Fragile

by runujhkj

Chapter 5: Acquiescence

Spike didn’t see much of the commotion, but he could tell there had clearly been a large crowd outside the library just moments before he got there. Hoofprints were arranged in a circle around the door, and there were still stragglers staring at him as he made his way to the door. Pushing it open, he was met with near-pitch-blackness. He called once for Twilight, sighed in frustration, and closed the door.

A few steps in, the lights came on without his input, and he saw Twilight looking down at him. He recoiled slightly, and walked around her. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you all day. Was there a crowd outside? What’s going on?” He walked up to the last unclean spot in the library left, and swept up a handful of blue feathers into a dustbin.

Twilight didn’t answer. Spike turned to her to repeat his questions, when he noticed her saddlebags were packed. He put down the dustbin and dropped the broom, and slowly walked over to her. “Twilight? What’s going on?”

She sat on the floor and put a hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Spike, I have to leave for a while.” Spike brushed the hoof off and backed away.

“What do you mean? What’s ‘a while?’” Twilight shook her head. “Okay, well, where are you going?”

She shook her head again. “Spike, you know as well as I do that if I tell you that, you’ll just try to find me. And I need you to look at me when I say this.” She put her eyes level with Spike’s. “You can not try to find me.”

Spike was getting irritated. “What? Why not? Twilight, what is going on? Why won’t you tell me? You’ve been acting weird for weeks with all of this Rainbow Dash stuff, then you completely vanish this morning, then when you do show up it’s just to tell me I might not ever see you again? What the heck is going on, Twilight?”

Twilight bit her lip, fighting every urge to just tell him what was going on. She wanted more than anything to tell him exactly where she was going, but she didn’t exactly know herself. She wanted to tell him how long she’d be gone, but she wasn’t even sure she’d return.

She wanted to tell him what was going on, but he was too young to get involved with her mistakes. Tearfully, Twilight opened her mouth again to stammer out a weak explanation, when she was interrupted by the rapid entrance of Rainbow Dash, with her own saddlebags in tow. Dash looked both of them over and joined Twilight in the center of the room.

Twilight gave Spike a hug, which he reluctantly accepted. He relegated himself to the edge of the room and sat on the bottom stair facing the wall, arms crossed. Twilight began preparing another teleportation spell, this one much more powerful than any she’d ever had to use before.

Before using it, she saw Spike crossing his arms, obviously furious with her. She couldn’t allow that to be the potentially last thing she’d see of Spike. She called out to him. “Spike! I’m sorry, Spike! But you can’t look for me! Please promise me you won’t look for me!”

Spike stood up and turned to Twilight, uncrossed his arms, and yelled back, “Who says I even want to find you?”

 Twilight’s heart was pierced again, and the spell popped, giving a loud tearing sound. The two of them disappeared, leaving a slight mark on the ground where they’d been.

The instant the spell popped off, Spike's eyes widened at the realization that he might not see Twilight again. He ran as fast as he could to Twilight's bedside table, where she'd been keeping a record of what she and Dash were doing. Searching the bottom drawer, Spike threw aside clothes and boots to find... the book had been taken as well. Spike sat down on the bed, his head in his hands. "What am I gonna do? I've got to find out where she went."

He wondered if the crowd that had gathered outside the library earlier that day was related to what was going on here. He decided to go ask his friends if any of them knew what was going on.