The Personal Files of Dr. Mindwell

by rillegas08


02: Spike, Session 1, Feelings of Inadequacy

I had just finished placing my furniture where I wanted it, an hour or two after the movers had brought it all in, and I was starting to get hungry. During the tour, I'd noticed a restaurant. I'll eat there tonight, and fill up my pantry tomorrow. I ended up putting the bed and one of the comfortable chairs on the second floor, and the other comfy chair and the sofa on the first floor. I made a mental note to buy the rest of the furniture in the next few days: a few floor lamps, end tables to put next to my bed and the chairs on the first floor, a desk (a must for anypony who must keep files on his clients), and a dining room table. Perhaps a partition between the kitchen and where I'll be talking to my clientele, since the kitchen and dining room are more private.

I heard a knock on the door, breaking my thoughts. I opened the door, and found Spike standing there, a spiral-bound notebook in his claws.

"Message from Princess Twilight!"

"Is that her agenda?"

"You bet! It's got all of this week and next week. Twilight figured she'd give plenty of notice."

"All right, let's see what we've got here." He gave me the scroll and I adjusted my glasses. It seemed odd that the schedule of a princess would be so empty; then again, both she and Equestria were still in the process of getting used to the presence of a fourth princess, so her full royal duties may not have been fully realized. At least two times each week, Miss Sparkle had made sure to attend one of Pinkie Pie's parties. She had allocated some blocks of time for reorganizing the books in the library or something else. Tuesday and Thursday were both almost completely available, and at the bottom of each column was a note: "Spend time with friends or doing errands."

"Let's have her come in 9:00 Tuesday morning."

"She doesn't have anything planned?" I showed him the note. "That's weird. She usually plans out every detail, even on days when she has no plans."

"Perhaps she's starting to keep some days open in case of emergencies like what happened at this year's Summer Sun Celebration."

"Uh, you can't schedule sudden emergencies, doc."

"True, but you can move the schedule around to accommodate them."

"Huh. Never thought of it like that. All right, see you later!" He waved and turned away, and I was about to close the door behind him when I noticed him pause and turn to face me. "Uh, actually, do you think we can talk?"

"Of course. Come have a seat." He passed through my door again and headed toward my comfy chair. He jumped up and patted the cushion.

"Hm. Nice."

I closed the door and smiled at him. "That's actually my chair. You get to sit on the couch."

"Oh. Sorry." He grinned sheepishly and hopped over to the sofa. I sat on the chair facing him, taking a notepad and pencil to take notes. "Huh. It's just as comfortable."

"And it's bigger, so you can sit or lay down however you want. Now," I said, "what's on your mind?"

"Well, I don't wanna start negative. My life is pretty good, actually! Twilight's always taken care of me like a little brother. She hatched me the day she got her cutie mark, and her display of raw magical power is what got her into Celestia's school." His smile faded a little. "Well, most of the time she treats me like a brother. Sometimes she does things that kinda hurt, but I don't think she ever realizes that it hurts. I'm a dragon, so I've got a tough hide, plus natural armor with these scales," at this he tapped his scales with a claw, "so the pain doesn't last too long.

"Oh yeah, I was gonna be positive. Um, Twilight depends on me a lot and is very grateful for my assistance, even though she can sometimes forget to voice it. Some of that gratefulness shows through her actions, like when she realized she could do nothing to save the Crystal Heart herself, and had me do it."

I interrupted. "What happened with the Crystal Heart? I'd heard something had happened up north, but I don't know any details."

"Oh, I was with Twilight the whole time. Want me to tell you what happened?"

"Sure."

He started his tale by talking about Miss Sparkle's test in Canterlot, which later turned out to be another mission to save the world. This was before she had become an alicorn princess. They traveled to the newly reappeared Crystal Empire, where they met Twilight's brother Shining Armor. King Sombra appeared behind them as a large shadow, and they high-tailed it into the Empire, which was protected by Shining Armor's wife, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

"I know those names," I said. "King Sombra and Princess Mi Amore were mentioned in one of my history classes."

"Cadance was in your history book?"

"Cadance meaning Princess Cadenza?" He nodded. "No, not her. The original Princess Mi Amore, who King Sombra defeated. Continue."

He continued as requested, talking about how Miss Sparkle and her friends talked to an exhausted Princess Cadance. They all decided to help by recreating the Crystal Faire, an event that was the ultimate representation of everything the Crystal Empire represented. The Faire turned out to be more or less successful: most of the crystal ponies had regained most of their crystalline translucence, until Princess Cadance was too exhausted from maintaining her spell that the barrier went down completely for a moment. Miss Sparkle had asked her five friends to make sure the crystal ponies remained entertained while she and Spike went to find the Crystal Heart. He insisted on joining her on the dangerous mission, but she only let him if he didn't raise a claw to help her. "So I folded my arms tight, refusing to use my claws. She can have trouble accepting help from time to time." I made a note to talk with Miss Sparkle about that on Tuesday. She guessed that King Sombra kept the Crystal Heart in the castle because nopony would be brave enough to go in there. They had passed through several layers of security, each one harder to get through than the last. One was a door that hypnotized somepony, forcing them to face their worst fear.

"Finally, we made it to the top of the tower, and the Crystal Heart was in the middle of the floor. Twilight touched it, but then some sort of alarm sounded, She barely had enough time to push the Heart out of the way before she became trapped inside a cell of dark crystals. She tried teleporting out, but there was a fail safe spell that pulled her right back in. She realized that she could do nothing else to help the Crystal Empire, and told me to take the Crystal Heart to the fastival. I was hesitant at first because I promised I wouldn't, but it was the only way. I took the Crystal Heart and started making my way back down. But I tripped."

His face fell as he said this. "Cadance was able to get a hold of it before Sombra could, and the Crystal Heart was activated. Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened if I hadn't tripped."

"You mentioned the door that forces somepony to face their worst fear. What did you see?"

He wrung at his claws. Fortunately for me, fear is an emotion that somepony remembers most vividly. This memory would take many years, decades or maybe centuries for him, to forget. He wasn't trying to remember it; no, I think he was trying to stop being afraid of the memory of his fear.

"We were walking back home to the library. Twilight took me off her back, and wouldn't let me in. She said she didn't need me anymore, and was sending me away. I asked why, but she didn't say anything. She levitated my stuff out to me, and shut the door."

"Did you say anything in that fear?"

"No, I don 't wanna go! Please, Twilight, don't make me!"

"Does Miss Sparkle know this is your greatest fear?"

"Yeah, she asked what I saw and I told her."

"And what did she say?"

"She said she'd never said me away, and we hugged." His smile returned, and I smiled too. Thank goodness for fears. It sounds strange for somepony to say such a thing, but fear is a vital emotion to a pony's survival, and for somepony like me, knowing such fears is one of the most effective ways to help somepony.

"May I say something?" He nodded. "It seems like that fear still has a hold on you, even though Miss Sparkle has reassured you that it will never happen. I understand, probably more than most, that getting over fears takes a while, and must go at somepony's own comfortable pace. Aside from being let go, what other situations are you afraid of?"

"Well, sometimes stuff like I already mentioned happens: I've got a big moment, and then I screw up. I had the Crystal Heart, but I tripped. I helped Twilight sneak into the Canterlot library one night... oh, it was only because there was a problem and that was the only way Twilight could solve it! Anyway, that night I ate too much ice cream and had a bad stomachache the next day. On my birthday, I was happy because I was getting presents, but then I got greedy and started growing into an adult dragon. It was only when Rarity snapped me out of it that I was able to calm down and be my normal self."

"How did she do that?" It's an understandable question. If something like that were to happen again, I may need to know how to calm him back down.

"That actually goes back to a few days before my birthday. I had a perfectly ripened fire ruby, but gave it to Rarity. After I became an adult dragon and snatched her up in my claw, I was eyeing the ruby again, but then she started talking about why it was important to her. She said it was given to her by the kindest, sweetest, most generous dragon ever, and I suddenly remembered how good it felt to give it to her in the first place."

He smiled, a little blush rising to his cheeks. Ah, a child's first crush. Sometimes directed toward somepony of an inappropriate age, but completely logical to them.

"What are your feelings for Rarity?"

"She's the most beautiful, most elegant pony I've ever met! I want to spend as much time with her as I can, which usually means helping her carry stuff, or being her pincushion, or helping her in some other way."

I wanted to ask what feelings he felt she had for him, but it already felt like we were going on a tangent, so I made a note to ask him about Rarity in a future session.

"It sounds like you are a dragon of several talents, who may be at his absolute best when helping others. You've admitted to having a fear of letting somepony down while you're helping them. However, from what you've told me so far, it also sounds like nopony holds such mistakes against you, whether it's due to how well they know you or your age. You are still a baby dragon, after all. Not everything you do is going to be your fault."

"So what should I do?"

"Continue helping, but try not to force yourself to help just because you're bored. Instead, when you're bored, do things for yourself that you might otherwise not be able to do. It could be the case that you force yourself to help when you don't know what to do."

He brought his claw to his chin "It has been a while since I've read a good comic book."

"That's a good start," I said with a smile. "Let things come naturally. Don't do too much at once, or you might get burned out."

"I'll try," he said, then paused. "Do I need to stay a full hour, or what? How does this work?"

That's another thing I'll have to buy: a clock.

"Unless you have something else you'd like to talk about right now, we can be finished."

"Then in that case, thanks for talking with me, Doc. I'll see you around town!"

I opened the door to let him out as he jumped off the couch. He left my house and turned toward the library, and I turned the opposite direction toward the restaurant. If I waited for clients to come to me, it would take a long time before I got a full schedule, although I felt it had been appropriate for the first day. On the way to the restaurant, I met a couple going the opposite direction and introduced myself. It was true that a pony of my profession was not in high demand throughout Equestria, but perhaps the ponies in Ponyville had a higher demand due to what they've gone through. If so, my schedule will be filled in no time.