeing how Spike was already infatuated with two mares, neither of them herself, and she need to find a way to balance spending time with her long-time assistant and figuring him out using his personal journals if she wanted to tip the scales on Rarity.
For now, it was more important for her to spend some quality time with Spike, and tomorrow would be a good day to start. As she finished packing away all her old journals, she headed up stairs and noticed the young dragon was already fast asleep. By his spread out position, he must have been extra tired from whatever work he had helped with over at Sweet Apple Acres. But something bothered her; his bed seemed a little too small for him nowadays. She knew that he was so accustomed to sleeping in his little-basket bed but it was so obvious in his current position that he outgrew it already. One day soon, they would have to go bed hunting but for now…
“You can sleep with me, Spike…” Twilight said, levitating his unconscious body onto her bed. Lying down next to him, she wrapped her two front legs around him. She heard him give satisfying sigh as he cuddled with her as Twilight soon joined him in pleasant sleep.
The little dragon awoke the next morning, a bit confused over where he ended up during his sleep. It definitely was not his regular bed, no it was far too big and, admittedly, comfy for it to be his tiny basket-bed. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and slowly adjusted to the bright light coming from the morning sun outside the window. A minute or two later, he finally was able to see that he somehow woke up on Twilight’s bed. He had shared a bed with Twilight for long while, since Canterlot in fact.
It was a little strange for him but at the same time very comfortable. However, there was something bugging him. Twilight was nowhere to be found. She did usually get up earlier than him and, without any real reason to get up, the young dragon usually just slept in. Twilight might have been downstairs already, studying or just reading for the fun of it as usual. Then it hit him, he had not told Twilight about his heroics at Sweet Apple Acres.
“Twilight! TWILIGHT!” Spike called out, climbing off the bed.
“I’m downstairs, sleepy-head!” the unicorn answered.
“Oh boy, do I have a story for you!” the little dragon said as he ran down the steps. But he paused as he saw yet another breakfast laid out and ready for him. Even more puzzling, all his usual chores seemed to be done for him already. “Uh… Twilight?”
“Yes, Spike?” Twilight asked back.
“You feeling alright?” her assistant asked her. There had been very few times that she ever did his chores for him and those were the times when she wanted him to help her with a new spell. If it were up to him, he would rather do his chores instead of testing most of her spells. Except for the mustache spell, that one was one he did not regret. Maybe a beard spell would be pretty cool too…
“Of course, Spike! I just thought we could spend the day together, take a break from all the work both of us have been taking on. Maybe go out for a walk or we can try to find some jewels! I still remember Rarity’s detection spell! Doesn’t that sound good?” the purple unicorn asked him.
“Um… yeah! It actually does sound fun! We should do this more often!” Spike exclaimed, happily helping himself to a serving of all the dishes in front of him. “WAIT! I forgot to tell you about…”
“SPIKE!!!” three certain fillies screamed in unison as they barged into the library, disturbing the peaceful breakfast. “YOU HAVE TO COME WITH US!!!”
“Hold on!” the little dragon answered, trying to swallow as much as he could. The Crusaders had formed chain, each biting the other tail with the first biting down on Spike’s tail, to pull the dragon from his meal and get him to where they needed him. “Let… me… finish… my breakfast…!”
“Hold on a minute, girls,” Twilight said, pulling them off the dragon’s tail. “Why do you need Spike all of the sudden?”
“Well, he only saved our lives and drove away the Timberwolves from Sweet Apple Acres! I thought he told you by now!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.
“Spike, is that true?” Twilight asked, turning to her assistant for an answer.
“Yup! This dragon saved the day yesterday, all by himself!” Spike said as he stood, positively beaming with pride. “Those Timberwolves never knew what hit them! They’ll think twice before coming back to Ponyville while I’m around!”
“Wow, Spike! I’m so proud of you!” Twilight hugged the little hero warmly.
“Th-thanks, Twilight,” Spike said, caught a little off-guard by the surprisingly passionate embrace.
“So… Ya comin’, Spike?” Applebloom asked the dragon. “Big Mac, Granny Smith and me all have a surprise for ya at Sweet Apple Acres! Ya can come too, Twilight!”
“What kind of surprise?” the excited dragon asked.
“Sorry, can’t tell ya! Ya just gotta check it out for yerself!” the country filly answered.
“What about Applejack? Isn’t she going to come too?” Twilight asked her friend’s younger sister.
“She didn’t want to come for some reason…” Scootaloo answered for her reluctant friend. “Maybe you can talk to her and get her to come.”
“Is something wrong with her?” Spike asked the fillies. It did not seem like Applejack to refuse something like that, especially when she tried to give him her hat to thank him for saving her little sister.
“She doesn’t wanna talk about it… Big Mac said to let her be… but I’m a little worried too,” Applebloom answered nervously. “What if she got hurt worse than we thought!? All because of me…”
“Don’t worry, Applebloom,” Twilight reassured the red-headed filly. “I’ll go see what happened. As soon as we’re finished talking, we’ll head over to see Spike’s surprise. Where is Applejack?”
“She’s in her room,” Applebloom answered her. “We’ll be in the western side of the orchard. Applejack should know where, if you can get her to come…”
And with that, Twilight sent her assistant off with the three young mares and she went off to find her friend.
“Applejack! Aaaaaapplejack!” Twilight called her friend through her door after getting no answer by knocking.
“Twilight? That you?” Applejack asked, cracking open her bedroom door a bit.
“Hey, AJ! How come you didn’t want come to give Spike his surprise… whatever it is?” the purple unicorn asked her back.
Poking her head out to ensure that her friend was indeed alone, the blond earth pony allowed the unicorn to enter her room. Her room was not a mess, but it was untidy, with her bed sheets thrown across the floor, her trusty lasso joining it along with her hat. Her usually tied mane and tail were allowed their freedom to wildly rest wherever it fell on her body. She looked a little exhausted, not having slept for very long if at all made obvious by the dark marks forming under her eyes.
“It’s not that I’m ungrateful, Twilight. He saved Applebloom, my lil’ sis, I could never thank him enough,” the apple farmer began at an anxious speed. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t wanna give him somethin’, just not that, Twilight, not that…”
“Hold on, Applejack! Slow down!” Twilight tried calming the edgy pony. “What exactly are they giving Spike?”
“Yer right, just gotta calm down…” Applejack said, taking in deep breaths. “Ya see, it’s been an Apple family tradition to plant a new tree for every new Apple that joins the family. All these tree are specially marked with our initials, Twilight. But they want to give Spike his own tree and welcome him into the family…”
“What’s wrong with that, I thought you said you couldn’t thank him enough for saving Applebloom?” her unicorn friend asked, confused.
“I… I just can’t, Twilight…” Applejack answered.
“Applejack, it’s alright. You can tell me anything!” Twilight said, giving her reinsuring smile.
“Ya noticed that Spike and me have been spendin’ a lot of time together. And, well…” the earth pony paused to take in an deep breath. “I’m just gonna come out and say it… I think I have some feelin’s for Spike.”
Twilight had no response; she simply stared at her with shrunken irises and pupils. She was left astonished; as if she did not have enough competition for Spike’s love with Rarity, but now she found a new rival in Applejack. Even worse, Twilight was at a clear disadvantage against both, with Spike already having feelings for either mare. However, neither had admitted their feelings to Spike yet and perhaps, if she can beat them to that, she would gain an edge against them. Along with the fact that she had the best opportunity to spend the most amount of time with the little dragon, she lives with him, and those possible journals of his, Twilight believed that she still could win the dragon’s heart.
“Twilight? Ya there?” Applejack’s voice brought the unicorn back into reality.
“Oh, I’m sorry… it’s just…” Twilight said, shaking off the surprise of her friend’s confession as well.
“It’s doozy, I know,” the apple farmer told her. “I’m not gonna take advantage of him like Rarity did; my feelin’s for him are real, Twilight. But that’s why I can’t go to with ya’ll and introduce him into the family. He deserves it and I can’t think of anythin’ else we can give him that would be just as fit. But if I do do that, I won’t be able to have these feelin’s for him without it bein’ strange. He’d be one of the Apples…”
Twilight was a bit torn from the inside. On one hand, she could advise her friend to relinquish her feelings to allow herself to give Spike what even she thought to be only proper reward for his deeds, thus ridding her from the love struggle. On the other, Twilight could reassure Applejack that the ritual initiation into the Apple family would be purely symbolic and it was ok for her to continue to have feelings for the dragon; honest advice from a friend at the cost of having her continue as a rival in the quest for Spike’s affections. Just like Applejack herself, Twilight found herself in rather difficult situation. But in the back of her mind, she knew she should not deny Applejack the chance to find her love, nor did she want to win over Spike by dishonest means, something he would surely find disappointing.
“Applejack… You should go,” Twilight told her. “It’s not like he’s really family, right? It wouldn’t change anything between you and Spike.”
“But it would be like he was family, though…” Applejack said, clearly still distressed.
“Applejack, you’ve seen that he has some feelings for you already,” the unicorn said, though it hurt her from within to say so. “Do you think he’ll give up on you just because of this? You can’t just give up on him…”
“Twilight…” the blond pony replied.
“Come on, let’s go give Spike his surprise,” Twilight interrupted her friend. “It’ll mean that much more to him if it comes from you too.”
Picking her signature hat off the floor with a nod, the two ponies headed out of her room and to the apple orchard to join the others who probably already waiting for them.
“THEY’RE COMING!!!” the three fillies announced, bouncing up and down as they saw the two mares come down the road.
“I’m sorry for the hold up, Applebloom, Big Mac, Granny Smith, Spike, everypony…” Applejack told them as they finally reached the small crowd.
A long silence followed as the Apple siblings looked to Granny Smith, who was merely staring blankly.
“Ahem…” Applebloom nudged the elderly pony.
“Oh yes!” Granny Smith exclaimed. “What is everypony doin’ here?”
“Granny Smith, we’re giving Spike his own tree… remember?” Applejack told her, trying to jog her memory. “Family tradition… done by the oldest in the Apple family…”
“Ah, ok… Stop treating me like a forgetful old foal!” the ornery earth pony said. “Uh… what are we doing here again?”
“Spike… the tree… Apple family tradition!” Applebloom said, starting to lose her patience.
“Spike, as I understand it, ya have saved my granddaughters from the Timberwolves in the Everfree Forrest,” Granny Smith said, finally beginning the ceremony. “HOO-WEE! I remember my first run in with those pesky Timberwolves, they’ve been trouble since they day we’ve first settled here.”
“Umm… Granny Smith…” the farming mare said, trying to keep the old pony from going off on a tangent.
“Right, right… Where was I now…? Ah yes… Spike, for yer bravery, we welcome ya as kin into our fold. As tradition, we plant a brand new tree in the orchard in this certain area whenever a new Apple joins the family. This one right here is yers, Spike. Since ya ain’t exactly a newborn foal, we couldn’t plant a saplin’ for ya.”
It was a small tree, although a few around it were not fully grown either. Other than his, three in particular were smaller than the rest, each marked with some letters. The smallest of the three was marked with an “AB,” the largest with a “BM,” the last was marked with “AJ.”
“As you can see, each tree has the initials of the Apple it was planted for,” Granny Smith continued. “It is usually the parents that carve the initials into the tree, but I think you can manage that with those fancy claws of yers.”
“Ok…” Spike replied, a bit nervous of being put in the spotlight. He calmly walked up to the tree and rose his claw. Carefully, he carved a letter “S” into his tree and stepped back to look at his work.
“And with that, ya can now consider yerself an honorary Apple!” the elderly pony told the young dragon. All the ponies present stomped their hooves in celebration of the induction of the new Apple family member. Spike, not being used to all the attention, gave a nervous smile and scratched the back of his head.
“Thanks, everypony. I don’t know what to say,” Spike said, showing a bit of embarrassment.
“Ya don’t gotta thank us, Spike,” Applejack said, moving closer to him. “You more than earned it.”
“So, Spike how’s it feel to be an Apple!” Scootaloo asked the blushing dragon.
“I’ve never heard of any other pony becomin’ an ‘honorary Apple’ before!” Applebloom told him.
“But I bet no pony’s ever driven away a pack of Timberwolves by themselves before either!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.
As the Crusaders crowded the embarrassed dragon the two mares watched from a distance away.
“See, look at that. He’s the same old dragon,” Twilight pointed out.
“Yer right, Twilight. I was worryin’ over nothin’. Thanks, Twilight…” Applejack answered the unicorn.
“I told you…” Twilight said quietly. “If you love him, don’t give up on him… because I certainly won’t…”
“Whatdaya mean, Twilight?” the blond farmer asked her. “Twilight?”
“I mean, you’re not the only one with feelings for him, Applejack,” the unicorn admitted, walking to the dragon, leaving the country mare to gather her thoughts.
“Hey, Spike. We still got time to find some gems before it gets dark. You feeling up to it?” Twilight asked her assistant. Spike excitedly nodded his head as the unicorn levitated him onto her back.
“Bye guys!” the pair said as they waved good-bye to the ponies.