//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - Be Brave // Story: The Surprisingly Complicated Love Life of Spike the Dragon // by King of Beggars //------------------------------// Spike had been worried that his ‘vacation’ would end up with him alone, brooding in the living room, surrounded by books and empty ice cream tubs while listening to moody ballads on the record player. Happily, the lucky addition of Moondancer had turned the trip into a real holiday. The cheerful girl had done wonders for his disposition. Her boundless energy and enthusiasm, combined with her ability to speak at great lengths about nearly any topic, made for a great distraction from his troubles. It also helped that she had work for him to busy himself with, and research was a comfortably familiar pursuit. Today was supposed to be the beginning of their trial runs for an experiment, but they had found the campus’ potioneering supply room wanting for the sort of work they were doing. And so it was that Spike found himself walking alongside Moondancer through the shopping district, on their way to a little hole-in-the-wall that she knew. The Canterlot shopping district was one of the few places where tourists and middle-class locals could rub shoulders with the upper-class. Along the main street, beyond the market alley where vendors and grocers sold foodstuffs, there were storefronts running the gamut from high-end jewelry and fashion, to record stores peddling music meant to appeal to fickle teenagers and even fickler adults. The main thoroughfare enjoyed the high end coffee shops and boutiques sought out by rich ponies and tourists with money to burn, and the storefronts here were laid out much like the residential areas – with lots of very straight angles, and buildings laid out in neat little rows. Turning down some of the side streets, however, took you to the real heart of the district. This part of the market was a maze of alleyways snaking through oddly arranged buildings that seemed to spring up wherever they pleased, like trees in a forest. Spike followed closely behind Moondancer as she guided him off the beaten path, down an unmarked side-street and through the labyrinth of nondescript shops. He had lived in Canterlot for a very good portion of his life, and the fact that he could still be led down unfamiliar ways said a lot about the organic layout of the back end of the Canterlot markets. His guide stopped suddenly, spinning to face him and giving a wide grin. She stood and waved dramatically at the door of a drab little shop tucked between a dry cleaners and an all-you-can-eat buffet. There was no sign indicating a name for the store, just a placard on the wall with a mortar and pestle. Even through the door, Spike could smell the spicy, earthy mix of various herbs and poultices. “This is the place,” Moondancer announced giddily, eager to show Spike one of her favorite spots in town. The poorly secured saddlebags she wore slid off her back, but she ignored them to maintain her dramatic pose. “If this place doesn’t have what we need for our experiment, then no place in Canterlot will!” She collected her saddlebags and nodded to Spike, who subconsciously checked the strap on the satchel hanging at his side. They stepped into the shop, jingling the little bell above the door as they did, and were greeted from behind the counter by a wizened old zebra stallion. He pushed a pair of halfmoon spectacles up his nose as he looked up from a newspaper, and gave them a yellow, nearly-toothless smile. “This old zebra bids you young ones welcome to his store, is there anything in particular you are looking for?” he asked in the odd rhyming affectation of his tribe. “Yeah, but I can find it, thanks!” Moondancer said as she strode confidently into the store, making her way through the cluttered showroom with surprising grace. “Beautiful Moondancer, on your custom I can always depend, and today I see you have brought a friend,” the old zebra said with a respectful dip of his head and a glance at Spike. “My name’s Spike,” Spike said as he returned the gesture. “Great store you have here.” The shop owner shrugged. “My location could be better, but my regulars I do treasure.” Spike chuckled politely and began poking around the shop while Moondancer got her supplies. The store was cramped, filled with rickety bookshelves and old, dusty bins packed with various materials for potioneering and alchemy. The walls were decorated with tribal masks and little kitschy souvenirs from the zebra homeland, each with an outrageous price tag, no doubt on display to catch the eye of any tourists that wandered into the shop. Despite the tourist bait, Spike had to admit that the stock of legitimate potion ingredients was varied. He didn’t know much about the art, but a lot of the shelves held powders and leaves that Spike could recognize as things he’d seen Zecora throw into her cauldron at one point or another over the years. Spike stopped at a rack with a sign indicating health-related herbal supplements. He knew what a few of the substances were for, but most of them were alien to him. He picked up a sample of an unfamiliar purple leaf and held it between his claws, scrutinizing it in the dim lighting. “Find something?” Moondancer asked. Spike held up the leaf as his friend approached. He realized he must have lost track of time while browsing, as the owner was already measuring out and packaging a small pile of ingredients for Moondancer behind the counter. “I was just wondering what this was,” Spike told her. “I’ve never seen an herb like this.” Moondancer’s face lit up with excitement. “Aha! Finally, something I know that you don’t,” she gloated. “This is Stiff-Iron Wormleaf!” “Never heard of that,” Spike admitted. “What’s it for?” Moondancer froze mid-victory dance. Her expression melted slowly, the joy curdling into an embarrassed frown. Spike had seen that look on the faces of many scholars in his lifetime – it was the look of being put on the spot with a question you should have known the answer to. She narrowed her eyes at the leaf and brought it closer to her face, as though the name would be written there in tiny print. She hummed in thought as she physically examined the sample between her hooves. She sniffed it, held it up to the light, and shook it a few times for good measure. “Well…” she began to say as she pointed at the two bins on either side of the one the leaf had come from. “That one is for arrhythmia, and the other one is for… constipation… so this is…” Her frown deepened as the seconds ticked by. The silence was quickly becoming awkward, so Moondancer took drastic action and popped the leaf into her mouth before anypony could stop her. She chewed it experimentally and focused on any changes to her internal chemistry. “I think it’s a breath freshener,” she guessed cautiously as a burst of minty flavor filled her mouth with every bite. “That’s for erectile dysfunction,” the shopkeeper stated plainly, without even the pretense of lyricism. Moondancer leaned forward, letting her tongue loll out of her mouth so the leafy paste could slide off her tongue with a half-gagged, “Bleeeargh,” and a wet plop as it struck the floor. Spike was only just barely able to keep from laughing. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a bit, which he flipped towards the stallion behind counter with a chuckled, “For the leaf.” The zebra alchemist caught the coin midair with a skillful click of his teeth and deposited it in a lockbox under the counter. “If you tell anypony about this, I’ll turn you into a frog and drop you off the edge of Canterlot,” Moondancer threatened as she cleaned up the dollop of goop with a flicker of her magic. Spike put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, it happens to everypony sometimes. You’re probably just under a lot of stress.” Spike knew immediately, from the look on her face, that he’d pushed the joke too far. He ran to the counter in a flash and snatched up the receipt. His eyes scanned quickly until he found the total of the purchases, and he paid for it all with a stack of bits from his satchel. He left the shop without a word and waited in the alley. A few minutes later, Moondancer stepped into the street, her bags a little heavier and her scowl a little lighter. “What have you learned?” she asked imperiously, without turning to look at her dragon companion. “That pushing my luck can be very costly,” he mumbled sorely. He patted his satchel with a sigh, feeling how light it was now that it had been relieved of a substantial amount of cash. “That’s right,” she said smugly as she marched away without even a glance in his direction. “And thank you for paying for my stuff.” Spike jogged up quickly and fell in step with the mare. “So what now?” he asked. “Want to go back to my house and try the experiment?” “Actually, I was thinking we could take a day off, since I’m already like a week ahead of schedule, thanks to you,” Moondancer said cheerfully, her annoyance forgotten in a flash. “Your organizational system really sped things up.” “You picked it up fast for only having been working with it for a few days,” he replied, glad that his companion was so quick to forgive and forget. “You’re the one that made it seem easy. It’s kind of unreal how much a few color coded tabs and some sticky notes can smooth out the research process.” “Far be it for me to toot my own horn,” Spike said, humbly, as he polished his claws against his chest scales, “but I have studied under a master of the organizational arts. I’m something of an authority on the subject.” “Oh, good,” Moondancer said. “You’ve started bragging again. For a while there I thought the Spike I knew had been lost forever to the sands of puberty, or whatever it is dragons have.” “Ew…” Spike whispered, a look of unease overtaking him. “Sandy puberty… That seems extra uncomfortable.” “I, um… I meant that as, like, the sands of time, but also it was in reference to you having matured a lot since I last saw you, so I combined the two ideas into—“ Spike silenced Moondancer’s impending explanation, that no doubt would have gone on thrice as long as it would need to, with a pat on her shoulder and a nod. “Right, so, day off?” Spike asked in the hopes of diverting the conversation back on track. “I was thinking about maybe doing some more shopping, but I think it’d be nice to just go for a walk,” Moondancer suggested. “Like, not even visit any stores. Just a nice little stroll through the district, and maybe we could do some pony-watching.” “That sounds good,” Spike replied. The pair found their way back to the touristy part of the district and stepped into the flow of bodies wandering from store to store. Wide-eyed vacationers gawked openly at the high-priced wares, content to have spouses and friends take pictures in front of display windows before moving on to the next boutique. “I’m really glad I bumped into you,” Moondancer said. “Literally,” Spike quipped. “Drop it, or I drop you off the edge of Canterlot, as per my earlier threat,” Moondancer told him with a roll of her eyes. “And I mean it. Being glad I bumped into you, that is, not about the frog thing… although I do mean that, as well… I always had fun with you, Spike, and I was starting to think we’d never run into each other again.” “I guess we were pretty close…” Spike said regretfully. “And then you go and ditch my birthday party,” Moondancer said archly. Spike shied away at the accusation. She had meant it playfully, but it was true enough that it still stung to hear. “I really meant to go,” he said. “I even bought you a birthday present and everything… but then Celestia sent us to Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration, and Twilight was freaking out over Nightmare Moon, and then she got assigned to study the Magic of Friendship…” Spike sighed heavily. “A lot of things happened for Twilight very quickly, and I had to be there for her…” “…and we just drifted apart…” Moondancer finished for him. Spike looked into Moondancer’s face and tried to read her expression. She was a very attractive girl, in a lot of ways. Her features were very pleasant, of course, but the most appealing thing about her looks was the sheer expressiveness of her face. Everything – every thought and emotion – made her face scrunch or her eyes light up in some tell-tale way. The bridge of her nose crinkled when she was trying to remember something, and when she was working out a math problem, her lips puckered like she was going to blow a raspberry. Other times – like now – her face was an uncharacteristically blank slate, except for the corner of her mouth on the left side, which tightened up into half of something that was not-quite-a-frown. Spike still didn’t know what that expression meant, but he’d seen it once or twice over the years, and relatively often these last few days. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it,” she said, seemingly unaware that Spike had been staring at her. “Twilight goes off to learn about how important friendship is, and you give up your own friendships to follow her.” Spike opened his mouth to protest that, but the reply died in his throat. It stung to hear it put so clinically, but she was right. “She needed me,” Spike said, hoping it would suffice as an excuse. “I love my sister, and she needed me.” “I understand,” Moondancer said simply. They walked along the crowded street, neither noticing that the distance between them had closed as the nature of their talk became more serious. They were now nearly shoulder to shoulder, occasionally brushing against one another as they as they moved through the crowd. If any of the other pedestrians had overheard any of their conversation, or cared about the somber nature of it, they didn’t show it. Moondancer stopped, holding Spike back with an outstretched hoof to his chest. She tilted her head in the direction of a café at the other end of the street. A well-dressed unicorn stallion was sitting at an outdoor table, reading the newspaper and using his magic to swirl a spoon lazily in his tea. Across from him sat an equally well-dressed unicorn mare. They watched, barely containing a fit of giggles, as the fancy mare surreptitiously upended a helping from the salt shaker into her companion’s tea. The stallion levitated the cup to his lips – his gaze never leaving the print – and sipped gingerly. He spit his drink out the moment the salty brew registered on his tongue, the spray soaking his paper and dribbling down his chin, staining his lily-white cravat. Spike and Moondancer laughed heartily, drawing the attention of the mare and stallion in question. The stallion scowled at them, but his prankster companion smiled, gave a dramatic little bow of her head, and sipped her own unpranked tea. “Kind of puts it all in perspective,” Spike said between gasps of laughter. “What does that mean?” Moondancer wheezed. “I don’t know!” Spike admitted with renewed laughter. “I just thought that might sound profound!” Moondancer redoubled her own laughter, locking her joints so she wouldn’t tip over in the dirty street as her body shook with every giggle. A rumble in Spike’s stomach became a belch of fire that splattered against the street and resolved itself into a scroll that sat at his feet. Several pedestrians that witnessed the act gave him funny looks but continued along as though nothing had happened. He picked up the scroll, which he noted was bound with a velvet ribbon and bore Twilight’s official seal, and put it into his satchel to read later. She was probably just checking up on him. * * * The pair of friends had been strolling for a while, enjoying the air of early morning Canterlot as it transitioned into noon. The altitude of the city meant that was always a refreshing breeze blowing through the streets, keeping them cool and energized despite the exercise. “You know, I think I’ve already changed my mind,” Moondancer said suddenly. “You don’t say?” Moondancer gave Spike a sidelong glare. He was smirking in that self-satisfied way he did when he was cracking wise. “Okay, now what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked in annoyance. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he replied, intensifying the satisfaction of his smirk. “Oh no, you’re not shrugging this off,” Moondancer said accusatorily, her tail flicking around frantically. “That was some kind of sexist joke wasn’t it? What’re you trying to say? That mares are indecisive? That we change our minds at the drop of a hat? Is it?” Spike continued walking, never breaking his stride, calmly smirking even as Moondancer’s voice rose in pitch. “That doesn’t sound at all like the kind of thing I’d imply,” Spike answered as he laced his claws together behind his head nonchalantly. “So what were you changing your mind about? Taking the day off or about not doing any shopping?” Moondancer’s ears folded back and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The shopping,” she said. “Walking around is fun and all, but I just got the urge to stop by the bookstore.” “Bookstore sounds great!” Spike said cheerfully. He sped up his gait and double timed it to the bookstore with Moondancer following. “You’re being very cheeky today,” Moondancer pointed out once she’d walked off some of her indignation. “Veeeeery cheeky.” Spike shrugged. “I’m just in a good mood,” he explained. “I’m having fun, aren’t you having fun?” “Oh, um, well,” Moondancer stuttered giddily. “I mean, I already told you earlier that I was having fun, but I didn’t know if you were having fun, too, since you didn’t say it back or anything. All we’ve really done is study and work on my project…” “And it’s been a great time,” Spike said. “Everything’s better with a good friend by your side.” Spike watched as Moondancer blushed heavily, hiding her face behind her voluminous mane. She was the only mare he knew who sported longer hair than Fluttershy, but it was very unlike Moondancer to hide behind her mane in the way Fluttershy did. Spike had to admit that the unicorn looked pretty cute ducking behind that thick red curtain. With Moondancer hiding behind her hair, and Spike watching Moondancer hiding behind her hair, neither of them noticed the sign standing in front of the bookstore until it was too late. Moondancer walked straight into it, crashing to the ground with a mild curse and the clatter of wood as the signage followed her down. “Whoa, are you okay, Moondancer?” Spike asked in concern as he pulled the sandwich board off his friend. “I’m good!” she announced quickly, jumping to her hooves and blushing even brighter. She looked around at the faces of the crowd that had witnessed her tumble – some were concerned, some frowning in distaste, but most just smiling with a sense of Schadenfreude. Spike unfolded the legs of the sign and returned it to its proper place. “Ohmigawsh!” Moondancer exclaimed as she pushed Spike aside roughly. “The new Wonderbolts biography is out!” Spike peered around her and read the sign. Sure enough, it announced a new book all about the current Wonderbolts team. Rainbow Dash had been bragging about it all last year, starting after she’d been approached by the author for an interview. Dash had even somehow managed to talk the publisher into letting her write something for it, so it would definitely be worth a read just to find out what she’d written about herself, even if it was as heavily edited as he suspected it would have to be. The pit fell out of his stomach as his eyes reached the bottom of the advertisement. “Wow! ‘Special signing by a member of the world famous Wonderbolts, today only’!?” she read excitedly. “Come on, Spike! Let’s go meet a Wonderbolt!” Spike felt his hand being pulled by the gentle, yet unyielding, force of Moondancer’s magical grip as she led him into the store and through the gathered throng of Wonderbolts fans. He closed his eyes in worry and swallowed hard. “Please be Spitfire, please be Spitfire, please be Spitfire,” Spike chanted under his breath. “Hey, it’s Spitfire!” Moondancer shouted gleefully as the firey-maned pegaus came into view just beyond the crowd. “Oh, thank Celestia…” Spike said, sighing in relief. “And she brought Rainbow Dash with her!” Spike began screaming inside his head – at the top of his imaginary lungs – and not everything he was screaming would have been polite to say aloud. “Hey, did you just hear somepony screaming internally?” Moondancer asked curiously. Spike’s response was cut short as he heard Rainbow Dash’s voice booming over the din of excited autograph-seekers. “Okay, okay, okay!” she shouted, hovering just a little above the table so she could be seen by the crowd. “No shoving, y’hear? You’ll all have the chance to shake hooves with me: world-renowned flying ace, fastest flier in the world, and now published author, Rainbow Dash!” Spike groaned painfully into his hand. Rainbow Dash was one of the ponies he least wanted to see on his trip to Canterlot. “Come on, Spike, aren’t you excited to meet real live Wonderbolts?” Moondancer asked when she noticed him sighing into his own palm. “I already know the Wonderbolts,” Spike said tiredly. “And Rainbow Dash is a friend of mine. She and I both have seats on the Council of Friendship back in Ponyville.” “Come on, Spike, aren’t you at least a little excited to meet me?” Spike spun around so quickly that he lost his balance. His feet caught up on each other and he tumbled backwards onto his tail. Rainbow Dash hovered above him with a wide grin on her face. The crowd had spread out a bit to give her some room, giving the assembled ponies a good chuckle at his expense. “Dash!” he exclaimed a he jumped to his feet. “Fancy meeting you here!” “Yeah, real fancy,” Rainbow Dash said wryly. “Who would’ve guessed that you’d ever find me at my own book signing?” “Oh, wow, you’re Rainbow Dash!” Moondancer shouted, no longer able to hold back her enthusiasm at being so close to an honest-to-Celestia celebrity. “Yeah, hey,” Rainbow Dash said with a nod and a smile. “You were talking to Spike just now, right? You a friend of his?” Moondancer nodded vigorously. “Yup! Old school friends! We practically grew up together! My name’s Moondancer, by the way. Sorry I didn’t say that first, but sometimes I forget really incidental stuff like that.” “Oh, well, nice to meet you,” Rainbow Dash said as she began to walk away from the crowd, gesturing for Spike and Moondancer to follow. “So, uh, Spike, what’s up?” She led them to a somewhat secluded spot, away from prying eyes or ears. She had asked Spitfire to cover the crowd for her as soon as she’d caught Spike’s name over the ruckus of their fans, and she trusted her captain would be able to hold the crowd’s attention. “What do you mean?” Spike asked nervously as they followed Rainbow Dash into the deserted History aisle. Something in Spike’s tone and the way he was walking set off alarms in Rainbow Dash’s head. Her eyes narrowed as suspicious little thoughts began fluttering around in her brain. “I’m asking why you’re in Canterlot,” she pressed. “What, I can’t come to Canterlot?” he asked. “Sure, it’s a free country, I guess,” Rainbow Dash replied. “But I’m asking about specifics. Is there any specific reason for it?” “It’s a vacation, Dash,” he said. “I just had to get out of Ponyville for a while.” Rainbow Dash’s gaze moved to Moondancer. The unicorn’s excited smile had disappeared and she was now watching the two friends that seemed to be right on the verge of having an argument of some kind. “Vacation, eh?” Dash restated as she continued sizing Moondancer up. She turned back to Spike and gave him a withering glare. “You talk to Scootaloo lately?” Spike went rigid and he began to lightly perspire. “A few days ago, yeah,” Spike answered, hoping that Rainbow Dash wouldn’t press further, but knowing that the jig was probably up. “Moondancer, you said?” Rainbow Dash asked suddenly, her head snapping around to look the unicorn in the eyes. “Why don’t you go and get a free copy of the book from Spitfire? Tell her you’re a friend of mine and she’ll hook you up.” “Sure…” Moondancer said as she slowly began backing away. She turned and began walking back to the crowd, pausing only to look back and make sure Spike wasn’t asking her to stay. “Alright, let’s cut the crap,” Rainbow Dash hissed sharply once Moondancer was out of earshot. “She told you, didn’t she?” Spike folded his arms over his chest and scowled. “And who is ‘she’ in this line of questioning?” “You know who,” Rainbow Dash snapped. “She told you. I know she did. I won’t say it first, in case I’m wrong, but we both know I’m not wrong.” “You’re asking if Scootaloo told me that she liked me?” Spike asked by way of clarification. “Yeah, she told me.” “I’m going to go ahead and assume that you shot her down,” Dash said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be running around with Little Miss Big Hair over there – no offense to her.” Spike uncrossed his arms and huffed a few sparks of fire out of his nostrils indignantly. Most ponies would be nervous or put-off by the display, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t most ponies. “Not that it’s any of your business what goes on between me and Scootaloo,” he said tersely, “but I didn’t give her an answer yet. I said I needed time to think so I came to Canterlot for a few days.” “Yeah, I can see what you’ve been thinking about,” she said as she poked her head out of the aisle. Moondancer had made her way to the front of the crowd and was getting her picture taken with Spitfire. “It’s not like that,” Spike protested. “Not even a little bit. Moondancer’s just an old friend from when I used to go to school here. I don’t feel that way about her, and she doesn’t feel that way about me. I just bumped into her in the library on campus and offered to help her with a research project, that’s all.” “That’s all?” Rainbow Dash asked, not fully buying the story yet. “Seriously, that’s all,” Spike said firmly. “I just wanted something to keep occupied with so I could clear my head some.” “Clear your head?” Rainbow Dash repeated. “I thought you came here to think.” “I just needed some time, okay? Is that alright with you? Do I have your permission to give serious thought to my own relationships?” he asked sarcastically as he tried to walk past her. One of Rainbow Dash’s wings rose up and barred his path. “Sounds to me like you’re just running away,” Rainbow Dash said. She leaned in closer, her voice softening as she spoke from the heart. “Come on, Spike, just talk to me.” Spike clenched his hands at his sides until he could feel the prick of his claws trying to break through the relatively soft scales of his palms. “I got scared, alright?” Spike said. “When Scootaloo said she liked me, it felt good – confusing as heck, but really good. I liked that she liked me. She’s a great friend, and she’s really cute, and funny, and I’m attracted to her… but…” “But Rarity, right…?” Spike flinched. She’d gotten right to the root of it. “Of course you know,” Spike whispered sadly as he looked away. “Everypony knows. You, Twilight, Rarity… even Scootaloo knows, I’m sure of it. The last time I saw her, when I told her I needed time, there was something in her face that told me she knew.” “You did kind of a lousy job hiding it,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling sympathetically. He feigned interest in a misaligned scale on his bicep. He dug at it, trying to work it back into place, before flicking it away with a sigh. “Five years, Dash…” he said. “It’s hard to give her up after five years… I know she doesn’t want me like that, but some stupid part of me wants to keep waiting for her.” Rainbow Dash sat heavily on her haunches and rubbed at the back of her neck uncomfortably. “That, uh… sounds complicated…” she said sympathetically. “Feels it, too,” he chuckled weakly. “Maybe you’re right, though, maybe I have been running away from it. But it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to say yes to Scootaloo if I can’t work out my feelings for Rarity first. It wouldn’t be fair to her.” Rainbow Dash groaned in exasperation and scanned their surroundings to make sure they were still alone. She pulled her little dragon friend into a hug and rubbed his back soothingly. “I’m sorry I came down on you,” she said. “I’m just really worried about you and Scoots. You guys are like family to me, and I was seriously doing backflips when I heard she had a crush on you, no foolin’.” “You’re pushing for us to get together, huh?” Spike laughed, squeezing her back and enjoying the hug. “Big guy, if you two get married I’m going to make a Sonic Rainboom so big that it’ll make the one I did at Cadance and Shining’s wedding look like a bottle rocket,” she declared confidently. “I might say yes just to see that!” She released her friend and leaned back, smoothing out her coat where he’d pressed against her chest. “Only if you’re sure it’s what you really want,” she told him seriously. “You were right. This isn’t something you should rush into, and that’s coming from somepony that rushes into everything. Just don’t make her wait too long. An awesome chick like Scoots won’t be on the market forever.” “I’ll keep it in mind,” Spike said. “Also,” she added, “don’t tell nopony I hugged you. If the fans get wind that I’m giving away hugs they’ll start a riot.” “Noted,” he grinned. Spike held out a fist and Dash quickly bumped her hoof against it hard enough to sting his knuckles. “Think we should get back in there?” he asked as he looked back into the lobby of the bookstore. “I’m sure Moondancer would love for you to sign her book.” The mare in question had conjured up a marker and presentation board and was giving the assembled crowd a dry-looking lecture on supersonic aerodynamics. Spitfire seemed interested, but several of the younger fans were dangerously close to falling asleep on their hooves. “Yeah, let’s go rescue my fans from your mistress,” Rainbow Dash quipped dryly. “She’s not my mistress!” Spike declared. “I told you, we’re just friends. Life isn’t like one of those weird foreign plays that Pinkie likes where the boring, emotionally-detached main character builds a herd of underaged schoolfillies!” “You have to admit, though,” Rainbow Dash said with a waggle of her eyebrows, “life would be a lot easier if it was.” “You know, I’m not so sure about that…” A young colt at the back of the crowd tipped over, dead asleep, landing with a soft thud against the carpet. * * * Rarity was tired. More than tired, she was exhausted. She would never admit it, but despite only being in her mid-twenties, she felt at least twice that these days. She simply wasn’t the young, endlessly energetic filly she was just a few short years ago. It didn’t help that she’d just come off the tail end of the fashion tour. Three cities in three days: Vanhoover, Las Pegasus, and finally Manehattan. Vanhoover had been an odd choice, but apparently the Northern territories were doing some fabulous things with Cashmere and that had been enough of a draw for the committee putting on the show. After nearly seventy-two hours of whirlwind fashion and excitement, on top of the nearly two weeks of all-nighters she’d pulled leading up to the event, all she wanted was to lay down in her hotel room and sleep for a few days. She had anticipated her own weariness and need for a respite, and had booked accordingly. Given the situation back home, the extra few days she’d planned to stay were quite fortuitous. But none of that mattered in the face of the two ponies dragging her up to the doors of Lé Chic Poné, the hottest new nightclub in Manehattan. It was nearing midnight, but the downtown crowds were out in full force for another evening of excess and revelry. A line of ponies stretched around the block trying to get into the club. They jostled one another and fidgeted on sore hooves waiting for the line to move, tiring themselves out so much that by the time they got inside – if they got inside – they wouldn’t even really get to enjoy it much. It was exactly the kind of crowd that Rarity wanted to avoid. “Really, girls,” Rarity whined as she tried to resist the tug of Fleur Dis Lee’s magic and the gentle nudges of Coco Pommel. “If you want to drink that badly we can do that back at my hotel room.” “We can drink in your room if you want,” Fleur said mischievously. “But first we’re drinking here. Come on, good music, cute stallions and mares to ogle, overpriced drinks – it’s got everything!” “You really do need this,” Coco said, cosigning Fleur’s sentiments. “You’ve been so mopey this whole tour.” “We’ve been very busy,” Rarity explained to try and deflect any questions as to what had gotten her ‘mopey’. “Whatever you say, Rara,” Fleur said. “The tour’s finally over so let’s just get in there and unwind. I swear you two are the only designers that don’t have their heads up their own butts.” Coco and Rarity shared a laugh at that. Fleur was becoming legendary for her dislike of the vast majority of the designers she worked with. Most of the time it became a clash of wills, and Fleur always seemed to come out on top. There was a lot of talk around the design community about blackballing the silly mare, but being the most gorgeous, most popular model in the industry gave her enough clout that nopony dared to be the first. “You do know that’s what most of the other designers say about you, right?” Coco pointed out. “Yes, well, they can all go and suck themselves off,” Fleur declared crudely. “Even the mares?” Rarity asked, finally giving in and allowing herself to be guided past the ponies lined up against the far-end of the sidewalk. “Especially the mares!” Fleur declared to the heavens. She snorted, gathering phlegm to spit on the ground in contempt, but suddenly remembered she was in public and swallowed it down. “You guys are the only ones doing anything exciting in the industry. Off the runway, I wouldn’t be caught dead in anything those nags made.” “If you intend to flatter me into compliance,” Rarity began with a smirk, “I feel I must warn you that it will only work four of five more times tonight.” “Then we’ll have to use them wisely,” Fleur said. They made their way to the front of the line, ignoring the angry glares from the ponies waiting in the crowd. Popularity equated to exclusivity in a establishment like this, and that meant the average pony on the street would be lucky to even see the front of the line, let alone the inside of the building. “Shouldn’t we be getting in line?” Coco asked timidly, withering under the scrutiny of the crowd she’d only just noticed. Rarity and Fleur both turned to her and gave her the same disbelieving look. Coco had only recently come up and really made a name for herself, and she still wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of fame, let alone the perks of it. Rarity watched as Fleur led the way again, letting all traces of the coal-miner’s daughter that she was fall away, leaving only her otherworldly grace and beauty. She radiated disinterest and haughtiness from every inch of her body as she strode up to the pegasus standing guard at the front of the line. A black velvet rope barred entry to the hopeful clubkids waiting their turns, but what really enforced the pegasus’ will was the pair of musclebound earthponies standing on either side of him. Fleur ignored them like they weren’t even there and focused on the one staring down at the clipboard. Rarity knew exactly what was going through the model’s mind. Coco may have been a little out of her comfort zone, but Rarity and Fleur had been to enough clubs over the years that they could take the measure of this bouncer with a glance. Everything about him, from the way he stood, to the way he stared in disinterest at the obviously blank paperwork, spoke of a stallion who felt that he was the monarch of his own red-carpeted kingdom. Hopefully Fleur wouldn’t let things get too out of hoof. “We’d like to come in,” Fleur said confidently, her voice taking on the sultry tones that befitted a world-class fashion model. “That’s nice,” the stallion said without looking up from the clipboard. “Back of the line with the rest of the floozies.” “We’re on the list,” she said without wavering. “Nopony’s on the list,” he stated simply. “Now get back there before I have you tossed into a gutter.” Rarity sucked air through her teeth with a quiet, “Ooooo,” of sympathy. Things were about to get ugly, alright. She found this sort of exchange distasteful, but she knew that it was a part of Fleur’s public image to cause a scene like this. And this fellow was being very rude… Fleur slapped the clipboard out of his hooves and stepped onto the blank pages. The stallion’s head snapped up, his eyes alight with anger and the order to have them escorted away already on his lips, but he gasped as he realized whom he was speaking with. “Fleur Dis Lee is always on the list,” she stated smugly. She allowed herself a barely perceptible upturn of the corners of her mouth – not even enough to qualify as a smirk – in satisfaction. Some of the crowd that had been glaring daggers at the trio of presumptuous line-cutters began to murmur as recognition dawned on them. “Miss Dis Lee!” the bouncer exclaimed. “Please, come right in! I see Miss Rarity is also with you, and I believe this is…?” “That’s Coco Pommel, you dim-thing, you,” Fleur giggled coldly. “You must be new, to not recognize one of the hottest young designers in Equestria.” “Of course, of course,” he nodded sycophantically. “It’s my business to know all the important ponies!” He removed the rope and waved them through as the two enforcers stepped aside for them. Fleur ran a hoof seductively over the chest of one of the large earthponies and flicked her tail against the nose of his partner. “You boys keep doing a good job,” she said. They stepped into the coat check room of the club, where a pair of inner doors drowned out the sound of thumping bass. Fleur waved for her companions to stop and pressed her ear to the door. A few seconds later she heard the barked order to eject whatever pony was dumb enough to try to repeat her stunt. “Isn’t that a little unfair?” Coco asked sheepishly. “That we get in just because we’re famous?” “Please,” Fleur said with a roll of her eyes. “There has to be some sort of perks to being in an industry that forces us to work alongside the likes of Prim Hemline. That crone is getting more short-tempered and unbearable every year.” “It still feels wrong to throw our weight around like that…” Coco muttered. “I’ve seen you be snippy before, but you were really rude to that guy....” Fleur scoffed at the girl’s naiveté. “He started it. That stallion out there is used to treating other ponies much worse than I treated him. He’s just another puffed up little colt with fake-authority, waving it everypony’s faces. Guys like that need to be put in their place sometimes.” “I do agree that she was a bit rough, Coco, darling,” Rarity said with a flip of her mane. “But please understand that it’s expected of a star of Fleur’s caliber to be at least a little temperamental. It’s a part of her public image.” Coco sighed and nodded. “If you guys say so, but I don’t think I’ll get used to that.” Fleur gave her meek friend a quick nuzzle of affection – which earned her a blush from the younger girl – and led the way through the double-doors and into the club. The trio was immediately assaulted by the driving beats emanating from the speakers on the raised stage at the front of the club, where a unicorn stallion with an icy-blue coat worked the crowd of clubbers, making them writhe and sway at his command. They were packed in tighter than a bushel of apples in one of Applejack’s storage barrels, and Rarity felt a little claustrophobic just looking at them all. Fleur ignored the dance floor and wound her way through the couches and booths where sweaty dancers were catching their breath, drinking, making out, or some combination of the three. She approached another roped off area with a small sign that read ‘VIP Only’ in bright, glittery lettering. A unicorn guard looked at them over his sunglasses and smiled in recognition of the group. He moved the rope to admit them and waved a waitress down. Fleur gave the guard a flirty kiss on the cheek while Rarity whispered their drink orders into the waitress’ ear. The VIP area of the club was segregated into booths, with numbered curtains at the entrances made of the same heavy, black velvet as the ropes the bouncers stood behind. Fleur walked into one of the rooms and waited for Coco and Rarity to join her before closing the curtain. The cloth slid into place with a whisper, its enchantments lowering the volume of the DJ’s music to a conversation-friendly level. “Ah, thank Celestia, alone at last,” Fleur sighed as she threw herself onto the cushions around the low table in the center of the room. She lifted a leg and scratched her inner thigh rudely. The dim mood lighting did very little to conceal her modesty. “Damned synthetic fibers! Rarity, you’ve got an in with all of the princesses. Do me a favor and have whoever invented spandex imprisoned. I think I might be allergic to the stuff, and it’s murder on my delicate thighs.” “I’ll be sure to bring it up at the next Council of Friendship meeting, but in the meantime, do show a little restraint, dear,” Rarity said with a disapproving cluck of her tongue. Behind her, Coco was blushing and pointedly trying not to watch where Fleur’s hoof was. “Oh, who cares?” Fleur laughed. “It’s just us. Don’t you get tired of the games? The artifice of high society and fashion is so tedious. At least I can be myself around you girls.” Rarity took a seat across from Fleur, while Coco walked around and sat between them with her back to the wall. “What a funny thing to hear from you – a pony who plays the game so well,” Rarity said with a smirk. “Playing it well and enjoying it are two different things,” Fleur scoffed. She sat up and leaned against the table wearily. “This fashion jazz is hardly what I thought it’d be when I was a filly.” The waitress, a cute little pegasus, came in carrying a drink tray on one outstretched wing. She set their drinks down and left without a word. “I’m starting to get what you mean,” Coco sighed. She picked up her fruity drink and downed half of the tall glass in a single gulp. It was more ice and fruit juice than alcohol, but the act was impressive none the less. “I love making clothes,” she continued, “but some of the ponies we have to deal with are just… urgh, so infuriating. You were talking about Prim Hemline earlier, and do you know what I overheard her say? She said that my stitching looked like it was done by a foal with nerve damage. Did you see that mango-colored thing she trotted out in? The only thing more crooked than that neckline was her teeth.” Fleur and Rarity shared an amused glance. “It would seem that Fleur and I weren’t the only ones that needed to unwind,” Rarity said with a snicker as she sampled her wine. Coco blinked. She quickly ducked behind the tall glass, maneuvering the little paper umbrella in a pathetic attempt to give herself some cover. “I’m sorry,” Coco said. “I have no idea where that came from.” Fleur scooted closer, her martini floating magically after her, and draped an arm over Coco. “It’s okay. It’s just us, right?” “Yes, darling,” Rarity agreed with a kind smile. “Safe space. You can say anything to us.” “Speaking of,” Fleur said, lifting her eyes slowly to look at Rarity. She removed her arm from Coco’s shoulders and pointed her hoof at Rarity, drawing little circles in the air as she homed in her focus. “Now that we’re alone, how about you tell us what’s been eating you?” Rarity made a rude noise with her lips and levitated a menu of drink specials for closer inspection. “I’ve no idea what you mean, Fleur. I assure you nothing has been ‘eating me’ aside from the same stress the two of you have been dealing with.” Coco sat up straight, unconsciously snuggling a little closer to Fleur. “That’s not true – something’s been going on with you. I’ve seen you work under pressure before and these last few days you’ve been really distracted. It’s like your mind was a million miles away.” “Agreed,” Fleur said. “I think we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well these last few years, and I can tell when you’re forcing a smile for the cameras.” “It’s nothing!” Rarity insisted forcefully. She slammed the plastic sign back to the table with a loud clack. She took a deep breath and rubbed at her temple to soothe the painful twinge heralding an oncoming headache. “It’s nothing…” she repeated, much more softly. The trio sat in silence for a while. Rarity didn’t how to break the ice after her outburst, and was grateful for the quiet moment. The music flittering in from the dance floor changed from one bass-line into another, with a new singer’s sampled voice warbling something inscrutably distorted by the track. Rarity suddenly found herself at the bottom of her glass. She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten there, but the warm feeling in her stomach and the looseness in her limbs told her that she’d probably drunk her way down. She flipped a light switch on the wall with a flicker of magic, turning on a light outside the room that would summon a waitress with refills. Another minute or so passed and the waitress came with three fresh drinks. She took away the empty glasses and asked if they wanted anything else. They all signaled they were fine, so she left. “I’m so very sorry,” Rarity said at last. “I had no right to snap like that. I’m ever so stressed and simply tired of being asking what’s wrong with me.” “Don’t worry about it,” Fleur said with a wave. “If you really don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to. Just remember that stallion troubles get the better of all of us every once in a while.” “What!? Who said anything about stallions!?” “Well, what else would it be?” Fleur asked as she swished her drink knowingly. “Stallions are the worst,” Coco said. She traced the lip of her glass with a hoof, sighing longingly. “Sometimes I think I should just give up on them and just stick with mares.” Fleur’s ears perked up at that suggestion. “Uh… you don’t say…?” Rarity raised an eyebrow as Fleur’s beautiful coat tinged with just a little color. Coco’s comment had thrown Fleur off guard, and Rarity could very easily say something that would shift focus from herself at this moment. She looked into her glass and sighed. Despite how standoffish she’d been the last few days, she did feel the need to speak to somepony about her problem. Maybe not give the whole story, but at least enough to get an opinion or two. An idea came to mind, and she decided to test the waters. If she was lucky, they’d be too distracted by each other and too impaired by the drinks to put two and two together. “Did you girls see Prim Hemline leave the theater?” she asked cautiously. “Oh my gosh, yes,” Coco said, leaning forward and whispering conspiratorially. “Did you see who she took home tonight? I never knew she was that sort of mare.” “I did see!” Fleur said with a gasp. “He’s with my agency. New boy. Very fresh young face. He probably doesn’t even have all of his grown-up teeth.” “What would she even do with a guy that young?” Fleur waved her hooves as though she were telling the spooky part of a campfire story, and said in a haunting voice: “Wooooooo~ She’s probably got him tied to the hotel bed so she can suck the life-force from his body, all so that she may live another decade.” “She’s sucking something out of him, alright,” Coco suggested. Fleur and Coco laughed at the off-color joke while Rarity stared on, forcing a polite smile. It was very unlike Coco to joke like that, but she supposed that alcohol and the memories of Prim’s harsh criticisms worked together to bring out the worst in the girl. Or maybe it was the subject that brought out some deep seated contempt for ‘that sort of mare’. “So you think it’s wrong of her to seek out younger lovers,” Rarity said evenly. “Well, it’s not wrong,” Fleur said airily, mistaking Rarity’s words for a question. “He’s at least old enough to say no. It wouldn’t be good for his career to turn her down, but it’s still his choice. As for her, well… younger stallions have their uses, just like older stallions have theirs.” “It does come with a bit of a stigma attached, though,” Coco suggested. “What do they call mares like that? Cougars?” Fleur nodded vigorously. “They certainly do! They’re called Cougars because they’re great big, tough old pussies that go around gobbling up the fresh young morsels!” Fleur added to her assessment by mewling cattishly and tickling the youngest of their group. The two mares began giggling and play fighting, their hooves darting forward to jab at any undefended tickle spots. Rarity wasn’t sure whether the alcohol they’d consumed was the cause of, or merely an aid to, the exchange, but she looked away and kept quiet, leaving them to their flirtations. This was what she’d been afraid of – what had held her back these last few years. She had been afraid of what everypony would say if she had decided to pursue things with the little dragon. Coco and Fleur were very good friends of hers, and in private, no two ponies cared less about appearances as long as it didn’t affect their careers. Even still, when presented with a mare whose tastes leaned towards younger companions, their first instincts were to ridicule and laugh. Of course, being her friends, they would be supportive of any choice she made – but in private, just the two of them sitting together over drinks, would they feel the urge to make jokes? Would they snigger behind her back? And her friends back home… they would likely be more than supportive, they’d be openly happy for her. But in the back of their minds what would they think? Over the years, Spike had become as much of a little brother to the group as he was to Twilight. What would they really think of her becoming romantically involved with the boy they had, on more than one occasion, found asleep in a punch bowl, curled up with a comic book? Would they be able to separate that image in their minds from one of him curled up in her arms, in a bed that they shared? She lifted her glass and tilted it to her mouth. A single droplet of wine touched her lips and vanished. It wasn’t even enough to swallow. She was about to flip the switch for more drinks when the curtain opened and the waitress appeared, as though reading her mind. She looked over and noticed that the light had already been turned on. Fleur and Coco were sitting together closely, both a little red in the face and panting slightly, with empty glasses in front of them. The waitress did her thing and left. “You okay, Rara?” Fleur asked. Coco set down her glass and wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin. The fruity drink was immediately picked up by Fleur, who sampled it thirstily, but Coco didn’t seem to mind. “You checked out for a minute,” Coco said. “Thinking about stuff?” Rarity shifted uncomfortably on her cushions. A few moments of consideration and she decided to try coming at the issue from another angle. “Well, I was just thinking how strange it was,” she said. “How nopony bats an eye when a stallion takes a much younger lover. But if a mare does it, it’s… well, something to be poked fun at.” “I guess I never thought much about it,” Fleur said, scratching under her chin. “It is a little silly, I suppose, but it’s just the way things are.” “Yes, but why?” Rarity asked almost desperately. Coco reached for Fleur’s martini and tried it. Her face screwed up in distaste, so she settled for pulling the olive out with her tongue and eating it. “I always thought it was because fillies mature so much faster than colts,” Coco said as she chewed. “I mean, who was your first crush? I bet it wasn’t the colt in the back row that picked his nose and cared more about hoofball cards than personal hygiene. It was probably somepony older and interesting.” “That makes sense,” Fleur said, nodding sagely. “It also is kind of a status thing for a stallion to have a hot young filly by his side.” “But in the end age doesn’t really matter,” Coco said. “Everypony matures differently. It’s only the social perception that makes it weird.” “Right,” Fleur said with a nod. “The social perception being that stallions are expected to be big dumb horny idiots looking for a barely matured sex-doll, and mares are supposed to be above all that.” “But you’re just talking about sex,” Rarity pointed out. “What about love?” Fleur scoffed into her martini. “Rara, really. Everything is about sex.” Rarity held a hoof to her chest in aghast. “You can’t mean that, darling. Love is more than just a tickle in your loins.” “I don’t even know what I mean anymore,” Fleur groaned as she eyed her once again empty glass. Somehow their drinks were emptying faster as the night progressed. “How many of these have we even had?” “Three,” Coco supplied helpfully. Her tongue flicked against the inside of her own glass for the last bits of iced liquor clinging to the sides. “Really?” Fleur asked. She pointed to the table in front of her at the two olives from her previous drinks. “I only count two olives.” “I ate one.” “What? But that’s the whole point of drinking martinis! So you can have the olives to count after you’re done to see how drunk you are!” Coco snorted in amusement. “Doesn’t your drunkenness tell you how drunk you are?” “You can’t trust your perception of how drunk you are when you’re drunk, silly girl,” Fleur chuckled. She stood from her seat and nodded towards the curtain. “I’m too buzzed to not be shaking it on the dance floor. Come on, girls, let’s go knock the walls down.” “You go on ahead,” Rarity said. “I’m too tired for dancing. But do me a favor, if you’d be so kind, and send the waitress in with another of these.” She levitated her nearly empty glass and waved it in demonstration. On their way out of the booth, her companions had a playful shoving match over the two olives on the table that ended with them each winning one of the prizes. The music picked up for the fraction of a second it took for the barrier to admit Coco and Fleur back into the club proper, and returned to its dimmed levels once the curtain slid back into place. Rarity downed the last of her wine and levitated all three empty glasses to give the table a quick wipe down with a cocktail napkin. She dropped the glassware at the end of the table closest to the entryway, and set her head down to wait for her fourth drink. Rarity was tired. More than tired, she was exhausted. She felt old – much too old for the affections of a young suitor like Spike. He deserved somepony younger, somepony who wasn’t such a damned coward. She tapped impatiently at the table out of need for something to do with her hooves. As her irritation grew, she began to flip the switch repeatedly, hoping that it would make the waitress move a little quicker with her alcohol. * * * It was a cheerful early morning that found Moondancer trotting down the street with a scowl on her face and murder on her mind. Other pedestrians stepped out of the fuming unicorn’s way as she stormed her way through the Upper District. The potion ingredients they’d acquired the day before jingled, merrily indifferent to her mood, from within the saddlebags on her back. “When I get my hooves on that dragon,” she muttered darkly. “Leave me waiting for you all morning in the science building, will you…?” She turned a corner and increased her pace as Spike’s house came into view. “Ooooh, you’re gunna get it, Mister,” she growled as she stepped up to the door and rapped it a few times with a hoof. She strained her ears but didn’t hear any kind of movement from inside. The seconds ticked by and she knocked again, louder this time. She took a few steps backwards and looked up to an open window. “Spike!” she shouted. “Are you still asleep!?” Moondancer sat on the ground and stared up at the open window, waiting for the dragon to pop his head out, rubbing at his eyes blearily, apologizing profusely for making her wait for him. But he didn’t appear, even after she shouted several more times and went back to the door for another round of knocking. Her anger was quickly being replaced with concern. Spike was a heavy sleeper, but this was a little much, even for him. She stood on the front step and raised a hoof to try knocking again, but thought better of it and tried the knob with a twist of her magic. The knob turned and the door opened. The sound of it creaking as it swung into semi-darkness sent a shiver up her spine, despite the warmth of the early-morning sunshine. “Spike?” she called out. She hit the light switch as she set her bags down and kicked the door closed. She found Spike sitting alone in the living room. He was slumped deeply into the high-backed chair near the fireplace, his eyes fixed unblinking on a slip of parchment held loosely in his claws. She recognized it from the ribbon as the scroll he’d burped up the day before. A lone reading lamp cast a very soft light onto Spike’s chair from its place on the mantle, and in the hearth were the cold remnants of the previous night’s fire. She pushed her way past discarded spoons and empty ice cream tubs, and poked her friend in the shoulder. He grunted at the contact, but made no other move to acknowledge her. “Spike, are you okay?” she asked in concern. He held the scroll out for her without looking up. She took it with her magic and started reading. “There’s this girl back in Ponyville…” he said in a tight, dry voice. He cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes wearily. “Her name’s Rarity. I’ve kind of had something for her for a while now…” Moondancer climbed onto the couch and listened to Spike’s tale. She listened to him talk about Rarity – about the crush he’d held for years, and about his frustrated devotion to the mare, who had always seemed content to let him keep doting on her endlessly. His friends, he said, had known about the crush, but hadn’t ever taken it seriously, and so ignored it in the hopes that the problem would resolve itself. He spoke at great length about the woes of his love life, and after what felt like hours, he reached the present. Her face had been that unreadable half-frown throughout his explanation, but when he reached the part about Scootaloo, something cracked in that façade. She tapped her hooves together anxiously as she listened to his supposed realization that Rarity would never return his affections, and how instead of answering Scootaloo, he’d decided to sneak off to Canterlot without so much as a word to her. “I can’t believe she sat there and lied to me,” Spike sighed, referring to his sister, Twilight Sparkle. “I asked her if she thought I’d been wasting my time, if I should go and talk to Rarity… She said she didn’t know, but she did know, and she kept it from me.” He looked up for the first time, meeting her gaze with eyes baggy from the sleep he’d lost compulsively reading the letter. “Why would she do that?” he asked pathetically. Moondancer looked down at the parchment on the coffee table. She reached forward and gently smoothed the wrinkles out. There were little puncture marks along the edges where Spike’s claws had torn through the paper, and she had to be careful to not make the tears worse. “The letter says it was because Rarity asked her to,” Moondancer said simply, reading the relevant portion of the missive despite having memorized it already. “But why did she want Twilight to lie to me, then?” Spike asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.” Moondancer hopped off the couch and went up to Spike, bringing her face mere inches from his. “Spike, what are you doing here?” she asked with fire in her eyes. He tried to shrink away from the intensity of her glare but her magic took hold of the tip of his chin and held him in place. “What do you mean?” Spike asked. “You shouldn’t have come to Canterlot,” she told him. She released her grip on him and shook her head in disappointment. “I can’t believe you.” “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean!?” he asked again, his temper rising steadily like fire in his belly. “I mean what I said,” she answered roughly. “You shouldn’t have come here. From what you’re telling me, you should’ve walked out of the library and gone straight to this Rarity girl and put everything out in the open.” “She didn’t want me to!” he snapped back. He got off the chair and began pacing in front of the fireplace, flexing his claws in frustration. “It’s all in the letter! ‘If Spike asks you, tell him that he never had a chance with me’!” “So what!?” Moondancer shouted. “Twilight’s not the one with a crush on her! It’s you! This is about the both of you and the feelings you two have for each other! If you weren’t sure, it was up to you to go find out! You kept saying that nopony else jumped in or did anything to help, and I’m telling you: so what!?” She stomped on an empty ice cream container, crushing it under her hoof out of frustration. “The right thing to do would’ve been to go straight to Rarity’s and talk to her,” she said sadly. “But instead, you took the first opportunity you had to run away.” “I didn’t run away,” he replied lamely. “Yeah, you did,” Moondancer said. “I left because Twilight said that it would be a good idea…” “It’s not her life, Spike…” Spike leaned heavily against the fireplace, his legs no longer willing to hold him up under their power alone. Moondancer’s words were cutting deeply, and it wasn’t the first time he’d heard something to that effect since coming to Canterlot – Rainbow Dash had said the same thing to him in the book store. Were they right? Had he just run away? He groaned inwardly. It was a stupid question. Of course they were right. It didn’t take much thought to see that what Moondancer was saying was exactly on the money. It was clear to him now. He’d been using Canterlot – and Moondancer – as an escape from the discomfort of his situation… and in the meantime, poor Scootaloo had been left back home dangling over the edge of a cliff, waiting for what should’ve been a very simple answer to the all-but-spoken question: “Could you love me back?” All around him were the remnants of his bout of self pity. The empty pints were little cardboard reminders of his willingness to give in to easy comforts. For a creature that breathed fire, ice cream was the ultimate luxury, and he dove headfirst into that comfort of comforts at the first sign of trouble. He kicked an empty container away in disgust. “What should I do?” he asked softly. “Stop asking that,” she scolded him. “You’re an adult. You know what you should do.” He nodded wordlessly and went upstairs to pack his things. Once Spike was out of sight, Moondancer began to tremble. “Easy now, girl,” she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, held it, and released it. She repeated it several more times. Deep breath. Hold. Release. Deep breath. Hold. Release. “Be brave,” she told herself. “Be brave, Moondancer… You can do this…” * * * The train platform of Canterlot station was unusually barren for the time of day. Only a few ponies, including railway employees, milled about, awaiting the arrival of the Noon Express that would run from Canterlot to Manehattan. Spike sat on a bench in the center of the platform, his legs kicking nervously under him as he stole furtive glances at Moondancer. On the one hand, he was glad for the privacy afforded by the lack of a crowd, but on the other, it would’ve been nice to at least have some more background noise to distract him from her stony silence. She simply sat beside him, his duffel bag between them and her saddlebags off to the side, staring dead ahead, past the platform and into the clear blue skies beyond the mountains of Canterlot. The effect felt strangely like sitting in the living room with his mother, waiting for his father to get home from work so he could lay down a punishment for breaking something in the study or playing with his fire indoors. “You sure you’re going to be okay?” Spike asked for the tenth time that morning. “For the last time, yes,” she said. “You’ve already helped enough. Thank you for helping me get organized.” Spike nodded and busied himself by digging at loose splinters in the bench with his claws. A train whistled in the distance, heralding its arrival to Canterlot, and a few moments later it whistled again, telling everypony that it was now settled into the station and ready for boarding. Spike and Moondancer waited for the other passengers to get themselves situated. They were in no hurry, and the train wouldn’t be leaving for a few more minutes. “Do you know what you’re going to do?” Moondancer asked. Spike shook his head. “No. No idea. All I know is that I have to talk to Rarity.” “What does that mean for Scootaloo?” “No clue,” he sighed. “I won’t know how this goes down until I’ve got Rarity right in front of me and we’ve both had our say. I have to know why she never… Why we never tried anything before, I guess.” Moondancer turned to him and placed a hoof on his knee in support. “You might not like what she has to say.” “I suppose there’s the danger of that,” he said with a gulp. “But it doesn’t matter as long as it’s the truth. The truth is what matters. We need to start being honest with ourselves, and with each other.” Moondancer’s face lit up with a proud smile. She patted his knee encouragingly and nodded towards the train. They gathered their things and walked to the caboose. They stepped onto the caboose platform and Moondancer stood on her hind legs to check the compartment through the window in the door. “Looks like you’ll have some privacy,” she said. “Guess everypony else took cabins further up.” “That’s good, it gives me some more time to brood,” he said jokingly. “Brood all you want as long as you don’t chicken out at the last minute,” Moondancer said lightly. She leaned forward a little and smiled sadly. “And… I need you to do something for me, m’kay?” “Anything,” Spike answered immediately. “Promise me,” she said, “that no matter what you decide, or who you choose… that you’ll be brave.” He chuckled and nodded. “I promise to be brave.” Moondancer shook her head and touched his shoulder. “I mean it, Spike,” she said, emphasizing it by giving him a quick shake. “Sometimes being brave means fighting monsters, and other times it means putting your heart on the line even though there’s a chance you could get hurt…” Moondancer’s voice hitched and her eyes became damp with barely withheld tears. Before Spike could ask what was wrong, she leaned forward, placing her lips against his. The kiss was sweet. It wasn’t hard and passionate like the ones he’d read about in the climactic scenes of romance novels. There was no gasping for breath or pawing hungrily at one other with desperate desire. She merely pressed their lips together in a chaste, innocent expression of affection, the way a filly and a colt would when sharing their first intimate moment with a member of the opposite sex. The train whistle blew and the train jostled forward as the brakes released and the engine began to pick up speed. Moondancer pulled away, her cheeks practically aglow. “Sometimes…” she said with a quiet sniffle and a weak laugh, “sometimes… being brave means letting go of somepony you care about, because it’s what’s for the best.” She spun around and leapt off the slowly moving caboose and onto the station platform. She wiped away the last of her tears with the back of her hoof, and trotted away without looking back to see if Spike’d had any reaction to the kiss. The sound of the train chugging along became more distant, until the only sign that it had left was a final muffled blow of the train’s whistle as it disappeared around the mountain. Moondancer left the train station and began heading back towards the palace. She listened to the glassy rattle of the potion ingredients in her bags and tried to focus on what she would need to do for her experiment once she got back to campus, but she knew it was a lost cause. The day was probably a wash. Instead she let her mind wander back to a very specific day five years ago. It was the day before the Summer Sun Celebration, but to one little filly, this was the real celebration. She sat on a blanket on the lawn of the courtyard the school shared with the castle grounds, surrounded by friends, and food, and presents. It was her birthday, but the only thing she was really excited for was the arrival of one very special guest. She would periodically look away from the party, eyes scanning in the direction of the dormitories for any sign that he’d come down from the tower. The birthday present she was going to give herself this year was to finally tell him about her feelings for him. The prospect of confessing like that, in front of all of her friends, no less, was scary, but she was a brave little filly. She looked at the clock tower and noticed that he was a little late, but that was okay. He and his sister were always working on some kind of important research thing for Princess Celestia. All she had to do was be patient and he’d show up eventually. And maybe, if she felt extra brave, she’d even steal her first kiss from him. All she had to do was wait just a little bit more for him to arrive, then she’d be able to show him just how brave she was.