The Days Passed

by SilverEyedWolf

Running - Bad End, 1/3

Author's Note:

This is the first of three endings for this story. As it says above this, it is the absolute worst ending I will write. It is an imagining of what may have happened is Spike had ran as he'd intended to, guarding his wounded heart. This is a tragic ending, heartbreaking, so be ready before you read on.

It is the first of three.

Spike did just as he wished, enlisting in the guard the next morning. Cadance, Fluttershy, and Rarity all tried their best to convince him to change his mind, but he remained distant and kept his heart guarded against them after Rarity's revelation. After all, what pony could truly love him, a monstrous dragon?

As part of his enlistment he learned to manage his transformations, initially merely augmenting specific parts of his body to give him sudden bursts of growth in combat. In the end he learned how to control the flow of magic to effect his entire body, gaining the thorned form he'd accidentally discovered earlier that year. As soon as his training was done he signed up for a post across the sea in bugbear territory, leaving with only a letter to Twilight.

He remained there for the entirety of his first two tours of duty, a total of four years. He rose through the ranks easily, but refused to take any position behind a desk and remained in the fields. At the end he attempted to sign up for another tour, but found himself blocked by his commanding officer. Attempting to go over her head he found himself further blocked, all the way up to Princess Celestia herself.

He returned to Canterlot to find Celestia and demand explanation. Upon arrival he found Twilight and each of their friends there, ready to beg for his return to Ponyville.

But a dragon's heart could be hard, and the military hardened it further, and he turned away all of them easily, even Fluttershy.

Celestia relented and allowed Spike to rejoin the local Royal Guard, now as an officer. He found himself behind the desk he'd been running from, but reasoned that anything was better than nothing and dug into the chair behind the stacks of paperwork.

He stayed where he was for a couple of years, until a magical insurrection had him using his magic to defend Canterlot.

In the process of the battle he rescued an officer from a monstrosity, and earned himself a battlefield promotion to the officer's position after the battle.

He found himself moved up the ranks almost periodically now, until he wound up at Princess Celestia's side as one of the comanders of her personal guard. He took to the job exactly as he always had; mechanically, with all of his being.

It was during these years that he received an invitation in the mail; a wedding, between Rarity and some stallion he'd never head of.

He burned it, and continued on with his work.

He spent so many years immersed in his job and the reams, yards of paperwork, that it was a complete shock to him when he received the next bit of news from the Elements; a funeral announcement, for Rainbow Dash. He began to treat it as he had the first letter, but couldn't manage to throw it into the hearth, and it ended up in a drawer in his desk.

AJ's wasn't much of a surprise after RD; he knew that spouses seldom outlived their significant others for any stretch of time. He put her invitation with Dash's. Years later Pinkie's joined them.

The next time he surfaced from his work was when he got a dragonfire scroll from Twilight, telling him that Fluttershy was sick and probably not going to get any better. His years of building up walls around himself cracked, and he found himself taking a weekend off of work (the first since he'd been assigned to Canterlot) to fly down to Ponyville.

He found the village a small city now, with several apartment complexes and an outdoor mall where the market had been. Twilight's castle was the same though, and she answered the door herself when he knocked.

She didn't look any older than she had when he last saw her, but was now taller and as built as Luna was, on her way to Celestia's stature.

They tried to talk to each other as they had all those decades ago, but found the other alien now, and Spike quickly excused himself to go see Fluttershy.

Her hospital room was small for him. The clean walls smelled of chemicals, and the floors shined beneath the fluorescent lights that had long ago been installed in the hallways. He'd shown his badge to the desk, and was now sitting in an uncomfortable chair beside a beeping machine.

She was smaller than he remembered, and the wrinkles were new. Something had taken a bite out of her ear over the years, and she had a nasty scar along her chest, but otherwise it was Fluttershy. Small, yellow, long hair. Cute.

He stretched out a claw and gently grasped her hoof, staying away from the clear line that pierced her leg and delivered the clear contents of the bag over his shoulder into her frail body.

Her heart rate dipped, and his spiked as he saw her open her eyes. Her felt the moisture gather in the creases below his eyes as she blinked against the light. Her head tilted, and his heart shattered under the slim smile she graced him with.

"I knew you'd come," she whispered.

His tongue tangled in his maw as he strained to think of what to say.

It didn't matter.

A moment later, the pulsing beep that filled the room became a single, monotonous tone.

He was too late, he realized.

He was seventy years too late.

Comments

[Zolrak Osdidar]

Wow that hurt.............i dont have the word. One out of three, im interested in the other 2 endings.

[DarkDMan]

Damn! Bad ending indeed. But not poorly written.
1/3? Let go!

[Wing]

Oooof... the bad end is a stinger.. Hot damn.

[crontini]

"You are happy, but there remains the tiniest doubt of what could've been."
-Ron Perlman, Fallout 1 - Unity Ending