//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: The Heart Thief 
// by Helrael 
//------------------------------//

With a reluctant whimper, followed by a pair of decisive yips, Winona lifted her snout from the ground and sat, staring straight into the entrance to the Everfree Forest.
 
Applejack yawned loudly, giving the dog a scratch behind the ears before turning back to Twilight and Rarity. “Yup. That's probably where you'll find him. You'd think he'd know better than to head into the Everfree Forest in the middle of the night.” She stared into the forest for a few moments before she nodded back at Winona, who still hadn't moved a muscle. “It's as far as I can take Winona, though. Can't stand that forest anymore'n us.”
 
“You're a lifesaver, AJ,” Twilight thanked her, giving her a quick hug. “Take Winona home and get some sleep.”
 
“Ya'll don't need an extra pair of eyes?”
 
Twilight's eyes found the forest entrance, as if she could find the answer there. She wasn't a stranger to the unease roused by those foreboding woods, but tonight, it felt different. Worse.
 
“Twi?”
 
The alicorn blinked and her gaze shifted back to Applejack. She smiled and shook her head. “I'm sure we'll find him soon. Thanks again.”
 
“You're welcome, sugarcube.” Twilight wasn’t blind to her raised eyebrow, but for whatever reason, Applejack decided to let it go. She stepped aside and tipped her hat at Twilight as she headed off into the forest. “Good luck.”
 
Rarity gave Applejack a quick hug and a few words of thanks of her own before hurrying after Twilight, who had already entered the forest. The overhanging branches quickly filtered out the light of the predawn sky above, and soon the only source of illumination was Twilight's horn up ahead. Rarity lit up her own horn, but even in the short time it took her to cast a simple spell of illumination, Twilight had already outdistanced her by another ten feet.
 
“Twilight?”
 
Instead of responding, the alicorn broke into a gallop, spreading her wings and beating them furiously to help speed her along. Rarity tried following suit, but between her already heavy exhaustion and the uncertain footing, she was quickly losing ground.
 
“Spiiiike!” Twilight called out desperately, throwing her head around in search of any sign of the dragon. Seeing the tears on her face, Rarity joined in as well, calling out to Spike at the top of her lungs.
 
As they continued to delve deeper into the cursed forest, Rarity felt the fear begin to gnaw at her as well. He had been gone for so long. Too long. She and Twilight had already been searching for two hours, ringing doorbells and combing through the streets and fields of Ponyville. They had assumed ‒ or hoped ‒ that Spike had enough sense to avoid this place. Even in daytime, the Everfree Forest was no place for a young dragon like Spike. Especially not in state she suspected he was in.
 
Rarity grimaced as she continued her increasingly reckless pursuit of Twilight. There could be little doubt as to why he had run off. For the hundredth time that night, she cursed herself for having spoken so freely of their night. He had been in the room right above her! What could she possibly have been thinking?
 
A fuzzy, lavender wall broke her chain of thought, and she and Twilight went tumbling across the dirt path, both crying out in alarm. They went down in a heap off the side of the road, and Rarity found her legs submerged in a sludge that she in the darkness of the Everfree could only hope was mud. Twilight was the first to recover, and quickly disentangled herself from the downed unicorn.
 
“Sorry, Rarity.” She nodded toward the split in the path she had stopped by before Rarity had crashed into her. “I'm gonna check by Zecora's real quick. You continue down here and look, alright? I'll catch up.”
 
“Right...” Rarity groaned, slipping on the mud as she tried to stand. Twilight used her magic to lift her off the ground and deposit her on the pathway, brushing off the worst of the dirt and grime stuck to her coat in the process. They both exchanged a nod before Twilight vanished in a burst of light.
 
Rarity gave a heavy sigh, then turned back the direction she had been going before, continuing down the pathway at a swift canter. Her horn lit up again, and a cone of light shot out ahead of her, helping to light her path and keep an eye on any tracks or signs left by Spike.
 
Something rustled suddenly in the branches just above her, and in the split second she lifted her gaze, a gnarled root snared her hoof, sending her tumbling over forwards. With a dazed groan, Rarity lifted her head up from the ground and spat out a mouthful of dirt, then shrieked with frustration.

“Evil, evil forest!”
 
She was debating whether or not just to collapse on the ground then and there, when she spotted something in the bushes ahead of her. With some difficulty, she lit up her horn once again, focusing the light ahead of her. What had caught her eye turned out to be the lighter shade of wood exposed by a series of broken branches, forming an almost unnoticeable path off the main road.
 
She stood up and approached the bushes, pushing them aside to reveal a steep incline full of recently disturbed thorny undergrowth. Her eyes lit up, and she turned back toward where she'd come from.
 
“Twilight! I think I found him!”
 
Only a few seconds passed before the alicorn popped into existence beside her. “Where!?”
 
Rarity motioned down the incline with a hoof, and Twilight's horn lit up almost immediately. After a few moments, the thorned branches ahead of them rustled to life, curling back and forming a straight path toward the bottom of the incline. Twilight led the way down, and Rarity followed after, both of them picking their way carefully down the treacherous terrain.
 
“All these rocks and thorns,” Twilight muttered worriedly. The light shining from her horn reached down the length of the pathway, illuminating a sizeable pond below. Its water was an unhealthy, almost fluorescent shade of green, and an unpleasant, sulfurous odor rose from its surface.
 
Panic gripped Rarity when she realized that the path Spike had carved through the underbrush led straight into the water. It was evident she wasn't the only one who noticed it: Twilight's searchlight brightened and widened suddenly, before flicking about the pond erratically. A wet trail soon caught the light, leading off through the grass and mud to the left.
 
“Oh thank goodness,” Rarity breathed out in relief. The two ponies reached the pond and circled around it, carefully tracking the imprints Spike had left in the soggy ground, first by his whole body, then by his feet. Twilight's magic parted a cluster of bushes ahead of them, and suddenly the light of the rising sun was shining brightly in their eyes.
 
“Spike!” Twilight cried out, and she was gone in an instant.
 
Rarity blinked her eyes against the sunlight, and discovered that they had stepped into a clearing, quite sizeable by Everfree standards. In its center sat Twilight, her wings wrapped protectively around the dragon she cradled in her lap.
 
The whole forest seemed to have gone quiet around them, lending an ominous tranquility to their surroundings. Still squinting against the bright sunlight, Rarity stepped closer. Spike's eyes were closed, and he hadn't responded at all to being picked up by Twilight, so it was with no small amount of trepidation that Rarity approached the pair. The alicorn hugged the dragon close to her chest, shaking all over, but when she lifted her head, Rarity found her smiling through her tears.
 
“He's breathing,” she managed, struggling to speak. “He-he's okay...”
 
Rarity sat down in front of Twilight, letting out a breath she didn't know she had been holding. Only now did she notice how much she had been shaking herself, and she pulled Twilight into a tight embrace, with the dragon resting between them.
 
Twilight gave a shaky yawn. “Let's... go home.”
 
Rarity only faintly registered the sound of Twilight's horn firing up. Spike's breathing and her own furiously beating heart was all she really seemed to hear. Their surroundings faded into brilliant light for half a second, before they were replaced with the interior of Twilight's bedroom.
 
Both ponies rose to their hooves slowly, smiling fondly down at the dragon. He murmured faintly in his sleep, stirring slightly as if he were about to wake up. Before long, Rarity's smile faltered, and she looked up at Twilight.
 
“I should go... The poor dear needs his rest more than anything else right now. And a bath.”
 
“Don't we all?” Twilight chuckled, yawning again. “Thanks, Rarity. I owe you big time for everything you've done tonight.”
 
“Nonsense” ‒ Rarity waved a hoof in dismissal and turned to leave ‒ “What are friends for?”
 
“I'll be sure to let him know just how worried you were,” Twilight called out after her as she reached the door. “Knowing just how much you really care about him is sure to cheer him up.”
 
Rarity frowned a bit at the door before turning her head back to smile at Twilight. She wasn't quite sure what to answer, so she simply nodded her head before leaving the bedroom.
 



 
Twilight woke up in the middle of the afternoon, feeling even more tired than she had going to bed. With a great yawn, she snuggled further under her covers, still half asleep. It wouldn’t have taken her long to drift back to sleep, but she was afforded only a few seconds of peace. Her ears twitched at somepony knocking at the front door of the library, and she realized what had woken her up in the first place.
 
With a groan and another yawn, she rolled out of bed, using her magic to disentangle her wings from her duvet. Her gaze moved to Spike's bed as she shuffled towards the door, but she found it empty. She had little time to worry, though, before she heard the main door opening downstairs and Applejack's familiar drawl.
 
“Oh hiya there, Spike! Ah see ya made it back just fine!”
 
Twilight stepped outside her bedroom just in time to see Spike and Applejack standing in the doorway, the dragon nodding mutely at the pony. Applejack's gaze met Twilight's for a second before she returned her attention to Spike.
 
“Ya look just plum tuckered out, though!” She lowered her head so that she was at eye level with Spike. “You feelin' alright?”
 
Spike nodded again. “Uh-huh...” His left hand, resting on the doorknob, slipped down lazily, leaving his arm dangling at his side almost lifelessly. He turned back toward the back of the library just as Twilight arrived at the door, allowing her a quick glimpse of his drooping eyelids before he left.
 
“He looks like a zombie,” Applejack remarked quietly, so that Spike wouldn't hear.
 
Twilight nodded her agreement, giving the dragon a worried look. He was practically dragging himself across the floor, toward the stack of books he had likely been working on shelving before Applejack’s arrival had interrupted him.
 
“So what was he doin' in the Everfree Forest?”
 
“I'm still not sure. Rarity and I found him passed out in a clearing pretty deep inside. I took him straight home, gave him a bath, and put him to bed. He could barely utter a coherent sentence the whole time.” Twilight yawned again. “And I just got up. Haven't had a chance to speak with him, actually.”
 
“Ah see. Didn't mean tah wake you up, Twi, Ah just figured Ah'd make sure he was alright.”

Twilight chuckled. “Fair’s fair. I woke you up at four in the morning. Thanks for checking in.”

Applejack smiled as she stepped away from the door and toward the cart of apples parked outside the library. She nodded toward Spike, standing with his back to the two ponies. “Ah'll let ya get to it! See ya around!”
 
Twilight waved the earth pony goodbye, chuckling quietly to herself when she saw a miserable-looking Applebloom sitting in the back of the cart. She remembered Applejack being less than pleased when she and Rarity had told her about the Crusaders' little deception yesterday. She certainly wouldn't envy Sweetie Belle once Rarity got her hooves on the little filly.
 
She closed the door and turned back to Spike, who was balancing precariously atop a ladder while struggling with a stack of almost a dozen books. Twilight moved toward the dragon with a heavy sigh and lit up her horn, relieving him of his burden and sorting the books herself.
 
“You know the rule, Spike. Ten books per trip up the ladder at most, and then minus one per shelf off the floor. If not for your sake, then at least for the books'.”
 
Spike regarded her with his half-lidded eyes, blinking a few times before opening them up a little wider. “Sorry,” he murmured. His attention turned to the ladder, and he climbed down to get the next stack of books.
 
Twilight regarded her assistant quietly as he wordlessly walked past her to the nearest reading table, picked up a stack of exactly six books, and returned to the ladder, scaling it to the top shelf.
 
“I know what you're doing,” Twilight told him, taking a few steps toward the ladder.
 
“What?” Spike finished the shelving, and he returned to the table to retrieve another seven books. Twilight stepped to the side to allow Spike to reposition the ladder.
 
“No matter how many chores you do today, we're gonna have to talk about last night sooner or later.”
 
Spike hefted the stack of books onto his right arm with a grunt of effort, using his left to shelve them. “Okay.”
 
Twilight opened her mouth to start lecturing him, but then gave a concerned pout. “Are you... feeling okay? You seem pretty... distant.”
 
“I'm fine.”
 
Twilight frowned. Lighting up her horn, she yanked the dragon off the ladder as he put away the last book. She held him up in front of herself and touched her hoof against his forehead. “You feel a little cold. Maybe you picked something up in the Everfree Forest.”
 
The two vanished in a blink of light and reappeared in the bathroom. In a few short seconds, she summoned a stool and placed it in front of her, floated Spike onto it, pulled out a thermometer from the cabinet, and popped it into his mouth.
 
“You fell into that green, awful-smelling pool, didn't you?” Twilight said, phrasing it more as a statement than an actual question. A clipboard and a quill popped into existence in front of her, ready for her notes. Spike nodded dully, bouncing the thermometer up and down idly with his lower lip. “Alright. So, apathy, mental fatigue, and perhaps physical fatigue. Feelings of dizzyness?”
 
Spike shook his head.
 
“Nausea? Rashes? Any kind of pains?”
 
Another shake of the head.
 
“Elevated heartbeat, coughing, sneezing, anything at all?”
 
“There's nothing wrong with me, Twilight,” Spike mumbled through the thermometer, moving to get off the chair before being stopped by Twilight.
 
“That's the first time you've gone beyond two syllables today.” Twilight took a few moments to scribble down her notes so far, then pulled the thermometer out of Spike's mouth. “Look at this. Two degrees below your usual temperature. I'll need a sample.”
 
“You do know you don't have a medical license, right?” Spike remarked when Twilight pulled out a syringe from the cabinet. His tone was as flat as ever, though, and he didn't seem at all worried, making no move to escape.
 
“That may be ‒ hold out your arm ‒” Twilight encased the syringe within a pressurized force field and heated it up immensely. Spike stretched out his right arm reluctantly, and Twilight summoned an intense flame that blowtorched the pit of his elbow for a few seconds before dissipating. “‒ But I'm one of the few ponies in the world who has ever studied a blood sample from a dragon, let alone yours. Besides, we both know nopony around here knows the first thing about your physiology.”
 
“Zecora does.”
 
“I'm pretty sure Zecora doesn't have a medical license either,” Twilight rebuffed him. “And I doubt she has much experience with a microscope.”
 
She dispelled the makeshift magical autoclave that had been holding the syringe, and, after checking it carefully, brought its tip against the crook of the dragon's elbow.
 
“Ow,” Spike murmured, staring blankly at the syringe filling with his blood.

It was quickly replaced by a wad of cotton, and Twilight turned away from the dragon, smiling triumphantly at the sample in her grip. “Now, refrain from stretching out your arm, Spike ‒”
 
“I know.”
 
“‒ And get some rest. It's the best advice I can give you until I find out what's wrong. Spit.”
 
A test tube popped into existence in front of Spike, who dutifully complied.
 
“There's nothing wrong,” he sighed again, wiping his mouth and getting off the stool.
 
“Denial.” The quill next to Twilight's head made a few scribbles on the clipboard, just before the alicorn and all her equipment vanished in a flash.
 



 
Spike sat down at the foot of the stairs in the main reading room, taking a short break in order to appreciate his work. He had put away every single book in the entire building, he'd dusted every shelf, and he'd swept the floor. He gave a little smile. He usually did that after finishing his chores. Kinda strange in retrospect.
 
Using the broom still clutched in his hands, Spike hoisted himself up to his feet and looked around the room blankly. There was something he was forgetting. He was almost sure of it.
 
He made a few popping sounds as he dragged the broom around the room and went around the tables, looking underneath each of them. The popping sounds grew louder as his gaze swept across the shelves all around him, and before long, he remembered. “Bo-... bo-... Box. Box.”
 
Some kind of box. An important box.
 
A very important box.
 
Maybe not all that important, but definitely something he should be looking for. Maybe.
 
The door to the cellar swung open suddenly, and Twilight stepped into the library. She blinked her eyes in the sunlight and looked around the room with some confusion before her gaze settled on Spike.
 
“I told you to get some sleep.”
 
Spike shrugged. “Couldn't.”
 
Twilight rubbed at her temple with her forehoof and sighed. “Okay. Well, thanks for cleaning up the library.”
 
“Did you find anything?”
 
Twilight gave an even more exasperated sigh. “No, I did not.”
 
Spike nodded his head dully. “Hm.”
 
Twilight groaned. “What's with the attitude!?”
 
“Whuh?”
 
“That! The monosyllabic replies! The monotonous voice! That spaced-out look in your eyes! The way you drag yourself along the floor like a zombie! You should be making some snarky comment about me wasting two and a half hours studying some stupid blood sample, but all you can do is grunt!”
 
Spike shrugged.
 
“The only reaction I've seen from you today was when I pointed a syringe at you, but even then you didn't even flinch! If you're not tired and you're not sick, then what's up?”
 
Spike hesitated for a moment, then shrugged a third time. “Have you... seen my box?”
 
Twilight stared at him incredulously for a long moment before bringing a hoof to her forehead and groaning. “No..? Urgh, what box? What does this have to do with anything?”
 
“I... need it.”
 
“For what?” Twilight griped, trying and failing to make any sense of what her assistant was saying.
 
Spike shrugged again.
 
“No more shrugging! For the love of..!” Twilight stomped her hoof against the floor and took a deep breath to calm herself. “What... is this box? When and where did you get it?”
 
Spike seemed to space out again. It was as if he either hadn't heard her, or had fallen into some sort of trance. Even so, he was looking right at her with that blank expression.
 
“Spike. I said when and where did you... Are you just... not shrugging?”
 
Spike nodded, and Twilight gave him an acidic glare. The normal Spike would have flinched away from such a scowl. The dragon in front of her, however, simply blinked his eyes slowly.
 
“Did you get it... yesterday?” Twilight tried, succeeding in getting a hesitant nod out of Spike. “Alright. That's a start. None of your birthday presents were boxes. Did you get it in Canterlot?”
 
Spike stared blankly ahead for a moment. “I... can't remember.”
 
“You didn't come home with one. Rarity didn't mention anything like that... and she was... very thorough.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at Spike. “Did you find it in the Everfree Forest?”
 
Spike scratched his head. “I dunno.”
 
Twilight's eyes narrowed, and she approached Spike. “Something happened in the Everfree Forest, Spike. What? You overheard Rarity and me talking about you, and you got upset. And you ran off. Why would you go into the Everfree Forest?”
 
Spike let the broom in his hand drop to the floor with a clatter, and he sat down on the floor in front of her and shrugged. “I was... just... running. I ended up outside the forest. You... searching the library. Needed to hide, so I went in. I got... scared, and I started running. And then... I... uh... I don't ‒”
 
“You fell,” Twilight helped him. “Down a hill and into a nasty pond. Remember the smell of rotten eggs? The color green?” Spike nodded dully. “You crawled out and walked into a clearing. It would have been lighter suddenly. Maybe you saw the moon?” Twilight put a hoof on his shoulder. “What happened in the clearing?”
 
“I can't... I met a... I don't know.” Spike shook his head, giving the tiniest hint of a frown.
 
He backed away slightly, and Twilight realized she had been leaning forwards, standing just inches from Spike. She drew back with a sigh, figuring his recollection had hit a dead end. “We're going to Zecora's.”
 
“But you said ‒”
 
“Shush.”
 



 
“...And the last thing he remembers is walking into some clearing deeper inside the forest,” Twilight finished, wrinkling her nose as Zecora uncorked a particularly noxious vial. “I think he met… something in there.”
 
The zebra emptied the vial's contents into the cauldron that stood in the center of her small hut. She was apparently having a very busy day, judging by the sheer volume of the potion she was mixing. Dozens of flasks and containers had been brought in from outside, taking up every single square inch of table space in the house and littering the floor. Some containers had even been strung up in the ceiling, forcing Twilight to duck her head and tuck in her wings.
 
The windows had all been shuttered, and while Zecora had welcomed them warmly, she had urged them to close the door quickly behind them. Twilight's entire explanation of Spike's situation had taken place in almost complete darkness while Zecora worked, but now a faint red glow emerged from her cauldron, painting the zebra's visage a sinister shade.
 
All around them, strange wooden masks faded into view, staring down upon the hut's three occupants. Some had lips carved in bizarre smiles, while most others bore much grimmer expressions.
 
Counterpointing both the unnerving decor and the eerie lighting, however, was Zecora's warm, familiar smile, hovering above the giant cauldron as the zebra sniffed at her concoction. Apparently satisfied, she ducked behind the cauldron for a moment and reappeared a moment later with a large, cast-iron lid gripped between her teeth. She dropped it onto the cauldron with a great thud, leaving Twilight marveling at the strength of the zebra's jaw.
 
With the potion no longer exposed, Zecora picked her way across the floor and opened up her windows to let in the sunlight. “Come, and sit down,” the zebra finally said, using her snout to clear off some space on a nearby table. “And let's have a look around.”
 
Spike wandered over to the zebra, dragging his feet across the floor in a straight line. His movements were so careless that only Twilight's magic kept him from knocking over any of the flasks between him and Zecora. Once there, he clambered clumsily up onto the table, and Zecora set to work.
 
She stared deep into his eyes, tapped at his knees and elbows with a wooden ladle, pressed a hoof firmly against his brow, and examined his mouth thoroughly. She put an ear to his chest, nudged at his spines, and stomped a hoof against the tip of his tail, making the flasks all over the table clatter, but eliciting not a single reaction from Spike.
 
She drew back and rubbed at her chin for a moment, then turned to Twilight. The alicorn opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but the zebra went around to her side without a word. Then, quick as a snake, she nipped at her wing and plucked a small lavender feather.
 
“Ow! What was that for!?” Twilight demanded, but Zecora offered no reply.
 
In the blink of an eye, she was back in front of Spike, the feather held gingerly between her teeth. She leaned in close to the dragon and brushed at his nostrils with the tip of the feather, making him wrinkle his nose reflexively. She kept at it, pulling away when Spike flared his nostrils and tilted his head back slowly. With a mighty sneeze, Spike sent himself flying off the table, along with two empty clay containers.
 
Twilight caught all three with her magic and looked to Zecora, who now regarded Spike with wide eyes.
 
“What is it?” she asked the zebra, suddenly afraid to know the answer. She deposited the dragon on the floor and returned the clay pots to the table.
 
Zecora crouched down level with Spike's head, examining his face closely. “No spark, no smoke, no dragon's fire...” She rose again and gave Twilight a grave look. “I am afraid Spike's condition is quite dire.”
 
Twilight gulped. “What's wrong?”
 
“Your friend was waylaid by a thief's guile,” Zecora muttered in response, wandering off to the nearest bookshelf. “Clever disguise hiding intentions most vile.”
 
She picked out a large black book and put it on the table where Spike had been sitting. Twilight approached her as Zecora flipped through the book with a practiced hoof. Manticores and cockatrices, hydras and chimeras, dragons and minotaurs. Apparitions of all shapes and sizes caught Twilight's eyes for the briefest of moments as she watched the zebra search the comprehensive bestiary. Before long, she came to a halt and Twilight's heart sank at the sight of the image displayed on the page.
 
“Perhaps you are familiar with this thing?” Zecora suggested, noting Twilight's expression. “Have you ever met with the changeling?”
 
Twilight nodded her head, gaze hardening at the detailed drawing on the page. “What did they do to Spike?”
 
“A rare theft for any changeling, worthy of the title Queen or King,” Zecora explained in her usual roundabout way. “One has practiced an old, dark art. One has stolen dear Spike's heart.”