Ponywatching

by ThunderTempest

Prompt #426-First Meetings

A young Twilight Sparkle sat impatiently in Donut Joe’s. A plate, littered with the remnants of her meal there (Two plain cinnamon donuts, and a glass of orange juice) sat in front of the filly. Twilight glanced up at the clock. It was nearly one in the afternoon, and Princess Celestia had told her that if she was at Donut Joe’s at one o’clock, she’d learn something interesting.

Twilight, for her part, couldn’t see what was interesting about being in a donut store, even one as good as Joe’s. She would rather be at the library, reading a book, but she’d come here because it was Princess Celestia telling her, and Twilight liked being her student, and who knew what might happen if she didn’t do what her teacher said. She might revoke her library card, and that terrified Twilight. The filly glanced up at the clock, and watched as with agonizing slowness, the minute hand clicked another space forwards. Three minutes exactly to go until she supposedly learned something.

To her side, the bell above the door tinkled as the door opened and then closed. Twilight could hear the soft patter of hooves across the polished floor of the shop. Wait, no she couldn’t. The rhythm was all wrong, and the soft ‘clop’ sound that her own hooves made when walking wasn’t there. Twilight watched as a young dragon of all things, scampered up to the counter and ordered a plate of chocolate covered donuts, depositing the correct amount of bits to pay for it from a backpack he was wearing. The dragon also seemed really familiar to Twilight. Purple scales, the exact same shade as her fur compromised his body, and just short of transparent rounded spines ran in a line from the top of his head all the way down to his spade-shaped tail. Twilight watched as the young dragon, who barely came up to her chest, picked up his plate of donuts, glanced around the mostly empty diner for a few moments, and then wobbled over and sat at Twilight’s table, and immediately shoved a donut into his mouth.

“Ahem,” said Twilight, clearing her throat. The dragon paused in his consumption of the donut and hastily swallowed what was in his mouth while Twilight continued, “Would you mind picking another table? I’m waiting for the Princess. She should be here at any moment, and I doubt that she would like a little dragon stuffing his face at her table.”
The young dragon, however, instead of replying verbally straight away, instead rummaged around in his backpack, pulled out a photograph, and looked back and forth between it and Twilight a few times, before nodding to himself.

“You’re Twilight, right? Twilight Sparkle? I’m Spike.”

“Right,” said Twilight, “Spike. Nice to meet you, but I’m still waiting for the Princess.”

“She sent me here. I’m your assistant.”

Twilight blinked, as her brain processed the information that Spike had just dumped on her.

“My...assistant?”

“Yep!” said Spike, “She said you’d be getting a lot of work or something soon. Oh, and there’s also this. The Princess told me to give this to you when I met you.”

***TIME***

Spike rummaged around in his bag for a few moments, eventually producing a bound scroll, which Twilight snatched out of Spike’s grasp with her magic, and unrolled it.

‘My Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle,’ began the letter, and Twilight had to suppress a rush of glee at the honorific before continuing.

‘By now, you will have met young Spike. He is indeed telling the truth, and is to be your new assistant. In addition to being a wonderful helper, he also possesses the ability to send letters to myself directly through his magical fire. Simply get him to breathe on the letter you wish to send, and it will make its way to me, and I can return in kind. Also, I have obtained your parent’s permission, and you are now going to live in the Library tower of the School. While living there, it will be your responsibility to keep everything organised and tidy. Spike should help you with that.
It is my hope that the two of you become fast friends, as well as colleagues.
Your teacher,
Princess Celestia.’

Twilight finished reading the letter. Then she read it again, just to make sure it wasn’t a hoax.

“I’m going to be living in the library tower?” she muttered to herself.

“I’m going to be living in the library tower!” cried Twilight, rejoicing at the thought of having all the books she could ever want, and then deciding that there was absolutely no time to waste. She rushed out the door, but came back in after a brief moment to magically grab her new assistant and yank him and his backpack after her, trailing them behind her as she galloped through the streets of Canterlot.

Author's Note:

Written for Prompt #426-“The Day It All Began”
The Prompt: When Twilight and Spike met.