The Only Chapter
“Spike?” Starlight asked from her seat watching Spike as he cleaned up the dirty dishes from breakfast. Twilight was already out of the castle with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, mostly to help them sort out an incident caused by one of their pranks gone wrong. That meant that the two of them had the castle to themselves.
“Yeah?” Spike replied while placing a dripping wet plate to his left side and reaching for another dirty one to his right.
“We’re friends, right?” Starlight asked with a hopeful tone.
“Of course we are!” Spike answered with a cheery tone. “Why do you ask?”
Starlight scratched the back of her head. “W-well, there’s this one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while…” She stopped to watch Spike continuing his work without pause.
“Yeah…?” Spike droned.
Starlight sighed before taking on a serious expression. “Why have you been so hard on me?” She asked. Her tone firm but not mean.
Spike paused for a moment. “What do you mean by that?” He asked before going back to scrub the dirty plate.
Starlight frowned a little. “I think you know what I’m talking about, Spike.”
Spike didn’t reply as he finished up the plate and moved on to grab a coffee stained cup. “Yeah, I do.”
Starlight’s frown deepened. “Then why must you remind me over and over of my mistakes? Haven’t I proven that I’m sorry for what I did?”
“Give me a moment, please.” Spike said. Starlight didn’t reply while he continued to clean the remaining dishes. It took him a good couple of minutes to finish. Once he was done, he turned around taking off his apron and the gloves he was using. He walked up to the small table from where Starlight was watching him, he grabbed the other free seat in front of Starlight and sat down.
“Thanks for waiting. Now, to answer your second question. Yes, you have proven you’re sorry for what you did. And to answer your first question, I do it because you need it.”
Starlight scoffed. “Yeah right, I soooo need to be reminded at every chance you get of what a horrible pony I was.”
“Yes, you do.” Spike replied.
Starlight stared at Spike with wide eyes and a frown for several seconds.
Spike sighed. “Look, Starlight. I know you’re sorry. I know you’ve done a lot to prove you’ve changed for the better. Tartarus, you even saved us and Equestria from Chrysalis!” Spike offered a sad smile. “But you still haven’t learned your lesson.”
“Haven’t I!?” Starlight yelled with a start. “What makes you think I haven’t, huh!? I think saving Equestria proves I did learn my lesson!” Starlight said angrily while she sneered down the little dragon.
Spike shook his head. “Starlight, that only proves you’ve overcome your fear of being in charge of anything again. You overcame your trauma. But that doesn’t mean you’ve learned your lesson.” Spike said looking directly at Starlight’s eyes. Watching her expression change from anger to realization. “Tell me, have you done the friendship assignments Twilight left for you or did you throw them to the trash again?”
Starlight blushed. “I...uhhh…”
“Or have you helped anypony around town aside from our friends lately?”
“Of course I have-”
“Without using magic to solve every little problem?” Spike asked crossing his arms.
Starlight closed her mouth and looked down at the table.
“Look, Starlight, you’re a wonderful mare and an excellent magician. I know your heart is, most of the time, in the right place. You brag and boast about your magical ability, and that’s okay, because that’s true. But Twilight was ten times more powerful than you before turning into an alicorn.”
“Bu-but I...I stood my ground against her-”
“Because she didn’t want to harm you!” Spike revealed. “She fought Tirek to a standstill with the power of four alicorns while he had the magic of ALL of Equestria, including yours and Discord’s. Tirek was forced to cheat to win.” Spike smiled. “Twilight rarely used her magic to fix everything around her, unless the situation forced her to. And after becoming an alicorn, she mostly uses her magic to further increase her studies.”
“But...but I….”
“And Tirek only wanted to destroy Equestria, there was no way he could be reformed. You, on the other claw, only needed a little help to see a better way. Twilight knew this, that’s why she didn’t fight you seriously.” Spike took a hold of Starlight’s left hoof. “Starlight, you’re brilliant and creative when it comes to magic and casting spells. But you depend so much on magic, that it makes you weak.”
“...” Starlight didn’t reply. She just watched the tiny claws of her friend wrapped around her hoof softly.
“I’ve done bad things, Starlight. But I’ve learned from those mistakes, but only after I admitted them. My two biggest were turning into a greedy monster and the second was betraying Twilight during Shining’s wedding. I turned my back on her when she begged us to listen to her. And I wasn’t under some sort of mind control spell.” Spike smiled at her. “Tell me, Starlight, what are you refusing to admit? What do you refuse to see even though it’s right in front of you?”
Starlight’s mind raced at his question for several moments of silence. “I...I don’t know.” She stammered.
Spike gripped her hoof tighter. “Yes you do, Star. Come on, I know you can do it.”
Starlight went silent again, tracing her memories to try and find whatever Spike was talking about. Eventually, her eyes widened in realization. “I...I want ...I seek control.”
“Exactly.” Spike grinned. “You want to control everything around you so that things go your way. Being in charge gives you that control, but it frightens you. Or at least, it did. You use magic-”
“To make everything go how I want.” Starlight finished the sentence. “I...oh my gosh...I didn’t hesitate to use magic to control our friends to solve my friendship lessons faster.” Starlight felt her eyes moisten with tears. “H-how come I didn’t notice it before?”
“Take it from me. You took the easy way out when you had to learn it the hard way.”
“Then...what am I supposed to do?” Starlight asked staring at the young dragon.
Spike shrugged. “I don’t know, Star. We all have to deal with our errors in our own way. Take me for example. I have my Noble Dragon Code to help me stay, well, noble and good so that I never give into my greed again, while I try to be the best assistant I can be!” Spike chuckled. “All I can do for you is help you however I can, and remind you what you were like before wanting to change for the better.” Spike smiled while caressing her hoof.
“I...thank you, Spike.” She smiled at him wiping away a rebellious tear with her free hoof. “You’re a good friend.”
“Well, I try!” They shared a short laugh. “Now, wanna help me dust the library?”
“Lead the way.”
End.
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Enjoyd and favorit.
Some small typos.
Absolutely loved it. I still have five more episodes to finish the season so I don't fully get the reference to the season finale, but it's a great little piece that furthers Spikes and Starlights friendship. Keep it up friend!
I would really have wanted this scene in the canon show. Someone needs to give Starlight a reality check like this one, rather than "everything is forgiven because friendship".
7741591
7741606 Fixed. Thanks.
7741609 Same.
I love Spike and Starlight's interactions in the show, it's a pity there's not more.
Anyway, this was a nice read, and you managed to one up the show in delivering a useful, logical lesson while also giving Starlight some growth. In just over a thousand words!
Good job.
We need more starspike out there in the world. Good story is good
Love it! StarSpike interactions are the best.
Noice! Good to see some Starlight and Spike dialogue~
What a short yet sweet tale...
DISCLAIMER: As of writing I am tired, bored and overanalyzing stuff when I really should be sleeping.
If you're looking to improve I honestly feel the message would be more meaningful if Spike hadn't spelt everything out for her, or she hadn't immediately understood. It's a bit crude of me but this story is best described as spouting exposition for a bit and then some fluff. In trying to tell us everything you left nothing to interpretation.
Lemme just...
Much better. First thing, use italics for emphasis it looks so much better than putting a load of unnecessary letters in there. Second, that right there? I honestly believe that's what this story could have been. That little paragraph I think would be a different way of ending the story.
Spike isn't smiling, he isn't happy, or worse, trying to provoke Starlight. But neither is the matter resolved, instead we're left to ponder. Spike's a kid, he's childish but he's stubborn. I honestly don't believe that after what Starlight did he would approach what is obviously a sensitive topic in the manner he did. I honestly can't tell whether this is supposed to be cute fluff between Spike and Starlight, or a serious conversation of redemption and learning from past mistakes. It's like some weird hybrid of the two. Starlight got mad, she got upset, then suddenly she's like "Oh wait, he's right I'm a stupid pony, let me say sorry and promise to work on that and go do something cute so the reader thinks this is a happy story, the end."
You've landed on a weighty topic, but instead of showing us through how the characters interact, or using any sort of subtlety in their dialogue, you have Spike bludgeon us with morals and recite the Lesson of the Day(TM) and that's that.
Not a bad story. Favorited.
And once more Spike brings out the big guns (reasoning!). Good little read
Headcanon accepted
Hey, you got featured!
Great job, man!
This is why I'm not a fan of Unicorns. They think magic is the answer to everything. It makes them lazy.
7742215 Thanks for the pointers, man. And I was leaning towards more fluff than anything. But like you said,it does indeed feel more like a hybrid.
7742307
7742959 Thanks!
7743118 Awww shucks.
7743358 IT DID!? Huh, would you look at that? It did get featured. I honestly don't think it's good enough to be featured, but it feels nice anyways.
Pretty good for a one-shot!
This is a good description of Starlight's character. Spike is right that she needs to be reminded because she hasn't fully learned her lesson yet. She still relies on her magic too much like Spike says.
Nice little story and well written for Spike and Starlight
I have to ask. Where did this story come from?
What put this thought in your head and allow you to put it on paper?
If only Spike was this well written consistently in the actual show.
7743686 I have no idea myself. This came to me in a manner much like "Just a dent in the plan" did.
How interesting.
I love it
Those are what Spike considers his biggest mistakes? Really?
Not the time when he turned his back on the lonely, desperate Thorax who had but a single friend in whole world—Spike—because he was scared he would lose his popularity?
Well okay then.
7744261 Well, yes, but he did the right thing literally after making that mistake.
They're kind of like brother and sister.
Cute. Sad thing is, it's too short.
But I can somewhat see this happening in an episode, which is all that counts when it comes to SoL fics.
Good work!
Great little one shot.
Spike is just too out-of-character for me.
Short and sweet, like a lovely chocolate chip cookie.
"What does Princess Celestia look like?"
Seriously, though, this isn't a bad story or anything, but I think Spike is a bit...off. Like, most of what he says just doesn't really sound like him.
7743400 Sssuuuuurrrreee,like Pegasi shouldn't be able to use their naturally born wings for combat. They're not lazy,they're just making use of their natural gifts,like the earth ponies and pegasi.
7747235 Okay, point taken. Although, I find it suspicious that all previous pony antagonists have all been unicorns.
So instead of out right telling Starlight what was wrong with her and helping her through it, Spike decided it was better to just to call her a monster every chance he gets and probably killing her self-esteem to the point she's too afraid to go out and talk to other ponies? This just sounds like Spike was the reason Starlight never improved.
A good character piece, revealing a lot about not only Starlight, but Spike as well.
7747651 You have a good point, it's probably not the most productive way of doing it. Spike's like a ten year old though, even if he's smart, he may not know better. And he does kind of the same thing to Twilight all the time, reminds her of her flaws, including in front of her friends, because he thinks he's being helpful. Spike probably thinks that because it seems to work when dealing with Twilight, he should do it with Starlight too.
That said, one thing I have to disagree with in this story: the misconception that Twilight is so much more powerful than Starlight. We've seen Starlight do more impressive magic as a unicorn than Twilight Sparkle ever did as a unicorn. Heck, when Starlight was doing her advanced magic lessons in season 6, Twilight struggled to even keep up, and seemed pretty impressed. Twilight also was clearly trying her hardest to beat Starlight in their S5 Finale fight, she sure didn't look like she was holding back. To be fair, that may not be an question of Starlight having more raw magical power as a unicorn than Twilight has as an alicorn, just that Twilight has zero tactical duel training and it shows, a lot of the reason she couldn't beat Starlight is because she could barely aim her horn!
Regarding the Tirek fight: Keep in mind that Twilight was willingly given the magic of the other 3 alicorns, who combined it to help Twilight. By contrast, Tirek forcibly ripped the magic out of other ponies and Discord, and most of the magic seems bent towards fueling Tirek's physical growth and rejuvenation rather than his magical skills. Tirek doesn't display any advanced magical techniques like Twilight does, he just blasts balls of fire at her. If Tirek was able to properly harness the magic of all those ponies and Discord, he could have ended the fight in a second with Discord's ability to remove the horn of his enemies. Based on his performance, it looks like Tirek was only able to tap into a minute fraction of the power he actually drained and use it for casting spells.
Actually, I'm not sure if Discord and Tirek ever did find/drain Starlight and the ponies of Our Town in the first place, it would be hard for them to remove the magic from cutie marks locked up in a vault.
7748314
Spike and Twilight have known each other his whole life, She knows him enough not to take everything he says too personally.
And the flaws in Twilight he points out to her are about over organizing and over reacting to little things. He never had to remind her of the time she accidentally destroyed an entire country, Killing the entire population under the delusion that what she was doing was helping them.
He might be a kid that doesn't know better, but constantly reminding Starlight the ponies she meets outside the castle were killed by her in another time line is just horrible.
7748477 Yeah, maybe Spike could do with some friendship lessons. I wonder if its supposed to be a reference to the Equestria Girls movies, where people do that to Sunset Shimmer all the time.
Yay, I'm not the only person disgusted by Starlight in Every Little Thing She Does! Fuck Starlight Glimmer! Hurrah!
Your English is very good, but there are two grammatical errors:
"Why you ask?" should be "Why do you ask?"
"I didn't noticed it" should be either "I didn't notice it" or "I hadn't noticed it". ("did notice", but "had noticed").
Hope that helps!
Spike seems more like a mouthpiece for the author to convey their own opinions rather than an actual character here. He doesn't seem like an friend who wants to help either, just a super passive aggressive jerk.
This line comes from out of no where and doesn't seem to serve a purpose other than to make Starlight look worse for some reason. Not to mention no example of her bragging is even shown in this story.
Then the story gets completely sidetracked by talk of power-levels like its some cliche shonen manga which leaves me clueless as to how that's even relevant or what it has to do with trying to help Starlight be a better person.
I really liked this story alot. Having spike take over a mentor role was really cool. I agree with the things he said and I hope maybe they will further address these ideas in the show.
Quite an interesting take on why these characters do what they do.
Most excellent.
7743787 Let me paraphrase.
What did Starlight mean by that? Spike hasn't done or said anything to her.
7783687 Spike is the only one that openly keeps reminding her of what she did on the past, both in the village and when she tried to alter time.
7783774 I never noticed. Let me try to find when he did that on YouTube.
7784772 A prime example would be the HWE episode after the Snowball Frost song.
7785061
I see. Which begs the question of why did Starlight wait so long to confront him about it?
I feel like this story has to shoehorn canon to fit the moral of the story, in particular the 'Twilight was holding back in Season 5' idea. Additionally, Spike seems a little too well-spoken for what his developmental age is.
For what you're trying to achieve here, I feel like you could have gone for a different tack, using Lesson Zero. No, not how Twilight had a mental breakdown like what Starlight has had, but how Spike reacted to it: he saw Twilight was having a breakdown, and told Princess Celestia, and Celestia came and got things from getting any more out of hoof. Spike could offer this as an anecdote to Starlight to show he has experience with offering a sort of steady rock for others to lean on, and not being afraid to step in and stopping things from progressing any further if the situation deteriorates, and that he's seen it far too often in Starlight in the past.
Great story but,
You could have made the dialogue more natural. Starlight isn't this proud and Spike is a lot nicer. Second, Don't take sides in you fics, don't put all the blame on starlight, show that spike is at fault as well. When you think about it from Starlights point of view, Spike is a jerk.