Chapter 1: The Auction

Every Little Bit

Cover Art Vectors by:
FruitsBasketRiceball
TechRainbow

Written by The Descendant
Edited by ArgonMatrix

Chapter 1: The Auction

“Alright, colts, pucker up and pay up!”

A series of cheers erupted from the crowd as Rainbow Dash swooped up to the stage. Coarse whistles left their lips, their eyes lingering across the body of the mare, and she returned their attention with a flash of her brash smile. Their hooves sounded out in applause again, forcing the auctioneer to speak a bit louder.

“Rainbow Dash! Please, darling, I haven’t even announced you yet!” Rarity chided, leaning towards the hasty pegasus. Her face brightened as she turned back to the crowd. “Now, with only two items left in the Filly Scout Charity Auction, I bring you my good friend, Miss Rainbow Dash!”

More cheers–and more whistling–filled the interior of Carousel Boutique, tastefully decorated to represent an auction house as it was.

“Yes, well, do please keep calm. My, there certainly are more colts here than there were a few moments ago, aren’t there?” Rarity said, leveling her eyes across assembly. “It appears that our last two items have drawn quite the crowd!”

“You know it, Rarity!” Dash enthused. “C’mon, colts, which one of you thinks he’s stallion enough to buy a kiss off of me, huh?”

Another round of cheers erupted from the young stallions, and their hooves pounded lustfully upon the floor. Rarity’s ears twitched as she sensed certain words floating among the crowd…

…catcalls.

She pounded her gavel over and over, bringing the room back to attention, some small part of her peeved at what she had heard.

As the solid thwacks of the gavel filled Carousel Boutique, an alicorn looked on from the wings. Twilight Sparkle, too, had heard the few muttered lines, and she rolled her eyes at the dropping level of maturity in the room.

“Did… did he just say…” began a small, familiar voice at her side.

Twilight quickly distracted Spike from the commentary, pointing down to the wagon that sat behind him, the one he had drawn behind him since they had left the library.

“You never told me, Spike. What did you bring?” she asked. “Was it something to sell in the auction?”

A small smile curled across Spike’s lips. “Naw,” he said, his eyes moving across the stage, coasting past Dash to where the figure of Rarity still banged away with her gavel.

“Naw,” the dragon repeated, a soft, heart-filled expression filling his features as he gazed at the object of his most tender emotions. “Naw… it’s for Rarity.”

Twilight’s gaze panned from Spike, to Rarity, from Spike once more, to Rarity again… and then she rolled her eyes and stifled a giggle.

She looked upon the baby dragon as he held his hands in front of him, his hearts beating forcibly as he lingered over the form of the madly bashing unicorn.

“Spike?” she asked, her voice filling with concern. “Are you going to be okay when… when Rarity offers a date as an auction item? Do… do you really want to be here to see that? You don’t have to stay to watch. You can leave, it’s okay.”

“Heh,” the dragon breathed, his smile twisting into a smirk. “Heh.”

After a minute, he shook his head and then looked up to Twilight sheepishly. “Heh… umm, yeah! It… it sure was nice of Rarity to offer Carousel Boutique as the place to hold the charity auction, huh?”

As Twilight nodded, some confusion across her face, Spike looked to Rainbow Dash. Twilight followed his stare, and both saw Dash looking to the side of the room. Scootaloo sat there, the newly minted Filly Scout and her friends waiting to see if their hopes of being able to attend summer camp this year would soon come true.

“I’m surprised that Dash would do this sort of thing, ya know, Twi?” he said, lifting his head back up to hers. “I mean, the auction, sure… but offering a kiss? It’s not something I’d, well… really picture her doing.”

“She’s doing it for Scootaloo, and the other Filly Scouts. It was sort of her fault–“

“And Pinkie’s!”

“–and Pinkie’s that the camp got damaged with all of that molasses in the first place. She’s very loyal, you know,” Twilight said, sitting in place and rolling her hoof through the air in an explanatory fashion.

“Yeah,” Spike grumbled, folding his arms, “it’s almost like she’s the living embodiment of the magic of friendship as revealed in loyalty or something like that.”

Twilight giggled again, leaned across her little dragon and the mysterious cargo of his wagon, and watched the auction as it continued to unfold.

Rarity finally finished banging the gavel, an unladylike glow beginning to present itself across her features as she struggled to bring the room back under control.

“Now, seeing as we only have these two items remaining, a kiss from Rainbow Dash, and a date with moi, I feel the need to point out that we are still just a teeny-weensy, itty-bitty…”

Rarity’s gaze went to the transparent donation box. Golden coins filled the container. Yet, despite the mountain of treasure within, it was still short from reaching the crude red line that had been marked across it.

“Oh, dash it all,” she said, sinking down onto one hoof as a disappointed look went across her face, “we still need about one thousand bits to complete the repairs to the camp and to outfit the fillies this year after the unfortunate molasses incident–“

“I’m so sorry!” wailed Pinkie Pie as she leapt across the back of the room.

“–and, to see to that end, we’ll begin the bidding for a kiss from Miss Dash at one hundred and fifty bits!”
“One hundred and fifty bits?” cried a stallion at the front, his voice packed with sarcasm. “What is that extra fifty for? That what it took to make her kiss a stallion?”

A pregnant silence loomed large across the assembly, one only interrupted by Rarity’s losing her grip on the gavel.

At once, tittering laughter filled the room, one that gave way to roars.

Rarity bashed the gavel once more, awakening Opalescence. The cat rolled over on her pillow, perched as it was on the side of the podium where Rarity stood.

“Oh yeah?” answered Rainbow Dash, her face bright with her signature grin. “Too bad there aren’t any stallions here so we could find out! I only see little colts!”

“I’ve got all the stallion you need right here!” called an anonymous voice from the somewhere within the room. Dash lifted her head with a smirk, trying to meet the boast of the braggart.

When she realized he wasn’t motioning to his lips but instead to another part of his anatomy, a breath escaped her lips, and her hooves recoiled a touch. The brightness came out of her features, and once again laughter filled the room.

Not everyone was laughing.

Spike and Twilight stared at one another, their eyes wide and jaws hanging open. Their faces at once went back to their friend who was standing there, alone, in the middle of the stage.

The sound of Rarity’s gavel once more lifted around the room. “That’s quite enough of that!” the elegant mare called, a shocked expression of her own going across her face. “I should like an opening bid, if anyone cares to act old enough to know how to count so high!”

The colts laughed again.

“One-fifty!” called a voice.

“One-sixty!” added another, a hoof rising in the air to accompany it.

“I’ll pay two hundred… if there’s any molasses left on her I can lick off!”

“Two-twenty if she’ll promise me some tongue!”

Twilight froze in place as new peals of laughter, whistles, and catcalls lifted from the crowd. Her eyes flashed across to stage to Rarity, the other mare sharing her shock and revulsion at the statements. Neither had heard talk like this in public. Twilight never had, apart from outside of the few bars she’d quickly been through and outside the university frat house row.

Twilight looked at Dash. To her horror, some of the bravado and daring had seemingly left the mare. Dash slowly moved backwards, away from the edge of the stage. Dash’s eyes were going back and forth across the crowd as though sensing some threat emerging from within.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Spike said, anger hovering in his voice.

Twilight’s eyes went down to Spike, seeking to perhaps shield his ears from such talk. He wasn’t looking at her. Somepony else had been the target of his question, and her eyes looked around the room, trying to see who he could be asking. Rarity? No. Pinkie? No. The pink pony had disappeared in a fit of molasses induced guilt. Who could it be?

She leaned down to ask him, but the look that sat across the dragon robbed the words out of her. Spike’s fists were balled, and the look across his features showed in no uncertain terms what he thought of the colts who were so assailing Rainbow, making her back her way across the stage.

“Hey! Dash, shake those hips! Show us what we’re buying!”

“Yeah, two-twenty-five if she dances for us a little!”

Walk off the stage, Dash! Twilight pled, revulsion sinking through her as she studied the faces of the colts. You don’t need to take that, Dash! Just walk off the stage!

Rarity’s gavel once more sounded out around the room, demanding attention.

“Gentlecolts, and I use the term loosely,” Rarity said with a hiss, “I will remind you that there are children in this room…”

“They can watch! Two-thirty!”

New waves of revulsion sank through Twilight as more laugher, harsh whistles, and slurs escaped the tongues of the colts. Her hoof went up to her mouth, stifling a sudden feeling of sickness that erupted through her as she watched Dash turn her head away, as the mare went backpedalling further from the throng of colts until her back pressed against the curtain.

“Hey,” Dash said, her voice going weak, “that’s, that’s not cool…”

Just get off the stage, Dash! Just get off! Don’t let them speak to you like that! Twilight’s thoughts screamed. Why don’t you just get off the stage?! You… you don’t deserve that!

Light suddenly cascaded through the room as the doors of Carousel Boutique came open. Twilight saw two stallions grabbing children, leading them out of what had suddenly become a less than family-friendly atmosphere. She watched as Blues embraced Penny, adorned as she was in her new Filly Scout uniform, and quickly lifted her out of the line of scouts and hurried her towards the door. They were joined mid-way by Thunderlane as he lifted Rumble bodily out of the boutique, the faces of the stallions both sharing the same look of disgust.

Twilight’s eyes swung back to Spike, thinking that it might be best for him to leave, too.

“Don’t just stand there! Do something!” the dragon called, and Twilight took a step back, surprised at how angry he had become. Once again, she thought for an instant that he was talking to her… but his eyes were not on her, not looking at her. He was calling to some pony in the room. Who, though? She looked him over, trying to figure it out.

She found him livid, fuming. His fists were clenched harder, and he was breathing heavily. His reptilian fangs stood out, shimmering in the stage lights, as he watched what was happening to their friend.

Dash, please, Twilight begged, focusing on the forlorn figure of the pegasus. Please just walk off the stage. Just zoom away! Why… why won’t you just go?!

“Two-thirty five!”

“Two-forty!”

“Two-forty-five… for second base!”

On the stage, more and more of Dash’s trademark strength seemed to leak out of her, and the mare, always seemingly so confident and strong, hid under her hooves.

“I can assure you, my dear degenerates,” Rarity hissed, banging her gavel once more, “that all we are bidding on is a simple kiss!”

“Two-fifty for second base!” called a colt, snickering as he did so.

Two ponykins came to life, each wrapped in the blue magic of a certain fashion-conscious unicorn. The colt screamed in panic as they pursued him around and around the boutique, the avatars of Rarity’s will seeming to be bent on doing him all sort of unnamable harm.

The colt made the mistake of running into Rarity’s inspiration room. The door closed behind the ponykins, leaving them free to do all sorts of unpleasant things to the delinquent with the lace, bunting, and sewing supplies within.

The rest of the colts seemed not to notice, and their invectives only became louder and more lewd.

On the far side of the room, the Filly Scout leader began ushering her little charges out of the boutique. Confused expressions sat across the faces of the girls, each one questioning their guides as to what was happening, why suddenly everything seemed… scary.

An expression of utter shock settled over the few mares left in the room, and more and more of them–and even most of the stallions–made their way towards the exit. All that remained after a few moments was a knot of young stallions, little older than colts, that stood at the front of the stage, braying their words, whistles, and jeers out over the distant figure of Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, Dash, lift your wings for us! Show off your wings!”

“You know you like it! Show us aaallll of the wings!”

The colt who had made the demand felt a slap go across his face, one that seemed delivered by a powerful magic. It was as though an alicorn standing in the wings had chided him, odd as that seemed. “Hey, Baby,” he called to Dash, ignoring the rebuke as a fluke, “how much for a preening? A niiiice, slowwwww, preening with a happy en...”

The colt gave one startled cry as he was swept off his hooves, collapsed to the floor, and was dragged into a nearby closet in a haze of magenta… almost as though an alicorn had had quite enough of his talk.

Anger coursed through Twilight, and across the stage she could see Rarity’s own lips curling at the way the colts were behaving.

“Don’t just stand there! Buck you, why don’t you help her?!”

She looked down to Spike once more, horrified at his curse word. His face was twisted in anger, his breaths escaping through his teeth in hisses. She watched as his frills went rigid, losing their usual soft, pliable bounciness and instead became those of a dragon losing himself to anger.

A hundred thoughts went through Twilight’s mind: Who was he talking to? Who was he calling on to come to Dash’s aid? What was going on? Why was he acting this way?

Twilight looked back to Dash. Her hoof lifted off the stage in surprise, stunned to see the pony that she considered among the toughest and strongest that she’d ever know simply laying against the curtain, hanging her head, seeming to deflate as the calls and jeers of the colts buffeted her.

Just get off the stage, Dash! Twilight’s thoughts screamed. Why don’t you just get off the stage?! Why?!

“Hey, hey!” called a stallion, his tone harsh and filled with authority.

The room quieted, and soon the other colts looked at him. They went silent under his withering gaze as he looked at them all sternly.

I know him, Twilight thought, watching the tall, handsome colt approach the charity box. The colt opened his saddlebag, and the glint of gold reflected in the lights as he lifted a few small pouches up towards the opening of the box. I know him, he’s… wait, yes, I know him.

The attractive, robust colt places a few bags of bits next to the charity bin, and then looked up to Rarity with a smile. With a nod, he spoke to the auctioneer in a steady, genuine tone.

“Three hundred bits–“

Oh, thank goodness, it’s over, Twilight thought as a sigh escaped her. A blush came over her face as she looked at the colt… admittedly handsome as he was. Poor Dash. Thank goodness it’s over… thank goodness it is…

“–if she’ll lift her tail for us,” the colt concluded, turning back to the others with a shameless smile. At once a cheer erupted from the young stallions, and their hooves sounded out around the room.

“Get out of my boutique!” Rarity screamed, her gavel bashing wildly on the podium, the expression on her own face showing in no uncertain terms that there was something else that she wished she could whack with the hammer.

There was a flash of emerald light, and Twilight turned to look down at the frothing, fuming sight of Spike. The dragon whelp was beside himself with anger. His eyes were literally blazing, and he shook and trembled with a barely contained rage.

“Why won’t you do anything?!” he screamed, once again calling to whoever it was he was denouncing. Spike shook with anger.

Twilight could sympathize; her own blood pressure had been rising as she watched the colts. She was very, very close to letting her alicorn nature reveal itself in full. She had not yet discovered what forces of magic her new form commanded, and she imagined that she was quite close to finding out.

Please, Dash, just get off the stage! You don’t deserve this! Twilight pled in her thoughts. No mare deserves this! Get off the stage! Why won’t you get off the stage?!”

Twilight startled herself as a realization sank through her. In her mind’s eye she went back to before the auction had begun. There, as Spike had pulled his wagon full of… well, whatever it was, towards the boutique, she had watched Dash among the Filly Scouts.

“Don’t worry, I’m all over this! We’ll get the camp fixed up in… heh, well, more than ten seconds, but we’ll get it fixed. And new gear and stuff for you squirts too!”

Scootaloo had leapt to Dash, the younger pegasus beaming with pride in her new uniform, so happy to be able to spend time at a camp… her first real summer vacation.

Twilight’s mind snapped back to the present… and back to the forlorn figure of Dash laying on the stage, quiet and distant. As Twilight watched, Rainbow Dash wiped her head across the curtains, burying her face in them, hiding from the colts that still peppered her with demeaning demands.

“Oh, Dash,” Twilight breathed, realizing why her friend, who usually would have already beaten these colts to a pulp, was laying there.

Loyalty.

If you scare them off, then there’s no pony left to bid, Twilight thought, staring at the donation box, the bits inside still short of the red line. If there’s no pony left to bid, then there’s no bits, if there’s no bits… then Scootaloo doesn’t go to camp.

Twilight’s hoof went over her mouth, saddened at the sight before her. Dash, usually the strongest and most confident of her friends, was still wiping her face back and forth across the curtain, her face scrunching up as the unfathomable demands of the colts pelted her.

Tears began to catch in the velvet, and a single small sob escaped the lips of the pegasus.

“Oh, Dash,” Twilight whispered.

With that, the chant began. The handsome stallion still stood before the box, the lustful smirk across his face, and the words “Lift! Lift! Lift!” erupting from the colts behind him.

“Three hundred bits, baby! Best offer she’s ever had!” he shouted.

Rarity replied with a demand of her own, one not printable or repeatable in polite company.

“Lift! Lift! Lift! Lift!”

Twilight felt her blood boil, and her wings went wide.

“Lift! Lift! Lift! Lift!”

I’m not having this, Dash. I’m not going to watch any more of this, Twilight thought, her mind racing. I’m sorry, I know you don’t have the bits you need. I’ll find a way, somehow… but nothing is worth having to watch you go through this. I’m ending this.

There was a flash of light as her features took on the grim countenance of an enraged alicorn princess of Equestria. A deep, powerful magic began to fill Twilight, making sure that that the colts would recall her admonishing. As it filled her, she opened her mouth and…

“One thousand bits!”

The chant died away, and silence filled Carousel Boutique.

“One thousand bits!” the voice repeated. “One thousand bits for a kiss!”

Twilight’s magic dropped out of her, and her jaw hung slack in surprise.

Her eyes fell to her side. There, the still-trembling form of Spike stood, his hand raised high. As she watched him, the little dragon dropped out of the anger and wrath that had filled him, and a look of surrender fell across him.

“One… one thousand bits, for a kiss from Dash,” he repeated, softly.

Silence hung on the air for a moment, and then the voice of Rarity filled the space.

“Goingoncegoingtwicegoingthreetimessold!” she cried, a note of victory hanging in her tone. “Sold to the young gentledrake in the wings, stage left!”

Twilight’s mouth was still hanging open as Spike looked up to her, looking like some deep, dark secret had just been revealed.

Twilight shook her head, making herself think rationally. “Spike,” she asked, the name packed with startled amazement. “Spike, where did you… where did all of the bits come from?”

Spike simply kept looking up into her eyes, and then down at the floor. She was surprised by how much energy and resolve seemed to drip out of him, leaving a puddle of dashed hopes behind as he began to pull his wagon across the stage.

“Five hundred bits. I coulda said five hundred bits,” Spike said with a moan as he stepped forward, his tail drooping. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he called, slapping his forehead in frustration. “Great… now, now I don’t have enough bits to buy… to buy…” he mouthed before going silent, a despondent frown crossing his features.

The colts watched the little boy, the baby dragon, emerge from the wing of the stage. They eyed him as though they wished him all sorts of bodily harm, and he withered under their gaze.

Just for a moment, he stopped. Spike’s gaze fell to a corner of the room, as though looking for somepony. He even squinted a little in the stage lights, as though searching through the glare for some creature standing there in the distance.

Twilight blinked. Spike, she thought, who are you looking for. Who were you screaming at? Who were you asking to come and help Dash?

She stood there, pondering, as the dragon made his way across the stage, the squeaky wagon in tow. After a moment, another voice lifted from the crowd.

“Huh, who would have thought it?” asked the anonymous stallion. “Spike bought a kiss… from a girl!”

The colts erupted into laughter once again as Spike approached the donation box, his head hanging low, unable to meet the eyes of the colts.

“Ha!” added another. “This will be new! I haven’t seen the baby kiss anything other than Princess Twilight Sparkle’s fl…”

“I. Am. Right. Here!” announced a rather loud, irate voice from the hidden part of the stage.

The colt in question turned around and, with a rather fearful look on his face, trotted briskly out the door.

Low boos and jeers filtered over Spike as he neared the donation box. His squeaky wagon came to a standstill, and Twilight watched as he slowly opened the bag that sat on top of it. From the larger bag came smaller ones, dozens of them.

Opalescence, having somehow slept through the rowdy display, spun over on her cushion, watching as the steady stream of bits fell into the donation box. The constant clang and clatter of the coins filling the container had disturbed her slumber, and she looked up to Spike with a disapproving glare. However, upon seeing the look that sat upon his face, the cat retreated back to her cushion, knowing that her opinion would mean little.

The coins continued to fall as Twilight watched, counting the smaller bags that the dragon pulled from the larger one.

Spike, she thought, watching him reach for yet another bag. Spike, where… where did you get all of these bits? Why, why didn’t you tell me?

Seven, eight, nine small bags were emptied, and Spike looked around himself, trying to find some place to deposit the emptied pouches.

Rarity quickly found a place. The elegant mare came trotting out from behind the podium and, seating herself behind Spike, extended her hooves… knocking each of the handsome stallion’s moneybags off with slow, deliberate flicks.

Rarity looked down to Spike, and the dragon blinked at her. She rolled her hoof, encouraging him to go on. As more disapproving sounds lifted from the colts, he emptied more bags. Each time he did the pile within the transparent box became that much taller, coming closer and closer and closer to the red line.

Finally, as he lifted one more bag, the bits fell in… and their shining surfaces appeared above the line.

“Oh, Spikey-Wikey, you’ve done it!” Rarity cried, scooping him up in her forelegs. “We’ve saved the camp! We’ve saved the Filly Scouts’ summer!”

Rarity spun him around and around, her ridiculously happy giggles filling his ears as she did. A few of the colts applauded the victory of the charity drive, but most simply kept up their jeers. Rarity settled to the floor, her back to the young stallions. She regarded them balefully as she glared at them over her shoulder and lifted her nose in the air.

“Harumph!” she called, dismissing the crowd. As the curls of her mane bounced behind her, she turned her head back towards the young dragon folded in her legs.

She had expected to look down to find Spike jubilant. She had thought that she’d look down to see the little love-struck expression that always seemed to accompany the embraces that she gave him. Instead, his face was scrunched up, and he seemed to be overflowing with a mixture of disappointment and… fear?

“Why, Spike, darling!” she asked, her voice falling down in a concerned whisper. “Whatever could be the matter?”

Twilight had emerged from the wings, and the crowd withered under the gaze of their newest alicorn sovereign. She approached Rainbow Dash, offering the pegasus her hoof. To Twilight’s relief Dash stood at once, a single sniffle seeming to be all that was needed to give her the strength to go back to her proper stance.

“Dash?” Twilight breathed, nuzzling against her friend. Rainbow Dash lifted her eyes to Twilight, and the mare let slip a small smile. It was forced and weak, but it was there, showing that she would be all right. Twilight returned the smile… and then Dash’s expression changed into one that Twilight couldn't quite name.

Dash’s head spun, and at first Twilight thought that the pegasus was about to berate the colts, to launch into them with a tirade, if not her hooves. But, to the alicorn’s surprise, Dash’s eyes went to where Rarity and Spike sat nearby.

“Dash?” Twilight asked again. The alicorn came nearer, trying to see what expressions sat on Dash’s face. She seemed to be… confused, bewildered.

“Hey, Twilight, did Spike… did Spike just...”

Dash blinked, and Twilight stood by her side. In a moment, Rarity repeated her little whisper, and it filled the ears of the two mares.

“Spikey-Wikey,” Rarity said, running her hoof across his frills, “what could possibly be so wrong, darling? You look so sad! Won’t you tell me?”

Spike’s eyes lifted to hers, and an understanding went across the three mares as he spoke.

“Rarity,” Spike began, “I… I brought all of those bits… because…”

Spike ran his hands across his face, struggling to make his admission. “I brought them because… because I wanted to win the date. I wanted… I really, really wanted to win the date with you…”

“Oh, Spike…” Rarity said, her voice tender.

“But, but when… when they started treating Dash that way, I couldn’t… I had to stop them. I had to stand up for Dash… I couldn’t let them treat her that way…”

The sound of the young stallions, still barking their catcalls and slurs, drifted into the background as all three mares made the same realization.

Spike, Twilight realized, you just gave up a chance to go on a date with Rarity! Oh, Spike… that’s what all of the bits were for! Oh, Spike, my poor little guy…

Twilight looked to Dash. The pegasus was blinking, her mouth a small circle as she, too, pondered the implications of Spike’s admission.

Twilight looked to Rarity, and their eyes met briefly.

And now you have to kiss another mare in front of the one who you love, they thought, sharing the same realization.

“Rarity,” Spike breathed, turning his head so that it lay against her chest. “Rarity, I w-wanted to win the d-date with you so much… so, so much. We would have gone to that new restaurant. I would have taken you to see a play, and to this waterfall I found…”

His voice faded away and, after a moment, his head sank into the space at the hollow of her chest.

“It… it sounded wonderful, dear,” she said softly, running her hoof across his frills. She stifled her giggle, hiding the images of being lead around town by the little boy behind her mask of concern. It would have been... unusual, to say the least.

“But, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t let one of them win, not after the things that they said about her, not after what they said to Dash. I had to beat them. I had to,” he sighed. “I couldn’t let them… I couldn’t, Rarity, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that, now, one of them is going to win the date with you! I’m sorry. I don’t have the bits to save you both. I’m so sorry.”

A flash of a smile went across Rarity’s face.

Save? Oh, Spikey, you’ve always been the chivalrous sort. I assure you, darling, I am most capable of “saving” myself… but never, ever stop seeing yourself that way, my little Spikey-Wikey. Never, ever, stop being that way.

Rarity leaned her head far down. As her cheek sat touching the side of his head, her warm, sweet breath spilled words into his ear.

“Spike,” she whispered, the sounds of the colts fading farther away as Spike drifted in her closeness, “do not concern yourself with that, darling. Only concern yourself with this... namely, the knowledge that you are the most gentle male I’ve ever had the honor and pleasure of knowing…”

She pressed her face against his, her lips meeting the space behind his ears. It wasn’t a kiss exactly, but it was close enough to snap Spike back out of his worries. As she held him, the real world drifted back in, and the sound of the colts, demanding the spectacle of a dragon kissing a mare, filled the room.

“Now, Spikey-Wikey,” she said as she lifted to her feet, unintentionally making him tumble forward into the little pile of hearts that had built up beneath him. “Go ahead... a gentledrake doesn't keep a lady waiting.”

She lifted Spike to his feet and spun him around, and for the first time since the gavel had sounded, the dragon met the eyes of Rainbow Dash. Her face was still a twist of bafflement, her mouth still small and her eyes bewildered.

Oddly enough, they both blushed. As Spike walked forward to where Dash and Twilight stood the hooting and hollering from the crowd increased, rising to a crescendo of sorts when the dragon and the pegasus stood face to face.

“Ummm, hiya, Dash,” Spike said, rubbing the back of his head, slightly averting her gaze.

“Hey, Spike,” she answered, suddenly very interested in the fabric that made up the curtain. “Hey.”

The two stood there, he rubbing the back of his head, she running one of her forelegs up and down the other… both looking around the room.

Twilight’s eyes met Rarity’s. Both mares arched their eyebrows.

“Well, ummm,” Rainbow mouthed. “Yeah…”

“It’s, well… yeah,” Spike answered. “Ummm…”

More uncomfortable shifting, rubbing, scratching, fidgeting, and desperate eye contact avoidance played out across the stage.

“Ummm,” the dragon said, apparently trying to look like he was admiring the craftsmanship that it took to hew the floor joists of the stage.

“Hmmm?” answered the mare as she painted a farce of studying the catenary that supported the stage lights.

“I-I didn’t, didn’t say anything,” he said, running his hand up and down his arm, “I… well, umm…”

There was a sudden, solid “thwack” as Spike walked blindly into Dash’s shoulder, the mare having turned without looking at him. They both startled, turning their heads towards the point of impact.

Thus, their heads collided with a sound not unlike two coconuts being knocked together.

Dash went falling to her back legs, and Spike fell flat on his back. As stars swam in their vision and their heads wobbled around, the sound of laughter filled the boutique.

As the colts continued to laugh, Dash shook the stars from her eyes and rose back to her hooves. She shook her head a few times… and when she opened them, she found herself looking into Spike’s eyes.

The little dragon fished around through her gaze for a moment, and then turned back to Rarity. The dragon gripped his tail in his hands, and, as he twisted it nervously, his little voice called for the elegant mare.

“Rarity?” he asked. “Is there… is there anything in the rules that says I hafta get my prize now? Can… can I get it later?”

“I… I understand, Spike,” Dash said, he voice uncharacteristically weak. “If you don’t want a kiss from me… I’m sure we can find something else. It’s no biggee, I… I just thought that it… well, I’m glad…”

“Dash,” Spike said, his voice firm, “I’d love to get a kiss from you–“

“What?” Dash asked.

“What?” Twilight called.

“What?!” Rarity shrieked.

“–but, but not here, not like this. Not in front of them,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the colts beyond. The little dragon turned his head back to Rarity and repeated his question.

“Rarity?” he asked. “Do the rules say I hafta get my kiss here? Can’t I, well, you know, get it later?”

Rarity blinked, and then blinked again. “Oh, well, let me see,” she said, rummaging through her papers. After a moment she shrugged her shoulders, and, returning a look to her friends, Rarity simply added, “No. There’s nothing that says that you must.”

“Oh, okay then,” the dragon said, grasping the handle of his wagon. Slowly he began to walk away, only stopping to look up to Dash.

“Is that okay? That we… well, heh, if you’re okay with that? Like, at dinner tonight, in the library? I mean, like, just coming over for dinner,” he asked, his sentence seeming caught somewhere between a question, a statement, and a plea.

“Yeah, that’s cool. That’s… yeah, okay. Later, at the library,” Dash said, lifting one hoof, motioning to him.

The two just stood there, staring at one another, until Spike sighed and turned towards the side door of the boutique. “I’m… I’m gonna wait outside, Twi. I don’t really wanna see what happens next. I don’t think I could… see who wins the date with…”

The three mares watched him go, the wagon squeaking behind him as it went, the big saddlebag standing open and empty as the little dragon made his way across the stage. His head hung slightly, yet there seemed to be a sort of satisfied smirk across his face, one that seemed bittersweet.

The colts looked at one another, shooting incredulous looks amid their group, before their jeers started once more.

“What’s the matter, Spike? Afraid of girls?!”

Laughter, snickers.

“Loooser! Loooser! Loooser!” began the chant, and as it did the blood pressure of the mares increased and the head of the little whelp hung lower.

“We always knew he ain’t much of a dragon… now we know he ain’t much of a stallion, either!” laughed the handsome colt.

Spike skittered across the stage in a reptilian motion, darting so quickly on all fours that the colt’s laughter had barely faded before he and the crowd were looking up to the incensed eyes of the whelp.

Spike’s forked tongue came out, whipping around as an animalistic hiss escaped his lips… forcing the colts back a step as his eyes glowed with a draconic light.

Spike lifted one hand, then the other… and then extended both middle claws high and proud.

“Blam,” he said.

Silence reigned supreme across the interior of the boutique.

“Heh,” the dragon laughed, his face revealing a sneer, and with that he walked back to his wagon. The colts, only having hooves and not being all that familiar with fingers, had no idea what had just happened… yet were left feeling that the self-satisfied smirk that the little dragon now wore indicated that they had been subjected to something rather inappropriate.

“What… what in the Well was that?” Dash asked, her face a picture of bewilderment.

“It’s something he came up with,” Twilight said, sinking her face into her hoof. “He says that it’s called the ‘Hyper-Rude Gesture of Maximum Offensiveness’. Now I have to give him a time-out when we get home. Great.”

Rarity’s gavel sounded out once more, climbing above the booing of the crowd that had arisen once again. “Oh, my dear colts,” the unicorn cooed. “Have you forgotten? We have one more item to be bid on this morning!”

The crowd erupted into cheers before devolving back into catcalls and innuendo. Twilight and Dash shot each other looks of dread. “She can’t be serious!” Twilight said. “Not after what she just saw!”

“What the buck, Rarity?!” Dash cried. “You just saw what these jerks are like! You can’t seriously be auctioning off a date with…”

Rarity slammed her gavel, silencing all in the room.

“Indeed, Rainbow Dash, I am! Indeed, I think that, having seen the quality of the stallions in this room, I’m going to substitute a prize and cut to the chase! It is obvious that these fellow have no need for romantic notions, so let us simply advance the program, as it were,” the unicorn enthused.

“My fine gentlecolts,” she said, painting only a whisper of irony into the words, “are now going to see who gets to spend private time, in a secluded space… with my pussy.”

Rainbow Dash and Twilight felt their jaws hit the stage floor.

The colts blinked once, and then launched into wild yells.

Rarity slammed the gavel, bringing it down so hard that it split in half. The colts ceased their shouting and whistling and looked up to the podium. There they discovered the grim visage of a foaming, wrathful unicorn look back over them, her horn alive with magic.

“In short,” she hissed, “every one of you abrasive, immature, loutish degenerates who I see place bits in the donation box stands a chance of not being the one I lock in my supply cabinet for the next hour with my cat!”

On cue, Opal screamed to life, her caterwaul filling the boutique with a deathly screech. Her claws came open, and in a flash she had torn the cushion to shreds, the fluffy entrails of which settled across the colts. The cat’s eyes flashed, and her lips pulled back, exposing teeth like dozens of tiny needles.

The cat lunged forward, her back arching, her hisses meeting their ears like the wails of the denizens of Tartarus, magnified over and over again as the shrill sound ground against their souls.

The colts’ eyes went wide.

There was a mad rush of hooves, the sound of coins being stuffed into the donation box, and a desperate scene of colts falling across one another as they fought to escape through the main doors of Rarity’s shop.

“That’s momma’s little angel,” Rarity said as she tried to hide a self-satisfied smirk. A single giggle escaped her as she lifted her cat. “Let us find you a new cushion and some tuna!”

“Mew,” answered Opal, granting her mistress a single nuzzle.

Twilight found her way out of the boutique. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, and she blinked in the daylight.

She had helped Rarity and Dash remove the traces of the auction house. Some of the Filly Scouts had helped, and it was with no small amount of joy that Rarity had informed them that they had made their goal.

Rarity and Dash seemed to be very happy to remove the evidence of the auction, and did so quickly. Given the quality of the colts that had shown up, Twilight certainly understood why.

“Can you believe it?!” Rarity whispered when the fillies were on the far side of the room, the unicorn still being incredulous over what had transpired in her shop. “I’ve never heard such language! And to have it directed at such a good friend! I am truly, truly sorry, Dash! Why, if it weren’t for Spike’s selflessness, I would have taken my gavel and…”

“He… really stepped up,” Dash answered, her voice uncharacteristically weak.

“Indeed! I don’t know if you heard it, but he said that he did it to save us!” Rarity said with a giggle.

“Save us?” Dash echoed, lifting her head to Rarity. "He knows that we've save the world like... five times, right?"

“Oh, of course he knows! It was needless gesture— but still… what a gentledrake! What a little hero!” Rarity said, smiling widely.

“Hero?” Dash asked. “Gosh. Kinda hard to think about Spike… giving up a chance to… for me…”

Spike.

Now, Twilight blinked in the sun, slowly regaining her vision as she searched for her little dragon whelp. As she did, her thoughts went to the colts…

A dozen sets of eyes found Spike as he sat beneath a tree, just next to his wagon.

… and how they seemed to be so very different than she’d ever seen boys acting before…

The leader nodded to the rest, and they murmured to one another, and then slowly they began to trot towards the whelp.

... how they seemed to be almost feral, like wild horses…

They advanced on Spike, their eyes set on him with a wicked determination.

… and Twilight hoped, hoped, hoped that they would think about what they had done, especially the handsome colt. They weren’t bad ponies, they had simply chosen to be something less. The optimistic part of her could not help but feel that they would make it right…

Only one thought–the auction–went through the mob as it advanced on the little dragon. They would show him. They would show him.

… but, just at that moment, Twilight saw Spike sitting nearby, and a dozen ponies galloping towards him.

They pounced upon him.

Twilight never even had a chance to warn him…

… not that she would have. It was simply too cute to pass up.

“Thank you, Spike!” called a dozen Filly Scouts, bowling him over and wrapping him in hug after hug.

“We’re going to summer camp!” called one as she dragged him into her forelegs.

“We get all kinds of new camping gear!” said another, rubbing her face against his. The nuzzling and hugging continued for a good solid minute, and Twilight approached slowly, drawing it out as she smiled over the scene that was developing in front of her. In time, Spike recovered enough to speak.

“Oh, hey, yeah,” he said, blushing brightly. “That’s fine. Yeah, that’s really great. I’m… I’m glad you can go… and, well, have fun and stuff.”

The fillies backed away a step, staring down at the blushing dragon that lay at their hooves. A few tittering laughs fell among them, and they blinked their big filly eyes at the young drake.

“I didn’t say ya had to stop!” Spike said with a self-conscious chuckle.

“Spike,” Twilight interjected, a warm smile sitting across her face, “that’s enough.”

“Fine,” he sighed.

The girls giggled, thanked him once more, and then pelted off into the distance, cries and leaps of jubilation lifting them into the air. The young fillies were soon to embark on a grand journey, one that would grant them memories that would last a lifetime. And, oddly enough, the craft hall would be suspiciously full of purple and green artwork featuring a certain dragon that year.

Twilight and Spike watched the scouts go… until they realized that one had stayed.

“Uh, hey, Spike, Twilight,” said Scootaloo.

“Oh, hey, Scoots,” Spike said as he lifted himself to his feet. To his surprise Scootaloo offered him her hoof, and she lent him her strength as he hefted himself back to vertical.

A little more surprise appeared in Spike’s eyes when she didn’t drop her hoof, and kept it right there in his hand.

“I just wanted to let you know that it was really awesome of you to donate all those bits, especially to help out Dash,” she said. “What was up with those colts anyway?”

“I dunno,” Spike said, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess some stallions never learn how to talk to mares.”

Twilight stifled a giggle, hiding it behind one of her forehooves. As she watched, small blushes went across both of the faces of the young creatures before her. To Twilight, it seemed like the same awkward staring that had passed between Dash and the whelp an hour before.

“Hey, ummm, Spike?” Scootaloo said, her face slowly inching towards his. “Thanks… thanks for standing up for Rainbow Dash. That was a really awesome thing to do.”

“Hey, it was no big… big deal…” Spike began to say. However, the feel of something warm and moist pressing against his face interrupted his train of thought.

Twilight had been very giggly that day, she realized. It might not be the most proper thing for an alicorn princess to do in public, but she could hardly contain herself, what with all the little signs of affection her great little guy was receiving.

The alicorn hid another giggle as Scootaloo pressed her nose up against Spike’s, nuzzling closer to the whelp. She made a small circle, blushing as she did. It was a motion common to the Equestrians, that much more than a hug, just that much less than a kiss… and adorable when viewed from most angles.

And then, to the surprise of everypony, Scootaloo gave him a small lick, like a nervous filly would when she wasn’t brave enough to give a boy a kiss. Very much like it, in fact.

“Thanks!” Scootaloo called, suddenly lifting away. “Bye!” With a flash of a smile and bright blush she went pounding down the street in a valiant effort to catch up with her fellow scouts. Behind her a surprised dragon was left standing in the street.

“Bye?” the dragon asked, wobbling on his feet.

Ponies came and went, and the sounds of Ponyville lifted over them. Twilight simply stood there, staring down at her little dragon. “Having a good day, Spike?” she said.

“Huh?” he asked. “What?”

“Come on,” she said, lifting him onto his accustomed space on her back, settling him forward to avoid the sweep of her wings. “I have some papers to look over, we have to get the place cleaned up before Dash arrives, and you need to have a time-out.”

“What?” he said, slowly drifting back to reality. “Seriously?”

Chapter 2: The Dinner

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Chapter 2: The Dinner

“Yes, seriously,” Twilight answered a short while later, seating Spike in a wooden chair in the library’s small sitting room. “You said a bad word, you made a large purchase without my consent or knowledge… a really, really large purchase, and you used your ‘Hyper-Rude Gesture of Maximum Inappropriateness’. Twice. You’re in time-out, mister.”

Spike grumbled a little, muttered something sarcastic, and spun about on the chair.

Twilight wrinkled her nose. There, she thought, that will give him a moment to think about what he did. His small mutters faded behind her as she walked to the kitchen, put the kettle on, peeked in the icebox for no real reason, and then walked back into the sitting room.

Once there, she promptly leapt upon her baby dragon.

“Time-out’s over!” she said, gathering him into her forelegs. “Oh, Spike, I’m so proud of you for sticking up for Dash!” Spike’s eyes went wide as the alicorn pulled him down with her to the rug, and there she squeezed him tight.

“Heh!” Spike laughed, wrapping his hands around her legs. “It… it wasn’t anything that big, Twi. I… I just, well…”

Spike’s words slowly drifted away, and as they did Twilight sat up. The dragon slid into the space between her outstretched forelegs.

“Spike?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

The dragon sighed a tiny sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Twi?” he asked. “Who… who won the d-date with Rarity? Was it a nice guy?”

“Actually,” she began, slowly whispering an ever-so-slightly-censored version of Rarity’s last act as auctioneer into his ear. As she did Twilight watched Spike’s eyes getting wider and wider until, finally, the whelp fell over in a fit of laughter, holding his sides and rocking back and forth, his arms across his chest.

Twilight let him laugh. She had questions for him. Questions that she, a caring–if sometimes absent-minded–caregiver had to ask. Where had he gotten the bits? What had he meant by “love to get a kiss” from Dash? What had he meant by “saving” Dash and Rarity? Why had he felt the need to do these things?

Most importantly, who had he been calling to? Who had he been begging to come and save Dash?

Soon enough, she would have to ask these questions. But, at that moment, all that she cared to do was smile over her dragon as he rolled back and forth on the rug, his laughter filling their small home.

“Hey, Twi?” he said, recovering from his fit of hysteria. “Don’t you have some princess stuff you were finishing up?”

“Yes,” she said, rising to her hooves. “But, if we’re going to have Dash over to give you some smooches… kissy, kissy, kissy–”

“Really mature, Twi.”

“–then I should help you clean up and get dinner on, instead.”

“Now, Twi,” he said, bopping her nose with an outstretched finger, “we talked about this. You have your stuff that you need to do, your responsibilities. It’s my job to take care of the rest. We already had this talk when you became an alicorn-princess-thingy.”

“But…”

“No buts, Sister!” he said, pointing to the stairwell. “Go and do your princess paperwork thingies! I’ll call you when I need help with dinner! Now, left hoof, right hoof, march!”

A grumbling alicorn began to climb the stairs as the broom closet came open behind her. She grumbled some more as the chime of pots and pans rang out from the kitchen. As she looked over the pile of papers that she had brought from Canterlot, Twilight suddenly realized something.

Wait, did I just get sent to my room to do my homework?

A small smile appeared on the alicorn’s face.

Sometimes, Spike, she thought, listening to his little song lifting from the kitchen, I wonder who’s raising who in this house.

Rainbow Dash had questions to ask, too.

Fortunately for her, she had an excellent listener at her disposal, one that cared for her immensely.

Dash called on his tender affection, his absolute devotion to her, as they lay upon her bed together. She held him close, pressed against her chest and barrel, as she dropped her worries and anxieties across him.

“You wouldn’t have believed these colts, Tank,” she said, hugging her tortoise closer. “The crap they were sayin’… I wanted to…”

The tortoise blinked at her.

“Yeah, it was the pits, but I’m okay,” she said. “I’ve been through worse.”

The tortoise blinked again.

“Hey, I know you would have, but I don’t need anypony… or creature, really, to fight my fights for me," she said, punching the air with her hooves. "Nopony says that sorta stuff about Rainbow Danger Dash without getting a fat lip!"

A small expression went across Tank’s features.

“No, I’m alright, really. I just wanted to make it up to Scoots and the other Filly Scouts so bad. I… I wouldn’t usually let anypony get away with saying stuff like that about me, or about anypony. You know that.”

Tank’s head moved up and down slowly.

“Awww, it’s awesome that you’re worried about me,” Dash said, rubbing the top of his head. “You’re really cool like that.”

The tortoise grinned.

Dash laid her head back on her cloudy pillow, staring at the ceiling of her cumulus-based home. In her thoughts, she went back over the scene that had played out in the boutique. Rainbow Dash, usually so cock-sure and confident, leaned her head to the side, pondering the events of the day.

She let the jeers and catcalls of the colts drift out of her mind. Eventually, they departed, leaving her feeling better… and with a strong determination to make each and every one of them know her opinion on their actions.

I’ll talk to Pinkie, and we’ll take care of that, Dash thought, any number of devious plans flashing through her mind. They won’t even know what hit ‘em.

She smirked a quick smirk, and then her thoughts turned to the prize she had offered, and to the little dragon who had won it.

“What really got me though was Spike,” she said. The mare tossed her mane, letting it drift out behind her as she let loose another string of sighs. Little wafts of cloud drifted around her, dissipating as she contemplated the day.

“I mean… wow, Tank,” she said. Rolling her hips around, Dash settled farther into her oversized bed. “Just, wow, right?”

The mare’s faced creased. “He gave up a chance to go out on a date with Rarity. He really just did that,” she said as Tank took to the air, his magithopter whirring to life.

“I mean, everypony knows how crazy that kid is about her. And, well, he gave it up!” she called. “And you wanna know what the weirdest part was? Rarity said that he did it to ‘save’ me! Can you imagine, that little guy feeling like he had to ‘save’ me?”

Tank made a low grumbling sound.

“Well, yeah,” Dash said, her eyes rolling slowly to the side. “I guess, in a way, he did. But, really, what kinda colt…”

The tortoise chortled.

“… dragon, boy, whelp… thingy, guy… does that sort of thing?” she concluded.

Dash let her mind wander back across the times that she and Spike had spent together. There wasn’t much, if she was honest. It seemed like, whenever they involved him in one of their adventures, he clung to Twilight. When they were at parties or celebrations, he hovered around Rarity.

The pegasus struggled to find some moment of connection between the two of them, some fleeting instant in time where the two of them had seemed closer.

She came up with bupkis.

Did he see her any differently than he saw the rest of the girls? Well, Twilight, of course, and Rarity. Especially Rarity. But, apart from those two extremes, did he treat her any differently than he treated anypony? Had she missed something?

Why had Spike said that he’d “love to get a kiss from her”?

Why had he felt the need to “save her”?

Why was a flying tortoise boinking her?

“Hey!” she said, rubbing her head. “What gives?”

The final few whirs of Tank’s magithopter whispered through the air before it folded away. Dash placed him on her chest once more only to discover that the tortoise was holding something in his mouth. Dash took it from him, and eyed the picture.

It was a photograph, one that showed her at one of her many autograph sessions when she had been… well, less than humble about her achievements. Her face wrinkled as she remembered the harsh lessons she had learned at the hoof–hooves–of the Mare Do Well… Mare Do Wells, actually.

She studied the photo closer, trying to determine what Tank could possibly be trying to show her. She narrowed her vision, looking through the crowd, looking past the faces of all the admirers and gawkers, studying the picture intently.

Her eyes came back open as they settled over the only familiar figure within… that of Spike.

The little dragon stood there, fedora on his head with the press pass sitting proudly upon it in stark relief. His eyes were turned up to her, ready to begin writing at a moment’s notice, the same way he would for Twilight.

He was watching her be awesome.

Once again Dash pondered all of the times that she and Spike had spent together, struggling to find some time that they had been in each other’s company. It seemed that she could think of no time when they had been alone together, no time that she could see him looking at her any differently than he had looked at her in a way that could betray… anything…

She sighed, rocking her head back and forth across her cloudy pillow. As she did, her mind went back to the very first moment that they had met… to the moment that he had lain against her in the street, laughing at Twilight’s manecut.

From the first moment that they had met, he had felt comfortable being close to her, being near her.

Was… was that enough for him to have feelings for her?

“He said… jeez, Tank, he said that he’d love to get a kiss from me!” she said as she put her forelegs behind her head. “I can’t believe he’d give up a chance to go out with Rarity, just to…”

Dash blinked. The elephant in the room was threatening to go crashing through her water-vapor villa, significantly reducing the resale value. She grasped Tank and looked into his wrinkled face.

“Tank? Do you think that Spike could… well, have a crush on me?” she asked. “Do you think that the kid could… well, have feelings for me?”

The tortoise blinked.

“Well, yeah… he’s just a kid, but he’s all romantic and stuff,” she said, some confusion in her voice. “He’s just as bad as Rarity at times. I’m just trying to figure it out, is all...”

The tortoise made a low rumbling noise. Dash just barely managed to startle in surprise before realizing his joke.

“No, you dummy!” she said, bopping his nose. “You wouldn’t have to call him ‘Dad’!’

The pegasus gripped her tortoise harder, and rubbing her nose to his she began to giggle. That is how Dash passed the time, holding her pet, before she departed for dinner in the library far below.

“… and he just cashed them all in. All except these three,” Twilight said, holding the tall, thin door to the cabinet open.

“He said that he just saved a few every time I gave them to him, that he just put a couple in the cupboard each time,” Twilight said, gazing into the cabinet. Only three gems remained, but deep mars in the wood showed where many had been piled to the top, the gems digging into the surface.

“He sold his whole hoard, Dash,” Twilight said, sliding her hoof across the cabinet door. Worry played across her face, and the unspoken truth that he had not eaten all of the gems hung over the pair… that Spike had been denying himself sustenance in the hope of winning the auction.

Dash and Twilight looked into the cupboard once more. He could hardly have been accused of hiding his stash, as it sat there right in the middle of the library, next to the stairs. The mares looked over the gems that still lay there, the remains of a dragon’s hoard. Twilight drew a long breath, and then closed the cabinet.

“He gave it all up, huh? Jeez, Twilight, he totally sold everything just to win that date with Rarity… and then he gave it all up to keep me from having to kiss one of those colts. He totally just did that, didn’t he?” Dash asked. A soft look of distant contemplation settled over her, and she ran her hoof up and down her foreleg.

“Hey, Twilight?” Dash said, lifting her face back to the alicorn. “Did Spike ever… well, did he ever say anything about having any, well… feelings for me? I mean, we all know about his crush on Rarity but… jeez, I don’t know if he’s ever seen me as anything other than just a friend. He… he said that…”

Dash saw a grin creep across Twilight’s face as she spoke. Her voice slowed, and she witnessed a small glow appear across the alicorn’s features, and the grin erupted into a full smile.

“Yes, Dash,” Twilight answered, leaning closer to her friend, drawing her into an unexpected nuzzle, “I did ask him about that. I-I’ll let Spike explain…”

Dash stood there, letting the touch of Twilight’s face fall through her, the pleasant closeness of her friend locked in combat with the words that the alicorn had just spoken. Dash blinked twice, and then muttered “What?” before the telltale sound of clawed feet across the library floor signaled the approach of her confusion’s source.

“Ladies,” Spike said, affecting a genteel tone, a towel across his forearm, “dinner is served!”

The porch had been set up for a dinner of three, Spike having decorated it plainly and elegantly to match the shades of a young summer’s day. The three friends sat on the lofty perch, dining on a creamy butternut, blue cheese, and walnut cavatappi that Spike had assembled. The conversation was pleasant, and the sun of a newborn summer was enough to warm the coats and scales of those who sat there, partaking of the meal.

The conversation was brisk and pleasant, and the sights and sounds of Ponyville below added a certain charm to the afternoon. As the tones shifted from afternoon to evening, Spike brought forth some sorbet. “To cleanse the palate,” he said, placing the small bowls before the mares.

He then blushed brightly as he brought forth the dessert. It just so happened to be rainbow sherbet–in honor of their guest–which was, effectively, the same thing as sorbet.

The little drake blushed brighter as a realization settled over Dash; the pegasus noted that, under certain conditions, “cleansing the palate” could be interpreted as “getting the gunk out of your teeth before you kiss somepony”.

Those conditions had certainly been met.

To her own surprise, Dash found herself swishing the sweet treat past her teeth, risking a headache as it melted and became a syrup that lingered across her tongue. Dash lifted her head, staring across the way to where Spike sat. His eyes caught hers… and in a moment of realization that startled them both, each realized that they were both doing the exact same thing.

Rainbow Dash swallowed, pulling a distressingly large walnut that had somehow managed to hide itself in her molar down her throat. She gave a little hack before standing.

“Hey, Spike?” Dash said, fidgeting a little.

“D-Dash?” he answered.

She tried not to laugh as she heard the nervousness in his voice as he lifted his tail, as though trying to hide behind it. “Hey,” she said, her voice breaking a touch, betraying the sudden, uncharacteristic nervousness that floated through her. “I’m gonna take a powder… and then, I’ll be back. We’ll… uummm, yeah…”

“Y-yeah,” Spike answered, still twiddling his tail. “Okay…”

Dash backed away, tripping across her own hooves a little. Blowing a waft of her mane out of her eyes, she gave a grunt of exasperation before winging into the library, through the bedroom, and into the bathroom beyond.

The two remaining occupants of the porch began clearing away the dinner, one stifling her little giggles behind her hoof as the other shone with a blush that matched the late-day sun in its intensity.

Twilight giggled some more, drawing the attention of her assistant.

“Something you wish to add, Twi?” he said, arching an eyebrow at her as he balanced a stack of plates, bowls, and cups.

“Spike and Rainbow Dash, sitting in a tree!” she called in a sing-song tone, making him nearly drop his pile in surprise. “K! I! S! S! I! N…”

“Really mature, Twi. Really super-mature…”

Rainbow Dash stood there, looking in the bathroom mirror. Her head slowly went back and forth.

This is stupid! she told herself. Why is it such a big deal? Why am I nervous?

She looked back to her reflection in the mirror. She studied her own face, noting the look of doubt that hung there. I don’t get it! she thought. What is up with me? It’s not a big deal. He’s just a kid, and I don’t really think that he’s got a crush…

Spike’s words, his statement from that morning, flashed through her mind.

Dash, I’d love to get a kiss from you…

Rainbow Dash had always been a mare who prided herself on being brash, strong, and independent. She had learned how to use her strength, speed, and agility to preserve her own sense of freedom and autonomy.

Being “girly” wasn’t part of that. Being “girly” meant having to betray a part of herself, to surrender to the ads in fashion magazines, to capitulate to make-up and perfumes. It meant being tied to others’ views of her, and that was unacceptable.

So, she wondered as she stared at her reflection, why did this little thing seem to be bugging her so. Why had she suddenly become so nervous? She had volunteered the kiss, and when she had thought about giving just some colt a smack on the lips... well, it hadn’t done anything for her.

But now, with Spike waiting on the other side of the house… why did it suddenly matter? Why would he “love” to get a kiss from her? The mare ran her memories of Spike through her head once more. Nothing, nothing, nothing spoke of Spike ever looking at her like he looked at Rarity. Nothing betrayed such feelings as he had for the unicorn…

Dash, I’d love to get a kiss from you…

Love. It didn’t seem like the type of word that Spike would just throw around. Dash groaned a little, placing her hoof over her eyes. Peeking out from behind it, she dropped a sigh across the towels and washcloths, and then turned to exit the bathroom.

Whatever this was, whatever he meant and whatever had demanded that he “save” her… it was time to find out. Leaving her expectations and doubts hanging amid the toiletries, Dash turned and exited the bathroom.

She made her way back across the bedroom, and then turned towards the porch beyond. To her immediate surprise, she felt a hoof press against her chest. She followed the foreleg until it joined the rest of the mare it was attached to… namely, Twilight Sparkle.

“I’ve got my eye on you, Missy,” Twilight said, a forceful, determined tone hidden in her voice. “No funny business with this kiss…”

Dash pondered the alicorn for a second, and then stifled her giggles. Twilight attempted to make herself seem austere and judgmental, but the final effect simply made Dash erupt into guffaws as she sunk to the floor. Twilight attempted to maintain the glare, but it fell to pieces as Dash looked up to her, trembling with laughter, before falling back to the floor in a heap of laughter.

“Jeez, Twilight!” Dash said, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye. “He’s just a kid! It’s not like we’re gonna have a sloppy make-out session or anything!”

Dash lifted herself back to her hooves and readied herself to look upon Old Man Twilight’s portrayal once more. Instead, all that greeted her was the soft brush of Twilight’s face along hers, one that ended with the pegasus and the alicorn resting forehead to forehead.

“Please, don’t spoil this for me, Dash,” Twilight said in a huff. “Who knows when, or if, I’ll ever get to play ‘scowling and disapproving parent’ again.”

The pegasus let the words sink through her, and then rolled her eyes. “Yes, Ms. Sparkle, Ma’am,” Dash said, letting her head rest against Twilight’s that much deeper. “Yeah, I’ll have him home by ten, and no funny stuff.”

Twilight chuckled, leaving her alternate persona behind. Dash joined her in a small fit of giggles, the two floating around in the oddness that hovered across the situation. The mares nuzzled against one another again before Twilight lifted her face from Dash’s, the mares smiling at one another before a more solemn look crossed the alicorn’s face.

“Dash, I have to ask,” Twilight said, her voice flowing with concern. “Why did you offer the kiss in the first place? It’s… it’s just so unlike you…”

Dash hung her head. She looked away from Twilight, drawing her hoof up and down her foreleg. “I…” the pegasus began, the word hanging in the air around the bedroom. Dash rubbed her foreleg some more, and then let a sigh escape her, failing to hide it as a groan.

She was aware of her reputation, of how she appeared to the world. She knew that she had an image of being rough and tumble, rowdy and brash. Her mane wasn’t styled, her hooves weren’t polished, and she didn’t go out of her way to appear… well, feminine. That was who she was.

Being “girly,” or at least what it meant to her, wasn’t part of that. Being “girly” meant batting your eyes at colts, drawing their attention with little giggles. It meant having stallions court you, wanting to be near you, wanting to show you affection. It meant that you could entice them with the promise of a kiss… that you deserved to be kissed.

She had dared venture down a path she’d long ignored. She had wanted to see if there was anything “girly” about her, to see if others could look at her that way instead of… well, not.

The response she had received had been less than what she had hoped.

“I just… I just wanted to know,” she said, her voice catching a little. “I just wanted to know if anypony saw me as… as a mare. I just wanted to know if anypony would want to get a kiss from me… if anypony thought of me the way that, the way that they think of other fillies. I just wanted to know if I could feel that, too…”

She ran the back of her hoof across her eyes.

“But, all I got was jerks…”

The words had barely escaped her lips before she was folded into the forelegs of the alicorn. Twilight pulled her close, and once more Dash felt the comfort of Twilight’s nearness, and the wetness that had been gathering in her eyes fell away as she rubbed her face into Twilight’s shoulder.

“Oh, Dash,” Twilight said, running her hoof across her friend’s back, “of course you deserve to be treated as a mare. It’s part of you, too. Even though you’re strong and proud, you’re also graceful and endearing. You may not wear your feminine side like a badge like Rarity or Fluttershy, but…

“Or you,” Dash said, interrupting the alicorn. “You’re pretty girly, too, Twi.”

“Umm, thanks?” Twilight said, arching an eyebrow.

“Hey, I… I meant it as a compliment!” Dash said, as she lifted her head. “This is what I’m talking about! It’s so hard for me to have these frou-frou moments, and I don’t like being all mushy. I don’t like thinking about make-up and spa stuff. But... but I want to know that ponies still see me as a mare. I want to be a filly… I like being a filly. I like being me.”

Dash’s eyes found the joists of the floorboards once more.

“I like me.”

After a moment, Twilight lifted Dash’s forehooves into her own, patting them over and over in a way that seemed far more motherly than her attempt at intimidation a moment before. Little noises reached them through the open doors to the porch, and Spike’s humming of a catchy tune carried on the early evening air.

“Dash,” Twilight said, “we all like you, too. You are the only one who gets to decide what being a mare means for you, and we’ve come to love that mare… that brash mare with a wild tangle of rainbow mane. All of her friends, all of us, love her… even the one you just called a jerk, which wasn’t very nice…”

“Wait, who? What?” Dash said, lifting her head back to Twilight. “Who… which of us did I call…”

Twilight tossed her head, motioning to the porch and its occupant just beyond the doors. Spike’s humming met them.

“Oh, jeez. I-I didn’t mean to say that Spike was a jerk!” Dash said, startling herself. “I meant one of those other jerks! No, wait, that came out wrong. Spike wasn’t a one of the jerks I was talking about. Or, at all! He stepped up! I was just…”

I’d love to get a kiss from you...

All of her friends love her…

That word again. Rainbow settled herself and looked back to Twilight. “Hey, Twi?” she asked. “Did Spike say… well, did he say anything about having… feelings for me? I just don’t get why he’d give up a chance to go out with Rarity just for me. I mean, he hasn’t said anything about having… having a cru…”

Once more, Dash felt Twilight’s head lower to hers.

“I was wondering the exact same thing. I asked him about it,” Twilight said, a little chuckle in her voice. “Once again, I think if I let Spike explain for himself. Just know that you’re very special to him, Dash.”

With that, the alicorn lifted her head from that of her friend, and ushered her towards the porch.

Rainbow Dash found herself taking smaller steps than usual. Lighter ones, too. As she made her way forward, she watched Twilight lean against the doorframe, almost hiding behind it. Dash rolled her eyes, not knowing if Twilight was trying to keep from embarrassing Spike, herself, or Dash… or if she simply was peeping on the exhibition to follow.

The orange and purple glow of twilight was settling around the porch. The fields and forests beyond Ponyville were alight with it. It drifted among the railings and beams of the library’s deck in large, visible shafts that Dash walked through gingerly as she looked for Spike.

She blinked, trying to find him amid the colors of the dying day. She lifted her head towards the sound of his humming, following the sounds of his high, childish voice.

She began to shield her eyes with her hoof, but the sunlight faded, casting a hazy glow around the pegasus as she found the young drake. Spike was leaning against a corner of the porch, hovering dangerously close to the edge in a way that Dash was pretty sure that Twilight had probably told him not to at some point. He was facing away from her, humming some small tune that she could not recognize, his eyes set out across Ponyville. As she watched him, he lifted his arms, leaning that much farther over the railing. He bobbled back and forth as though he were some bird flying across the landscape…

… or a massive dragon winging through the twilight skies.

Dash pondered him for a second, tilting her head as she did so. After a moment, she lifted her voice to call him over to where the smooching would occur. “Hey, Spike?” she said softly, not wanting to startle him as he leaned out across the railing. “I think ya won something, right? How about you come over here and–”

“Dash, what’s your dad like?”

Her words perished in horribly, flaming deaths upon Dash’s lips, her confidence coming out of her as the conversation suddenly went to a place that she could not have guessed. “My dad?” she answered. “My dad is awesome. He’s the greatest guy! I learned everything I know from him, and I’m his biggest fan! My dad is great. He’s just great!”

Dash smiled as she recalled her father, the close ties with the stallion in her life that she, even though she was now a young, independent mare, still loved the most. Her eyes drifted happily through her memories of the days spent with her dad, how after the divorce he had been the one who had struggled the hardest to be her rock.

Her smile faded back into bewilderment. She looked at Spike, the boy still leaning over the edge of the railing, his arms extended wide as he bobbed back and forth on the small breezes.

“Ummmm, why?” Dash asked.

Without turning, Spike revealed to the mare one of the great secrets that lay hidden amongst all of the little concerns that made up his world.

“Everypony always asks me if I have a mom,” he said, slowing his swaying. “Mares raised me, ya know. Princess Celestia, the nurses in the palace crèche, Mrs. Mom… that’s Twilight’s mom, Cadence, and even Twilight. Especially Twilight. They all raised me. I-I don’t have anypony who I call ‘Mommy’, but I’m really lucky. I’m really, really lucky. I’ve got lots of mares who love me.”

Spike went still, his arms simply held out at his sides, his frame highlighted by the colors of the fading day. Dash found herself tilting her head once again, turning it to the side as though fearing that she was about to miss something of great importance.

“But, nopony ever asks me if I have a dad,” he said, his voice trailing off at the end. There was a little sound, a little huff of exasperation. “Everypony seems to forget that… that I don’t.”

Spike’s arms came down slowly. Dash watched him fold them closer to himself, and though she could not see it, she sensed him wrapping his hands together over and over.

“I’ve got a lot of great colts, stallions, who I know. Shining, of course, the Lord Protector of the Nursery, Mr. Dad… that’s Twilight’s dad, and even Joe. But I don’t know them like I know the mares in my life. I’ve… I’ve never got to spend any time with them, really. They… just were, you know?”

A small sigh enveloped the scene.

“I mean, they were great to me, and I loved them to bits… but they, they just aren’t there for me. I… I don’t have a dad, or even someone I can look up to and know what a stallion, a male, I guess, is supposed to be like.”

Spike went quiet, and his head panned across the cityscape of Ponyville below.

“I don’t… I don’t even know if dragon drakes stay with their dams and their eggs. I don’t know if dragon drakes raise their whelps, but… but I know that when I see a colt with his dad, when I see them playing, or when I see a stallion rub his hoof across the colt’s head and say ‘Good job!’ that… that I get jealous,” Spike said, his voice catching a bit as he made his admission.

“I’d like to have a dad. You know, to roughhouse with, to build tree forts… even though I kinda already live in one. To take me to watch hoofball games. I think it would be great to have… have some stallion just to talk about guy stuff with, to ask questions that only dads can answer,” the dragon said, sitting upon the railing, his back still to Dash.

“I don’t though. I don’t have a dad, and I don’t think I ever will…”

Dash blinked a few times, trying to guess how this all could be related to him winning a kiss in a charity auction. She pondered that question as she watched him wipe his arm across his face a few times. The sound of a single sob filled the air… and Dash’s ears flicked as she realized that it hadn’t come from the little dragon but instead from the alicorn that stood in the doorway.

Spike wiped his face once more and looked out across the branches of his home. The broad summer leaves seemed to dance in the evening shades of the departing day.

“I guess that’s a little selfish of me, huh, Dash?” he asked. “I guess that’s a little greedy of me to want one–“

“Naw,” Dash answered, relieved at finally being able to add something to the conversation. “Naw, I don’t think…”

“–especially since Twilight could use a stallion more,” he continued, looking back across Ponyville. “She’s getting real lonely at night. It’s worse since she became a princess, ‘cause she can’t even be with her friends as much. I'd love for her to have a stallion, if that's what could make her happy. I'd love for her to have a guy, as long as he's great to her... a great guy to hold her and stuff, to tell her how wonderful she is. ”

Dash’s expression froze on her face. Suddenly, the wheezing cough of an alicorn added itself to the soundtrack of the evening, both mares caught decidedly off guard by the statements.

“I try to give her more hugs and stuff now, to be an even better assistant, but what she really needs is a stallion… one to keep her close at night, do that squishy grown-up stuff.”

Twilight’s wheezing amplified in volume by untold magnitudes. Dash’s eyes sat wide as she pondered what exactly the whelp could mean by “squishy”. Spike, seemingly oblivious to all of this, continued down the inexplicable path that his bits had set in motion at the auction.

“Whenever we’re walking and she stops to talk to a colt or stallion, I start to ask myself ‘Is this the guy? Is this the one that can take the hurt and worry out of her? Is this the guy who’s gonna be wonderful to her? Is this the one who can make her happy?’ Heh, so far none seem to be the one! I still have some hope for this colt she was all goofy for after we got back through the portal, the one I gave her the smile about. What was his name?” he said, brushing some various flotsam from the railings, watching as it fell to the streets below. The boy sighed, and then continued down his course of conversation.

“When Twilight told us she had visions of her cutie mark with the extra star, the one that showed up above Ponyville when she became an alicorn, I wondered if the new star could be for me. Maybe I was part of the group after all, and not just a kid who you take along. I wondered if it might be, but… but, then I realized, what if it’s for him? What if it’s for the stallion that could really, really be the one for her? Wouldn’t that be something, Dash?” he said as he slid down from the railing.

“Yeah, that’d be… something,” Dash said, dividing her attention between the whelp and the recovering alicorn.

“Then I get all greedy again. Then I ask myself if maybe, maybe this stallion… could he love me, too? Can he love Twilight… and me? Maybe he’d like to help me build go-karts, or take me fishing, or… just be a dad.”

Spike lowered his head so that he peered out between the piers of the railing, his hands still lying on the top. He swung back and forth, his tail swishing behind him.

“But… but that’s too greedy, and I know Twilight has to come first. I don’t have a dad, and I don’t think I ever will–”

“Hey, Spike,” Dash said, fighting to find the words to assuage his fear, “it’s okay. A lot of ponies...”

“–so I made one up.”

Silence held sway across the porch, excepting the few staggered hacks that still arose from an Equestrian alicorn princess, one still dealing with the fact that her baby dragon was actively attempting to find her a special somepony to do “squishy” grown-up things with.

Dash shook her head, trying to understand Spike’s meaning.

“You made one up?” she asked, casting a dubious glance in his direction.

Spike turned around, facing her for the first time since she had appeared on the porch. His eyes turned up to her even as he fidgeted with his hands, looking a little nervous about his admission.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I kinda took all of the best things about the stallions that I know… and made them into one. I took Shining’s strength, Joe’s determination, Mr. Dad’s wisdom, and the caring part of the kind old stallion that raised me in the nursery. I kinda mashed it up and came out with… a dad.”

Dash’s look of dubiousness did not decrease in the slightest.

“Well, hey! I know he’s not real!” Spike cried. “He’s not real… he’s a, a…”

“Metaphorical construct devised to provide a rational personal discourse on the societal values associated with masculinity, gender-roles, and fatherhood?” Twilight asked from her hiding spot in the doorframe.

“Yeah… that,” Spike said, dubiously. “I just wanted some older colt to be there, ya know? I wanted a father-figure-guy-thingy to help me make my decisions, to show me how a male is supposed to act.”

He lifted his face back to the pegasus. “Dash, I was raised by mares,” he reminded her. “If I didn’t teach myself how to be a boy… well, who would teach me?”

Dash felt an insight sink through her. After the divorce, her mother had left. She was a mare raised by a stallion. Had she taught herself how to be a mare, or had she just dismissed it all as “girly”? A sudden understanding flew through Rainbow Dash, and a bridge of connection opened up between the two creatures.

Spike caught sight of it, saw how the look in Dash’s eyes had changed just so. He gave a little nod, and took a few steps forward. He smiled up to her and then rubbed the back of his head with one clawed hand.

“Dash?” he asked. “If your dad had been in the boutique today, and he saw and heard those colts, what do ya think he would have done?”

“Ha!” Dash laughed, her mane flying wide behind her. “My dad? If he had been there, I doubt there would have been any survivors!”

“Yeah,” Spike said. “I mean, that’s what dads do, isn't it? I'm a dragon... dragons protect things they value. I-I guess I see my dad doing the same... all stallions stand up for their kids right? They protect their foals. So, do you think that Twilight’s dad would have done the same thing?”

Dash blinked again. “Well, yeah, if she was up on that stage…” she began.

“No, no, Dash,” Spike said. “If it was still you. Do you think that Twilight’s dad would have tried to help you?”

“I-I hope so, I mean…”

“Rarity’s father?”

“Yes, I mean, sure…”

“Shining Armor?”

“Well, I’d like to think…”

“Joe? Big Mac? Mr. Cake? Thunderlane?”

“Yeah…”

Spike nodded. He ran his hand across his frills again. “I mean, that’s what a real stallion would do… stand up for those who can’t. They help others,” he mumbled, scratching his forehead. “Dash,” he sighed, “my imaginary dad–the one I look up to–he was there in the boutique earlier. He was there. I saw him… well, imagined him, there.”

Spike looked at her like he was confessing a sin.

“He was there, Dash, and he didn’t lift a hoof to help you,” Spike said, the words hidden in a vast sigh as he ran his hands up and down his arms. “He was there, and I called for him…”

Dash’s head swung back to Twilight. The alicorn nodded, confirming what the dragon was saying. The creature, the vision that he had crafted of a father figure… that was who Twilight had discovered. That was who Spike had been staring at amid the crowd of colts. That was who he had been screaming at.

“I was so mad at him, Dash,” Spike said as his brow furrowed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at a stallion.”

Dash returned her gaze to Spike. She watched as he went from the quiet figure he’d been to a loud, unhappy child, one deeply hurt by what he had witnessed. “He just stood there, Dash, staring at me! My own… well, make-believe dad! He just stood there! He… he let them be terrible to you! He just stood there as they called you those names!”

Spike’s hands clenched into balls, and he shook once more, repeating his emotions as they had been in Carousel Boutique earlier that day, copying the hiss that had developed in his voice.

“I screamed at him! I swore at him!” Spike said, the vehemence spilling out of him. “One of my friends, one of the ponies I love and care about was being treated like meat and he wasn’t doing anything! I hated him! I hated him, hated, him, hated him!”

At once a shock of green went across his eyes, and Dash backpedalled a step. “Whoa,” she whispered, watching as Spike shook and trembled.

“I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t stand it!” he cried. “Why was he just staring at me?! Why, why, why?!”

At once, a shaft of twilight fell across the drake and seemed to wipe the anger away. Instead, the small, shivering form of a baby dragon was left standing there, a look of profound sadness sitting upon him.

“I-I realized why. I realized why he wasn’t helping you. It’s because he’s imaginary… I made him up. My imaginary dad was waiting for a real stallion to come and do something. He was looking at me,” Spike said, choking a little. “I don’t have a dad…”

He looked up to Dash once more.

“I don’t have a dad… and if a stallion was going to save you…” he said, his voice in a whimper. Spike closed his eyes, looked away, and then met Dash’s confusion with a smile. Slowly, the drake lifted his arm into the air, raising it higher and higher until his claws extended, as though he were grasping for the sky beyond. He went up on his tiptoes, fighting to reach as high as he could.

“One thousand bits,” he said, repeating his offer, “for a kiss from Dash.”

The two stood there, staring at one another for a moment. A bright blush went across Spike’s face as he stood there, extended as high as his body would allow. Slowly he lowered himself back down again, his body folding itself around him as he sat under the bewildered gaze of Rainbow Dash.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it, huh?” he said. “I-I’m the one who decided what being a male means to me, right, Dash? When… when those colts were booing me, saying I wasn’t much of a male… I got angry. They were the ones acting like animals, not stallions. When they… when they said I wasn’t much of a stallion, which is kinda stupid anyway ‘cause I’m a dragon, because I wasn’t acting like them… wow, I got mad…”

He smirked a little.

“So, out came the Hyper-Rude Gesture of Maximum Offensiveness. Blammo. Double dragons!”

“Ha!” Dash chuckled. “Yeah, I could totally see myself doing that. I wish I could do that, really… but, you know, hooves.”

“Heh,” he laughed. “Why? You want Twilight to give you a time-out, too?”

“Did she really?” Dash laughed. “She really did that?”

“Yeah, just a little one, though,” he answered a chuckle going through him.

“Heh,” Dash said, casting her eyes around idly. “Ya know, you could have just bid, like, five hundred bits and won, right? Then you could have won the date with Rarity, too.”

“Ugh!” Spike groaned. “I know, but it just kinda came out. Stupid, stupid, stupid!” The whelp slapped his own forehead some more and then pinched the bridge of his nose while muttering under his breath.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Spike,” she said, nudging him with her elbow.

The little dragon peeked at her with one eye, his fingers still held over the bridge of his nose. He let them drop away as a smile came over his face. “It’s okay, Dash,” he said, smiling a faint smile. “Helping you was worth it. You’re worth every little bit.”

Dash blushed. “I am?” she said, a more than slightly noticeable squeak appearing in her voice. “I mean… I am! Of course I am! I’m awesome!”

“Yup,” Spike agreed, nodding at the mare.

The little drake and the pegasus stared at one another some more, and then looked at one another without really looking at one another, very much like they had in the boutique as a hooting group of colts had awaited the spectacle of a kiss that had never happened. The same delicious awkwardness hovered around them, making them laugh little laughs and the faintest hints of blushes go across their faces.

Spike took a deep breath, and then pressed on with his rationale for placing his bid.

“I know that you guys don’t think of me as being very… well, macho, what with the lacy aprons, the tea parties, and the cooking, and the domestic stuff. I know that you don’t see me as male, let alone a stallion, drake, guy–”

“N-No, Spike, it’s not that!” came Twilight’s voice, crying to him from the doorframe. “Spike, it isn’t like that! We…”

“–-but the truth is,” Spike continued, waving her off, “I was raised by mares, and that’s all I know. I-I know I’m a little frilly, but I still see myself as a boy, and I had to train myself what that means. I don’t see those colts as ‘manly’… I see them as ‘jerks’! I’m the one who decides what being a boy, male, guy… thing, is to me. I want to be a stallion, a drake… I like being a boy. I like being me.”

Spike’s eyes lifted to the fading sun, watching as the embers of twilight sank across the cityscape of Ponyville.

“I like me.”

Dash tried to wrap her mind around what had just happened. She had just heard Spike echo her very words. Another connection came open, and Dash could only muffle a little sound as she suddenly found herself seeing the world through Spike’s eyes.

A world that, all things considered, was not so different from the one she had made her life in, the one where she had tread a thin line of not quite knowing who she was.

“Dash,” he said, “I know that you don’t really think much of me, but…”

“Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dash called, completely surprised by his statement. “What in the Well makes you think that?”

“One lame dragon,” Spike said, arching an eyebrow as he quoted the mare, holding a finger in the air to make his point.

Dash’s mind spun back to the Great Dragon Migration. When she had cuddled Tank closer earlier that day, she had skipped over the whole episode of what had transpired in the trench outside Ponyville, some part of her feeling a twang of guilt when she remembered lying on her back, laughing at him as he committed the unforgivable sin of serving her blueberry tarts.

“I never apologized for that,” she said, her trademark gruffness coming out of her voice, something more humble and small filling the vacated tone. “Spike, I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really…”

“I forgive you,” he said, letting his finger come down until it bopped gently across her nose. A smile passed between them and, oddly, the sense of nervousness that had been there before had dissipated. They were able to smile at one another now, something coming alive as they found a small peace in his act of forgiveness.

“That’s the thing though, huh?” he said. “You’ve never really seen me as much, but you’re special to me Dash, you’re one of the ponies who make up this weird… well, family I have. I don’t have a mom, or a dad, but I’ve kinda gathered you all up and made… kinda, a thing. A thing made up of ponies that I love and care about.”

The dragon walked forward a few more steps and laid his hand against her foreleg, running it up and down as a smile went over his features.

“I’m just a little dragon, and I can’t do much, but protecting those who mean the most to me any way I can… that’s what being a male is to me,” Spike said. “You’re worth protecting, Dash. You’re strong, talented, graceful, and totally loyal… like your element and stuff.”

“No foolin’?” she said in a slightly sarcastic tone. She watched a look pass between Twilight and Spike, and the dragon rolled his eyes before looking up to her again.

“I’m just saying that you’re awesome, Dash. You’re special to me, you know, just like Twilight, Rarity, and the rest of the girls. Yeah, it didn’t feel good to lose my chance to take Rarity out, but I wasn’t going to let any of them get away with that. I wasn’t going to let them treat a member of my… family, group, thing, that way.”

The dragon quickly ran his face across the back of his arm once more, and Dash felt a little moisture gathering in her own eyes. She recalled how that long, odd journey through the dragon migration had ended. It had ended with Spike, Rarity, Twilight, a phoenix egg, and herself all held close together. It had ended with him declaring her part of the odd, hodgepodge, mish-mashed, improvised family that he had built for himself.

She realized now what he had meant when he had said that he would love to get a kiss from her. It wasn’t a crush, as she had thought… it was something far more valuable. He did depend on her, he did see her as a part of his world. What little they shared, that was enough.

“You’re awesome, Dash,” he continued, not noticing the thoughts that seemed to occupy the pegasus. “You’re amazing, and tough, and you’re a beautiful mare who didn’t deserve to be treated that way…”

Beautiful mare.

Dash looked down at Spike. He… he saw her as feminine, as a mare. This boy, this male, who had seemingly dedicated himself to the most “girly”, the most ladylike and effeminate member of their little circle… saw her in the same light.

Rarity had been right. He was every little bit the knightly figure, a little reminder of the days of chivalry. As needless as his “saving” her had been, it was still a sign that he considered her as being valuable to him, as somepony he loved and cared for. For Spike, being a stallion meant protecting those he loved… the drake guarding a hoard far more cherished than some paltry diamonds and rubies.

And, to top it all off, he knew how to cook.

“Hey, Spike,” Dash said, a little blush growing across her face. “In this family thingy, how do you see me?”

“I dunno,” he answered, scratching his head once more. “I don’t like using real words. They kinda don’t fit…”

“Okay, yeah, but if you had to, what would you say that I am?” she said expectantly. “What would you call me if you had to fill out an insurance form?”

“I… well, huh. Ummm, ‘Cool Aunt’, maybe?” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Aunt? Ewwww… too old! I’m not that much older than you! Saying it that way makes it seem like I’m gonna pinch your cheeks and tell you about my achy knee or something!” she said, rubbing his frills. “How about ‘cousin’?”

“Oh, okay, ‘Cool Cousin’, I guess?” he said, lifting his head to face her. In a moment, Spike’s face registered surprise as a toss of a mane enveloped him.

“What was that? ‘Kissing Cousin’? Hey, sounds good!” she said, the words running together quickly.

With that, the unmistakable sweet scent of a mare passed through Spike’s nose, and as her mane left a tickle across his face, a small, moist spot appeared on his cheek.

Spike lifted his hand, pressing it to the source of the pleasant warmth that drifted through him. It took him a few seconds to realize what had happened, but a small smile formed on his lips
as he did.

“Ohhhhh!” Twilight moaned. “I missed it!”

Two sets of eyes were cast in her direction, and they gauged her coldly.

“Ooops! Sorry!” she said, a bright blush going across her own face as she grinned an apologetic grin. The alicorn then hid herself behind the door once more as the pegasus and the dragon watched.

“Dash,” Spike said. “Thank you so…”

“Hey, Spike,” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “This is kinda hard for me to say, but sometimes being the fastest… yeah, sometimes it isn’t so great.”

Spike caught her meaning quickly. “You… you don’t have to give me another if you don’t want…”

The words never crossed his lips, as they were otherwise occupied. Dash had taken a half step forward, catching the little dragon as he lifted his head to speak with her.

It was a real kiss this time, one that she summoned from some part deep inside of her, some part that felt a warm desire to claim her part in the vision that Spike had shown her… that allowed her to feel a simple happiness flowing from an act of affection.

Tangles of her mane fell across Spike's face, tickling him as the soft, warm feel of Dash’s kiss drifted through him. His eyes were neither open nor shut, but instead hung somewhere between, drifting in and out of visions of a cloudscape as Dash’s scent filled his nostrils.

Twilight, for her part, simply stood there with her face pressed to the flat of her hoof, making small, happy sounds.

Dash pushed against him, not breaking their contact until he rested gently against her outstretched foreleg. Her mane shared its hues with the last flicking tongues of twilight that drifted across the porch… and then it was done.

“Now that,” she said, letting him slide slowly to the deck, “was worth every little bit you paid, right, Sport?”

“Yeah,” Spike said, exhaling deeply. “Yeah… wow, yeah.”

Dash giggled an uncharacteristic giggle, and then quickly stammered “Bye, Spike!” before lifting into the air on her wings.

Bye, Spike, she thought as she let the air grasp her, thanks for being a great guy… and a little hero.

“Bye…” he answered in a distant, happy tone.

“Hey Twi thanks for having me over but I’ve gotta go home and feed the houseplants and water the tortoise thanks for everything bye!” Dash yelled, streaking past the alicorn. As she breezed by, Twilight could already see the great shock of crimson that stood out on Dash’s face, the blush too great to be hidden even at the speed the pegasus had departed at.

High above the treehouse, decidedly “girly” noises filled the air before escaping into the distance. Twilight pondered them for a moment, smiling widely, before turning towards the distant figure of Spike, still laying on the porch in a stupor.

“Wow,” he said, looking up to Twilight as she appeared over him. “Wow.”

“Okay, big guy,” she said with a chuckle, “it’s getting late. Let’s take our bath and get ready for bed.”

“Yeah,” he answered as her magic draped itself over him. “Yeah…”

With her baby dragon, her great little guy, gathered close to herself, the alicorn turned through the doors, closing them behind her. The porch became quiet, a mute witness to the little scene that had played out upon its timbers.

As lights went out in the library windows, the first fireflies of a young summer gathered in the branches of the vast, living oak. Their colors erupted in long bobbling trails, the insects dancing their ancient dance as happy dreams found those within and those above.

End