//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14: Spike the Outlaw 
// Story: Zenith 
// by The Descendant 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 14: Spike the Outlaw
 
 
 
Fresh water always made her giggle.
 
She drifted in the current that poured across her from the river beyond with long, slow flicks of her flukes. The water of the river was so much lighter than the dense, dark seawater of the ocean. It played through the long strands of her hair, and the bubbles that had been captured in the water ran across the green and brown of her coat as her head rested gently on a large, smooth stone. They flitted along the undersides of her arms and tickled across the soft white of her chest and the green of her freckles.
 
Fresh water always made her giggle, and a spate of chuckles arose from her, expending the last of the air in her lungs. She released the rock and spun through the rising cloud of her own bubbles­—each of her giggles captured in shining spheres that floated around her.
 
The morning light caught in the water that cascaded from her hair and ran in rivulets across her shoulders and muzzle when she broke the surface. The air was cool, and the water suddenly seemed that much warmer by comparison. She ran her fingers through her hair, humming all the while as her body adjusted to the fresh water that surrounded her.
 
Daddy had taught her how to do this.
 
Her eyes lowered, and suddenly she was filled with a heaviness that the light buoyancy of the fresh water alone could not explain. She found herself staring into her own eyes, regarding herself in the surface of the estuary’s still waters.
 
Once upon a time, Daddy had brought her to a freshwater lake. The selkie smiled again when she remembered her father’s arms wrapping around her, keeping her safe while they swam through the underwater passages that shimmered with thick layers of blue and white ice.
 
The passages had led through a glacier, and when they’d emerged from the shimmering tunnels her head had popped up in a lake that stood locked between the glacier and a forest of trees erupting in autumn colors.
 
It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
 
She had been excited; she had wanted to breach the waters and flip through the air.
 
But instead she had felt sick.
 
Daddy had held her hand. Daddy had taught her to breathe slowly, to let her body change and adapt to the fresh water. She recalled how proud he had been. She remembered him fixing her hair, adjusting the childish braids and ornaments that jingled in the glacial currents.
 
Daddy had taught her about fresh water. That had been a long time ago, though.
 
The little selkie stared into her reflection—and then beat at it with her hand, making the surface of the river shimmer and shake.
 
That was back when she could still talk to boys, before her voice had become poison to them.
 
That was back before Daddy had gone away…
 
… and Mommy only cared about Baby now.
 
She lifted her eyes. The river called to her, making her giggle some more. It tickled her as it ran across her coat.
 
Fresh water always made her giggle.
 
Mountains covered in snow sat in the far distance. The bright green of a young spring sat in the budding leaves of the trees that crowded near the banks of the winding blue ribbon.
 
A new world sat up that corridor. She could taste all of the delights it offered in the fresh water snaked through the estuary. She took a long series of deep breaths, filling her lungs with air over and over until her blood was saturated. Her eyes never left the river, and when her body told her that it was prepared for the journey, the selkie dived beneath the surface of the water without leaving so much as a ripple.
 
She powered forward into whatever new adventures, new discoveries, and new worlds awaited her. While she swam her smile only grew wider, and a new line of tiny little bubbles caught across her body before rising to the surface, marking her progress up the river.
 
Fresh water always made her giggle.
 
 
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“I have to go to the bathroom,” Spike said.
 
Silent Script and Morning Mist looked down at the boy that waddled along between them. His head was down, and a slight blush was going across his features.
 
“I’ll admit that I’m surprised, Spike,” Morning Mist said. “Why didn’t you go before we left the nursery?”
 
“I did!” Spike answered, a little snarl present in his tone. “It’s the hot cocoa from Joe’s!”
 
“Why didn’t you use the bathroom at Joe’s, may I ask?” Silent Script added.
 
“’Cause I didn’t have to go, then!” Spike answered. There was a snap in his voice, one that had not faded since the two earth pony guards had dragged him out of the throne room three days before. “Beside, I just want to get to Twilight…”
 
The royal guards looked at one another and rolled their eyes.
 
“You know better than that, Spike,” Morning Mist said.
 
“Whatever,” the dragon added, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes went down to the cobblestones and his clawed hands hovered at his side in the balled-up fists that had become his emblem since they had clenched tight in Celestia’s presence.
 
The trio went through the street, the guards doing their best to avoid drawing attention to the boy who walked between them, the little outlaw who was garnering stares from those ponies who had heard about his exploits. The two guards were strangely silent, their defining chatter lost to the judgmental gazes that the fell over their prisoner.
 
“Umm,” Spike whispered. The guards looked down to see his fingers dancing together, and a more contrite expression now sat across his face. “Ummm,” he repeated. “Thank you for the cocoa, I guess. It was good. Thanks… yeah…”
 
Morning Mist and Silent Script looked to one another once again, a small nod and smile passing between them.  “You are most welcome, Spike,” Silent Script said. The mood lightened, and as the sounds of a morning in Canterlot drifted around them the two guards tried to engage the dragon in some word games. When that proved fruitless, Morning Mist decided to share a bit of palace scuttlebutt that he thought might lift the dragon’s spirits.
 
“Spike?” he asked. “Were you aware that the princess has selected a pony to be your guardian until…”
 
Morning Mist stopped in the middle of his sentence. His eyes fell over the figure of a little boy who was walking along with his knees that much closer together and a look of silent desperation in his eyes. “Oh, dear,” Mist said, throwing another look at Silent Script. “We forgot, didn’t we?”
 
“Can you hold it until we reach the hospital, Spike?” Silent Script asked, surprised at how a simple prisoner transfer had begun to sound like a family trip.
 
“Yeah… I guess,” Spike said. The dragon hopped from one foot to the next, and the group pushed forward with a new urgency. 
 
“Stand aside, citizens!” Morning Mist called. “Make way! Excretory emergency!”
 
They turned down one street and then another in an increasingly desperate attempt to ward off any sudden leaks. The widening whites of Spike’s eyes showed them that such optimism was nothing but a forlorn hope.
 
“Nope, not gonna make it,” Spike said. His hands fell down into a rather undignified position, and a series of little hops made their way into his steps. “Gotta go. Gotta go right now…”
 
The guards lifted their heads, panning them around the marketplace. Nearby stood a local establishment. They stopped in mid-trot and focused Spike’s attention on the nearby storefront. “Come along, Spike,” Morning Mist said, gesturing towards what promised to be Spike’s salvation. The boy’s eyes lit up at the promise­—and then went even wider in disbelief.
 
“Uh–uh! No! I’m not going in there! It’s… It’s… girly!” Spike said, raising his hands in protest before returning them to their indelicate placement.
 
What stood before the two stallions and their rapidly saturating charge was a salon, but one of the remarkable “all-day” types that provided immediate escape from worldly concerns for the exclusively female, and inescapably wealthy, clientele. Here, during their “mental health days” mares could shop, gossip, eat, gossip, receive hooficures, gossip, invest heavily in anything pink, and gossip.
 
In short, it was the sort of place that would reduce a boy who had once vehemently rejected the idea of attending the Grand Galloping Gala as “too frilly frou-frou” to fits.
 
“I don’t wanna… uh oh…”
 
“Well, that tears it. Come along, Spike,” Simple Script said. He grasped Spike by the cusp of the neck, and the dragon was carried into the perfumed depths of the salon looking very much like a kitten being carried along by its mother—complete with uncomfortable mewling.
 
A bell above the door jangled as the royal guards shouldered their way inside. In most cases that alone would have been enough to garner the attention of all within, but Morning Mist and Silent Script found themselves strangely ignored by the patrons.
 
“Citizen!” Silent Script said in an authoritative tone. “We have need for the individual in our custody to use your facilities. Are some available?”
 
“Bathrooms are for paying customers only, Honey,” said the mare behind the counter, not even bothering to look up while she filed her hoof.
 
Morning Mist and Silent Script gave each other rather unimpressed gazes. “Honey?” Silent Script mouthed. His partner merely shook his head in reply.
 
“Citizen!” Silent Script said once again, this time with more emphasis. “As a member of the Royal Guard, I must insist that—”
 
“Royal Guard?” she said, dropping her file. It clattered to her desk, and the faces of all the mares in the room turned in the direction of the two stallions and the dragon. “Royal Guard?” they said over and over, looking at the two masculine figures from behind mud masks, hair dryers, and plates of various chocolate confectioneries.
 
“Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it, Handsome?” the mare said to Script before turning to Mist. “What about you, Sexy?” she added, leaning across her hooves and batting her eyes at the two guards. “You here on business or pleasure?” A satisfied whistle and sounds of approval lifted in feminine tones from around the room, earning a puffed-up chest from Script and a deep blush from Mist.
 
 “As stated previously, we are in desperate need of your bathroom facilities. Our ward is in distress,” answered a scarlet-hued Mist. He motioned to Spike, the boy’s face screwed up in desperation as he bounced from foot to foot.
 
“Sorry, Sexy,” the mare replied. Her eyes slowly slid down Mist’s frame until they finally settled across the whelp. “Bathrooms are for paying customers only, and­—”
 
Her file went clattering to the desk again. The sound made the other mares in the room snap out of their shameless staring and notice the boy who stood between the guards.
 
“That’s him,” a mare’s voice announced. “That’s the dragon that bit Princess Celestia.”
 
Spike froze. Before he even knew what he had done, he pressed himself against Silent Script’s rear leg, hiding behind it like he did with Twilight’s limbs in his most uncertain moments. Still, even the reassuring bulk of the guardpony didn’t bring the sense of assurance that he sought. It didn’t feel like he was safe. It didn’t feel like Twilight.
 
It just didn’t feel like Twilight.
 
“Citizens, you have our assurances that any reports you may have received are greatly exaggerated. Spike the Dragon, though technically now outside Equestrian law, has simply been placed in such a disenfranchised state by Princess Celestia to afford greater options for his immediate care,” Silent Script said. “In short, he is no danger to you or your well-being, and deserves your pity and not your scorn. This is especially true considering that he is a small boy who is in desperate need of the bathroom!”
 
Script felt Spike’s hand tighten around him, the claws almost digging into his stifle. He brushed the feeling aside while the clientele of the salon focused on him, his file partner, and his little prisoner. Hushed murmurs went through the crowd of mares, and the three males began to feel the overwhelming, crushing force of feminine condemnation threatening to smother them. So thick and palpable was the cloud that sank over them that Morning Mist and Silent Script’s training kicked in, and the guardponies shrank into a closed formation, squeezing Spike between them.
 
In his current state, squeezing was the last thing that Spike needed. The little dragon whimpered, and his hands went back to their indelicate placement, calling the attention of all in the room back to his distress and discomfort.
 
A gentle hoof reached down, brushing across his frills. “It’s okay, Sweetie,” said the receptionist in a saccharine tone. “You go ahead and use the potty.”
 
In his current state, surprise was the other last thing Spike needed. He pelted away as fast as his little legs could carry him­—becoming a blur of purple that disappeared through a distant door. “Hey!” Spike called. “I can’t use this bathroom; it’s all frilly!”
 
“You don’t have much of a choice, young sir!” Script answered brusquely. “Come along now. Do your duty and let’s leave these good mares to their… pursuits.”
 
A grumble filled the salon, followed soon after by the sound of a door slamming shut. Morning Mist and Silent Script looked at one another with relief on their faces. They sighed in reprieve and turned to face the crowd of mares—a crowd that now had returned to batting their eyelashes and judging the two guardponies on their masculine merits.
 
“We thank you for your assistance in this matter,” Silent Script said, watching the receptionist lean forward across her hooves and looked him up and down like she was selecting a lobster in a tank at a seafood restaurant.
 
“Hold on there, Handsome,” she said. “Now, I might have let the dragon use our facilities, but our policy stays the same…”
 
 
 
 
 
Having finished his business, Spike washed his claws.
 
He stood there above the pink sink, using the pink soap that sat in the pink dish, all the while staring into the mirror that reflected a halo of pink and more pink around his grim, deflated visage.
 
Despite the pink décor that surrounded him, Spike saw red.
 
“You can use the potty, Sweetie?” Talk to me like I’m a kid again and see what happens. Spike thought. “He deserves your pity?” Oh, come on, gimme a break. He stared into his reflection. He watched his own lip curl to reveal one of the white fangs.  

“You ready for this?” Spike asked the reflection.
 
“Oh yeah,” it answered.
 
Spike the Outlaw pulled the settee out from beneath a nearby window. He winced when it made scraping sounds across the pink tiles, but a newfound strength filled him. That strength arose from a part of him that he knew he should reject, that would have scared him silly to even guess was a part of himself a month ago.
 
But that was before Pursopolis.
 
That was before the Pillar of the Sun.
 
That was before the drowning pool, before the look in Twilight’s eyes that had hovered in his mind for a month.
 
That was before artifacts and dead ends. That was before hospitals, glasses of water, and ancient secrets. That was before Aarne the Undying. That was before the Zenith. That was all before he knew the truth. That was all before she—that mare—had made him an outlaw.
 
And, if he truly was an outlaw, it was time to start acting like it.
 
He hefted the settee along farther, and he paused when he reached the far end of the bathroom. Shadows flitted across the tiny crack beneath the bathroom door, and he knew that his erstwhile protectors had returned to their posts. Watching him, shepherding him… preventing him from keeping his promise to Twilight. His lip curled once again, and he grabbed the settee that much harder.
 
When the shadows did not move, Spike gave a grunt and began pulling again. He paid scant attention as the settee bounced off of bathroom stalls, dislodged dollies, clanged against the door to the laundry chute, and sent pastoral scenes in picture frames clanging to the floor.
 
“Hello, Spike! What’s with all the ruckus?” Morning Mist said. “You didn’t fall in, did you?” he asked with a laugh.
 
Spike groaned and rolled his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose and wobbled in place, fighting to keep his emotions in check. “Naw, I was just tryin’ to jump up on the sink. It’s pretty high,” Spike answered. “Plus, well… you know, it’s all girly.”
 
“Well, do your best not to make a mess. It was extraordinarily kind of the salon keepers to let you use the bathroom… even if it did involve a purchase on my part…”
 
Spike’s eyes went wide when he imagined what in Equus the stallion could have purchased in a mare’s salon. He shook the unpleasant images out of his head and then focused on the settee once again. With a muffled groan, he lifted it up so that the tiny legs rested against the wall. He grunted and groaned some more while he lifted the frame of the little couch up higher and higher, leaving tears and mars in the pink paint. The whelp struggled to inch the sofa higher and higher, his claws slipping across the floor and his chest puffing out while he made indelicate sounds.
 
“Hold on now,” came Silent Script’s voice. “Spike? Are you all right? I thought that you had to go number one. Have you completed ‘draining the main vein,’ as the young colts like to say?”
 
Spike snarled.  “Yeah, I’m done ‘draining’ both of ‘em, actually,” he answered. “I just… well, I just realized that I had to do number two, too. Sorry! I’ll be right out.”
 
“Well, do hurry along. We’re expected at the hospital, after all,” Silent Script added. There was a moment’s pause, and Spike stood stark still, waiting to be sure that the guards would not interrupt. When all he heard was Morning Mist ask his counterpart “Both?” in a surprised tone, the dragon focused on the settee once more.
 
The small sofa now sat wedged against the wall, looking lopsided and ill with its little feet dug into the paint. He looked up the expanse of pink fabric, gave a shrug, and then he began to climb.
 
The cushions came loose under him as he began his ascent. He ignored them—let them fall to the tiled floor of the bathroom, that too being pink—and gouged his claws deep into the springs and steel of the frame. Slowly, the settee began to slip away from the wall. He growled and threw his weight forward, and he barely blinked when the two wooden feet crashed through the drywall, anchoring the sofa in place.
 
“Spike? What in Equestria was that?”
 
Spike did not even halt his climb to answer. “I’m-I’m all done doing number two, and, uh, I’m… I’m doing number three!”
 
“Number three?” Morning Mist asked. 

Spike pinched the bridge of his nose again and pushed on. He was too far into this to be stopped now. “I’ll be right out!” he called, trying his best to silence the protesting springs as he fought his way upwards. Overhead, on the wall, sat a duct. The grate sat there, just like it always had. 

This had been no error, no sudden, desperate plea of a child for a bathroom—he had planned this. He had surreptitiously ordered the second glass of milk and extra mug of cocoa at Joe’s when Morning Mist and Silent Script had chatted with the other Royal Guardponies. He had fought hard not to show any signs of distress until they’d turned the appropriate corner on their way to the hospital.
 
He knew this building. He knew that there was a bathroom here that he’d be allowed to use; he was grateful that the guards hadn’t noticed that he knew where it was located in this old building when he had run off. 

He’d used it before. This had once been a book depository. Twilight had come here often. Books marked “Discarded” had been wrapped in her magic, and Spike had watched the young unicorn giggle happily while her stockpile of tomes grew and grew.
 
He knew this city. He knew how to make his way through it with ridiculous ease. He had grown up here. He had hidden himself among the walls of the palace, amid the city streets and vacant rooms of the parliament and among the racks or rusting blades in the armories. The entirety of Canterlot had been his hiding place—the place where he had sheltered himself from his due punishments when he had been a naughty little dragon.
 
This plan would finally free him of this fetid city—he would be free of this tomb where Twilight was rotting. Soon he would be able to keep his promise to her. Ever since the first minute he had been deposited in the nursery, he had been formulating this plan. This escape.
 
These last three nights had been inhabited not by sleep, but by the chorus that sang in his mind. The plan had been washing back and forth with a cunning that arose from exhaustion and desperation. Now that plan was coming to fruition.
 
It was time to escape from another bathroom—something at which he was becoming shockingly proficient. It was time to embrace becoming Spike the Outlaw.
 
“Spike? Are you done in there?” Script asked once more.
 
“Yeah,” the dragon mumbled, “I’m done.” His claws extended and found the groove in the paint-covered screws that held the grating of the air duct against the wall. His claws dug deep into each one, and the paint flaked away as the screw went bouncing to the floor below.
 
“I am so done with this,” he murmured, letting satisfaction drift across his face.
 
 
 
 
 
“It matches your eyes,” Silent Script said with a smirk.
 
“Do be quiet,” Morning Mist answered.
 
“You wear it quite well,” Script chuckled.
 
“Spike!” Morning Mist called. “Do hurry it along, lad!”
 
The two guards stood there outside the door, waiting for the dragon to emerge. Silent Script’s eyes kept flashing to the decidedly feminine object that Mist had purchased—little giggles escaping him at regular intervals.
 
“Seriously, though,” Script added, “What will you do with it?”
 
“I suppose that I shall give it to my sister,” Morning Mist said. “I think it suits her.”
 
The two stood there in silence once more. That is, at least, until Script threw in another jibe.
 
“And how often do you two share accessories?”
 
“I should like to point out that the only reason I bought it was so that Spike could use the lavatory,” Mist said, frustration crackling through his voice as he tried to hide the barrette amid his armor. “It is worthwhile to note that I had to be the one to purchase it, because you seem to be short on funds. Again.”
 
Silent Script went quiet. His eyes fell away, and the stoic stance of a royal guard fell out of his shoulders and frame. A muffled sigh filled the hallway, and a single, strong masculine huff of emotion followed in its wake. Silent Script had swallowed his words, had kept the bitterness in check.
 
“I’m sorry, Script,” Morning Mist eventually whispered. “I know that you’ve been taking care of her mother and father, financially and physically. That was unfair of me.”
 
“I went too far,” Script answered. “I’m sorry.”
 
The two stood there in an uncomfortable silence, the realities of Script’s life hovering around them in an uncomfortable cloud. “Have you considered dating again?” Mist eventually asked. “The mares out there certainly took a shining to you.”
 
“Yes, but they also terrified me,” Script said, something of his good humor returning to his voice. The two stallions stood there, smiling, for a few moments before Morning Mist asked another question.
 
“Spike did say that he was going number three, correct?”
 
“Indeed,” Script answered.
 
“I can’t recall the last time I went number three,” Mist said, pondering the ceiling tiles.
 
“Nor can I,” Script replied.
 
There was another momentary silence, then Mist said, “There is no such thing as number three is there?”
 
“Certainly not,” Script said, his eyes going a little wider.
 
“There’s been a fair amount of banging around in there, hasn’t there?” Mist said.
 
“Indeed,” Script affirmed, his eyes going wider.
 
“The little so-and-so has been trying to escape the whole time, hasn’t he?” Mist said, turning towards his file partner with alarm.
 
“Indeed,” Script said—and then kicked in the bathroom door.
 
The two guardsponies immediately sank back into their practiced roles, their training falling through them. Morning Mist checked the stalls, and Silent Script observed the room at large. In a mere moment any place within the bathroom where the dragon could have been attempting to hide was thrown open.
 
“The room is clear,” Silent Script said in an authoritative tone, barely even registering any shock as he rifled through the contents of the wastepaper bin, the various and sundry evidence of mares’ personal hygiene regimens sitting before him, “the laundry chute has been used. There’s a piece of clothing stuck to it.”
 
“A diversion,” Morning Mist answered, deathly seriousness painted. “This sofa is clearly what made the noises, and there are paint chips across it that came from the grating of the air duct.” In one fluid motion the two had lifted the settee so that it rested against the wall, and as Mist held it steady Script leapt upon it, balancing athletically.
 
“The dust inside has been disturbed to one side,” he said, peering down the length of the vent. “You can see where he gripped the inside of the grate and reattached the screws. He’s crawling due west.”
 
The two stallions pounded out of the bathroom, leaving it a fine mess. Loud voices of protest fell around the salon, and louder voices of two guardsponies answered them. Their heavy hooves made thunderous crashing noises as they stampeded from room to room, following the vent as it snaked its way through the salon.
 
The protests of the management of the beauty parlor were quickly silenced as the stallions crashed through the shop. They called to one another, their voices loud and firm while they scoured each room over and over, searching out anyplace the whelp could have fled.
 
“Damn!” Silent Script cried. “The exhaust vent!” Heavy hooves stormed out of the salon, leaving the stunned clientele wide-eyed. Soon the sounds of their hooves could be heard circling the building before pelting off to the nearest guard post.
 
In the salon, the shocked voices of the mares slowly faded. Their voices settled back into the gossipy tones of the leisure class, mentions of the little dragon only adding to the litany of personal defamations.
 
In the bathroom, a single throw pillow had a very different take on the situation. It flopped off the settee, rolled about on the floor, and then lay very still for a moment—listening to hear if any of the mares were approaching.
 
When no hooves drew near, the throw pillow unzipped itself—revealing itself to be a young purple dragon.
 
He leaned against the wall, inspecting the damage that he had done—measuring it against the rest of his plan for that glorious day. “Yeah, I just escaped from a Royal Guard detail,” he told the forlorn cover of the throw pillow. “That just happened. I’m just that good.”
 
Spike gave a self-satisfied smirk and rubbed the back of his claws across the scales of his chest. He blew on them, inspecting them happily. “Spike the Outlaw,” he said with a chuckle. “It looks good on me.”
 
He leaned back against the wall that much more, supremely confident in all that he was going to do, all that he was about to accomplish…
 
…and his eyes went wide in alarm as he slipped through the laundry chute door.
 
 
 
 
 
Landing in a pile of old bathrobes, towels, and mares’ unmentionables in a dizzy heap had only been a temporary setback for The Outlaw. The series of passages that snaked through the oldest part of Canterlot began not far from the basement of the salon.
 
Spike weaved through the series of back alleyways, bounced across the tiny channels of water that ran through the streets of the capital, and crawled through ancient spillways and forgotten paths of the oldest part of the city.
 
“Da dat da dah!” Spike whispered to himself while he went, adding a soundtrack to his exploits. “Dah dah dun!”
 
He continued whispering the theme to Spike the Outlaw: Escape from Canterlot as he went along, sneakily hiding against doorframes and slinking across narrow alleys. “Duh, duh… dun naw!” he sang and he snuck from market stall to market stall. A curious feeling came over him while he played at his game of master spy or cunning thief…
 
…at least until he missed a step and went tumbling down a stone stairwell, landing in the middle of the street.  Spike gasped. His cover was blown! He stood up, looked around him, expecting the guards that had undoubtedly been following him to be upon him.
 
Three ponies went up the street, none even noting his presence.
 
“Dun… dun,” he said, concluding the music. Spike pinched the bridge of his nose. Panning his head around he discovered that, at very least, he had arrived at the street where the first part of his plan would take fruition.
 
 
 
 
 
The haversack was exactly where he thought it would be. Call had looped it around the door handle. He ran his hand across it, apologizing for throwing it to the floor when he had gone to accost that mare three days ago. Inside, he discovered a few flakes of ash from the ruined soldier’s journal. They slid across his hand, leaving black trails that stained his claws and arm.
 
The collection of junk that had accumulated in the haversack was still there. He peered within and found his collection of useless garbage. The torn scroll was still there, as was the ripped seal. The “fun size” box of Mairsy Dotes sat there, baffling him with how he had even managed to get his claws on them. The oven mitt, the one he had bought for Twilight and that the doctor had thrown in the trash, was there too; it sat very close to the minotaur book that held the rice paper miasma sheet.
 
He looked over it all and scowled. It was just so much junk; it was just souvenirs of a month spent in this horrible city. He thought about simply dumping it all out, and he lifted the haversack off the doorknob with the intent of doing just that. But, when he turned towards the garbage can, something stayed his claws. He arched an eyebrow and then rolled his eyes. Sentimentality aside, he had to move quickly.
 
Spike opened the haversack wide and began filling it with objects that sat around the room. He opened the old desk and lifted out some maps that had caught his eye when they had done their research. As the lid rolled shut, Spike stuffed the maps into his haversack and ran across the room.
 
A thousand tools of exploration sat before him, and every one of them became fair game for his roving claws. Spike the Outlaw leapt up high to retrieve a sextant from its place on a bookshelf. He jumped up on a chair to claim an ornate compass that sat in a rosewood box. Nothing that he thought could help him escaped his attention, and each found their place in the haversack as his greedy claws reached for more.
 
“So, you’re robbing me, then?”
 
Spike’s hands hovered in the air. He hadn’t heard the stallion enter the room, but now Call’s presence filled the space. Slowly, Spike’s claws dropped back down to his hoard of navigation aides. He stared ahead without looking back to where the sorrowful, resigned voice arose.
 
“I’m hardly surprised,” Artificer Call continued, “not after the demonstration you put on three days ago. I have to admit… I’m more hurt than surprised. I’m actually quite hurt—very hurt.”
 
The dragon turned his head slightly; not looking at the older stallion, but listening his words.
 
Artificer Call sighed. “I suppose that there’s nothing for it. You’ve already made up your mind, I see. You seem to think that you have this all very bloody well planned out. I can see the old adventuring look in your eyes. Is that what you think, dear boy, that you’re simply going to go off and make it all fine and proper by yourself?”
 
The old clock on the mantle chimed the quarter, and neither stallion nor dragon moved, spoke, or breathed until the final note had finished echoing around them. Artificer Call wiped his hoof across his eyes and sighed once more.
 
“I don’t know how you managed to give your guards the slip, Spike. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve convinced yourself is out there,” said the stallion. “Have you thought about that, Spike? I’ve been all over this world, Spike, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that it isn’t all rainbows.”
 
The stallion looked Spike over, and as the clock ticked away on the mantle he saw no signs that the dragon was measuring the weight of his words. Artificer Call sighed again; he let his eyes drift around the room while his words fell in a cloud of subtle exasperation.
 
“By all rights I should call the guards right now. I should restrain you myself. There’s still some fight left in this old frame, do you know that? Do you know that I’ve faced things out there that I barely survived, Spike? Do you know that I lost respected comrades and dear friends out there? Did you stop to think that whatever reason you’ve given yourself to justify your escape at the palace, for robbing, for going off on this fool’s errand, that whatever virtue you’ve convinced yourself it holds… that it might not be enough to keep you from harm?”
 
“That’s future Spike’s problem.”
 
Artificer Call lifted his head. Spike did not move. He simply stood there, his head turned slightly, his eyes falling down over the haversack that sat at his side heavily. The dragon seemed to have said the words automatically, like they were more a personal mantra than a thoughtful statement.
 
“Yes, well,” answered Artificer Call, “that very well may be, but my current problem is that I have a little criminal in my study robbing me blind so that he can go off on a daft journey for which he is utterly unprepared, has no idea what he means to accomplish, and which could very well cost him his life!”
 
The stallion stomped his hoof, the most frustrated and anger-filled thing Spike had experienced the stallion do since they had been formally introduced at Joe’s.
 
“That’s what I should do, I must say. I should call the guards right now. I should tie you to the desk until they come. I should have called child services two weeks ago. I should have... I should have...”
 
There was a pained sound—the sound of poor choices being called out. The old stallion’s wish to be useful had come into bloom darkly, of his experiences and memories being used to a bad end. It was the sound of his guilt.
 
Spike heard the sound, and the part of him that was still Twilight’s great little guy made him lift his head. The part of him that was still the real Spike made him turn to face Artificer Call. The stallion’s hoof came up, and he rubbed his eyes as his tiny glasses jumped around on his face.
 
When he was done his eyes met Spike’s.
 
“I should have… but I did not, and now I must admit that this sad end, dear boy, is partly my fault,” Call whispered. “I could do those things, but you’ve made it abundantly clear, with your words and with your fangs, that you don’t want to be helped. You don’t want to be saved, healed, or comforted. No, Spike all that you seem to want is to—”
 
“I just want Twilight to wake up.”
 
“—be the one to wake Princess Twilight,” Call concluded. He continued quickly, not letting the little whelp discern the distinction between their two statements. “You’ve only gotten worse, and I’m to blame. I gave you the notion that there was a way to wake her. I put the clues in your claws. I gave you that hope, and when it was withdrawn from you, you became… this…”
 
“No, Call, it’s not like that!” Spike said with a whine. “You’re not the one to blame! It’s all Cele­—”
 
“Shut up,” Call said. “Silence yourself.”
 
The words stung at Spike. They were the most awful things Call had said to him in their time together, and they made the boy recoil, wrapping his arms around himself.
 
“So, here we are, then,” Call continued. “I should, I could… but I won’t. I won’t and I can’t. I can’t because I know that you would hate me for it, just as you’ve turned your hate on the princess. I can’t because I’m an old stallion who reveled in knowing you were interested in my research, my stories, and ignored the fact that I was poisoning you with them. I won’t because I know that there is nothing remaining in Equestria for you, not until Princess Twilight awakes. You’ve decided that alone… the journey that you’ve convinced yourself you need to undertake is just the end result of that facetious belief.”
 
“Call, no,” Spike began.
 
“But I won’t stop you. I’d offer to go with you, but I’m old… old and stupid and useless,” Call said, heaving. “You’re going off, and I won’t stop you. You can’t even begin to imagine, Spike, the pain you are about to experience, and I’m too weak and old to go with you or to stop you. A child is about to go off into all of the dangers of Equus, and I’m too weak to stop him. Damn me… I did this to you.”
 
Call turned to the side. The sound of the clock ticking away filled the room once again—joined by the small sighs of a stallion attempting to hide his emotions.
 
“Damn me,” he whispered.
 
The clock kept a cadence as small, clawed feet made their way across the wooden floor. The dragon’s feet were muffled in the ornate throw rug, but his intent could not be missed. Artificer Call lifted his head when the boy’s arms slid around his neck, and the worn, tired adventurer lifted his foreleg around the boy.
 
“It’s okay, Call… it really is,” Spike said. “You’re the only one who helped me out this much, ya know? If it weren’t for you, I’d be even crazier and madder and angrier and stuff. So, yeah—don’t feel bad, okay?”
 
Spike felt the stallion’s hoof pat him on the back a few times. The boy rested his head against the neck of the stallion, holding him tight. A few deep breaths escaped them, and before long Spike spoke again.
 
“Call? You… you can call the guards, if that helps—if that makes you feel like you tried to help me. That will be okay, I can deal with that. Just, you know, give me a head start?” the boy said, releasing the old stallion from the hug.
 
“Very well, Spike. Very well,” Artificer Call answered. “I must ask… where will you go from here? Do you even have a plan? Is there anything I can give you? Some bits? Some food?”
 
“No,” Spike answered. He smiled to the historian as he slid towards the glass door that led out into Call’s garden. “Naw, I’m stopping in Ponyville first. No, the compass and sextant and the maps and stuff are all… thanks…”
 
“Don’t be mistaken about those. I haven’t forgiven you for that,” Call barked.
 
Spike had been reaching for the door handle. His hand shook, and his head went down as shame washed over him.
 
“You attempted to rob me, and I don’t appreciate that, Spike,” Call said, admonition washing through his tone. “I don’t forgive you that.”
 
“I’m sorry,” Spike said. “I’m really, really sorry, Call.”
 
There was a pause. As the two stood there, Spike rested his hand on the door handle. The small garden patch stood out on the turned earth in the historian’s backyard, and the newly planted flowers and vegetables shone in springtime sun. The little outlaw settled his eyes across the small rows, waiting to hear whatever Artificer Call had to say.
 
“There is one way that you could make it up to me, you know,” Call eventually replied.
 
“Yeah?” Spike said. “What’s that?”
 
“You can prepare for me a full report on the races, architecture, customs, and various and sundry historical and cultural items of importance that you come across on your journey,” Call said, a shadow of a chuckle hiding in his words. “And you can let me get a look at this Zenith, once you’ve recovered it.”
 
“Deal,” Spike answered.
 
The two stared at one another for a moment longer, and then Call spoke again.
 
“I really do hope somepony turns you in the second you hop my fence,” Call groaned.
 
“I’ll get ya that report as soon as I can,” Spike said, a giggle in his voice. He reached for the doorknob. “Thanks for everything, Call. Thanks so much.”
 
“I’ll make myself some tea, and then call the guards,” Call answered.
 
“You’re awesome,” Spike said. The back door came open and the smells of spring entered the room, a light breeze rustling the papers of the study. “Goodbye, Call.”
 
“Goodbye, Spike,” Artificer Call answered.
 
Without so much as a backwards glance the little dragon slipped out the door, left footprints across the black earth of the garden, and struggled up and across the fence separating Call’s yard from that of his neighbor across the way—an older retired mare whose big dog immediately began barking and who presumably presented Spike the Outlaw with his first challenge on his journey. Artificer Call watched the fence for a great long while, and when the dog finally stopped barking he turned towards his kitchen. Blue flame erupted from the burner of his stove, and he settled the copper kettle there and then selected a blend of teas that he thought best suited the situation. It was, admittedly, a hard blend to arrive at. He wanted something bitter, but something that ended in a hint of mint.
 
“He could have used the front door,” Call told his mug. He filled it with the hot water and stood watching while the tea leaves leached their essence out of the metal strainer.
 
Artificer Call was a stallion that had seen many things in his life, and not all of them were good and happy. He had nearly died of typhoid in the slums of Cowcutta. He had survived snowstorms and sandstorms less than week apart when inventorying the remains of a forgotten empire. He had spent a furious hour trying to repair and restore tools of exploration—as his mark and name implied—as a small boat had sunk beneath him out on the unknowable tracts of the ocean.
 
These had all happened long ago, back when he’d been young. The stories all came back to him, flashing into his memory with the bright light of a younger stallion’s eyes.
 
He had been strong, powerful… full of the vitriol of an adventurer who was smart enough to know what to do and still stupid enough not to care. He had been young—but nowhere near as young as Spike.
 
Call stared down into the teacup. While he watched the tiny bubbles pop, the stallion only grew more and more certain that he’d just condemned a small boy to his death. And, as he pondered it, he grew more and more certain that it was the only thing he could have done.
 
The tea had grown cold. Call threw it out the door into the garden, set the teacup on the counter, and trotted off to the nearest guard post.
 
 
 
 
 
In Spike’s mind, this had been brilliant.
 
In reality, his tummy hurt.
 
Everything else was going to according to plan. He had escaped the guards in the salon, he had gotten everything that he had thought he would need from Artificer Call’s place, and now he was crawling along inside the narrow passage the separated the hospital from the palace.
 
Spike the Outlaw smiled as he felt the heft of his haversack at his side. Not only was it full of Call’s navigation aides, but also it was also stuffed full of gems and jewels from the royal treasury.
 
Well, not the actual royal treasury. More like the official adjunct office to the treasury—kind of like the treasury’s first cousin if he thought about it. Still, it was full of jewels, and if anyone asked he could say that the princess had offered… if anybody ever thought to check. Not that they would. Spike knew this city, knew the palace. He had grown up here, had hidden in all of these cracks and forgotten passages. He knew where treasures were kept in storage that only that mare probably knew about. If no pony was going to use the fine inlaid jewels… hey, finder’s keepers.
 
“Ow,” he said. His tummy hurt.
 
He crawled to a stop at a bend. The stonework around him seemed familiar enough, and a small jet of fire left his lips. Yes, he was close to the hospital now. Since everyone knew he was heading there when he escaped, it seemed like a place that he wouldn’t try to go.
 
He just wished that he hadn’t had to lie to do it. He had lied to Call. He wasn’t making for Ponyville, and having Call tell the guards had been part of the plan all along. He just gave Call permission to do so. It would throw them off, he hoped. He hadn’t wanted to lie to Morning Mist and Silent Script, either. They were nice guys. But, if he was going to save Twilight…
 
The vision of Twilight in the drowning pool flashed through his mind, and the pain in his stomach disappeared. The guilt washed out of him, and his eyes narrowed. He relit his flame and began crawling once again.
 
No, he wasn’t headed to Ponyville. There was no going back now, not for an outlaw.
 
He smirked to himself as he felt the warm, stale air of this hidden spot inside the wall give way to the cool air and slippery condensation. He didn’t know who had designed the walls of Canterlot, but he was glad that whatever pony had approved the plans hadn’t checked too hard. The change to cool air meant he had made the turn, and that now the hospital lay just beyond one more bend.
 
Yes, he was headed for the hospital. That was where we were headed, so if Call tells them that I was headed for Ponyville, then they’ll think that I’m not headed for the hospital, he thought, smirking at his cleverness.
 
“That was pretty smart of me, huh?” he asked the skeleton.
 
The skeleton, being a skeleton, didn’t reply.
 
It took Spike a moment—­­­­­­­­­­­­­not to mention a minor panic attack—to remember exactly what he was seeing. The skeleton of some creature that had taken its chances in the labyrinth of tunnels and passageways stared back at him with a toothy grin.
 
Spike studied the pile of bones that lay before him, starkly illuminated by the whisper of his flame that spilled across in the stones and cast its green glow over the scene.
 
He had first discovered the skeleton many years ago, back when he had just been a little whelp who used these tunnels to escape his duly deserved punishments when he had been naughty for the Lord Protector, the nurses, or even Twilight. The first time he had come across the skeleton he had been very, very small, and just encountering it had sent him speeding back to Twilight with tears in his eyes that she had taken for penance.
 
He had never told anypony of the skeleton, and over time it had changed from some phantom that haunted his nightmares to a source of juvenile fascination. Now, all these years later, Spike looked across the remains of the creature once more.
 
“Ya know,” he said, “if you had taken off your armor, you probably wouldn’t have gotten caught in here.”
 
Spike smirked, feeling a slight sense of superiority over whatever creature’s remains sat before him, perhaps entombed here in the walls of Canterlot for centuries, only the young dragon knowing of its lonely grave.
 
Artificer Call’s warning suddenly washed across the dragon like a tidal surge: You can’t even begin to imagine, Spike, the pain you are about to experience…
 
The words shook the dragon out of his self-satisfied stupor, and he stared at the skeleton. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” he asked as he drummed his fingers across the luminous stones that lined the abscess that made up the crawlspace. The creature, whatever race it was, had obviously been a warrior. The rusted armor, bent shield, and broken sword all spoke to that fact.
 
Yet, for some reason, it had died here in these walls. The warrior’s path had led the former owner of the skeleton to this spot—its journey had ended here in this dark, hollow spot in the walls.
 
“Hey,” Spike asked again, ignoring the futility of his questioning, “was… was it worth it? Did you… ya know, did you get what you wanted out of your quest, journey, trip thing? I kinda need to know.”
  
Artificer Call’s warning washed through the stifling, close confines of the abscess, and Spike suddenly felt not like the brave outlaw but like the little dragon whelp once more. His small flame slipped away while he awaited the skeleton’s reply, one that did not seem forthcoming. The green light evaportaed, and Spike was left wondering a great number of things…
 
…like how he was alone…
 
…in a dark place…
 
…with a skeleton.





In the market below, Cooking Surface—the stallion that ran the cooking mitt stall where Spike had absent-mindedly purchased one of the said objects for Twilight all of those weeks ago—thought he heard something. Unless he was mistaken, Cooking Surface thought that he heard a child’s scream come through the very stones of the castle walls, muffled of course, and that being followed very soon after by the tiny sound of claws scampering along some long forgotten passageway until they went slipping out of a hole in the eaves of the wall. That seemed to be followed by the sound of a baby dragon falling into the waste bins behind the hospital.
 
Cooking Surface shrugged his shoulders. Amazing, the tricks one’s ears can play on them, he thought as he pressed a leopard-print cooking mitt into the hooves of a mare, the cellist looking less than convinced at the salespony’s choice of pattern.
 
 
 
 
 
Sneaking around the hospital was far easier than it should have been.
 
In his mind, Spike felt some small disappointment that the place wasn’t crawling with guards and that bells and sirens weren’t going off. Perhaps his gambit with mentioning Ponyville to Call had gone better than he had hoped. He grumbled a little—it was more likely that they hadn’t even put that much effort into finding him yet.
 
“They probably think I’ll just come back here eventually,” he spat. A moment of thought washed over him, and he pinched the bridge of his nose and gave a little groan. “Ugh! I did come back here!”
 
Movement outside the grate and the stomp of hooves made him cover his mouth with his hands and stifle his breath. He waited until they had passed, and then he lifted the grate out of the way as stealthily as he could. Despite the resounding “clang” that echoed up and down the service hallway deep beneath the hospital, Spike somehow managed to slip into the dumbwaiter and ride along while it ascended up into the hospital proper. He hid himself in a large tub of ice cream—something he had desperately wanted to do since the day he had arrived at the hospital, truth be told.
 
The ice cream was headed for the pediatric ward, most likely to be delivered to fillies and colts that had just had their tonsils removed. Wishing them the best, Spike evacuated the dumbwaiter when the orderly had his back turned. Diving amid a convenient pile of discarded cardboard boxes, he emerged looking very much like an innocuous shipping receptacle… despite the mobility that he displayed, something cardboard boxes aren’t especially noted for. It was under the pretense of being an ambulatory box of institutional-sized Mairsy Dotes that Spike the Outlaw made his return to The West Wind Annex for the Magically Impaired and Magically Unresponsive… the Ward of the Living Dead.
 
He parked his box in the still-vacant room that had once held the mortal remains of Brake Dust. Spike lifted himself out of the box with a sigh, and though he was glad that the room was vacant, the way that the former occupant had left the ward filled him with an old fear. It was a fear that refused to abate even while he peeked out into the hallway. He leaned out a little farther, and when the familiar faces of Pacemaker and Comfort were seen to be absent from the corridor he dropped into his four-legged stance and darted across the hall in two long bounds.
 
What he found in the room made him ill.
 
He grabbed at his tail a little as he looked upon the occupant of the bed. The web of tubes and wires still hovered above her, and while he looked at her he felt himself pull on his tail that much more. Eventually he let it fall to the ground before he leapt up to the sink and reached for a glass…
 
…and at that exact moment he heard one of the dearest voices to him in the world, and the tone that it took shred his heart.
 
“Oh, but he must be here! He must!” called a feminine voice, and the sound of elegant hooves rushing up the hallway made his eyes go wide in alarm. He spun around in place—juggling the glass that had just grabbed—and then jumped into the only hiding place that was immediately available, that being the cupboard itself. No sooner had he silenced the ringing and chiming glasses than the mare appeared in the doorway, her distinctive perfumes finding their way to him as he hid among the cups.
 
“Oh, Spikey-Wikey! Spikey-Wikey! You have to be here! You needn’t hide from me! Oh, Spike, dear, it’s me, Rarity!” called the beautiful mare, her voice betraying a deep well of concern and worry.
 
Spike’s hands came up to his mouth, stifling any sounds he might make while he listened to the little whines and cries of worry that now filled the hospital room. The whimpers that escaped Rarity’s lips made him shudder and shake, and the little dragon did his best to remain motionless and quiet as the familiar hum of the mare’s magic drifted around the room.
 
“Spikey! Spikey, please do come out! I know you must be here!” he heard her cry, and the sound of the closet being opened and the contents thrown about caught in her ears.
 
“Twilight…” Rarity said. “Oh, Twilight! If only you could tell me! Oh, Twilight! Poor Twilight! Poor Spike! Spike, I know you must be here! Please, answer me!”
 
Every one of Rarity’s words ripped at Spike, and even while the sounds of worry and concern floated amid the magic that wafted over the room, he kept trying to fight off the shakes and tremors that threatened to make the cups ring out and reveal his hiding space.
 
How does she know I’m here!? he screamed in his thoughts—falling backwards against the wall, threatening to send the stacks of glasses flying into shards. How can she possibly know that I’m here!?
 
The familiar sound of the hooves of two stallions approached. As Rarity called out once again, her magic still swirling around in search of him, the rather tired and put-upon figures of Silent Script and Morning Mist entered the room.
 
“Spikey-Wikey! Spike, darling, I know that you must be here! Please, Spikey, Princess Celestia said that you were to come home with me! I’m going to be bringing you home with me!”
 
Spike’s vision receded. He could imagine soft folds of fabric drifting around in the currents of Rarity’s magic. In his mind he could already hear her singing while he made her breakfast and got Sweetie’s lunch ready for the day. And, in that fleeting moment, he dared believe that he could feel her tuck him into the spare cot, feel the warmth of her coat while being wrapped in a good-night hug… or, if he dared even to imagine, the soft brush of her lips on his forehead as she wished him a good evening’s rest.
 
It made him ill. The whole series of images and sensations made him ill because he realized what it was.
 
“Miss Rarity, Ma’am,” Silent Script said, his voice betraying a long day, “there’s no reason to believe that Spike was coming back to the hospital. We were on our way here when he ran off.”
 
“Madam,” Morning Mist added, “the staff have not seen him. Spike is small, but he’s just a child, after all. He’s hardly capable of hiding from every adult in the city.”
 
Spike’s lip curled into a snarl. I’m doing fine so far, you jerk! It faded when he heard Rarity make an uncertain sound—half a stammer, half a sob.
 
“Spikey, please… if you’re here, Princess Celestia has made me your guardian! It’s just until Twilight wakes up, I promise! Please, Spike, if you’re here, please… answer me!” Rarity called.
 
Spike shuddered. This was it, then. This was Princess Celestia’s final gambit. This was the Last Temptation of the Outlaw. This was the last bit of her “benevolence,” her last offer to let him forget all of the awful things he had discovered about that mare and that thing.
 
Or, at least, that’s what a small part of him believed. Spike wiped his hands across his face as though attempting to cast away his paranoia.
 
“Please… please, help me look for him,” Rarity said in a defeated tone. Spike could clearly picture the two guards look at each other, an unuttered sigh passing between them before they turned and began to search the room.
 
Search the room! Spike was thrown back into awareness when the heavy sounds of the stallions’ hooves began to lift around the room… and approach the cupboard where he’d been hiding!
 
Silent Script opened the cupboard door and peered inside, throwing all within into the light of the morning and under the gaze of the guardpony. Spike, though, had already retreated to the side, squirming his way around a big metal pipe that the cupboard hid in a way that suggested that the hospital had undergone some restorations at some point in its history. Had it been winter, the coarse iron of the antique pipe may have made this very uncomfortable, even if his draconic scales had protected him from the heat.
 
Now, he dared breathe a sigh of relief as Silent Script closed the cupboard doors—and then very nearly had a heart attack when the stallion opened the ones to the cupboard he had just retreated to. Spike vacated it in the very nick of time, hiding behind the pipe once again.
 
When the doors closed, Spike barely dared to breathe. He listened to the two stallions speaking in hushed tones, showing some respect for Rarity and her muffled sighs and little whimpers.
 
“I was so certain… so very certain that he’d want to come and stay with me for a little while…”
 
Spike’s head bowed, and he began to reach for his tail again… but at that instant Morning Mist opened the cupboard door. The dragon barely had a moment to slide across the pipe once more before the light invaded his hiding space once again.
 
“I just checked in there,” Silent Script said, his voice sounding very put-upon, not unlike a father awoken in the early morning hours to check beneath his filly’s bed for monsters.
 
“No harm in double-checking,” answered Morning Mist.
 
This was intolerable. Spike grimaced as the door closed. He looked across the way and saw something metallic shine in the darkness. He tiptoed across the cups like he was traversing a minefield. His haversack caught across the tops of the stacks, threatening to send them crashing out of the cupboard. He wiped his hands across the metal once, twice, and found the screws.
 
Faster than it can be said, and with a deliberate pace that surprised no one more than himself, Spike undid the cover of the heating/cooling duct. It made a “ba-dum” sound, and he winced inwardly. The sound filled the hospital room and the door of the cupboard came open behind him.
 
He pressed his foot against the metal. No sound met his ears. He waited with bated breath, knowing that the sound had alerted the stallions, and Rarity, that something was amiss.
 
A shadow fell across the opening of the ductwork, and in his heart Spike knew that Silent Script was peering down the grille only a few inches away. Spike closed his eyes, determined to hide the whites and the green glow of his irises… anything to avoid detection.
 
“Open and shut them again,” Silent Script whispered, hoping to see a dragon-shaped shadow appear inside the grille. On command, Morning Mist did just that. Sensing an opportunity, Spike pressed his foot against the ductwork that much harder. “Ba-dum” went the ductwork, and he held his breath once more as he awaited the reaction of the stallions.
 
“Again,” said Silent Script.
 
“Ba-dum,” answered the ductwork.
 
“Air pressure,” sighed the stallion, turning away from the grille.
 
“Air pressure,” agreed Morning Mist as he shut the cupboard door for the last time, saving a small whelp from having a heart attack. “Miss Rarity, madam, I have to say that it seems that Spike is not here. The intelligence we received states that he was determined to head to Ponyville. Perhaps it is best that you head there?”
 
You did tell them, you did report me, didn’t you, Call? Spike thought. Good. I’m glad that you care enough to do that. Sorry to have lied to you like tha—
 
“My Spikey-Wikey wouldn’t lie.”
 
Spike winced. He slid forward a little, making it so that he could peer out of the grating.  What he found there was a sight that made him want to cry. Rarity sat next to Twilight’s bed, slowly drawing her hoof up and down Twilight’s outstretched foreleg. Slowly, carefully, her hoof went up to Twilight’s mane. The radiant mare drew her hoof across Twilight’s mane tenderly, as though trying to return some shine to the locks that lay scattered across the pillows and blankets in uneven piles.
 
“He was less than genuine with us today,” Morning Mist mumbled. His words floated around the room and, apart from some more “air pressure” in the ductworks, seemed to fall on deaf ears.
 
The “air pressure” was, in reality, Spike reaching down out of the grate unobserved. He snatched the barrette that Morning Mist had purchased that morning so that he could use the bathroom in the spa.  He spun it around in his hand, before sliding it into his haversack. That’s for calling me a liar, and for saying that I’m just a kid, he thought. He smiled to himself, but it faded quickly. He was a kid, and he had lied… and now he had stolen. Again.
 
He looked out of the grate, and his hands went back to the haversack, hoping now to find some way to slip it back onto the stallion’s armor. It was an impossibility. It had been a miracle that he hadn’t been caught so far, and now he couldn’t risk trying to put it back on.
 
He pinched the bridge of his nose, stifling his sigh. Ummm, sorry, Mist. It… it really does match your eyes? I guess?
 
“My Spikey-Wikey learned long ago how important it is to keep his promises, and he promised me that he would get better. He promised me that he would be well. Yes, he must be coming back to Ponyville… that makes sense. Yes,” Rarity said in a tone that showed that she was trying to convince herself that it was true.
 
“We’ll give you a moment,” Silent Script said, relief evident in his voice. “We’d be honored to escort you to the railroad station.”
 
“We’ll tell the staff to give you some peace, if you wish to sit with the princess for a few moments,” added Morning Mist.
 
“Thank you, sirs,” Rarity said, and with that the stallions left the room.
 
Spike listened to them go. The sounds of the stallions’ hooves and the clang of their armor eventually faded down the hallway. Left in their wake were the sounds of the hospital—and the sounds of the mare that sat at Twilight’s bedside.
 
Spike stretched forward a little and rested his head in his hands. He stared out the grate towards where the two most important mares in his life sat together; one hummed a little song and stroked the mane of the other, the other lay there distant and unmoving—still locked away in that place where Spike had been unable to follow.
 
“Oh, Twilight,” Rarity whimpered, and then the elegant mare began to speak of the spring that had blossomed into fullness in Ponyville. She spoke of the return of the birds and the way that the park had come back to life. Rarity spoke of the little streams swelling with the rains and of flowers coming to life. She spoke of ponies making their way through the parks and staying out later and later in the sun that lingered in the Equestrian sky later and later each day.
 
And, without ever having left the stifling confines of the grating, Spike suddenly became very homesick.
 
He took as deep a breath as he dared and let it slide out slowly. He wanted nothing more than to go back to the “before,” back to when it was Twilight and Spike in Ponyville. He wanted everything to be all right again, but that was impossible. That was impossible until Twilight woke up.
 
“I’d best be heading back to Ponyville, darling, if that is where Spike is headed,” Rarity whispered. “We’ll be up to see you soon. Oh, and Cadance says that a certain stallion among the Crystal Guard may be coming with her next time. Wouldn’t that be something?”
 
Rarity giggled a little. Spike felt his teeth grating together.
 
“Yes, I think it might be best that I head back to Ponyville. Spikey-Wikey will be heading there. If he told somepony that he was heading there, then that is where he must be headed,” the elegant mare said with certainty. “Goodbye, darling. I’ll be back to see you soon, the girls and I… and Spike, I promise.”
 
Her beautiful body lifted away from the bedside, holding Twilight’s hoof in her own for a second before laying it gently back upon the sheets. She made her way towards the door and towards the grating where Spike had been hiding.
 
Spike could see the emotions that sat on Rarity’s face. His heart leapt out to her when she paused directly beneath him, turning back with a flick of her gorgeous mane to face the alicorn that lay upon the bed. “He will come,” the mare whispered, and then ran the back of her hoof across her face, ripping out Spike’s heart.
 
“Spikey-Wikey wouldn’t lie.”
 
Spike’s hand pressed against the grating, and every piece of him wanted desperately to reach down and embrace the mare. As her perfume lingered around him he watched her. She looked at the floor and turned back around, wiped her hoof across her face once more, and then was gone.
 
Goodbye, Rarity, Spike thought. I’m sorry.
 
He waited in the grating for a good long while before wiggling his way back down the length of the ductwork and into the cupboard once more. He waited patiently while the early morning wore away into the late. When he was convinced that the coast was clear, he grabbed one of the glasses and toppled down from the cupboard to make an ungraceful landing on the linoleum floor. He ran the tap quietly, holding his hand in the sink so that the cold water would not splash in the basin. While the glass filled he listened to the hallway, and then carefully brought Twilight one final rainbow.
 
“Hey Twi,” he said, settling beside her, “I think I really messed it up this time. Yeah, I think things are… not good.”
 
“Yeah, I really kinda messed things up for Future Spike pretty bad,” he said, adjusting the glass one more time. The small rainbow fell across the wall, and  it guided his eyes towards where Precepts of Innovational Magic Theory sat, its bookmark still lodged where he had last read to her a week ago. Her boots had been tipped over, and no pitchers could be found. Only her crown remained untouched.
 
He lowered his head so that it sat across his arms. His words evaporated across his scales as moisture while he made his confession. “I’m lying, I’m stealing, I’m being mean and a big jerky-jerk,” he said. He looked up to her. “And the worst part is, Twi? I don’t mind it. I don’t mind it at all. The only part that I mind is that I broke my promise.”
 
He stood up and stepped back, distancing himself from her. “I broke my promise to you, Twilight, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry that… that you’re going to wake up to a monster.”
 
He looked down, and to his astonishment he found that Twilight’s crown was in his hands. Had he picked it up when he’d put down the glass? He held it against his chest and took another step back, very much trying to hide the evidence of his thievery from Twilight. He looked at her sheepishly.
 
“But you’re going to wake up. That’s a promise that I’m going to keep. I dunno what’s out there, Twi—”
 
Artificer Call’s warning thudded through him one more time. He looked back to his hands to find them already sliding Twilight’s crown into the haversack that bounced at his side. His eyes went wide, and he struggled to finish his admission to Twilight before he lost himself completely.
 
“—but whatever the Zenith and the Pillar and whatever Princess Celestia is hiding and why Aarne the Undying got all dead and stuff… well, if that’s what I have to do to get you to wake up, then that’s what I’m going to hafta put Future Spike through, huh?”
 
He stepped back to her bedside. He got up on his tiptoes and reached up to run his fingers through her hair, trying to straighten it as Rarity had—as he had for all of those weeks that he’d stayed here by her side in this tomb.
 
Home had always been where Twilight was. Be it her parent’s home, her suite at the school, the dearly departed library—even the new castle with his mostly empty room—home had always been where she was. Now, for the first time in his young life, Spike truly felt homeless, and that realization snaked through his thoughts. He was abandoning her… he was abandoning his home, his best friend, and the pony he loved the most in the world.
 
“Even if I can’t come back, I’ll find a way. I promise,” he said, placing his forehead against hers for a moment. “Equestria needs you. Your friends need you. If I get banished or captured or… or anything, it’s worth it. It’s okay. You’re worth it.”
 
Spike rested his hand against her face, trying to feel her breathe—to feel the warmth of her body. His hand slid away slowly, catching across her blankets until it grasped her hoof. He lifted it and pressed it against the side of his face, doing his best to see his oldest friend, the very mare that had hatched him, amid the wires and tubes that snaked out of the prostrate form upon the bed.
 
“You’re worth it.”
 
The warmth that the hoof offered was a falsehood. There was no comfort there for him. It just didn’t feel like the hugs and nuzzles that had seen him through some of his worst days. It just didn’t feel like she was there.
 
It just didn’t feel like Twilight.
 
He gave her hoof a squeeze, and then laid it gently back upon the bed. He backed away towards the door again, folding his hands across his chest while he went. His eyes misted over, and he wiped away two tears while he looked upon the pony that defined his world—perhaps for the last time.
 
“Goodbye, Twi,” he whispered as loud as he dared. “I love you.”
 
With that, come what may, Spike left her room, determined not to return until Twilight had been freed from whatever evil that thing had subjected her to had been burned away.
 
No matter the cost—nothing else mattered.
 
“Love ya, Twi…”
 
 
 
 
 
The hospital receptionist looked down to see an institutional-sized box of Mairsy Dotes disappearing through the main doors. As the box didn’t seem to be bothering anypony, she went back to reading her gossip magazine.
 
She was just about to read about some recent exploit involving Hoity Toity, an undisclosed location, and a rubber ducky when something caught her eye. Her pen had rolled off the logbook, and when she was able to tear her eyes away from the vicious slander long enough to glance across it the following declaration met her eyes:
 
Spike the Dragon… I’m out, baby!
 
The receptionist’s jaw dropped open in shock; the rubber ducky had brought a paternity lawsuit!
 
 
 
 
 
Spike’s familiarity with Canterlot was something that he prided himself on, but like most things in his young life, it wasn’t something that he had complete confidence in. He had slid around the streets of Canterlot in his box for about fifteen minutes before finally finding the intersection he had been looking for. More ponies than he would have liked had noticed a surprisingly ambulatory box making its way around Canterlot—but not any of the guards, fortunately—and most simply marked it off to delusions brought on by a long morning of political duties, hallucinations brought on by the vagaries of college life, or a rather unimpressive publicity stunt on the part of Mairsy Dotes.
 
Most unimpressed of all was one stallion that failed to notice it completely until his heavy cart rumbled across it. The box was squashed flat, and after that it ceased moving entirely—much to the relief to the competitors of Mairsy Dotes, who were greatly concerned that they would now have to begin similar advertising campaigns.
 
More fortunate was Spike, who an instant before had dropped into the stallionhole cover in the intersection into the storm sewer below.
 
At least he hoped it was a storm sewer.
 
He really, really hoped it was a storm sewer.
 
He also hoped that the thing that had just floated by him was a candy bar.
 
The sewers of Canterlot were of the standard “immense and creepy” variety, and his remembrances of them were always clouded by the consuming need to take a bath that always followed in the wake of the memories of the few times he’d ventured down into the dark, moist depths. He picked up a stick—not daring to guess what sort of horrible diseases could be lingering across it—and swirled it around in what he hoped, hoped, hoped was a giant wad of white confetti paper.
 
It wasn’t. He groaned in disgust and then lit it aflame with a jet of his breath. He sighed and nearly pinched the bridge of his nose, but at the last second he remembered where his hands had been and instead began to make his way through the vast, twisting tunnels.
 




Spike tried to think of the last time he had seen a clock. His eyebrows arched while he pondered what time of day it could possibly be. It was, ugh, 7:30 when we left the nursery… way too early! Then it was breakfast at Joe’s. Bathroom, my super escape, Call’s house, the treasury, skeleton guy. I guess it’s about 9:30? Yeah, that seems right, he thought, watching the bricks come into relief as his torch passed beneath each arch.
 
Yeah, it has to be just about 9:30, I think, he thought.
 
And then he stepped on a “candy bar.”
 
 
 
 
 
At just about 9:30, Princess Celestia was still standing on the wide balcony that jutted out at one of Canterlot’s lowest levels. She had been there since she had raised the sun that morning, and the misty fields that played out before her eyes seemed hazy and unknowable. The princess leaned against a column, her gaze across the fields that disappeared beyond Canterlot never wavering.
 
“Madam? Highness?” asked an officer of the guard.
 
She had not meant to leave him bowing; truth be told her wandering mind had simply forgotten that he was there. She did not turn to face him, but instead spoke in a quiet tone.
 
“I am sorry, lieutenant,” she whispered. “Please, do give your report.”
 
The guard lifted himself to his hooves and saluted, a gesture meant to get some blood flowing to his hoof and show respect. “Ma’am, we have a report that Spike may be headed to Ponyville. It is possible, seeing as we… as we’ve been having a surprising amount of difficulty capt… finding him. May I have permission to send a detail to the city?”
 
Celestia stood there, unmoving, still staring out across the fields that hung heavily with fog. She had been standing there since about 7:30, like she had for the last three mornings.
 
He is not headed to Ponyville.
 
“Of course, lieutenant. At once,” she said. “But please, do not dispatch Silent Script or Morning Mist on that detail. I feel that I shall have need of them here before too long.”
 
“Yes ma’am,” the lieutenant said. He saluted once more and then made his way towards the distant doors. Various government officials parted before him, none seeming to want to disturb their princess while she sat on the wide, dark balcony under feeble lanterns and banners that swayed on the spring breezes.
 
He is not headed to Ponyville.
 
 
 
 
 
 
At just about 10:15 a.m., Spike was ready to be done with the sewers, thank you very much. He had been forced to backtrack a few times, and more than once he had gone splashing through things he would rather not have gone splashing through.
 
He went waddling along one corridor, once more admiring the brickwork, when he noticed that the stones themselves were becoming smoother in one direction, almost like they were funneling something in a certain direction.
 
This being a sewer, he was almost afraid to ask what that something could be. He wandered around in a little circle, staring at the smooth stones and wondering at their purpose. He then realized that, had he been following the smooth stones all along, he would have arrived at this spot a lot earlier.
 
He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He then screamed and ran around in a circle, flailing his arms as he realized he had touched his face with his “sewer hands.” This of course made him drop his torch into the putrid waters of the sewer, casting him into darkness… which made him run and scream that much more.
 
That was when he noticed the way that the smooth stones seemed to be glowing, and he suddenly became very quiet and still.
 
 
 
 
 
At just about 10:15 a.m., Princess Celestia was ready to be done with staring at misty fields, thank you very much. Her legs had begun to ache, and more than once she had been forced to rub them in a very un-princess like way that she would rather not have had to.
 
Still, she watched the fields. She listed to the small sounds of her court behind her. They seemed apprehensive, almost like they were absorbing the pensive sort of anticipation that sat around her own frame.
 
It was much to the relief of all when a university-aged earth pony stallion came galloping into the room, pursued by guardponies who were quickly upon him. They wrestled and tussled upon the carpet, pages of the notebooks flying out in all directions, and the room at large became very upset and bothered.
 
Princess Celestia was very happy for the distraction.
 
“Please, Majesty! Princess!” called the stallion, wrapping his forelegs around the column where she stood. “I’ve been trying to talk to your for nearly three weeks! Please, Princess, it’s important! I’ve discovered a conspiracy! Canterlot’s security could be compromised at any time!”
 
“Please, leave him be,” Celestia said. The guards looked up to their princess with some small hesitation. They stopped tugging on the stallion and let him settle to the cold stones of the balcony floor. They then moved a few steps away, close enough to intervene should his intent prove deceitful.
 
The stallion panted for a few moments and gathered up the pages of his notes that sat stirring in the wind. Powerful magic came alive around him, and soon he realized that Celestia herself was assisting him in recovering the proof of the heresies that he had discovered.
 
“T-thank you, Majesty. I’m sorry to barge in like this, but this is big,” he said. “This is really, really big.”
 
He looked up to see her smiling down at him, and the stallion cleared his throat and caught his breath. He looked away with a small blush on his face, but when he turned back to her he found her staring back out across the fields. Her smile had gone, and somehow the balcony felt a little colder. The stallion opened his notebook, feeling it best to make his point and not interfere any more than he had.
 
“M-my name is Carbon Copy,” he said with a gulp. “I’m an architectural historian. Princess, I’ve discovered something horrible about Canterlot’s sewer system…”
 
 
 
 
 
At 10:30 a.m. on the dot, Spike was still staring at the ceiling when something caught his attention. He had walked right past it at first, yet when he backpedalled it became pretty obvious that it was the kind of of thing he really shouldn’t have missed.
 
A great well of light stood at the end of the tunnel, and he covered his eyes when he gazed upon it. “Whoa,” he whispered, and before he knew what he was doing he was heading towards it. As he approached the light fresher smells replaced the raw stink of the sewer, and soon he saw from where the light was coming.
 
Vast iron bars stood at the end of the tunnel, and the effluent of the sewers spilled out through them. In the distance, the great, green valley beyond suddenly opened up before him. Below the waters of the sewers poured out in torrent, disappearing into a mist through which he could not gaze.
 
“Ugh! Ummpfft!” he moaned, doing his best to squeeze through the bars. His pudgy belly made it harder than he’d like to admit. He carefully pulled the haversack through the bars and then looked down into swirling vortex of the waters.
 
He lifted his head to the misty fields beyond. Beyond the mouth of this sewer lay the beginnings of his journey—his quest—to free Twilight of the shackles that thing had subjected her mind and body to. Artificer Call’s words once more flitted through his mind, and he took a deep gulp. He held his haversack to his chest and took a series of deep breaths.
 
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He was suddenly reminded of jumping off the bridge between the library—and of a certain frog. Yet, unlike that earlier time, there was no safety cord, and the precipice was unknown. But, if he were to go forward, there was only this way. There was only the unknown before him…
 
…and Twilight was worth it.
 
“Okay,” he whimpered, and then stepped out of the culvert and into the swirling waters and vast clouds of mist.
 
He fell a grand total of about six inches and sank into the “mud” up to about his knees.
 
“Oh!” he said, chucking himself over. “Oh, okay! Stinky… but okay! Heh, that was easy enough!”
 
Spike picked himself up, checked to make sure his haversack was okay, and then scrambled up the bank and into the fog-filled fields beyond.
 
Behind him his muddy footprints disappeared into the tall weeds and rushes, and back at the culvert his landing site quickly filled with water, quickly erasing any evidence of his passing. The little dragon could be excused for thinking his escape from the city easy… but it would prove one of the last “easy” things he would experience for a great long while.
 
A great long while indeed.
 
 
 
 
 
At 10:30 a.m. on the dot, Princess Celestia was still staring at the misty meadows when something caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes, and her ears came up like a low horse, searching for the source of the instinctual alarm that had sunk through her.
 
Her attention went back to the young stallion, Carbon Copy. He was finishing up the detailed explanation of the vast, horrific conspiracy that he had discovered. She had listened politely, but distantly, while he had gone on and on and on and on and on. Finally, after these fifteen long minutes, he summarized his findings.
 
“So, to summarize my findings,” he stated. “I can only conclude that, from the time of the Classical Pony Period remodeling, Canterlot’s sewers have, in fact, been designed in such a way that they could allow any number of creatures into the city completely unnoticed.”
 
Silence reigned across the balcony.
 
“A-and that’s a bad thing, Princess, you see, Majesty. Ma’am,” he said, once more devolving into a rather scared looking young stallion, one who seemed to realize once again who he was addressing.
 
Another long moment of silence filled the balcony, and the assembled ponies watched Celestia’s ears twitch. “Indeed, it is quite a disturbing revelation,” she said in a quiet voice. “Tell me something, though, young Master Copy.”
 
“Ma’am?” Carbon Copy answered.
 
“Would you say that, with the way the sewers are designed, that they could just as easily be used by some creature attempting to leave Canterlot as enter it?” Celestia asked, never looking back to the historian. Instead she listened while he made uncertain sounds and flipped through his notes. Her eyes never left the fields.
 
“Well, my princess, I would have to say that… well, yes. Yes, somepony could very well use them to get out of the city, too. The design does seem to imply that,” he answered.
 
Princess Celestia went very quiet. Far, far below her, Spike the Outlaw toppled out of the sewer culvert and into the mud. She watched the little dragon climb the bank, check his haversack, and then make his way up the bank of the creek. It was 10:32 a.m., a time that lodged itself in her mind.




 
The alicorn watched him disappear into the fog-filled fields, dark waves appearing behind him where he had parted the grasses and flashes of purple and bright green receding into the far distance until finally disappearing in the woods and stoney crags beyond.
 
Finally.
 
Princess Celestia took a deep breath. She released it slowly and then turned to face her court. “I thank Carbon Copy for bringing this to the attention of the court. We must make preparations to prevent any such catastrophe from occurring. We should be very grateful that no enemies of ponykind have used it for such purposes to this point. Raven?”
 
A unicorn mare stepped forward—the princess’s personal secretary. “Yes, Princess?”
 
“Raven, please introduce Carbon Copy to the Grand Mason of Canterlot. I am sure that she will find what Copy has discovered quite alarming. Please inform her that she has warrant to accomplish what should have been done long ago and has gone far too long without being addressed.”
 
“Ma’am, thank you so much! This makes it all so worth it!” Carbon Copy gushed, nearly embracing the alicorn. At the last moment he remembered who she was and instead he fell down into a bow.
 
“You are most welcome, and you have my thanks, Carbon Copy.”
 
Celestia watched her secretary and the young stallion bow once more. She waited for them to stand and depart the room. In many ways, she wished that Carbon Copy had embraced her—she could desperately have used a hug at that moment.
 
She turned her head and stared out across the fields once one, for one last time, and then addressed her court. “Come,” she said, abandoning the long, low stone balcony she had occupied the last three mornings. “Let us return to the palace proper. I feel a need to see my advisors, especially the minister of war and my attorney designate. I also need a nap!”
 
The courtiers laughed at her suddenly lighter tone as they fell in behind their princess. Celestia, though, did not laugh. Indeed, her head seemed to hang a little lower, and something of the spark had come out of her eyes.
 
“This morning has tired me greatly, and it feels as though it would never come to an end…
 
…I had almost thought it would go on forever.”