Spike immediately stopped shuddering, his wails slowly turned into whimpers before fading away completely. He remained buried in Rainbow’s hug feeling a strange surge of emotions flowing through him. It felt, nice. He slowly pulled back from the hug looking at Rainbow with a small smile on his face and said, “Thanks Dash.”
“Anytime Spike, anytime.” Rainbow replied. She wasn’t entirely sure what possessed her to hug the little drake but she was sure of one thing. She liked it. A smile started to grow on her face as she came up with an idea to cheer Spike up. “Hey Spike, I want to show you something!”
“Sure Rainbow, what is it?” Spike said, slowly becoming more and more animated. Rainbow’s excitement was infectious and he soon found himself giggling. His eyes became less red and he rubbed them to get rid of any signs of the tears he had had. “Can we take it easy though on the way there? I kinda want to take it easy…” he said, looking down. Rainbow looked at him, and put a hoof under his chin lifting it up. When she was finally looking eye to eye with the dragon, she smiled and said,
“Of course Spike, wanna ride?”
“But Rainbow, I thought you liked to hover along next to me when we walked. I don’t want to keep you landlocked just for me!” Spike said, not really understanding the big grin on Rainbow’s face as she picked him up and threw him on her back.
“Who said anything about being on the ground?”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” Spike shouted as he and Rainbow soared into the air, Rainbow graceful as a soaring eagle, while Spike held on for dear life. Eventually he managed to calm down and relax his hold on his friend. He looked around and saw the most beautiful sight of his life. The sun was just about to set, the stars were just about to come out and Rainbow was looking at him with a small smile on her face. Wait.
What was that last part? Spike shook his head, and focused once more on the amazing view unfolding around him. The sunset was quickly turning the night as Rainbow came to a landing on some secluded hills not too far outside of Ponyville. “Hop off Spike, we’re almost there!” Rainbow said; bouncing with each step she took towards a small cave that was situated within the hillside. The pair entered the cave, and Spike gasped as he looked out upon a beautiful natural spring that filled the cave. Glowing gem outcrops and veins were protruding from the walls providing a magical sort of atmosphere. “What do you think? I found it during one of my routines when I took shelter from an Everfree storm.”
“It’s amazing” Spike said, completely in awe of the cave, “These gems look so cool, I wouldn’t even dream of snacking on one of them. This place is also pretty old, seems almost as old as that castle in the Everfree.” He finished examining the cave and looked at Rainbow, “Why are we here Rainbow? I mean it’s great and all, but…”
“Well I know one thing that’ll get your mind off of things.” Rainbow said, a mischievous grin coming over her face. “In fact…”
“Oh you are not going t-” SPLASH. Rainbow had just tackled Spike knocking him full force into the spring. “It. Is. So. ON!” and with that, the splash war began. Neither side could get an edge. At first it seemed like Rainbow had the advantage, using her wings as weapons, she created great tsunamis that crashed against Spike’s defenses. But then the tide turned as Spike, with a heroic battle cry, dunked the cyan mare underwater winning the contest and declaring himself master of the waves. As Rainbow resurfaced, spewing water out of her mouth, Spike began that most time honoured tradition at the end of a great conflict. “I wonnnnnnnnnnn” He was about to break out into a custom song that he wrote to signify the defeat of the enemy force when Rainbow began to give him the largest tickle attack ever received by a dragon.
“No! Stop! I surrender!” Spike giggled as Rainbow continued her merciless assault. Finally after getting Spike to admit she was the true queen of the splash wars, she ceased her attack and both of them lay panting on the edge of the spring giggling at each other.
“Now tell me something Spike, do I know how to have fun or what?” Rainbow said, shaking off some of the excess water onto Spike who was now both tickled and wet again.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess you know how to have somewhat of a good time.” He laughed as he used his flame breath to quickly dry himself off. “Oh man, what time is it? Twi’s going to kill me!” He rushed out to the mouth of the cave and made some quick astronomical calculations. “Ok,” he said, “It’s just after 11 pm, if I hurry I can make it home just before 12.”
Rainbow looked at Spike running around and made some quick decisions, she said quietly, “You know Spike; you can send Twilight a letter if you wanna come hang with me for the night?” Spike looked at her waiting for her to continue. With more confidence, she said “We can work on some super cool tricks and stuff! Ooh I can show you my Wonderbolts collection, or my Daring Do gear! It’ll be a lot of fun. Please Spike pleaseeeeeeee.” Rainbow then began the most adorable cute face that Spike had ever seen, and after a second’s hesitation, he agreed. “YAY THIS NIGHT JUST GOT 20% COOLER”
“Alright just lemme write a letter,”
Dear Twilight, princess of the library, yadda yadda ,
I’m going to stay at Rainbow’s tonight for some epic hangouts! Be back in the morning.
Love Spike,
“There, that should do the trick” Spike said as he looked at Rainbow who was being very Pinkie Piesque at the moment. The whole floating without wings trick didn’t look as cool on a pegasus who, well, had wings, but the fact that they weren’t flapping was pretty cool. “Hey Dash, you ready to go?”
“Sure thing Spike, hop on!”
Meanwhile at the boutique
“They’re having a sleepover?” Twilight said to Rarity who was currently pacing in front of a large billboard with pictures of Spike and Rainbow pinned together with string crisscrossing their different likes and dislikes. In fact, Twilight thought to herself that the whole thing looked like a scene from that new Sherlock Hooves book she was reading. “Rarity, can you hear me?”
“Quiet darling I’m pondering, a lady must not be disturbed when pondering.”
‘Yep, just like the book’ Twilight thought to herself, “I just thought you should know that Spike and Rainbow are having a slumber party tonight at Rainbow’s place. Seems that they may like each other after all,”
Rarity froze, and then slowly rotated in a very creepy way towards Twilight. Lightning flashed outside the window, as Rarity moved closer and closer before standing on her two hind legs and saying “Twilight! Fetch my cloak; we are going to find out more about this “slumber party” and you are going to help me my faithful assistant princess!”
“But Rarity, isn’t spying on our friends, kinda, I don’t know, weird?”
“Oh dear Twilight, you don’t understand! We aren’t spying, we are simply going out for a stroll on a cloud that just so happens to be right outside Rainbows cloud house while wearing dark clothing and using a sound muffling spell and using…” Rarity continued on while Twilight rubbed her temples with her hoof and said under her hoof,
“Oh brother here we go again”