//------------------------------//
// Twilight's Romance Novel 
// Story: Spike Has Seen Too Much 
// by PonyThunder 
//------------------------------//

	
It was a quiet, lazy morning. Spike had awoken early to do some cleaning around the castle, and he couldn't exactly put a claw on why he felt like it, but he had just decided on being extra nice on this particular day. He dusted in every nook and cranny, cleaned in every trough and crevice, and even tidied up some of the multitudes of books that were laying around in various spots. Twilight had left to go run some errands in Ponyville, but she would probably be back soon and be so genuinely surprised at how pristine the castle was when she got back. Spike smiled at the thought as he went into Twilight's room to do the last bit of cleaning. The thought of her being so happy from his display of gratitude warmed his heart.

Inside the room, he noticed that the bed sheets were not dangling all the way to the floor in one spot. Concealed slightly behind them, Spike could see a small pile of papers that were suspiciously peeking out from underneath the bed. He thought for a moment if he should leave them alone and ignore it, but decided he'd just let down the sheets and push them out of view without taking a peek. It was, after all, not his business to be snooping around Twilight's personal belongings. But she would appreciate the gesture of him tidying up the place, right? Right, he reasoned to himself.

But he still felt a slight twinge, so he took a brief glance over his shoulder, keeping an eye out for anypony who might be watching him just in case, and walked over to the edge of the bed. Okay, don't look at the writing, he thought to himself. Dont. Look. He readied his foot to brush the papers underneath the bed, but in a moment of weakness, he had caught a brief glance at the underlined title at the top of one of the pages. Drat, I'm looking. Might as well look a little more...






A Forbidden Pony Romance


By Twilight Sparkle






Spikes eyes widened as he stared intently at the pages laying beneath him, his foot frozen in place instead of pushing the pages beneath the bed frame. Was this what he thought it was? A romance novel, written by Twilight? It was obviously supposed to be a secret, not intended for anypony to know, but Spike's curiosity burned with flaring intensity after a few guilty glances at some of the writing on the first page. With every passing moment, his curiosity further surpassed his desire to honor Twilight's privacy. He read each line faster and faster, eyes widening at the pure unadulterated  sophistication and mature themes already present in just the opening paragraphs of Twilight's secret novel. He just couldn't stop himself from reading further.

Time passed slowly as he continued reading through the pages, his attention becoming more and more focused on the juicy secrets of Twilight's inner thoughts laid out in a compelling fictional story. A fair amount of time passed, until he heard the terrifying sounds of hooves trotting along the crystal floors of the castle. A sudden shiver shot up through his spine and with an instinctive reflex of terror, Spike kicked the pages underneath the bed, flipped around and hurriedly scuffled towards the door, but as he came into the doorway, he was stopped by Twilight Sparkle, directly in front of him. He looked up at her with a face of pure shock.

"Hey, Spike," Twilight said without a hint of any particular emotion.

"Hi, T-Twilight," Spike replied, stuttering a bit saying her name. Crap, he thought.

Twilight could tell when Spike was hiding something from a mile away, and she gave him a stern glance. "Alright, spit it out, whatever it is..."

I'm dead, he thought. He put up his claw in a manner to explain himself and rationalize his mistake as delicately as possible, but as he did, Twilight noticed some of the papers underneath the bed behind him, and a look of embarrassment flushed across her face.

"Did you..." she trailed off suddenly.

"Did I what?" he asked, knowing exactly what she meant.

"Did you...read..."

She's going to kill me. "...well...I..."

"You were reading my..."

Spike panicked and began to rationalize the situation. "It was an accident! I was cleaning the castle and I was just tidying up your room and I saw the papers so I decided to just brush them under the bed but then I saw the title and--"

"So you decided to keep reading?" Twilight's embarrassment faded and morphed into anger.

Yep, now I'm dead. "I couldn't help it! It was just so..."

"Don't even bother finishing that sentence," Twilight cut him off. "I can't believe you read my..." She was between a mixture of embarrassment and anger and it was like her emotions were teetering back and forth like a seesaw.

"Romance novel?" Spike finished her sentence, and Twilight grimaced at the words. 

That was a mistake... Maybe I can remedy this, Spike thought hopefully. "Well, the writing was really nice," he complimented Twilight, "I especially like how you described the opening kiss--"

"HOW FAR DID YOU READ?"

Well, that didn't work. "Just through chapter three, I think..."

Twilight's face was starting to turn white.

"Oh, actually I think I read through chapter four," he added. "The part where the mare and the stallion end up alone in the--"

"Oh...no...." Twilight gasped. "You didn't read...much further than that, did you?"

I did, Spike thought. "...it's...possible..."

Twilight's face was a mixture of pure concentration. It was as if she was deciding whether to kill him right there on the spot, or exact revenge at a later point in time. Spike looked up at her blank expression in a terrific anticipation until suddenly, her eyebrows slanted downwards and she gave him the most terrifying gaze he had ever seen on her face, her eyes shooting daggers directly at him.

Twilight dragged her front hoof at the floor beneath her and snorted aggressively through her nostrils. She was going to charge at him. Twilight...is going to charge me... I'm definitely dead.

In a split second, Spike scampered around Twilight in a desperate escape maneuver, his claws awkwardly scraping against the crystal floors like an animal as he slowly accelerated out of the entry and took off down the hallway. Twilight was too slow to turn around and catch him, surprised by the dragon's innate speed, but she was still furious, mostly out of sheer embarrassment. In the few moments it took Spike to bolt off in a panic, Twilight's anger had mostly subdued.

Spike, however, did not stop running. He blasted through the hallway and out of the door into Ponyville, not taking a single moment to look back, assuming Twilight was hot on his heels with intent to maim. He didn't stop running until he had reached the Everfree Forest.