//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: To Live is to Love 
// by Lenora Goff 
//------------------------------//

~The next day~

It wasn’t that much of a surprise that I was still able to sleep like a log, at least not to me. I didn’t think there was another pony out there with napping skills I had, not that I bragged about them much or anything. The real shock, though, came when I looked outside. 

It was earlier than I was used to, and I actually didn’t feel like sleeping.

Today was going to be a slow weather day, I knew it. I had to kick some clouds, the sunny day was going to be one of the best. After that, I was going to be left to my own devices. That meant that I could nap later, work on my moves, and go talk to some friends. That was all that I could think that I had to really do that day.

I hoped that Spike would be doing all right, I hadn’t seen him in a few days. 

Another stretch, and I went speeding through the air toward the clouds. I wanted to get this done as quickly as I could. It was a little after nine in the morning, the two ponies that I wanted to see today were likely already up. Fluttershy would probably be busy taking care of her animal friends, and Angel-bunny. Spike would probably be the first I could go see, though I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

I hoped he was all right.

I didn’t even notice that it had only taken me ten minutes to get the entire job of the day done. It wouldn’t take that long, I was sure, but I could have sworn it would have taken at least twice that long.

Maybe I could cut the time down even more.

With work done, it was time for me to head to get some breakfast. That might have actually been a good idea before working, but I hadn’t thought of it. Regardless, it was time to head to Sugarcube Corner. I had to get something to eat, and an eclair seemed like as good of an idea as any. 

Part of me hoped that one of the cakes was running the cash register, it was way too early to deal with the energy ball known as Pinkie Pie.

It turned out, this was going to be one of those situations where I actually had some luck. The eclair wasn’t all that I had gotten, a good gem-filled cupcake would hopefully be enough to make Spike feel better. I knew that I couldn’t have been easy to carry, and he was apparently really hurt when he had gotten to Fluttershy.

I needed more friends like him.

On another note, I needed to stop spending bits like this. It would be good if I learned how to cook at some point. Maybe I could get Pinkie Pie to teach me. Then again, she would likely only teach me how to make sweets.

That wasn’t the worst idea, though.

Next stop was over at the library. I wanted to see how Spike was doing, thank him for what he had done, and make sure he was doing all right. 

Ponyville is a small place, so the trip didn’t take that long.

I thought about knocking, but I quickly decided against it. Nobody ever knocked to get into a public library. Then again, few knocked to get into Carousel Boutique. Now that I thought about it, the ponies who knocked the most weren’t the ones who were actually trying to get into a building. Either that, or it was because it was really early or really late.

This was neither.

“Oh, hey there Twilight. Is Spike ar-”

I saw a glare that I didn’t expect. It didn’t make any sense for her to be mad at me, it wasn’t like I had done any of this on purpose. 

“What did you do to Spike?”

She didn’t know anything, obviously, except that it was my fault. That was a typical experience for me, really. Maybe she would listen to me, since she was my friend and all. “It was an accident, Twi! I was practicing a stunt. It didn’t go the way that it was supposed to, and I was sent crashing.” I thought about it,  I had to word this next part correctly.

Yep, I was being a thinker.

“If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know how bad the crash would have been.” Was I really saying this? I wasn’t the type to admit these things. The only thing that made me do it this time was the fact that things would have been a lot worse if Spike hadn’t been there. I would have slammed into the ground, full force. I would have probably been taken to the hospital, of course, but it still would have been a lot worse.

Twilight looked at me, shocked. What was she shocked about? I looked back at her, and then started to move further into the library. “I just want to talk to him.” Then I remembered another part of it. With a quick movement, I showed off the surprise that I had meant to give to Spike when I went up there. First, though, I would have to get permission. 

I heard a sigh, as if she was deeply contemplating what to say next. That was something that I could work with, actually, given the fact that it meant she was thinking. She might have said yes, or no, but at least it wasn’t something that she was going to decide quickly. A quick answer would have probably been no, considering the fact that it was Spike who had been hurt more than I had.

I felt horrible when I thought about it.

“Please, Twi?” I had to make sure that it went in my favor, and that meant showing feelings. I really hated doing that, but she had to know how important this was to me. “I really just want to make sure that he’s okay.” I had to get to see him, or my entire day would be ruined. That was something that I wasn’t going to tell her, though.

I didn’t want to sound like a drama queen, Rarity had that job taken.

“I’m probably going to regret this.” That was either a really good sign, or a really bad sign. I still wasn’t sure about which one it was. “But … okay. You can go up there and talk to him.” Twilight looked at me, then the cupcake, then back at me. “When you come back out, tell me if I need to change his bandages. I read in a book that not changing the bandages enough can lead to infection.”

“Couldn’t you just … magically heal him or something?” Maybe it was something about being a pegasus, and not having had any classes in magic, but it made perfect sense to me. Magic could do a lot of things, this just seemed like it was probably one of them.

“Sure, let me just go up there and cast ‘cure light wound’.” I had no clue what she was talking about, but I heard a snort and a chuckle. When she noticed my confused look, she simply waved it off and pointed me up the stairs. “Don’t worry, Rainbow. But, sadly, that’s not something that I can do.” 

I decided to just listen to her, and head upstairs. The cupcake had to be put back into my bag, of course, because it would have sucked to drop it halfway up. I would have had to give him my eclair, and I definitely wasn’t going to do that. It had been hard enough to not eat it yet, and after I left I would probably do that. Even I knew it was rude to eat in front of ponies, or at least it was rude to eat in front of ponies who weren’t eating.

And from how Twilight had talked, it would just be rude to eat in front of the dragon. I didn’t know why, it just seemed that way. After all, I came here to talk to him to see how he was doing.

When I got up to the room that he was in, or at least the one I assumed he was in, I knocked on the door. Even though I hadn’t knocked to get into the library, this was different. This wasn’t a room that was a public room, the library was obviously public. That was why it was called a public library, and not a private library. Even I knew that.

“No, Twilight, I’m all right. You need to continue your studies, I’m not going to die. Seriously.”

I stifled a chuckle. Out of everything that I had heard downstairs, I had assumed that he was going to be in horrible condition. He still might have been, but it sounded to me like Twilight might have overestimated how badly be was hurt. “Nah, Spike, it isn’t Twilight. Mind if I come in?”

A couple of moments passed, before he started to chuckle. “Rainbow, come on in. I would have come see you, but … well, you’ll see when you get in.”

I slowly opened the door, and my mouth immediately fell open. It didn’t make sense that he would be laughing. Twilight’s bed was taken up, by Spike of course. There was a lot of bandages, covering an obviously deeply wounded dragon. One of his legs was raised, and held by rope. I didn’t know a lot about medicine, but it looked like a cast had been made.

There were also wires coming off of him that led to what could only be a heart monitor.

I was worried.

“I’m sorry, Spike. I didn’t know that it was this bad.” Was I crying? That didn’t happen, I didn’t cry. Then again, I usually didn’t put my friends in a situation where they needed to have a heart monitor. “Twi told me that you might need to have your bandages changed, but I didn’t know it would be this terrible. I-” I saw him cut me off.

“First of all, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” I saw him point to his leg. “My ankle was broke, and she read that this was the best way to let it heal. A cast and elevation.” Then I saw him motion over most of him, as if he was going to explain had caused the rest of it. “I had a few cuts, and she read that bandages were the best way to stop infection. She also read that it was best if they were changed every few hours.”

My eyes moved to the machine, and he sighed.

“I made the mistake of telling her my chest hurt. I didn’t mean my heart, but she wasn’t hearing it. She told me that she has to make sure that it’s normal for a couple more days before she can take the wires off.” Spike motioned for me to take a couple of steps closer, then he looked around as if he was going to tell me a giant secret. “And it’s a good thing, too. These things itch like no other.”

I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. Apparently, he thought it was funny enough to start laughing with me. There was still something about this whole thing that felt like it was my fault. He had just told me otherwise, but that didn’t help me as much as I would have hoped.

“So, what did you come here for?” Spike quickly bit his lip, right as I took a step back. “Not that I don’t want you in here, but … aren’t you busy with weather work?”

“I got that done about half an hour ago.” That was the truth. For once, I wasn’t just slacking off. For once, I had been able to get an entire day’s worth of work within a small amount of time. “So I decided to come see how you were doing. I mean, Fluttershy told me how you were the one that brought me to her cabin.” The idea that it could have been worse, along with how Fluttershy had described it, came back to my mind. “And now that I’m here, I feel like keeping you company.”

Part of me told the rest of me to slow down, that I had planned to go over and see Fluttershy today. Another part of me told that part to shut up. I knew that Fluttershy needed me, but she might have also needed some space. It had been my own instinct to push things that had ruined our nice dinner. If I just went over there, there was no telling what might happen. For all I knew, I could have made the entire thing worse with a quick reappearance.

Either that, or I was trying to convince myself that she didn’t need me today. I could go see her tomorrow, that would likely be good enough.

“That’s awfully sweet of you, Rainbow, but you probably have a lot better things to do.”

That was, for once, not true. I wanted to make sure that I was able to be at my best before I tried that stunt again. Then there was Fluttershy, who I had reasoned didn’t actually need to see me today. Napping was all well and good, but I didn’t feel like it. After all, this guy was trapped here without a single pony that he could really talk to.

It was my duty to entertain him.

“Nah, I was just gonna do a lot of napping today.” That was mostly the truth, I had scheduled a lot of naps today. I scheduled a lot of naps every day, without fail. Then again, those naps always helped me make sure that I could perform those awesome tricks. Ponies generally didn’t understand it, and I doubted that my current audience would understand it either. “This is way cooler than some nap. Besides, how often do we get to hang out?”

Spike looked up, then smiled.

“Okay, Rainbow, you win. But before we do, you might want to go get Twilight. She’d rush in here later if you didn’t tell her about the bandages.” His smile had gone, it seemed almost like he had surrendered to the idea of the bandages being changed every few hours. There was likely nothing he could really do about it, after all.

“Sure thing, Spike.” I walked over to the door, opened it up, then took a few steps toward the stairs. “Hey, Twi! You said you wanted to change the bandages, right? Well, I figured I’d give you the heads up before I went back in there. Let you do your … whatever you want to call it.”

By the time she came up, she was wearing a nurse’s hat. 

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

Unfortunately, I would have to be standing out there for another fifteen minutes. Occasionally, I heard Twilight saying something about how Spike needed to stay still. A couple of times, I heard her say something about his heart, the sound of writing, and then what sounded like a relieved sigh. I didn’t know what to make of that, so I tried to ignore it.

I couldn’t believe that it would take that long to change the bandages for somepony that had magic. Then again, I had thought that she would have been able to magically heal him. Apparently, I thought magic was capable of things that it wasn’t actually capable of doing. Either that, or I assumed that Twilight would be able to do anything with magic.

I think it was more the second, she was the element of magic after all.

“All right, you can go back in. If something looks suspicious to you, let me know.” Twilight stepped out of the room, and I walked in. When I saw Spike, he looked like he had even more bandages than before. His  claws were bandaged together, each of them now being a single claw for a hand. Once again, words escaped me.

They didn’t escape him, it seemed. As soon as Twilight hit the bottom stair, he let out the largest sigh. “I made the mistake of saying that my claws hurt. I think it was just some sort of cramp. But when I did, she said something about a new wound and wrapped it up.” Spike looked at me, all amusement was gone from his face. Apparently, this had gone to an annoying extreme.

“Luckily, she took the wires off me.” 

I glanced over at the machine, which had been powered down. There weren’t any wires on him, either. That was a good sign. Now all he had to do was heal the rest of the way, with the cuts and the broken ankle. I knew that last one, the ankle, could take a long time to heal.

“Rainbow, I need to ask you for the biggest favor.”

Out of everything that I had come here to do, a favor wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t adverse to them, but I hardly knew of anything that I could do. I certainly wasn’t brave enough to go try to talk Nurse Twilight out of her patient. I had been lucky enough to be able to see him in the first place, she might go overboard and kick me out.

That wouldn’t be cool.

“Sure thing, Spike. What do you need?” Why did I just say that? I could have asked him what he needed, and then decided from there. That would have actually been the smart thing for me to, but I hadn’t done that. Instead, I had just given him the okay to ask me to do anything that he actually wanted me to do.

This could turn out bad for me.

“Can you fly me out of here? I need to feel the wind on my scales …” He looked down at the bandages, and I smirked. “Well, on what scales can actually feel the wind.” 

That still left me wondering if that was a good idea. It might have sounded like a fun idea, it was always fun to go flying, but something told me it wouldn’t end well. It wasn’t like I was going to drop him, but Twilight would freak out if she knew what he asked. She might even tie him to the bed, ask me to leave, and tie him to the bed again. It wouldn’t turn out good for anyone.

Yet, I looked at his face. Spike looked desperate, or at least a little desperate, and I couldn’t help myself. There was just something about that face that I had a hard time saying no to. I wouldn’t tell Fluttershy about this, she would probably make a big deal about it. It didn’t mean anything, it just meant that I felt bad for the little guy.

It was my fault he was like this.

“All right, but we’re going to have to be careful.” I moved to the elevated leg, and slowly removed the rope. Spike seemed to be able to take things from there, and I noticed that he did his best to make sure that he didn’t slam the cast into the bed. 

Then again, I thought casts protected the leg as it healed. The whole thing with the elevated leg seemed to be a bit of overkill. “And now.” I took a few steps, and then I was right next to his bed. “You’re going to have to not make too much noise. I’m going to help you move onto my back, wrap your arms around my neck.”

I didn’t even hear the hoofsteps as they moved up the stairs. 

“We wouldn’t want Twi to-” The door started to open, and I quickly did the only thing I could think to do. I quickly bolted out the window, even though it wasn’t open. It was a good thing that Spike had quickly gripped, or our little escape wouldn’t have gone that well. I would have been able to escape, but he would have probably just fell from the bed.

That wouldn’t have helped anypony. It wouldn’t have even been funny, not with the fact that it would probably make Twi freak out even more. It would likely have led to him being chained to the bed, without guests, all because of what I had done. The thing that did happen, though, is that I saw a surprised look from a unicorn.

Hopefully, Twilight would forgive me eventually. Wait, no, I hoped that she would forgive me soon after I explained to her why I had done what I did. Of course, before I could do that I would have to understand why it is I did what I did.

“You okay back there, Spike?” I had to get my mind onto something more simple. If Spike wasn’t doing well, I probably needed to slow down to make sure that his grip didn’t slip. Another possibility was that we could head to the ground level, but that ran the risk of the two of us running into Twilight. I guessed that she would probably be out looking for Spike.

“A-as well as can be expected.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

“I was wondering, Rainbow.” That never went well for me. Those words had come before he had asked a favor from me, and I had just went through a window. I just now started to feel a couple of small cuts, though they weren’t anything major. I was almost afraid to hear the rest of it, almost wanted to cut him off, but the words didn’t come to me. “Do you think you could take us to a cloud? It’d be way easier to hide from Twilight if we were on a cloud.”

I was glad I hadn’t stopped him, that was actually a pretty good idea. “Hang on tight, Spike. There’s a nice cloud or two that I left at Sweet Apple Acres.” As soon as I felt that he had a really firm grip, I shot through the air toward the orchard. Today was supposed to be a clear day, but I always made sure to leave myself a couple of clouds to sleep on.

Today was slightly after noon, it was the perfect time for us to take a nap.

Then again, I wasn’t going there to take a nap. I was going there for … I didn’t know why I was going there. It didn’t make much sense for me to take him there, but he had asked. I should have said no to the whole thing, yet I hadn’t. Oh well, it was time for me to go the rest of the way through with this. I couldn’t just leave him hanging, he hadn’t left me hanging.

“And here we are, Spike.” I had softly landed on the cloud, which was generally what happened when I landed on clouds. I arched my head to look at him, but it was actually difficult. “Hey, little guy-”

“Just call me Spike, okay? Always little guy…” It was obvious that it bugged him a little, or maybe a lot, so I cleared my throat. 

“Hey, Spike, you mind if I let you lay on my stomach? As cool as it would be to let you lay on my back, it’s kinda hard to talk to you.” I put my hoof, my front right hoof, into the cloud. “And something tells me that you’d find it a lot harder than me to sit on your own.”

I heard grumbling at the last part, then the grip loosened. “All right, all right. I don’t know what to do, so you go on ahead and do it.”

That would make things difficult.

“Try to use both of your hands to grab hold of one of my legs, and then I’ll swing around.” I put the one that I wanted him to try to grab up, and he was surprisingly good at following directions. It must have come from being Twilight’s assistant for so long.

She seemed a little bossy sometimes.

A quick swing, my other hooves moving to make sure he didn’t get dropped, and he was laying on my chest and stomach. I was actually surprised that it had gone this well, the last time I had tried to do this was when I was trying to come up with a stunt. The bag of flour hadn’t been as easy to get, and so it had ended up hitting Applejack in the head.

This time, it was incident free.

“So, Spike, what ha-” I looked down to see that he wasn’t awake anymore. Apparently, he was more tired than he had let on. There was something else that I had noticed, though. Actually, there were two things that I noticed. Spike’s scales were amazingly warm, I could tell even though it wasn’t all that chilly up there. The second thing that I had noticed was that he was kind of cute when he was sleeping.

I was determined to never tell anypony about that thought, except maybe Fluttershy.

My wings moved to cover him, both to serve as a blanket and to serve as another measure of keeping him safely there. It would really have sucked if I ended up waking up to the sound of him falling to his doom. 

Even if Twilight would forgive me for that, I doubt I would. 

But that wasn’t going to happen, I was sure. My eyes started to close, a nap didn’t seem like the worst idea. At the very least, it would have been boring for me to stay up and watch Spike sleep. That would be more boring than almost anything I had done in the past couple weeks. The sound of a snoring Spike was soon followed by my own snoring.

I hoped it wouldn’t attract too much attention.

~Some time later~
-Spike-

What had I been thinking?

Okay, I knew what I had been thinking. The past three days had involved me being on Twilight’s bed. That wouldn’t have been so bad on its own, but she had gone crazy. This had been my perfect chance to get to see the outside for a while, and I had taken it. I hadn’t even realized that I had been tired.

Then again, the sleep that I had gotten while restrained hadn’t been that much or that good. I slowly opened my eyes, and did my best not to move. It would be terrible if I fell. I didn’t have to know how high I was, I knew I was high enough for it to hurt if I fell. Wings were covering me, and four hooves were holding me there. 

Apparently, Rainbow felt the same way.

I looked at her face, there was a smile. I bet she was having that dream again, where she was able to get into the Wonderbolts. It would happen eventually, in real life, and then she would probably go off and be the best flier they ever had.

At this point, right now, I had started to get bored watching her sleep. I could be forgiven for waking her up, I knew she wasn’t the type that would hold a grudge. I wanted to take a single claw, and use it to poke her cheek. That was even what I tried to do, but the bandages made that a little more difficult to do.

Instead, I basically patted her cheek.

I saw her eyes open up, and then heard the yawn. “Rainbow, I need some advice.”

“Always eat your veggies and get a good night sleep, then you’ll be as awesome as me.” The words were half-mumbled, I barely understood what was being said. I couldn’t really work with that, it didn’t have anything to do with the thing that I hadn’t asked her about yet.

I had to wake her up.

A few ideas came to mind, and the one that I went with seemed like the best idea at the time. Both of my bandages up hands moved for a spot, under her wings. I remembered Twilight saying that directly under the wings, where they connect to the body, was one of the most ticklish spots on the body of a pegasus. She said something else about the tips, but I barely heard her.

She had started to lower her voice, and only told me that I didn’t need to know. Something about how I was too young.

It turns out, she was right. All I had really needed to know was about where to tickle Rainbow, since the laughter burst out and she started to move around. I saw her eyes quickly open, but that wasn’t it. Her wings moved out, as she tried to do something about it, and her legs flailed around.

There was nothing to grip me, and soon I almost fell.

“Oh crabapples.” I heard her say as I was quickly grabbed. “Don’t you ever do that again, Spike. What would have happened if I hadn’t realized I wasn’t holding you anymore? With you tickling me, you could have fallen.”

I actually hadn’t thought of that. I guess that I had assumed that Rainbow wouldn’t move around so much, or that even if she did she would still be able to catch me. “I knew you’d never let me fall. You’re the fastest flier in Equestria, right?” If nothing else would work, I knew that playing to her ego would have a great chance of working.

And it did.

~Back to Rainbow~

It had actually been luck that had helped me catch him before he fell, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. I was the fastest flier, I was the best pegasus in the history of the pegasus. Of course, that still left me wondering why it was that he had woken me up like that.

“You know it!”

I smiled at him, quickly moving a hoof to pat him on the head. “And don’t let anypony tell you otherwise.” I really needed to focus on what I needed to ask him. “So, what’cha need, sq- Spike?”

I looked at his face, saw some conflict.

“So.” 

I heard him start. It wasn’t a horrible start, but I really hoped that he wouldn’t take forever to get whatever it was out. 

“Can you keep a secret?”

That was the start of it? I wasn’t sure what to say, this was obviously more important than normal advice. It was probably not about Twilight, or getting stronger, or anything like that. He was going to trust me with something. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” I didn’t even know why it was that I did that, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

“I have a crush on Rarity.”

That was the secret? I could have sworn that wasn’t a secret. There had been the shirt that said “I heart Rarity” with the heart being a symbol for a heart. I didn’t think anypony was unaware of that secret, except maybe Rarity herself. I wasn’t even sure that she didn’t know about it, since figuring out what she thought was next to impossible. Still, I had to at least pretend to be shocked.

Nah, that was way too much effort.

“I don’t know how I can help you with that, unless you just wanted to tell me about it.”

“No, no, I needed your advice.” Spike said again, though he didn’t say how. “I know you’re awesome. If you wanted something, or if you wanted to go out with somepony, you’d be able to get it done.” That wasn’t completely true, I still didn’t know anything about dating somepony. It was bound to happen eventually, but it hadn’t happened yet.

“I was hoping you might give me some advice on how I could get Rarity to fall for me.”