Under the mid-afternoon Sun, Spike was wheezing lightly from exertion as he hauled the heavy wagon loaded with gems, trying his best to keep in step behind Rarity, who walked directly ahead of him, carrying a measly five gems. Uncharacteristically, Spike was presently not happy to be helping Rarity. In fact, at the moment he was practically fuming. However, she had not noticed this. He bit back a grumble as he watched her walking ahead of him, lost in her own thoughts.
The seeds of his discontent had been planted by Discord several weeks earlier, when the daemonic chimera had paid a visit to the young dragon after breaking Twilight and before the flood of messages from Celestia started up. Though Spike had been able to shrug off or rebuff most of Discord’s taunts and words, one thing had stuck with him: Discord’s suggestion that Rarity not only didn’t love him, but that she was using his love for her to get him to do things for her for free – abusing and taking advantage of his feelings for her own personal benefit. After outlining “support” for his argument, Discord had left, and the wave of messages had stopped Spike from thinking about the subject for a while afterward. But once the celebrations after the daemon’s re-sealing were done, Spike couldn’t help but dwell on what the abomination had said.
And, over the course of the next weeks, Spike found the thoughts coming more and more, sounding ever less ridiculous, the “evidence” piling up, and each time he saw Rarity that familiar warmth in his heart felt a little less. Today, deep down inside him, that spark was on its last, dying flickers. Lately, Spike had needed to put quite some effort into convincing himself that he still had a chance, that she still cared for him, that she wasn't just using him. Digging through mounds of rock in the hot Sun, working his whole body to achy exhaustion, only to always get a pat on the head, a “Spikey-wikey”, a small handful of gems, and Rarity’s near-automatic “Such a little gentleman” compliment.
The straw was piled up, and the camel’s back couldn’t take much more.
They now reached Carousel Boutique. Rarity, distracted by the thought of the big order she had to fulfill by next week, telekinetically opened the door, but in her distraction she let it go before Spike and the wagon he was towing were all the way through, the closing door hitting the back of the wagon and knocking Spike over, a few gems spilling to the ground.
“Do be careful, please, Spike” Rarity said. “Could you take those and put them over by the window?”
Spike’s response was an inarticulate grumble as he picked himself up. Fluttershy, who had been waiting for Rarity inside, flinched as she briefly caught sight of the look in Spike’s eyes as he began picking up the dropped gems and carrying them while pulling the wagon with his tail. A knock on the door precluded any further thoughts on the matter, however. Rarity pranced over to the door, opening it to reveal the other four girls.
“What brings you all here?” she asked.
“We wanted to see if you’d like to check out the new park downtown with us” Twilight replied as she, AJ, Dash, and Pinkie walked in.
“Ooh, I have been wanting to see what that place would look like upon completion” Rarity said. “I heard they brought in some very rare trees that produce some beautiful flowers…”
Pinkie suddenly found her whole body jittering, her Pinkie Sense going into overdrive.
“Woah!” she said. “There’s a doozy coming!”
“Where?” Twilight asked.
“Here! The boutique!”
The other girls began looking around nervously.
“You’re welcome, Rarity” Spike said in a deadpan tone from the window area, where he’d finally managed to haul the loaded wagon.
“Sorry, Spike. Thank you for the help.”
As Spike headed for the door, Rarity walked over to him, presenting him with a single gem – a ruby no bigger than his fist. She reached out and patted him on the head.
“Such a little gentleman…”
*SNAP*
As Rarity walked back over to the girls and began chatting with them, Spike felt something inside him break. The ever-present warmth in his heart that popped up whenever he was with Rarity was gone; in its place was a cold, empty void, along with a sudden surge of burning anger building up within him, ready to explode outward. The girls kept chattering, but he couldn’t hear them. All he could hear was his own seething breath, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and the sounds of cracks as his grip on the ruby tightened more and more.
‘She never loved you and never will’
‘You’re just a tool to her’
‘She’s been using you’
‘Search your feelings, My Little Dragon’ the memory of Discord’s voice echoed in his head. ‘You know it to be true.’
Spike’s teeth grinded, his fangs bared in a vicious grimace. His green eyes had a slight glow to them, and he could almost feel flames building up in the back of his throat. His claws began to sink into the ruby held in his ever-tightening fist. Nearby, Opalescence, watching the dragon, flattened her ears in fear and then hid under the nearby table, her instincts screaming at her to get away from the angry predator lest she be consumed by the Killing Intent building within him.
‘No more’
The girls were startled out of their conversation by the sudden loud sound of something shattering, the ruby having finally failed under the pressure it was being subjected to. They looked over to the source.
“Spike, wha- WOAH!”
Rainbow Dash jumped back and had to quash an instinct to fly and flee from the look on the little dragon’s face. His clawed feet dug into the tile floor, and his tail thrashed around as the air immediately around him shimmered from the heat he was giving off. The six girls stared in shock and a little fear, having never seen Spike – or anyone – look so angry.
“S-Sp-Spike?” Rarity whispered, shock tainting her voice. “W-What is-”
“SHUT UP!!”
The shout was magically amplified by Spike’s until-now-dormant inherent Dragon-Magic, loud enough that the windows and anything loose rattled with it. It was considerably deeper than Spike’s normal voice (though still within his prepubescent vocal range… barely). It was accompanied by a large burst of emerald fire that came within five feet of the six girls. And it came with a sudden wave of Killing Intent that had the girls instinctively cowering. Fluttershy let out a short scream of terror, the animal part of her brain finally recognizing Spike as a “Dragon! Run away!!”, and she hid behind Applejack, trembling. Opalescence bolted out from under the table and ran up the stairs as fast as she could, fearing for her life.
“You…” he spoke with a growl, glaring at the frightened Rarity. “You scheming, selfish, manipulative bitch. All I’ve done – all I ever do for you – is going to stop. Right here, right now! Digging through ultra-hard rock in the hot Sun for hours on end, hauling huge, hundreds-of-pounds loads of gems while you prance along with no more than half a pound of them, throwing myself at your feet to please you, watching you in the shop traipsing about, stepping over and occasionally on me, sitting through your sleep-inducing monologues on current fashion… And for what?!”
He pointed a clawed finger at her, and the claw was wreathed in green flames. As he continued to speak, tiny bursts of flame from his throat began to accompany some of the syllables.
“Being ignored, looked over, dismissed, sent off with a casual pat on the head like I’m some pet and half as much gems as needed to even qualify as a light snack! I… I thought I loved you. All this time… ever since I first laid eyes on you, I had feelings for you. And you used them to get me to do whatever you wanted!! I’ve tried to convince myself that I had a chance, that maybe, if I did enough for you, you'd start to return those feelings, to care for me as I did for you. …But I was wrong. What he told me, on that day… Discord was right!! Everything he said to me about me and you was dead-on! I’m nothing more than a tool to you! A slave!! What better cheap labor force than to use a man’s honest feelings to take advantage of him, huh?! Well, no more!! I am done with you!! I can see now that falling in love with you was the stupidest thing I have ever done!”
The force of the Killing Intent that Spike was giving off increased further, yet when he next spoke it was with an eerie, deadly calm, the slightest hint of a flanging reverb that was far too deep for any creature of Spike’s size to naturally make; the sign that a dragon had entered the absolute pinnacle of disgusted anger and… hatred.
“The warm spark I used to feel in my heart when I looked at you is gone now. Instead, now there is a cold… black… void. I will not be your thankless servant anymore. I do not love you anymore, Rarity. I never will again, and I wish I never did. In fact, right now just looking at you makes me feel cold and sick inside. Quite frankly, I would prefer if I never have to speak to or even see you ever again. You’ll have to find a new love-struck sucker to push around as your slave. I am out.”
With that, Spike turned around, opened the door, and pulled it shut with such force that the doorframe splintered and cracked, and the whole building shook. The six girls stood stock-still, too shocked and horrified to even move. After several seconds, there was a soft thud as Rarity’s rear legs gave out from under her, leaving her in a seated position, still staring at the door, her eyes wide. Her whole body was trembling, it felt hard to breathe, and tears started to fall from her horror-struck eyes.
Pinkie, her mane and tail deflated, stuttered out “Th-That was certainly a doozie…”
-SCENE BREAK-
Just outside Ponyville Elementary
Same time as Spike’s meltdown
“I can’t believe you would do such a thing, Diamond!”
Silver Spoon’s voice was louder than it had ever been, filled with shock, outrage, and anger. Always, she had been Diamond Tiara’s faithful friend/lackey, going with whatever the pink-furred filly did or said. She did this to stay in the girl’s good graces, as she considered Diamond to be her only friend. Truthfully, Silver had always felt that there had to be some goodness deep inside Diamond, and that if she worked hard and long enough she’d be able to uncover it. After all, she had plenty of experience from picking out treasure within trash – finding the “diamond in the rough” – thanks to helping out occasionally at the antique appraisal shop her mother worked at. Failing that, she’d at least be able to keep the aggressive, arrogant girl from getting any ‘worse’ or crossing any serious lines.
But today, after the horrible thing Diamond Tiara had done, enough to reduce Scootaloo – the school tough-girl – to tears, she now believed she had been utterly wrong.
“I’ve stood by and watched while you’ve done plenty of reprehensible things,” the silver-furred filly angrily glared at her ‘friend’, “but that was just too far!”
“Why do you even care?!” Diamond Tiara yelled back. “What does it matter what happens to those blank-flanks? And besides, you’ve never objected to anything I’ve done or said before this!”
“Because you’ve never done something so horrible! That seriously crossed a line, Diamond! I expected better from you than such base cruelty!”
“Why would you even care what happens to a blank?! You’re always joining me whenever I torment them!”
“I don’t care whether or not their flanks are blank! I never did! I’ve just pretended to so that you would stay my friend! To me, they aren’t “blanks”. They’re ponies, just like Nurse Redheart or Rainbow Dash or Ms. Cheerilee or me! I don’t think of them as any better or worse than I am!”
“You lied to me?!”
“Because I wanted to keep being your friend! I don’t have any other friends; I stuck with you and followed your lead so I wouldn’t lose you! I always thought… I always thought that if I played my cards right, I could find some goodness inside of you and cultivate it, bring it out. I wouldn’t let you become the type of vapid, shallow, superficial, heartless snob that so many rich ponies grow up to be. And I really thought that I was succeeding. … Until today, when you did something absolutely heinous and unforgivable! After what you did, I’m ashamed to know you!”
Diamond was unable to come up with a retort, anger and shock wrestling with each other inside her, preventing any words from coming out.
“I have always hoped to find that little bit of goodness inside your heart,” Silver Spoon continued, “because everyone has that; Discord is the only being who lacks any good or light in his heart. …Or so I thought. All this time, I’ve been wondering why it was so hard to find your light. But now, after today, I realize… It’s because it was never there to begin with, or if it was it has long since been swallowed up by darkness. You’ve crossed lines that no-one should cross. You’ve taken pleasure in the anger and sadness and pain of others. You broke a little pegasus filly’s heart, humiliated her, drove the toughest girl in school to tears, and then laughed at her pain and suffering. All because she is different from you and hasn’t yet discovered her Special Talent. …You may have ‘diamond’ in your name, but your heart is as black as an ugly lump of coal. And I cannot associate with someone like that. You were my only friend… but having a ‘friend’ who is poisonous and black-hearted and cruel is worse than having no friends at all.”
She gave a long, sad sigh, and she looked upon the pink-furred filly with weary resignation and disappointment.
“Goodbye, Diamond Tiara. You’ve made one more pony who is different from you sad and upset with your actions. I hope you are happy.”
And with that, Silver Spoon got up, turned around, and briskly walked away, heading toward the town. Diamond Tiara was all alone. Her whole body trembled, and her face contorted in a variety of churning emotions. Shortly after Silver Spoon disappeared from sight, Diamond let out, at the top of her lungs, a long, loud cry of anger, frustration, fury, pain… and just a little sadness. There was a blur of motion as she yanked the jeweled tiara from atop her head and hurled it against the nearest tree as hard as she could; it shattered on impact. She fell backwards into a sitting position, head hanging low, and despite everything she had, all the anger and willpower and turmoil, she couldn’t stop a tear from falling.
Behind a tree a short ways away, the three Cutie-Mark Crusaders – Scootaloo’s eyes still red from crying earlier – ducked back behind the tree, all three of them in open-mouthed shock. Cautiously, they snuck away, heading toward the town, away from Diamond Tiara, who was still fighting to stop herself from crying – a fight she was slowly losing.
-SCENE BREAK-
Half an hour later, Spike wandered aimlessly through the streets of Ponyville. He felt a bizarre mixture of emotions. He felt the burning anger at Rarity deep inside him, like flames that not even an ocean could put out. He felt the cold, numb void where his misplaced “love” for her used to be. He felt lighter, like a huge weight had been lifted off of him. He felt concern that he may have frightened Fluttershy too much by accident. He felt…
He felt a sudden flash of pain combined with something soft yet unyielding, and then felt himself hit the ground as he bounced off of whatever he ran into. He rubbed the back of his head, and then looked to see what he’d hit. A gray-furred earth-pony filly with silver-and-white hair groaned as she shook the cobwebs out of her head. On the ground in front of her lay a pair of blue-framed glasses. Wordlessly, Spike reached forward, picked the glasses up, and placed them in the filly’s forelimbs; she quickly put them back on her face, her violet eyes now open.
“Are you alright?” Spike asked. “Sorry I ran into you; my mind was… elsewhere.”
“Y-Yeah, same here” the girl replied. “Had a whole lot on my mind.”
“I know the feeling” Spike said.
“You’re… Spike, right? Twilight Sparkle’s assistant?”
“Yep, that’s me. What’s your name?”
“I’m Silver Spoon.”
“Nice to meet ya, Silver. …You look kinda down.”
“I could say the same to you, Spike. Mind telling me what’s got your tail in a knot?”
“Only if you tell me your story, too.”
“Fair enough.”
The two went over to a nearby bench in the shade, sitting next to each other. And they began to talk. Spike went first, explaining the long and ugly situation regarding Rarity, how Discord’s casual attempt to mess with him had led him to see the deep and disheartening truth. When he finished, Silver put a hoof on his shoulder.
“She shouldn’t have used you like that” she said. “No-one should use someone else like that. It’s probably a good thing you gave up on her; from what I can tell, you definitely deserve someone better than that. You’re too good a guy to have to put up with that kind of thing.”
“Thanks, Silver. Now… what’s your story?”
“Well… Her name is Diamond Tiara…”
After another lengthy explanation, Silver Spoon rested her head against the bench, eyes closed as she finished up, breathing deeply as she worked to control her emotions. She involuntarily flinched and gasped as she felt a warm hand rest on her shoulder, one eye cracking open and looking at Spike, who looked back at her with understanding.
“It seems we’re pretty much in the same boat, aren’t we?” he asked.
“Y-Yeah” she replied, wondering why in the world she was reacting in such a way.
“So… Um… Do you… maybe wanna hear anything else about me? About my life?” the young dragon asked her, fidgeting ever so slightly.
“I’d… like that, I believe” Silver said, a little smile gracing her features.
Over the next several hours, Silver Spoon and Spike talked about pretty much everything under the Sun. They talked of their respective lives, of their families – how Spike was hatched by Twilight, and how Celestia and Twilight’s parents raised him and her together, about Silver Spoon’s distant yet still loving mother and her doting father; they told little tales of their various little adventures; they talked about favorite things, favorite foods, favorite games, favorite books. Silver confessed her “sins” regarding how she’d gone along with Diamond’s bullying of the Crusader Trio, and how she regretted letting herself get pulled along for so long. Spike talked about everything he’d gone through since he & Twilight moved to Ponyville.
As they talked, and the day wore on, the two of them found themselves gradually feeling odd yet not-unpleasant feelings. They found themselves trusting each other quite readily, and frequently moving in close to each other. Spike felt an odd warmth starting to grow in his chest, and the back of his mind dimly recognized it as what he used to feel whenever he was with Rarity. Whenever the two made eye contact or she stared at him for too long, Silver Spoon felt her cheeks heating up and her heart fluttering in a not-at-all-unpleasant way.
By now the Sun was setting, and the air was cooling. A cool breeze blew through the area. From Spike’s point of view, the Sun was setting behind Silver Spoon, casting her in a warm glow. Combined with the wind moving through her hair, and her facial expression of a shy little smile and half-lidded eyes looking at him, the sight made his eyes widen and his heart pick up speed a little. Suddenly, a leaf blown by the wind hit the back of Silver’s neck. She let out a quick shriek and lunged forward, instinctively latching onto Spike, her forelimbs wrapping around him as her heart raced from the sudden surprise, while his arms automatically came up around her torso, resting on her back. Both of them, upon gathering themselves, looked up at each other, their faces only inches away. Both of them found themselves blushing, staring into each other’s eyes. Another cold wind blew by, and Silver huddled herself closer to Spike, burying her face in his shoulder, her forelimbs holding onto him a little tighter. Spike found himself holding her closer, not fully understanding why yet most definitely okay with it.
“You’re warm” she whispered. “It’s cold out here, but your body is warm. It’s…nice…”
“Dragons are warm-blooded, and our core temperature’s a little higher than that of ponies” he absent-mindedly explained.
Silver Spoon didn’t say anything; she found herself snuggling up against him, face red from the blush but also feeling content and happy. They stayed like that for a little while, until the Sun had disappeared below the horizon.
“We should… probably get home now” Spike said reluctantly. “Our families are probably worried about us.”
“You’re right” Silver replied, as she slowly pulled away from him. “Maybe… we can hang out tomorrow, though?” she asked with hope in her voice.
“Yeah” Spike said. “That sounds good. We’ll meet here, right?”
“Of course.”
As she turned to walk away, Silver Spoon gave in to a little compulsion. She turned back to Spike and, blushing, kissed him on the cheek. As he stood in shock, hand to his face, she giggled and ran off, heading home. After about a minute, the young dragon began heading home as well.
-SCENE BREAK-
The Ponyville Central Library was dark, except from the candlelight that Twilight was reading by, her attention wholly occupied by the books in front of her. Spike quietly opened the door and, seeing his mother-figure distracted, softly made his way up the stairs.
“Spike?”
He froze mid-step, and his head slowly turned to look down at Twilight, who was giving him her best “stern parent” expression.
“Where have you been all day?” she asked.
Spike decided to be truthful. “About 20 minutes of fuming followed by several hours hanging out and talking with this girl I met today.”
Twilight quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah, she’s about my age, maybe a year younger. We talked about… well, pretty much everything. Turns out she had a nasty falling-out with her only ‘friend’ earlier today,” he said the word “friend” with finger-quotes, “and ran into me – literally; I helped her up afterwards, of course. She said about her ex-friend that ‘it’s better to have no friends at all than to have only one friend when that lone friend is poisonous, black-hearted, and cruel’. …I can relate with her, honestly. And… we ended up, well…” he blushed lightly.
“Yes~?”
“By the end of it, we… couldn’t really stop looking at each other. She’d stare at me and get this cute little blush, and she’d be smiling at me; she looked pretty whenever she smiled. And… you know that old “spark of warmth in my chest” feeling I used to get from Rarity? The one that went cold and dark after I figured everything out? Well… hanging out with this girl, I… I think I’m getting it again. And I think she’s getting it, too.” He smiled. “Well, I’ve been through a lot today. I think I’m gonna go to bed a little early. Good night.”
As the little dragon headed up to the bedroom, Twilight couldn’t bring herself to talk to him about the incident with Rarity. She’d discuss it with him some other time, but right now her little friend looked happier than he had in weeks. She’d let him have this.
-SCENE BREAK-
A little later that night, as Silver Spoon was in her room preparing for bed, she was constantly going over the day’s events in her mind. Every time she thought about Spike, she felt the pleasant little flutter inside her.
“What’s going on with me?” she muttered to herself as she undid her braids, letting her mane fall free. “I’ve heard ponies talk about this, but… is this really that kind of feeling? …I need to test it out.”
After placing her necklace on her nightstand, she walked over to the big mirror placed on her bedroom door, looking at herself. She took a deep breath, and focused on those three words, trying to say them to herself and see what happened.
“I… I l-love…. S… Sp-Spike…”
Immediately her face went beet-red, and her breath almost caught in her throat as her heart pounded. Gathering herself, she said it again.
“I… I love Spike…”
This time her whole body suddenly felt lighter, and a wonderful warmth spread from her chest and face to the rest of her. An adorable little smile came up as the epiphany hit.
“I love Spike…”
Now, just saying that sentence made her heart nearly soar, and her eyes lit up. She said it a few more times, affirming herself. When that was done, she turned the lights out and walked over to her big, soft bed, giggling girlishly from the emotional euphoria she now felt. After taking off her glasses and putting them with her necklace, she crawled into bed and laid down, a big smile still on her face.