"Wow Spike! This is pretty good!" Babs was surprised. When Spike had brought out several plates of hay fries, daisy burgers, dandelion bites, and a whole veggie pizza, it had been a surprise. When that same food had almost lived up to Apple Family cooking standards, that was incredible.
"Gee thanks. I don't tend to make easy foods like this when Twilight's around, so I might be out of practice."
"Mmph." Scootaloo swallowed her mouthful of hay fries. "Still good food."
"Easy Scoots, you keep eatin' like that and you're gonna get all fat." Applebloom mimed waddling around, earning a giggle from Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo merely struck a pose.
"No way! I'm working hard to be as good as Dash, and I'm gonna burn every ounce of fat if that's what it takes!"
Sweetie and Applebloom rolled their eyes. Babs smiled. Spike chuckled.
"I think you're still going to need to practice Scootaloo. How much air time are you getting?"
"Hey, I might not have flying down, but I can move!"
Babs chewed thoughtfully on a dandelion bite. "So does this sort of thing happen a lot?"
"Huh?" Applebloom looked up from her daisy burger.
"The whole super apple thing?"
"Well, it's more common than we'd like." Sweetie nodded.
Spike shrugged. "I almost tore down the town once."
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. And those parasprites would've eaten everything after Twilight magicked them." Scootaloo crammed a hoofful of hayfries into her mouth by way of example. Or maybe just because she was hungry.
"The pinkie pie clones-" Sweetie rolled her eyes.
"Trixie taking over Ponyville." Applebloom shuddered.
"Applejack almost poisoning half the town with her Baked Bads." Spike grinned. "They tasted pretty good to me, but I think more ponies remember the bad part."
"Twilight and that Want-It Need-It spell." Applebloom and Scootaloo nodded at Sweetie's comment.
"You three and that Love Poison." Spike grinned at the embarrassed smiles from the Crusaders.
Babs just raised an eyebrow incredulously. "You guys are going to have a lot of stories to share."
Spike smiled. "Hey, we've got time."
***
Babs couldn't sleep. At least at the Apple homestead there was a feeling of home. Family. A familiar setting. But Ponyville was much more quiet than Manehatten, and between that and being in an unfamiliar home, she couldn't get herself to calm down.
The stories had been incredible. The fact that Spike had pictures, and Twilight kept copies of her messages, organized by date even, made it hard to doubt them. Sure, the Big City was more active than Ponyville, but Babs was having a hard time saying whether or not it might be worthwhile to look into a longer stay at Sweet Apple Acres. Maybe some kind of extended stay over the summer?
She rolled over, looking at the sleeping forms of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Applebloom was sleeping soundly. Scootaloo was sprawled on top of her sleeping bag, twitching. Sweetie seemed to be mumbling something about her sister. Spike had moved his basket downstairs to contribute to the storytelling, and was curled up.
"Sweetie, hey?" Babs whispered, trying to see if anyone else was suffering the same effects. Sweetie snorted slightly with a smile. Something about making her sister proud mumbled out of her sleeping mouth.
"Scoots?" The orange pegasus filly tilted her head, letting a long strand of drool ooze out of her mouth. Not much progress there.
"Applebloom?" The young Apple had fallen into the sleep of a farmer, dead to the world and waiting for the dawn. Babs sighed.
"Spike?"
"Yeah?"
Babs blinked in surprise as Spike uncurled himself, blinking back at her.
"Sorry, I can't sleep."
"Yeah, it's sort of weird having a lot of ponies here. You wanna get something to drink in the kitchen?"
Babs nodded, and the two figures headed into the kitchen.
Spike headed to the cabinets, quietly getting out mugs as Babs settled into a chair. He started warming some milk on the stove in preparation for hot chocolate.
"Sorry, I guess it's just.. you know. New place."
"You're fine Babs. Probably a little nervous hearing how crazy this town is normally." Spike gave her an amused smile which she returned.
"Nah, this place sounds kinda cool, since all the ponies seem to work hard to handle any problem that comes up. I did notice you didn't get around to mentioning how you almost tore down the town."
Spike nodded, getting the cocoa powder out.
"Not something I'm proud of, but, well- how much do you know about dragons?"
Babs shrugged. "Big? Scaly? Fire breathing? Mean, generally."
"Think I'm anything like that?"
Babs gave him an incredulous raised eyebrow as he poured the hot milk into the cups. "Do I need to actually say no here, or were you being rhetorical?"
Spike smiled, walking over, handing over the cup of cocoa before taking a sip of his own. "Well, turns out that when dragons start getting really greedy, they can get really big, and really mean. Ponies don't really know a lot about dragons, and dragons-" he made a face "-a lot of dragons are jerks."
"Found that out personally?"
"Oh yeah. See, what happened was that I got a lot of birthday presents. And greed seems to really affect dragons. I guess it's sort of like the Crusaders. You stop seeing the whole picture, and just start worrying about this one thing. I kept growing and growing, wanting more and more presents. I went on a rampage through town. Hang on."
He scuttled back into the main library foyer, leaving Babs with her cocoa. She took a sip and thought about that. Spike as some kind of rampaging monster? Impossible.
He returned with a photo album, flipping through it. "After.... before.... Ah! There we go."
He showed her the picture of the gigantic Spike that had menaced the town. She just stared at it, then at the tiny dragon before her. "You're kidding."
"Nope. See, after all this, I ended up getting helped by Rarity." He smiled and sighed happily. "She ended up reminding me that if I just kept wanting more, I'd never really be able to have friends. And, well, she helped me remember that I really do want friends.
"A while after, I decided to try and go hang out with the dragons, figure out a bit more about being a dragon. And that's where I found out about most other dragons being jerks. Well, I guess I'd had an unhappy run in with a larger dragon before that- my point is, most dragons care about not much more than themselves, and how to make themselves be big and tough. I really think the whole lot of them need some more friends."
Babs gave him an amused smile. "Now if I didn't know any better, I'd almost say you were telling me that a good cure against bullies is friends."
He chuckled. "Kinda obvious, huh? I really think sometimes the best thing you can do is remind someone that there's more to life than just themselves. Bullies try to make themselves better at the expense of others. But sometimes they're just jerks because they don't know any better."
"Mm. So if I now mentioned I hadn't been worrying about the bullies as much recently?"
"I'd say you're lying."
Bab's eyes went wide. "How-"
"Doesn't matter how wrong they are, or how much you shouldn't let it affect you, it always does. Twilight goes through that quite a bit, overthinking things like she does." Spike shrugged, taking another sip of cocoa. "Even if you're not thinking about it right now, I bet it was something on your mind. Part of why you went along with the Crusaders even though you were preeeetty sure you didn't have a Pony Cannonball cutie mark."
Babs rolled her eyes. "Ugh, that's going to be how I get remembered here, isn't it?"
"Probably." Spike grinned. "So what else was keeping you up?"
Babs gave him a glare. "I was pretty sure it was just trying to sleep in a new unfamiliar place, like I said. But now I'm not as sure."
Spike blinked, and blushed, scratching his neck. "Oh yeah, heh, that is a pretty good answer."
Babs took a swig of cocoa, wiping her mouth with her foreleg. "So what's up with Rarity?"
"Huh?"
"You got a crush on her or something?"
"I-uh-that is-uh." Spike blushed, eyes darting from side to side. Babs just grinned viciously. "Fine. Maybe I do. What's it to you?" He gave her his best grumpy glare.
Babs snickered. "Nothing. Just you keep getting all goo-goo eyed when you talk about her."
Spike rolled his eyes. "Ugh. Everyone keeps telling me it's silly. And I mean, they set me up with Sweetie Belle for the dance during the Canterlot wedding, and we get along pretty well so... I dunno. She seems to know I like her, maybe, and I know she likes me, kind of, so." He shrugged helplessly.
"So have you actually said anything about it?"
"Oh no! I mean, I almost did, but she smiled and stopped me, and I mean, I think she already knows, but..."
"Easy Spike. I think you might have your own little nagging thoughts."
Spike blinked and sighed. "Yeah." He stared at his cocoa.
Babs coughed. "How about we just both agree that we're crazy, and that's good enough?"
Spike blinked and smiled, before raising his cup to Babs. "To Friends, craziness, and maybe getting some sleep."
"Hear hear!" The mugs clinked off one another, and the two youths drained their cocoa.