To save Twilight Sparkle

by TwiwnB

It's Twilight's fault

“Spike! Spike, wake up!”

Spike slowly regained consciousness and opened his eyes. Twilight was there, looking at him. He couldn’t make out if she was angry or just panicking.

“What happened here? What are we doing in the living room? Why are we covered with floor? Why is everything covered with floor? How long did we sleep? What about our schedule?”

She was panicking. Spike yawned. She sure was a weird pony from times to times.

“Don’t you remember?” He explained. “I caught you in the kitchen yesterday and then you tried to eat me and you chased me… you seriously don’t remember? How can you not remember?”

She had stopped moving in all direction and was just looking at him with a very concerned look:
“I have no idea what you are talking about Spike.”

“Really?” Spike asked back. “… well then I managed to bring you under control and I told you to stop and you marveled at how strong I am.”

“Sure Spike…” Twilight replied, returning at her task of assessing the damages. “Just look at this mess. It’s like a tornado went through here.”

She suddenly turned to Spike and blushed a bit, then waited for a response. Spike sighed, but couldn’t escape her look.

“I’ll go get the stuff to clean everything.” He said, totally giving up. “It still is all your fault though.”

She just went to him and caressed his scales:
“Thanks Spike, I knew I could count on you.”

Spike exited the living room and made his way to the first of the castle’s bathrooms he could find to wash up, then went to the cleaning closet to grab his material. Fully armed with sponges, mops and buckets of water, he came back to the living room where he found Twilight gazing at her hoof.

“What now?” Spike asked.

Startled, Twilight hid her hoof behind her back and replied:
“Nothing!”

“Shouldn’t you be reading books or something to figure out what happened? Or just at least have taken a bath by now?” Spike asked.

Twilight’s face turned to red as she revealed her hoof again. And there was simply nothing abnormal with that hoof that spike could see.

“I’m sorry…” Twilight apologized. “It’s just… I don’t know. I was trying to examine the floor when I noticed how weird my hoof looked. I mean, it’s all roundish and bouncy and soft and it makes that fun squeaking noise when you press against stuff!”

Spike rolled his eyes. She was describing a pony’s hoof. Nothing new there.

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Spike asked.

“Oh I’m fine, but you should just take the time to look at things again. I mean, look at that!” Twilight said. She then took hold of a book that was laying down on the floor. “Have you seen that? I can grasp stuff. And I can put them down, and grasp them again, and put them down and grasp them…”

Spike looked at the book going from Twilight’s hoof to the floor and back into Twilight’s hoof. He tried to understand what he should find so amazing about picking up a book.

But now, Twilight was fixing him. And for a second he recognized that intense look.

“Spike, don’t move. I just want to see something.”

She approached and Spike tried to stay as immobile as possible. At least she was finally working again to find clues about the event of the night. He felt her touching his scales and asked:
“So, what is it?”

“Spike…” She replied. “You’ve got scales!”

And she giggled while playing with his scales.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m calling Zecora.” Spike replied, leaving both Twilight and his cleaning material behind.

He came back and immediately noticed that Twilight had decided to leave everything in its state, probably not to temper with the evidence… His sigh got covered by Zecora’s remark:
“So this is what I waited to watch with my breath bated. It would seem your claims were quite a bit exaggerated.”

Spike avoided Zecora’s smile. He should have known she wouldn’t have believed his epic battle story. It was not his fault if what happened wasn’t as exciting as a good story should be.

They found Twilight in the library. She had washed herself and was going through a huge pile of books. When she heard them enter, she stopped reading and greeted them only to admit she hadn’t found anything.

“We could really use your help.” Twilight told Zecora. “Nothing in my books explains what happened.”

“I am sure this is nothing.” Zecora said to reassure both Spike and Twilight. “Yet there is no conclusion to which we should be jumping.”

She took a bowl from her saddle’s bag and spread some powder on Twilight who sneezed, though nothing else happened. Zecora looked satisfied and took another bowl and spread a weird orange powder in the air that just fell down on the floor.

“It would seem you are not ill, which is good. Now please open your mouth if you could.”

Twilight complied with the request and opened big. Zecora inspected something inside, shouted words from a foreign language and listened to the echo, then frowned and gave Twilight a potion.

“This is probably a false lead. That I must concede. Yet as impossible as I may find it, a diagnostic must be thorough and to that end I will commit.”

Twilight shrugged and just drank the potion. It didn’t taste very good. It also made her shine, literally emit light, first blue, then reddish, almost pink, before turning back to blue and back and forth from blue to pink.

“You’re blinking!” Spike joked.

Both he and Twilight laughed as she had in fact turned into some sort of rotating light. But Zecora didn’t laugh with them. She didn’t look amused at all, quite the contrary.

“It can’t be…” she said. “I can’t believe what my eyes see.”

“What is it? What does it mean?” Twilight asked. “Is there a problem?”

She had hoped that her friend was exaggerating, but quite on the contrary, Zecora seemed to hold back:
“I have journeyed long and far, I went from the first ocean to the fifth but you, what you are, that I always believed was just an alicorn magical myth.”

Twilight and Spike looked at each other and both understood that the other had no idea what Zecora was talking about.

“Could you maybe be a bit more precise?” Twilight asked.

“Inside you is a growing threat that had been sealed. You are in danger and I wish I could help, but this dark secret can only be by light revealed.”

A little silence ensued. The blinking lights had disappeared and a few birds had found their way inside the castle to sing their ode to the glorious sun outside.

Spike decided to break the silence:
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to just tell us everything right now?”

“There is no time to waste” Zecora replied. “Be on your way Twilight Sparkle and make haste!”

At those words, Twilight made her decisions and, following the advice, rushed outside the room and, soon, the castle.
As she disappeared from his sight, Spike asked:
“Hum… where is she going to? Does she need to get a tan or something for the truth to be revealed or stuff like that?”

Zecora didn’t reply, though he couldn’t help but notice her amused smile.

Then he understood.

“Oh… the light, of course. She is going to see princess Celestia.”

Zecora nodded.

“You know…” Spike told her, “… one day, somepony will really misunderstand what you say if you keep speaking in riddles.”

“I say what has to be said. Not one more word than the minds need to be fed.” Zecora replied.

But at that moment, Spike realized Twilight had left without informing Celestia of her visit. And also without any luggage… He accompanied Zecora to the door, decided he would take the next train to Canterlot so he had to prepare everything. And the first thing was to write a letter to princess Celestia.

He struggled with it for a moment, incapable of finding the right words to explain the situation. In the end, not wanting to waste too much time with the letter, he just wrote:
“Dear princess Celestia,

Twilight wasn’t really herself lately. We asked Zecora who gave us the explanation about the dark secret inside her and the seal and everything we needed and not a word too many.

Twilight is on her way to Canterlot to find you.

Your loyal servant,
Spike.”

He decided that would be good enough and sent it with his magical breath. He then went packing everything Twilight and he would need.