//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: A Dragon's Duty 
// by CalebH 
//------------------------------//

A Dragon’s Duty



Sunlight. Spike had missed this; the warm radiant light shone down on him and chased a chill through his scaly hide. Slumbering away in caves for decades on end was a dragon pastime but he wasn’t a dragon, not really. After just a week he had missed the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and his friends. As much as he enjoyed sleep It just wasn’t worth what he gave up for it.

Spike stretched his wings to their maximum expanse and let out a tremendous yawn. His claws tore at the grassy earth beneath him as he did a few cat-like stretches to loosen up his muscles. 

It was a beautiful day. Celestia had done well setting the sun in the sky and even the dark foreboding Everfree forest around a dragon’s cave could not help but look bright and cheery and even that dragon could not help but smile. In pony terms Spike was far too old to feel this good, of course in pony terms Spike was too old to be anything but dust.

“A bit early for contemplating mortality there Spike, you’re not even a century and a half yet,” The dragon chided himself ruefully.
He padded over to a nearby stream where he took a clawful of sand and put it his mouth. He scrubbed the sand around his teeth, trying to rid himself of legendary morning breath that was his heritage. Several rinses and some admiring of his reflection later Spike was on his way. The path from his cave to Ponyville had once been nothing more than a half hidden trail through the dense forest but the passage of a dragon had opened it up into a broad road.

Ponyville had not grown significantly since Spike had first arrived; it was one of the few villages in Equestria that seemed to be content with being just a village without withering away.

Spike hovered at the outskirts of the village square for a moment as he watched ponies go by. Ponyville knew him well enough not to fear him but being among ponies like this was often jarring. Stallions and mares who were grandchildren of some of the first ponies he met were starting to show signs of age as their own children scampered around beneath them. Yet in the blink of an eye these children would be grown with families of their own.

Spike shook his head and remembered the words Celestia had told him. “Mortals will only seem to come and go faster if you step back from them. As much as you can you must be one of them, and when you are even eternity will seem too short.”
Spike closed his eyes and gently shook his head to clear his thoughts. He opened his eyes again slowly, hoping that only a few seconds had passed and not years. Staring back at him were a pair of bright golden, and slightly crossed, eyes.

“Hey Spike,” The brown pegasus mare they were attached to said.

“Hey Dizzy,” Spike rumbled back.

“How was your nap?”

“Short. I thought I might get some cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner to help me wake up,” Spike said as he gently started moving forward.

The residents of Ponyville gave Spike a wide berth as he moved through the crowd. Spike didn’t like seeing others shy back from him but he know one wrong step and he could easily crush a pony beneath him. Spike’s path eventually led him to Sugarcube Corner. The gingerbread house styled building still looked good enough to eat. But as good as the building looked the treats baked inside were still that much better.

“You get in line,” Spike said to Dizzy, “I’m going to go say hi to Fruity.”

“Spike,” Dizzy said with a frown, “you know she doesn’t like it when you do that.”

The only reply Dizzy got was a smirk from Spike as he made his way around the bakery.

Through the open kitchen window Spike could see Fruit Cake, a carbon copy of her matronly grandmother Cup Cake. In a nearby cabinet gleamed a few modest piles of ground gemstones that went to decorating cakes for the shops single draconic customer. As good as they were on top of the shops legendary baked goods Spike couldn’t resist trying to sneak some as they sat.

Before he could get his head anywhere near the cabinet he wanted he was stopped by a wooden mixing spoon rapping on his snout. While Fruit Cake may have looked like her sweet grandmother she had a swing stronger than most of Equestria’s guard and a will that brought even the indomitable Pinkie Pie to behave in her kitchen.

“I know that isn’t Spike because I specifically told him that the next time a dragon tried to sneak ingredients from my kitchen that I’d dig them out of his belly with this spoon.”

Spike went cross-eyed for a moment trying to look at the spoon shaped patch of flower on his nose. Even through his thick scales Spike’s snout hurt where he had been hit. Despite that and despite her stern demeanor Spike knew she was nothing but a big softie.

“Good morning to you too Fruity,” Spike said with his usual smirk.

“It’s two in the afternoon Spike.”

“Well you try sleeping seven days straight and waking up on time,” Spike said with a huff.

His remark was met only with a raised eyebrow from the stern baker.

“Okay five and a half; I had some trouble getting to sleep after… well after doing what Twilight asked,” Spike admitted.
Looking at the floor remorsefully Spike didn’t see the floury hug coming. “Hey there big guy, its okay.”

Spike moved his head slightly to return the hug but when he did a peculiar burning sensation invaded his nostrils. As quick as a snake he slipped out of the hug and withdrew his head from the bakery window. Just in time he turned his snout skyward and let loose a fiery sneeze.

“A-CHOO!”

All of Ponyville stopped to stare at the sneezing dragon for a moment, making sure that yes, it was their resident dragon and not some other beast that had sneezed and no, he had not accidentally sent a wall, tree, or some other object to one of the princesses.
Hearing chuckles behind him Spike turned around to find a laughing Dizzy.

“Do you know how silly you look with your face all white like that?” she asked.

Spike reached out and grasped the laughing mare in his claws and unceremoniously wiped his face off with her fur. 
“Not half so silly as you do,” Spike laughed as he put her down.

“Do I have to separate you two again?” asked a stern voice from the kitchen door.

Spike and dizzy turned to see Fruit Cake regarding him and Dizzy with a stern frown.

“No,” The floury dragon and pegasus said together.

“Good,” Fruit Cake said with a firm nod. “Now do you want cherry sapphire or blueberry ruby?”

Spike brought a claw up to his chin and scratched it thoughtfully. “I actually think I might go for vanilla diamond today.”

Fruit Cake raised an eyebrow at this, “Feeling a bit fancy today are we?”

“Well Princess Celestia did say she wanted to see me in Canterlot once I woke up.”

“Spike, she’s not going to be expecting you for another year at least; she wrote the books about how dragons sleep,” Fruit Cake chided.

“She edited a paper Twilight wrote,” Spike said, “And besides, a dragon is never late. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.” Spike’s declaration about dragon punctuality was met with blank stares from his two companions. “Nopony knows the classics anymore,” he grumbled.

“Do you want anything while I’m making his cupcake, Dizzy?” Fruit Cake asked as Spike went on to bemoan the state of public education.

“Some oatmeal and brown sugar muffins if it’s not too much trouble,” Dizzy said over the rolling thunder of the dragon’s muttering.

“I’m making a dragon sized cupcake, it’s already too much trouble,” Fruit Cake groused good naturedly, “They’ll be out in a bit.”
By the time the baked goods were finished Spike had reached a cadence in his lengthy spiel about the woes of the modern education system.

“Is he still going on about that?” Fruit Cake asked around the bag of muffins in her mouth. On her back was a cupcake that was bigger than most wedding cakes.

“He’s gone from public to private schools,” Dizzy offered.

“Well he has to make progress sometime,” Fruit Cake said as she traded off the bag of muffins.

“Hey, I’m trying to impart the wisdom of the ages over here, could you try not talking over me?” Spike said as he plucked the giant cupcake off of Fruit Cake’s back and began delicately peeling off the paper bottom.

“Our apologies, O Wizened One, please continue,” Fruit Cake said with a smirk.

“No matter how big or small, it’s only a cupcake if it has the paper on it,” Spike said distractedly as the last of the paper bottom came off.

“Truer words were never spoken,” Dizzy said with mock reverence between bites of muffin.

“Huh,” Spike said, spraying crumbs of the former massive cupcake in his mouth.

Fruit Cake wiped some crumbs off of herself and looked at the small flock of birds eyeing the crumbs and chirping excitedly.

“Let it never be said that Sugarcube Corner isn’t a classy place,” She grumbled with an eye roll.

With a tremendous lick to clean his face of diamond and frosting and a deep belch Spike made his satisfaction known. With a smaller belch Dizzy echoed the sentiment.

“I’m going back to work before you two barbarians start dancing around a campfire.” 

In hindsight Spike and Dizzy really weren’t in the best mindset to receive such corrections. Also a dragon and a pegasus can go from 'demolishing baked goods' to 'dancing like barbarians around a campfire' in approximately the same amount of time it took Fruit Cake to realize how foolish saying that was.

“Just...so classy,” Fruit Cake sighed while returning to the kitchen. Before she could return to her work she felt a nudge on her shoulder.

“Luna’s moon, Spike if you go for those gems again I am going to kill you!”

The nudge became a crushing weight as Spike rested his head on the mare. “Back in my day ponies only ever swore by Celestia,” he said wistfully.

“I’m serious! I already have a longsword ordered and everything.”

“Me too, this is some genuine cultural development I’m observing over here.”

“I’ll develop your culture!” Fruit growled from underneath Spike’s head.

Spike relented and lifted his head with a breathy chortle. “Hey,” he said gently after Fruit had regained her stance. “Thanks for putting up with me. I know I like to joke around but it really means a lot to me.”

His sincerity was met with a mixing spoon to the snout.

“Don’t you try to sweet talk your way out of this you overgrown lizard!”

“Hey!” In hindsight Spike really should have run sooner.

“Don’t you ‘Hey!’ me you great gallumping pile of scales, I ought to skin you alive and make you sell your own scaly hide to the museum! Then I’ll ride you back home and make you slave over a hot oven while I run around making a nuisance of myself. Would you like that? Huh? HUH?” Fruit Cake punctuated every other syllable with a strike to Spike’s retreating snout; going so far as to chase him out of the kitchen, past the still-dancing Dizzy and jumping to land the last blow in his tail as he took to the air.

“And that,” Fruit said triumphantly as she turned towards Dizzy, “Is how you take care of a dragon infestation".