Birthday Arc Part 1: A Breakfast of Champions
Spike made his way to the park and watched the ponies that were enjoying the wonderful weather. 'Rainbow Dash and her team have put together some great weather this morning'. He had thought this morning would start a great day. Spike had managed to find some wonderful puple and white flowers in the Everfree Forest on his day off yesterday that matched her coat and mane perfectly. He had finally built up the courage to ask Rarity to this year's Grand Galloping Gala as his date. Now that he had finally grown to a decent size, he thought Rarity wouldn't think of him as just "Spikey-Wikey" anymore. He leaned back on the bench and stared up at the fluffy white clouds, thinking of the day that this all started.
FLASHBACK starting - This will be the first arc of this story, the Grand Galloping Gala arc will continue when we catch back up to the present.
"Spike! Wake up!" Twilight yelled, way too early in his opinion. Princess Celestia may have raised the Sun, but he was still stiff and sore from the overhaul to the library that they had finally completed yesterday. They had added in three new shelves, because one or two wasn't worth the effort, for Twilight's seemingly endless quest for books and had to move all the rest of the shelves as well to make sure the new ones fit. In order to even move the large shelves though, every book on them had to be taken down and packed into the basement in a neat, organized and checklisted system. Twilight even had him go through them twice (once when they were taken off the shelves and packed, and again when they were unpacking and replacing them) to make sure none of the books got misplaced or damaged. Spike was so exhausted that he didn't even bother with dinner; he had gone straight upstairs so he could curl up in his basket.
"Spike, please wake up, you really don't want to be sleeping in today, well unless you really want to of course, do you?" Twilight asked at a normal volume, now that she could see Spike was starting to wake up.
"Why wmldn't I want to schleep hmm gehdaay?" he answered, face still buried in his pillow.
"Spike, did you forget? Today's your sixteenth birthday!" As she said this, his blanket glowed purple and flew from his grasp, spinning him around in the air before he landed back in his basket.
"Oomph, I'm awake, I'm awake already. Why didn't you just tell me that sooner?" Spike asked while glaring at Twilight.
"Weeeeell, I thought that you would remember your own birthday Spikey-Wikey." She answered in an eerily similar fashion to Pinkie Pie. "So come on already, we have so many activities on our list of birthday things to do today!"
"Can't we just rest one more hour? Pleeaaase Twilight?" he begged with his eyes going large and shiny, and his claws gripped together in front of him as he smiled widely.
"Well, I suppose we don't have to go eat breakfast too soon. I'm sure Rarity can make breakfast a little later…" she said in an almost bored tone, as she slyly watched Spike's eyes go even larger than they were before.
". . ." then after his slight pause he yelled, "Why are we still here?" as he grabbed one of her hooves and started dragging her to the door.
When they arrived at the boutique about ten minutes later (Spike was disappointed that Twilight refused to teleport them or even walk a little faster), Twilight had to grab Spike with her magic and remind him that he should knock instead of just barging into her home.
*Knock Knock Knock* He hammered out on the door, eager to see Rarity as soon as possible. It was Sweetie Bell who answered the door though and Spike was only a teeny bit disappointed that Rarity hadn't answered the door herself since he figured she was probably making the breakfast Twilight had mentioned.
"Happy birthday Spike!" Sweetie Bell yelled when she saw who was at her door. "Rarity's in the dining room setting the table up for breakfast, but she told me I still wasn't allowed to do anything other than cleaning up. I haven't broken a dish in over two months though!"
Spike rushed into the boutique as soon as she told him where Rarity was; well he might have, if Twilight had not subtly nudged his shoulder with her hoof that is.
"Wow that's great Sweetie Bell. Just imagine how much you'll be able to do once you get better with magic!" Spike said happily. He may have wanted to talk to Rarity more, but she was still one of his friends.
"I know right! Now let's get inside. I think I can already smell the food." She said and walked back into the boutique with Spike and Twilight trailing behind her, while Twilight shut the door with her magic.
When they rounded the entryway into the dining room, Spike nearly fainted. Rarity was standing near the table carrying a stack of plates with a single fork on top with her magic, while the table was covered in the most amazing display of food he had ever seen. On the end closest to him, sat a pile of grass, dandelion and other flowers, wheat and regular pancakes, while on the other end Rarity had placed a chair for Spike to sit at, in front of what looked to be a spread of jewel encrusted foods that varied greatly. He could see hash browns with cobalt and rubies in them, pancakes that had at least three sapphires in each one, a large omelet that he assumed also had at least one type of gem in it, and finally a bowl of what looked like the entire rainbow, along with a stripe of deep, shiny black.
"Happy birthday Spike! I certainly hope this will taste as good as it looks." Rarity said cheerfully after watching Spike's eyes glaze over and never leave his side of the table, for once not being focused on her. "Please take your seat and we'll be able to begin this wonderful breakfast Spike." Spike appeared in his chair and looked toward the rest of them before settling on Rarity.
"Rarity, this is just so wonderful." He thanked her as the rest of them sat down around the table. "You didn't have to work so hard and use so many of your gems just to make breakfast. I would have been happy with anything you would have made."
"I know Spikey-Wikey, but this is your birthday and the perfect time to try out these new gem recipes I've thought of recently. Ever since you had that sapphire cupcake last year, I just knew that there must be dozens of new ways to use gems in a recipe for dragons." Rarity said with some pride at her ideas and creations.
"Wow… so many different ways to eat a gem, I had always thought that they could only be eaten plain, and now I've got Pinkie Pie and you making all these wonderful foods for me." Spike wondered aloud.
"I only ask that you save the soup for last, as it has a very special ingredient in it."
"Sure Rarity, let's just get started, this is all looking so delicious and I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday." He replied.
"Oh, you poor, poor dear! Please dig right in, don't mind us, we have plenty of our own to eat, not that we could eat gems anyways." Rarity encouraged Spike to eat his birthday breakfast.
They weren't sure exactly how he managed it, but he had eaten everything but the porridge in just under an hour. He currently sat in his chair rubbing his belly. He was sure he couldn't even lick another gem, much less eat this special bowl of soup that Rarity had made for him, no matter how cool and delicious it looked. Everything had just tasted so good that he couldn't stop to move on to the next dish until he was done with his current one. But Rarity had made this, so he was going to try his hardest to eat it. He was also pretty curious about what the mystery gem would taste like. He dipped his spoon into the bowl and managed to get a little of every color at once. He could taste the ruby, opal, topaz, emerald, sapphire, and jasper immediately. Then a new flavor spread onto his forked tongue. It had to be one of the best things he had ever tasted. He quickly grabbed another spoonful of soup, but this time mostly black. He was in a state of euphoria as he ate the last of his breakfast. He soon found out though, that all good things come to an end as he brought an empty spoon into his mouth. He quickly grabbed the bowl and tipped it over, trying to find anything left. Rarity, Twilight and Sweetie Bell had all noticed his actions and started giggling and laughing.
"So, I take it you enjoyed your breakfast Spike?" Rarity said with a hint of pride and humor in her voice. Her voice made him pause in his search as he turned to the wonderful mare that had made the food in the first place.
"That was absolutely amazing Rarity! I never imagined so many ways to eat gems. I've been making food for Twilight for years now and never thought of any of these recipes." he exclaimed. "You must be a culinary genius. But, whatever you added to make that soup taste so perfect must have cost a lot of bits. I hope it wasn't too expensive..." he trailed off, hoping he hadn't caused Rarity to be in any sort of financial trouble. "Don't worry though, I'm sure I can find enough gems to make up for it somehow." he said, determined to make up for this expensive birthday gift.
Rarity nearly fell over from laughing. Twilight and Sweetie Bell both started laughing as well, both from Rarity's laughter and the confused look on Spike's face.
"What's going on everypony? I'm not joking, I'll find whatever ever I need, and maybe I'll even come across another Fire Ruby!" Spike was getting a little annoyed at them now, he knew the chances of him finding gems on his own without a unicorn's help were not so great, but dragons could usually smell gems pretty well.
Sweetie Bell was the first to calm down, probably because she didn't know why Spike would be so enthusiastic about repaying a debt to her big sister. "Spike, it's not that we don't think you can find enough gems to pay for it. It's just that we've had the 'special ingredient' to that soup for a while now, so it was free. If I remember right, it was even a gift technically." she said, trying to calm Spike and have him understand why they were laughing.
"You mean that whatever that black gem was, it didn't cost you anything? It was free? Then, where did you guys get it from?" Spike asked perplexed by how this super delicious gem had apparently been free. He knew that for dragons, most of the time, whatever they thought tasted good meant that the gem was of a high quality.
"Like Sweetie Bell said, it was a 'gift', one that I Pinkie Promised not to mention ever again. However, I'm sure Rarity would love to tell you how she got it." Twilight explained, while trying to stifle her laughter.
Rarity had now stopped laughing as she realized Twilight had set her up. She glared at Twilight, who looked a little sorry, but it was ruined by the small smirk on her face. "You see, Spike, I had obtained this during our 'adventure' with Discord. It seems that in order to make Tom heavier, Discord had filled the boulder with a volcanic glass called Obsidian. We had found out what was inside of it two weeks ago, when we were moving Tom over to Applejack's. She was going to use it to divert a stream towards her orchards, but while we were pulling it over there, the rope snapped and we lost it over that cliff at the end of the road out of Ponyville. When we made our way to the bottom of the cliff, we found that the rock had shattered into thousands of sharp, black rocks. Of course, we didn't know what they were until Twilight looked them up. After we found out what they were, we didn't know what to do with them, but I thought they might look good and brought some here. Unfortunately, they were too sharp and cut the outfits I tried to use them on, so I just kept them at the bottom of my gem chest until I had the idea to use gems recipes for your breakfast and found them." she happily finished her story of Tom's demise.
"Wow... so Discord is the reason that Tom was used to make the best soup I've ever tasted..." he trailed off, stunned at the ridiculousness of the situation.
"Well, it does seem a bit silly when you put it that way." Rarity stated with a smile, while Twilight and Sweetie Bell laughed at the thought of Discord getting Spike a birthday present. Soon, however, Twilight noticed it was time to visit their next stop.
"Spike, it's time to go. We have to stick to the schedule in order to visit everypony if you're going to enjoy all the birthday gifts planned today."
"Okay, Twilight. Thanks again for the wonderful breakfast Rarity, and you might want to help Sweetie Bell out before those break." Spike said with a laugh as he watched Rarity grab a stack of plates from Sweetie Bell's head with her magic.