The train didn’t seem to roll so much as glide, drifting over the shadowy Equestrian landscape without bump or obstruction. Were it not for the steady click-clack of the rails, Spike would hardly know they were moving. During the day, he’d at least been able to watch the landscape go by, but once darkness fell there was nothing to do but wait.
They’d paid for an entire suite in the sleeper car, and so Spike was unsurprised that Twilight had instead fallen asleep in her seat in the general compartment. She had a book held tight against her barrel, her face sandwiched in between the window and her seat. A thin line of drool ran down from the corner of her mouth, and her wings were wrapped about herself for warmth. But no matter how uncomfortable her posture looked, she slept soundly, the dim compartment lit only by firefly lamps.
“Hey.” Sitting on the aisle-side of their row, Spike lifted a claw as one of the train staff made his way up the car. “You mind shuttering those?”
“If your friend is tired,” the stallion said, with a bit of sternness in his tone, “she can sleep in the sleeper car.”
“Yeah, or maybe her Highness, the Princess Twilight Sparkle can sleep here.” Spike said, crossing his arms and glowering at the stallion. His voice remained soft all the while so as not to wake Twilight, but his expression was forceful, and the stallion hesitated. “Look, just turn down the ones around her, okay?”
The stallion nodded, and soon the two firefly lamps around Twilight were shuttered, casting a pool of darkness about her seat. Spike watched her for a moment longer, then hopped down and moved along the quiet aisle. It was not far to the sleeper car, and when he returned, he had a pillow grasped in one claw, and a blanket in the other. The pillow he gently tucked in under Twilight’s head, while the blanket went up over her shoulder.
“Go to bed Spike, it’s late,” she mumbled, eyes still closed. “Little dragons need their sleep.”
He didn’t say anything, and after a few moments, she drifted away, her hooves pulling the blanket in tighter around her. Spike returned to his aisle seat and his vigil therein, his little feet kicking back and forth as he looked around the quiet car.
“Excuse me,” whispered a voice behind him, feminine but with a distinctly rough timbre. Turning, he saw one of the other passengers two rows down signaling him. The compartment was very nearly empty, and most of the ponies there were either asleep or reading, but the creature that signaled him was not a pony at all. It was a griffon, two rows back, one of her claws raised into the air. “Hey.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Spike hopped down from his seat. Drawing closer, he was able to get a better look at her. Gilda was the only griffon he’d seen before, and this creature was far different from the temperamental avian Spike remembered. She was quieter, not to mention noticeably older, the tips of her her graying feathers brushed with purple makeup as though to breathe life back into them. She wore a green scarf of the finest silk, tied with a lavish stone, and like Spike before her sat in the aisle seat. Like him as well, she seemed to be tending a pony, a sleeping pegasus colt in the window seat next to her.
“Excuse me,” she repeated, lowering her voice and her head as well. “Did I hear you say that that’s Princess Sparkle up there?”
“Oh, uh…” Spike scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. That’s her! I’m Spike. I’m her Number One Assistant.”
“Oh. Like, a valet?” she asked, and Spike nodded. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you then, Spike. I’m Lidar.” She extended her claws, and he his, and they shook. “Do you think, later, she might be open to meeting a new pony? Poor Power Dive here wanted so badly to see the Princesses during our visit to Equestria, but the timing never quite worked out.”
“Tomorrow, maybe,” Spike said. “She doesn’t do autographs though, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No, no. Nothing like that. He’d just like to meet her.” A shake of Lidar’s head helped dismiss the notion, her voice still at a whisper. She reached back to the colt behind her, and Spike involuntarily flinched as talons that could slice the toughest meat descended upon the little pony’s head. But she only scratched him between the ears, and took a moment to adjust one of his primary feathers.
“Well, uh…” It took Spike a moment to recover from his surprise, during which time Lidar’s eyes fell back upon him. She frowned, and he blushed, coughing into one of his claws. “Yeah! Uh. So, are you two friends?” He took the empty seat opposite her. “If I can ask.”
She gave him a narrow look. “He’s my son.”
“Oh.” Spike’s blush deepened. “Um… adopted?”
Her narrow look grew narrower. “Sometimes the eggs just hatch that way.”
If Spike’s face had been any hotter, he would surely have breathed fire, and his gaze went right to the floor. Behind Lidar, Power Dive stirred, the little colt’s legs trying to run in his sleep. Lidar shushed him and tucked him back into his nook in the seat, his wings instinctively wrapping around himself for warmth. Spike leaned around to examine the pose, and recalled Twilight’s wings doing just the same thing not five minutes past. “Would you like a blanket?” he asked.
Before Lidar could answer, he hopped from his seat, and darted back down to the sleeper compartment. He returned as before, with a pillow and a fleece cover, offering them up to Lidar. Her feathers tucked in tight, but she took them, and it was only after a moment’s delay that she shoved twenty bits into Spike’s hands in return.
“Woah.” He held the jingling pile, whose financial value considerably exceeded that of the blanket, even if it had been Spike’s to sell and not the property of the railway. “I can’t—”
“You can,” Lidar insisted, her voice still low and soft so as not to wake her child. “I know ponies do things differently, but for a griffon giving something for free is…” She hesitated, and ruffled her feathers. “It implies the person you’re giving it to has been ingracious. Which I have been.”
“No, no… you, uh…” Spike stared at the money and bit his lip, then put it down on the seat behind him. “So, what were you visiting Canterlot for?”
“So Power Dive could see his people.” She let out a little breath, and her head turned to stare out the window. Spike followed her gaze to see what she saw, but there was only the darkness, and vague impressions of a landscape he would not see again for nearly three months.
She returned her gaze to Spike. “Back when I adopted him, Equestria was so very far away, you understand. It would have taken half a year to go see Canterlot, back before the Artificers.”
“Artificers?”
“What’s the full name?” she frowned. “The International Guild of Artificers, Tinkers, Mechanists, and Engineers? The ones with the little medallions.”
“Oh, yeah!” Spike nodded. “In Equestria we just call them the train conductors’ guild, because that’s what they do.”
“It is.” She nodded. “But Griffonstone isn’t exactly the capital of the world, so for a long time, they never bothered us. But then one came, and built a telegraph, and then more came to lay rails. But I didn’t think it was… I didn’t think it changed anything. Even just last year, it still took two weeks to reach Equestria. You had to fly across the mountains and the great divide to reach the train station at the base.”
She gestured around them at the train car. “But then they built the bridge and ran the rails up the mountainside. And now, when it rains in Canterlot, it’s Griffonstone that gets damp.”
“But, isn’t that a good thing?” Spike asked, leaning forward to examine her more closely.
“That’s what everygriffon says.” There was a quiet frown on her face as she spoke, and her wings drooped. “I just hope that he’ll get it out of his system now. The musical numbers and the magic and everything being pink. I wanted him to grow up in Griffonstone, the way little chicks should. But now it feels like Equestria is just next door and… well. Children that are locked up when they’re young run away when they’re old.”
“Well, uh. I don’t know if you noticed, but, I am a dragon.” Spike buffed his claws on his scales, and Lidar lifted a talon to hide her smirk. “I kind of went through the same thing. Raised by ponies, but I had to go ‘see my people.’ And yeah, I’m really glad I did, and I even got to meet another dragon named Ember who’s pretty cool, but then I came back to Equestria because that’s my home. The ponies who raised me are there, you know?” He jerked a thumb up the compartment. “Besides, I can’t leave Twilight on her own.”
“The Princess is lucky to have such a faithful servant,” Lidar said, a bit of a smile still on her face when she lowered her talon. “So, where are you two going?”
“Griffonstone first, but then we’re going around the world!” Spike kicked his feet off the side of his chair, his claws grasping the edge as he sat forward. “Twilight made a bet with Princess Celestia about if she could finish her around-the-world diplomatic tour in eighty-one days or less. If she pulls it off, Princess Celestia will finally fix leap years.”
“What do you mean ‘fix’?” Lidar’s brow furrowed.
“You know.” Spike waved a claw. “Like, we won’t have leap years anymore.”
Lidar looked up the compartment to Twilight, then back down to Spike. “So…” Her jaw worked without sound. “The entire solar calendar is going to be rewritten based on the outcome of a race?”
“Well… yeah. I mean…” Spike looked up at Twilight as well, then back to Lidar. “You know royalty. Princesses just do things like that sometimes.”
“They didn’t used to.” Lidar paused a moment. “But, I guess the world is changing.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Spike looked up Twilight’s way again. “It’s okay though. I’m sure Twilight has her reasons. She’s really smart.”
A silence hung between them, which Spike eventually broke by dropping back down to the aisle and landing on his feet. “If you’d like, I think Twilight would love to meet Power Dive tomorrow. We’re getting breakfast in the dining car at eight. You want to join us?”
“I would love that, thank you.” She nodded, and seeing the direction Spike was taking, added: “Sleep well, Spike.”
Spike took her bits with him, dumping them into his little traveling bag. He tossed the bag with the other luggage, and then crawled back up into his aisle seat, resuming his vigil over the sleeping pony beside him.
It took awhile, but eventually Spike managed to get some sleep too.