The Hardest Part

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"...I guess I can understand, maybe. It hasn't been that way for me. I'm not exactly a monster to everydragon else, more of a cute puppy. None of them really had a problem with me, I was just different, that's all. Then the Fire Ruby incident happened.

"Now, being a dragon, your transformation was brought on by greed-growth. Mine, however, was a bit more... self-induced. It began, like your's did, a day before my birthday. I had found the Fire Ruby months ago, and was aging it to perfection. Here's where things get different: you wanted to eat the gem, I wanted to harvest the magic in it. A text I'd read told me that Fire Rubies were one of a handful of gems that held ancient magic in them, said to be created by the mythical alicorn race themselves. When it was ripe, the book said, there was a chance that an experienced mage could use its power. I was, naturally, excited beyond belief, and went right to preparing it. Then Rarity showed up. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

"I gave Rarity the Fire Ruby. I had to, she wanted it so badly, and I couldn't say no to her. Maybe if I'd been older I would have said no, but...anyway, I gave her the gem, without telling her what I wanted with it. She made it into her iconic necklace, and wore it the next day, my birthday. I was happier seeing Rarity enjoying my gift than I was receiving my own. All of them were fine, really, but they were meant for dragons, not me. A claw polisher for my hooves, a blanket ten times too large for me that I could never use, things like that. It made me feel depressed, and lonely. I wanted to be normal like everydragon else. I wanted to be able to eat gems, and breathe fire, but most of all, I wanted Rarity. And I knew I could never, as long as I was a pony. So I did something terribly dumb: I tried a permanent transmogrification spell.

"I used it the day after my birthday, and it worked, at first. I had turned myself into a dragon, the same size as Rarity, looking healthy, strong, and very very handsome. For a reason that I never really understood, I had changed color, from purple and green to red and brown, something you should be thankful for, because otherwise everydragon in town would have known who you were right away. I showed myself off to Twilight, who knew I was trying this, and she seemed slightly sad to see her assistant as a dragon. She was worried, too, and made me go through a physical with a town physician, who had no idea what he was supposed when Twilight told him I was really a pony. I remember how he still treated me like an animal, and how angry I felt that he did. That should have been a warning for what came next, but I ignored it, and prepared myself for my asking Rarity out the moment we were back in the library. That's when things went wrong.

"It started with this itch, on the back of my neck, this itch that wouldn't go away. I scratched at it and scratched at it, never really paying it much mind. Next came a dull, constant headache. It made me a little irritable, which made the itching worse. By noon that day, I had begun to feel like I was wrapped up in cellophane, and the itch had spread to more of my body. It had begun to drive me a little crazy, and the increasing pain of the headaches made things worse. I didn't let Twilight know anything, of course, because I'm an idiot who doesn't think his problems concern her. Within another hour, the itch turned into a constant scalding feeling all over my body. I couldn't think straight at that point, or even at all, so I didn't seem to care when I began tearing off my scales. I also began to grow, something I noticed when my spines, or whatever they were at that point struck the ceiling of the library. I broke chunks from it, and when one landed on my head, I lost control.

"It was like watching a car crash through a first-dragon point of view. I went berserk, and turned into something...unnatural. It was my punishment for messing with nature, trying to make myself something I wasn't. I don't know exactly what I looked like, but I knew I had no skin and that my innards were being held in my the energy of the spell. I was terrifying everydragon, that's what I could tell, and I hated watching, but I couldn't look away. I had no control over my body, if you could really call it that at that point. I made my way through town, doing whatever my new body wanted. I reached Rarity's house, kidnapped her, and brought her up the side of the nearby mountain range. She was so terrified. I've never hated myself more than I did when I saw her screaming and crying that day.

"Of course, the thing controlling me didn't care, and kept climbing. Battalions were sent to stop me, but I...took them down. It was a nightmare that I thought would never end. I'd just finished off another squadron when I heard Rarity yell at the monster. She wasn't afraid anymore, or maybe she was and wasn't showing it. Whichever it was, she decided to yell at her captor and tell him off for kidnapping a lady so rudely. That's when I noticed the Fire Ruby. I reached for it, desiring the power that it radiated, and when I came in contact with it, several things happened at once.

"First, Rarity screamed, 'NO!' at the top of her lungs. Inside of my own head, I gave one last push to regain control of myself, desperately trying to avoid hurting Rarity in any way, at any cost. The monster's claw touched the Fire Ruby, and for a millisecond I felt its power coursing through me. Then it sparked, and I felt something big shift inside of me. I felt like I was falling from the sky for a second, before finding that I was in control of my body again. What's more, I found that it was becoming my body once more, shedding the skinless flesh of the nightmarish dragon-me. All of this happened in only a second, and another one later, I was back to normal, hovering above ground with Rarity directly in front of me. She had time to yell my name before we began to fall.

"I'm sure you know the rest of the story. We fell, and I tried to tell her I loved her. And I was gonna do it; imminent death has a way of convincing you to grow a pair. But she covered my mouth and gave me that amazing smile of hers. I wanted to ask her later if she was actually crying while we fell, or if the wind was hurting her eyes. She kept the Fire Ruby, and I stayed away from both it and transmogrification spells. I never bothered to discover why or how exactly the ruby had changed me back, and I don't think I ever will. I'd like it to remain a mystery, for the sake of letting me keep my belief that it was because of her."

With that, Spike gets up from his desk, wiping a tear out of his eye. I'm simply leaning against the wall, having listened to my counterpart's own story for the past half hour. For what felts like hours before that, I explained more of my life in Ponyville and the troubles I faced being a dragon in a world of ponies. Now, though, I don't know if my troubles are that big: I didn't think the Fire Ruby incident could ever have been that bad.

Spike sighs, and says, "After that, well, there were those who didn't want me around anymore. Now I was a monster, not a pet, and it got so bad that a petition went around to have me expelled from the town. When Twilight and her friends saw it, of course, she protested almost to the point of violence. The petition was never passed, as it violated Dragonsvillian law, and I never knew if it had gained enough signatures to pass. I like to think it didn't but a big part of me always tells me not to bullshit myself." Another sigh. "The point is, I think that, even with all the differences in our lives, we're still very much the same creature: a fish out of water, trying his hardest not to look out of place in a world where he knows deep down that he can't. I didn't even realize that, when I learned you were me. I guess I should have before I tried bribing and tricking you." He holds out a hoof and smiles. "Friends?"

I can't say no. Nodragon would ever say no to him, if they'd heard what I heard. I smile back, and hold out my hand. "Friends." We clasp, and another small spark jumps in between us.

"What do you think that is?" Spike asks as we relinquish our grips. "With the lightning touch, I mean."

There's an uncomfortable silence. Spike stares at the shelves surrounding us. It occurs to me that I have no idea what time it is, or how long we've been here. I want to gesture towards the exit, but I had no idea which way it was.

We start on our way out, and I once again have to rely on Spike to lead me out of the maze of bookshelves. As we walk, I wonder what's going to happen in eleven days. There's no point in trying to ignore the note; I have to leave, whether I like it or not. I know that I never intended for Spike to go in my place, but I can't help but feel guilty when I think about Spike returning to his normal life, only now with a brokenhearted Rarity to comfort. Then again, that might just be what he needs to get close enough to her. On the other hand, comforting a recently dumped crush is one of the fastest paths to the dreaded friendzone...I sound like a military strategist.

The bookshelves reach an end, eventually, and Spike and I find ourselves back in the main library. Twilight is at her desk, scribbling, and she jumps when we appear out of the maze of her home.

"Spike!" She goes red in the face, and fiddles with something on her desk. The sound of crumpling is heard, and she tosses a little paper ball into the nearby trash can before guiltily leaning over the desk, resting her head in one hand. "What's going on?" she asks, the nervousness in her eyes betraying her.

"Not much," Spike replies, apparently used to this kind of thing. "What're you doing? Writing flash fiction again?"

Twilight stumbles, blushes more, and stutters a bit before sighing and muttering, "Yes." Spike chuckles, and trots past her towards the door.

"Well," he says, "Emerald and I were just going to go have some lunch, so you'll have plenty of time to write, barring any unexpected visits from anydragon who might want to check out a book." He nods to me. "C'mon, Emerald. There's this great place near the Carousel Boutique that makes the best sweet potato fries in the world."

I can't help but worry he might have something up his sleeve, especially after hearing the words "Carousel Boutique." But I can't really say no, thanks mostly to the desperate "get out of here I'm busy" look I'm getting from Twilight. So, shrugging, I follow my counterpart out the door of the library. I can hear Twilight sigh in relief as the door shuts behind me. I squint at the glaring midday sun, then look down at Spike.

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Fifteen minutes later, he and I are sitting at a table out on the patio of a fairly nice diner called The Flambéed Phoenix,a name that makes me worry what's on the menu here. My suspicions are confirmed when I spot a group of friends splitting was appears to be an entire cow at the table across the patio from ours. Our waitress appears, a pale yellow dragoness with spiraling red spines, and she offers me a menu. I reach for it, but Spike stops me and gets the waitress's attention by putting a hoof on it.

"He's a Stone-eater, Clean Plate," he says, smiling at the dragin kindly. She blushes and pulls the menu away from me.

"Oops," the waitress named Clean Plate says to me, "Sorry, I should have asked. I kinda just started here." She giggles cutely, making her spines bounce lightly. "I'll go get the Stone-eater's menu's, then, for both of you."

"Sounds lovely," Spike says, and Clean Plate leaves, still blushing a little. He turns to me, and he can tell I'm confused. "I figured you don't eat meat, being raised by ponies."

"It's the term for a dragon that can't eat meat," Spike explains. "There are different types of dragons, you know."

"I knew that! I just thought that, uh..." My eyes drift over to the group chowing down on some rather rare looking steak. "I thought all dragons sort of ate meat."

"You'd be surprised." Spike says, grinning. "There's a few species of dragon that can't even eat gems. All they eat are vegetables and fruits. Close enough to ponies, if you ask me."

I don't think, with the two weeks I'm here, I'll ever cease to be amazed by this world. I feel as though there's an almost infinite amount of knowledge I can gain just by doing something as simple as sitting at a park bench and watching dragons walk by. I'm about to ask more about the ways of everyday dragon life in town, when Clean Plate shows up with our menus.

"Here you go!" she says, giving that cute giggle again. "Sorry about the mix-up, sir." She's giving me this odd look, like she's shy around me or something.

Clean Plate leaves, giggling some more, and I pick up my menu and look through it. all of the dishes sound amazing, and I can't choose between this and that or that and this and ooh, how about that one? I glance up from the menu and watch Spike watch me.

Spike shakes his head. "Nothing." He gestures to the menu in front of him. "This isn't for me."

He smiles. "Rarity's favorite is the Sapphire Stew with Carrots and the Diamond-Ruby Creme Anglaise."

I do. Entering the patio area, glittering sun hat atop her head and equally glittery purse in hand, is Rarity. She begins strolling closer to our table, though I don't think she notices us. I feel the same panicked, nervous wave wash over me the same way it has for a decade, and I turn back around to find that I've looked away for too long. Spike is gone, with no evidence that he had ever been there save for the second menu and a small sack that has a note tied to it. I take it, and read:

Spike-

She does this every week, at exactly noon. You're welcome.

-Spike

I crumple the note up and look in the sack to find a fistful of small gemstones. I'm in the middle of counting them when I hear an all-too-familiar voice call to me from behind my back.

I turn, realizing Spike's true intentions, and spot Rarity waving at me, smiling. I wave back, and she takes that as an invitation over to my table. She approaches, and hugs me.

"So good to see you!" she says, and looks over at the empty seat with a menu at it. "Oh! Am I interrupting something? Were you expecting somedragon here?"

Stumbling makes me look like an idiot, but bad habits are hard to break. "Er, no. No, I'm, uh, alone." I gesture to the seat. "Care to join me? Unless you already have a table..."

She's already sat down. "It would be my pleasure, Emerald." She looks down at the menu. "Well, what a coincidence! I just so happen to be a Stone-eater, and it seems as though you've already gotten me a menu! How did you know, I wonder?" She looks up at me and smiles slyly. "Have you been following me?"

"Er, no. It was, uh, Spike." Nice save, doofus. "Yeah, Spike told me. He said diamonds were your favorite."

She giggles. "Of course," she says. "Spike's always such an excellent helper. Anything you might need, he'd be able to help you with." She sighs, almost dreamily. "Such a gentledrake."

I can hear the affection in her voice. "You mean gentlecolt," I joke, and we both laugh. A short silence follows, and I feel a question burning in the back of my head that I know I have to have the answer to. So, just as the silence between us begins to become awkward, I ask: "So, you and Spike: what's the story behind that?"

"Oh..." She doesn't seem to want to talk about it, and she searches for something to say. "Spike and I have a...complex relationship."

"What does that mean?" I say it like an accusation. Rarity looks more uncomfortable now than I've seen her these past few days. But she talks:

"Spike and I have known each other since the day he and Twilight came to Dragonsville, and he's helped me countless times on countless orders in my shop. Besides that, he's always doing everything he can to make me and everydragon else he knows happy. He'll assist them anyway they can, or give them gifts to cheer them up-"

I don't mean to interrupt her, but I can't resist asking about it. "Like the Fire Ruby?"

She looks up at me, with a look in her eye somewhere between fearful worry and confusion.

She still gives me that stare as she talks: "He must really trust you, to tell you about it."

"He called me his replacement once, when I happened to listen in on him in his room." This is partly a lie, because he's actually said it directly to me: I'm supposed to be his replacement.

"Oh, goodness, no!" She laughs and waves a hand in the way she does that I love. "Nodragon could ever replace Spike! He's so..." She has to think for a second. "...different. Not counting the fact that he's a pony, of course. I can't really explain it, but there's something about Spike that makes him one of a kind, and I can't see any reason why he'd ever need to be replaced. In fact, I can hardly believe he said that. I would never replace him, ever!"

I wish I had a glass of water to drink from. "Well, why do you think he'd say that?"

Rarity pauses, and stares down at the menu again. She talks slowly when she answers: "Spike...has feelings for me. He has for a long, long time. And, to tell you the truth, I haven't been very honest with him about it."

My heart is pounding so loudly in my chest that I'm sure she'll be able to hear it from across the table. A nervous sweat is forming on my brow, and I feel like my lungs might be shrinking. I might actually be about to learn whether Rarity loves me, despite the species barrier that I know has kept us apart for years.

Rarity nods, and continues: "I never paid it much mind, because when I first noticed it, I thought it was just a silly crush."

"As he grew older, though, I saw no change in his feelings for me. In fact they seemed to grow stronger. And still, I said nothing of it. I acted as though I didn't notice, something I'm particularly ashamed of." She looks off into space. "How I must have tormented the boy. I never showed him any sign of knowing how he felt, save for..." She trails off, but I know what she's talking about. I repeat my words from earlier:

She nods, still staring at nothing. "Yes, the Fire Ruby. That was when I was sure it was something more than a little crush. And that was only a year since he'd moved here. I've spent the better part of a decade pretending not to notice his affections for me."

"Why?" I shouldn't be asking her these questions, really. "Did you not have it in your heart to tell him the truth?"

Rarity smiles softly. "That's what I told myself, for a long time, and I believed it for years. However, as time passed, I found myself less and less convinced whenever I told myself I didn't want to break his heart, and I think that, perhaps..."

She trails off. I lean forward, maybe a little too eagerly to not seem suspicious. Rarity continues to stare at nothing, and speaks again with a detached kind of tone:

I lean back in my seat, sighing. It takes all of my willpower not to start celebrating loudly right then and there. After all this time, she's liked me back! It's been our gap, and even though it's ruined us back in Pony-world, I can still make things work here, when I leave!

I look back at Rarity, who is looking at me with a slightly guilty expression. I say, "So, you and Spike are..."

She shakes her head quickly. "No. I never did anything, and neither did he. We're still just very close friends, and I think that we may stay that way. And I would be alright with that. Spike, however..." She looks at a very interesting bush sitting outside the restaurant.

"If I wasn't here," I ask abruptly, "would Spike have a chance?" I'm being very, very dumb right now, but I don't think I care.

"You aren't, I swear!" Rarity looks almost frightened. I realize how much emotional stress I must have just put on her. "Spike and I have never been anything more than friends!"

"Good," I say, and am worried by how much I agree with myself. "I don't want to mess anydragon's relationship up in a town I've been in for less than a week."

Rarity opens her mouth to say more, but at that moment, the waitress Clean Plates arrives and almost asks me where Spike is. Fortunately, I interrupt her and order a drink for myself, and when Rarity looks back down into the menu to choose a drink, I tell her, through a series of wild gestures, that she should avoid mentioning that Spike was here. She gets the message and takes our orders with a quiet voice, as if speaking loudly may clue Rarity in to whom I've been chatting with. Our orders are the same, and Clean Plate leaves with our menus without another word.

"That was odd," Rarity remarks, watching the pale yellow dragin disappear inside the diner. "She seemed more nervous than Fluttershy."

"Yeah, I asked her about it," I lie. "She said it was her first day on the job."

We sit in silence, the awkwardness of our last conversation still hanging around us like a fog. She wants to let it go, and honestly, so do I, but I can't help but need to know the whole truth about the matter.

"So," I finally say, "why did you never talk with him about your feelings? Spike, I mean."

She frowns. "I wasn't sure I ever wanted to. I was...selfish, when it came to my feelings. I wanted to find my perfect drake, but I also desired a place in the Serpentian high society that I thought Spike would never let me have."

"So you thought that if you started a relationship with him, you would be less popular by other po--dragons. That's why you and he never did anything."

"Yes," she replies shamefully. "I was selfish. Horribly, horribly selfish. I was afraid of what other dragons would think about me, and I let that fear control me and tell me what to do about Spike." She looks almost sick, I see, and I think it would be best to drop it.

"Rarity," I say, reaching out to take her hand, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. I've just seen how close you two are, and I thought..." I thought maybe I was too late.

Rarity squeezes my hand and smiles. "I can assure you, Emerald, that I intend to spend the Summer Sun Celebration with you and only you." She giggles, and lets go of my hand. "I Pinkie Pie Promise." She goes through the motions, and we both laugh.

Clean Plate returns with our drinks. Mine is a lime soda, her's is a ruby-raspberry iced tea. The dishes in this world are so amazingly inventive.

A toast, then," Rarity proposes, lifting her glass up. "To the Summer Sun Celebration, and our date."

Two Weeks

by NotARealPonydotcom

The Hardest Part