Purple Prose: Part One
Did you know a drake’s heart is filled with greed?
I’ve locked mine away deep inside my chest
But still I can feel it beating within
I worry it will never come to rest
Its hunger, its longing, its avarice,
Its covetousness and cupidity…
It’s Cupid, It’s Love, It is all my love
A love which shall last eternally
A love for my family and for my friends
It’s where it begins and so where it ends…
Spike flipped the book shut and returned it to the pile of poetry anthologies with a sigh. His eyes flipped up to spot his sister, Twilight, happily reorganizing a collection of novellas across the room. She stood leaning tip-toe on the top tier of a step-ladder, her head at height with one of the many bookcases occupying the Golden Oaks Library.
Leaning his cheek against a hand, Spike opened another one of the anthologies. He let the pages fall one on top of another as if he was watching a flip-book animation making sure to mark any defects he saw for Twilight to review later. There weren’t many. Most of the townspeople didn’t make a habit of checking out large collections of centuries old dragon-folk poetry.
A smirk came to Spike’s face at the thought. He assumed Twilight hoped he might develop an interest in poems if he was shown those written by his own kind. But honestly, what did he care what a couple of old dead drakes wrote about?
And besides, poetry was simply a collection of rhythmically and aesthetically layered words designed to create deeper meaning apart from their prosaic ostensible definitions, or so Twilight had told him. Apparently all that meant was that poems are just a bunch of pretty words that represent some feeling or experience in life. Spike wondered why it was necessary to go through some complicated proxy like that when you could just go out and experience life for yourself. After all, it was just a bunch of nonsense until you had the context to back it up.
Of course, going out and experiencing life was quite futile at the moment for Spike. He still had about twenty more anthologies to check over before Twilight would relieve him. As if to emphasize that harsh fact, a trill of playful laughter sounded outside the open window beside Spike’s desk followed by a cool breeze which swept through the quiet library. Perhaps it was the pleasant feeling of the wind or the enthusiastic laughter which made him look up from his work again, but whatever it was, it was in that moment he saw them. His sister’s panties.
Spike took a moment to appreciate that in all of his sixteen years living with Twilight such a situation had never before occurred. His sister generally wore a short purple pleated skirt just as she had on that day, and despite being perfectly capable of magically levitating the library books up to their proper position she instead chose to use the step-ladders. That certainly allowed for easy accessibility, in more ways than one. Her reason for this was that climbing the steps and coming nose to nose with a book was a magic unto itself. But no matter, the fact remained that all the chances Spike had had to see Twilight’s panties went unfulfilled until right then, and that too was a magic unto itself. But it wasn’t as if he’d ever gone out of his way to see them either. And seeing them at that moment was through no effort of his own. It was merely coincidental at best and accidental at worst.
Twilight, still lost in her world of orderly perfection, was completely oblivious to flashing her little brother. And there was no flush of embarrassment from Spike. They were merely his sister’s panties. He’d seen them before, picked them up and even washed them when it was his turn to do laundry, though that had stopped the last few years when Twilight insisted on washing them herself.
If anything, underwear was simply the poetry of clothing. A concrete object imbued with the idea of lewdness, but by itself just an inane article of clothing same as a shirt or sock. Much like how the word “love” is simply an arbitrary grouping of letters with no meaning except when applied to our understanding of it in the real world. In that way, writing a poem to express love is the same as wearing a dress to express fanciness. A poem is a poem, a dress is a dress and they only mean something more when you gave a damn. And Spike really didn’t give a damn.
He considered for a moment how Rarity would react to this philosophy and quickly decided to never share his views on the matter. He also decided that living in a library was slowly transforming him into Twilight. And it was the thought of his sister that brought his mental image back to those panties.
As was mentioned previously, Spike didn’t feel any sense of embarrassment when he’d seen them nor now when he was reimagining them. In order for him to feel embarrassed he would have to see the panties as something lewd and in order to see the panties as something lewd he would have to consider his sister lewd as well. And that was something difficult to imagine for two reasons.
One, was simply that she was Twilight; unsexy, plain, bookish Twilight. Spike supposed she was pretty enough for a girl. She had a charming smile, a pleasant attitude and a decent figure, but nothing extraordinary. She wasn’t as stylish as Rarity, as adorable as Fluttershy, as well-toned as Applejack and Rainbow, nor as cute as Pinkie Pie. Perhaps it was because he had lived with her his whole life that Spike considered her more as a benchmark for the rest of girls he’d seen than anything more.
Which brought him to his second reason; Twilight was his sister. True, they weren’t related by blood, but Spike had never really seen her as a girl. He loved her, but never lusted for her. That was just sick, wasn’t it? It was wrong. The idea of it was almost laughable to Spike. Laughable and yet, intriguing.
He decided to take a page from Twilight’s book and conduct an experiment; a thought experiment to test his perverseness for his sister as wrong as that may seem. Nonetheless, he was bored enough to waste time in any way available to him. And he figured no one could hold him accountable for his inner thoughts, so why not?
As Twilight had taught him, it was important to create a proper null hypothesis before testing. So he thought a bit and started with, “Given that I am not related to Twilight in any way, I would find her attractive.” The idea behind this experiment would be to falsify that idea or in other words, to prove that Twilight just wasn’t his type. Spike mulled over the statement for a while before concluding it was too vague and didn’t really get to the heart of his investigation.
Obviously, he would still like Twilight even if he wasn’t her brother. She was kind, friendly, helpful, and even an admired pupil of Princess Celestia. Besides her few eccentricities, what was there to dislike about her?
No, Spike realized that he was still thinking of her as Twilight, his sister, rather than Twilight, the young woman. And so he tried rewording his previous hypothesis. He settled on, “Given that we are not related and we’d only met today, I would want to date Twilight.” It was an odd concept for Spike to even think about, but nonetheless, it was vital to the experiment. For the moment, he would have to put aside his morals.
After thinking over the new hypothesis, Spike concluded it was indeed the better of the two. The addendum, “... and we’d only met today…” dissolved all preconceived notions he might have about his sister and would allow him to view her more superficially. And the assertion, “...I would want to date Twilight,” would force him to view her sexually as well which was the entire point.
Spike, now satisfied with his hypothesis, moved on to the next step of his experiment which was to find a control. The control would be used to compare against the results of the independent variable which in his case was how sexually attractive he found Twilight. Deciding it would be best to have two controls, he used Granny Smith as absolute zero and Rarity as absolutely hot. The two of them would mark the extremes on his scale of sexiness.
With the preparations complete, the only thing left to do was start the experiment. Spike knew he’d have to summon a lot of imagination to make this work and tried dissolving his past sixteen years with Twilight into the ether.
He was Spike, a teenage dragonchild who lived peacefully by himself in Ponyville. It was the end of the week and he was heading over to the library to find something for light reading. Yes, a short adventure story would do.
As he entered through the front door of the library a small chime sounded.
“I’ll be over in a second to assist you,” a voice called from further inside. It clearly female.
“No need to hurry,” Spike answered. “I’m mostly just browsing for the moment...”
He passed the check-out counter and walked through an aisle of bookcases, glancing noncommittally at the spines as he went. He could hear someone mumbling further ahead and as he turned to the next aisle he saw who.
A young woman stood up on a step-ladder, one hand stretching for a book, the other filled with a number of tomes that were clearly too heavy for her. She looked to be in her early twenties. Spike watched as she lifted herself onto the tips of her toes, her slender purple legs swaying to keep balanced. Her skirt twirled as she turned to see him standing below her and in that moment her already tenuous balance became compromised and she fell back with a yelp.
Spike, anticipating it, managed to scoop her up before she hit the ground, though the pile of books she held were a lost cause. He expected to hear a muffled crash as they hit the floor, but instead he heard a soft hum.
“Nice catch,” he said, staring at the books seemingly trapped in mid-air by a purple glow.
“You too.”
Looking down, Spike saw her eyes--framed by skewed spectacles--and hand covered in the same ethereal aura, a shy smile playing across her face. She averted her gaze and brushed her lavender bangs to the side revealing her smooth forehead. For some reason, Spike felt compelled to kiss her there.
“Um… thanks,” she mumbled, fidgeting in his arms.
“Oh right,” Spike said, remembering himself and letting her down softly to her feet. “Sorry…” he added.
“No, it’s quite alright,” she said, straightening her glasses before levitating the books back into her arms. As soon as her aura left them, their full weight met her outstretched hands and caused her to slouch over.
“Here,” Spike offered, and took half of the books off the top of the pile.
“Thank you…” she began, then hesitated.
“Name’s Spike,” he said. “And you’re welcome…”
“Twilight.”
“Twilight,” he repeated, with a smile. “So, where are we taking these?” he asked, nodding down at the books.
“Oh, you can set them over there,” Twilight said, directing his eyes over to a small cart further down the aisle.
She started walking over and Spike followed suit, looking her over from behind. She wore an argyle sweater vest with a white long-sleeved shirt underneath, the bottom of which stuck out over the top of her skirt. Spike found it oddly alluring. It gave her small frame a feeling a fragility.
Looking up, her saw how her hair was tied back in a messy bun. A single strip of pink accented the tumble of dark violet hair, a few tendrils of which brushed lightly against her bare nape. He had to resist the urge to run his finger across it.
“Thanks again for earlier, Spike,” Twilight started. “It would’ve been bad if their spines got damaged,” she continued, motioning to the books. They’d reached the cart and both of them set their piles atop it.
“It would’ve been bad if your spine got damaged,” Spike said.
“Oh, yes… I suppose you’re right,” she admitted, a slight blush coming to her cheeks.
“Let me ask you something, Twilight,” Spike began. “You’re a mage, so why didn’t you just use your levitation magic to take the books down?”
“Well, because it’s fun…”
Spike lifted an eyebrow.
“Fun?”
“Yeah. Climbing the ladder, fingertips running over the spines, stopping on the title you’ve been searching for before pulling it from its resting place… It’s so much fun, isn’t it?”
Spike tried to respond, but couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. Her smile was so dazzling…
It felt like Spike had been living his whole life up to that moment wearing a blindfold until it had finally been violently torn away.
Twilight. His sister. His nerdy, bookish, awkward sister. Wasn’t she actually every guy’s dream girl? Wasn’t her small slender body totally huggable, her soft lips totally kissable? Wasn’t she actually totally adorable?
It took a moment for it all to sink in.
“Oh, good you’re finished,” said a voice to his side. Twilight had come over to his desk and was counting the pile of anthologies.
Looking down, Spike realized he had indeed completed marking down all the imperfections. His little daydream had pulled him through the afternoon, though he couldn’t really be happy about it considering his recent revelation.
“Yeah, I wrote down the pages you should look over here,” he said, pointing down at a piece of parchment.
Twilight looked over his shoulder at the parchment and Spike felt his face grow hot. Her face was so close and he wasn’t mentally prepared at the moment. His eyes flicked back and forth between her face and the quill shaking in his hand. He saw her squint to read.
“Uh, do you need new glasses?” he asked, wondering how long she was going to keep leaning over him.
“Well, it’s just so hard to read your chicken-scratch sometimes,” she explained, leaning back with a yawn and a stretch.
Spike looked down at the neat elegant script he’d developed over the years of being Twilight’s scribe to the Princess.
“What are you talk--”
“I really shouldn’t stay up so late just to plot constellation movement all the time,” Twilight said, ending on another yawn. “I think I’ll have nap… Spike would you mind closing shop early? It’s the end of the week anyway so I doubt anyone will stop by today.”
“Yeah, sure. Do you want me to get you something for dinner? I was planning on meeting Applebloom and the gang in town later.”
“No, thanks,” she said, heading toward the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms and bathroom on the second floor. “I’ll find something here for myself,” she explained. “Have fun. I think I’ll have a shower before that nap…” And with that she turned on her heel to head upstairs.
“Twilight,” Spike called, before she was even halfway up.
“Hmm?”
“What’s that on your back?” he asked, pointing to a torn piece of paper attached to her vest.
“My back?” Twilight wondered aloud. She reached behind and pulled it off of her back. She squinted at it for a second before crumpling it up and floating it over to the trash bin. She sighed. “Just one of Rainbow’s pranks, I’m sure,” she stated.
“Or Pinkie,” Spike suggested, looking over at the trash can. “I wouldn’t put a ‘kick me’ sign pass her. And she’s probably sneaky enough to do it without you noticing…”
He looked back over to the steps to find that Twilight had already disappeared upstairs. People ignoring his wisdom was the story of his life. With a sigh he shrugged out of his chair and took a moment to stretch away his lethargy. Mid-stretch he looked back upstairs as he heard the shower faucet start.
His mind drifted back to his thought experiment earlier and then to Twilight’s naked body being drenched by the shower. He shook his head to rid the image from his brain and concluded that this was why he’d never been as fond of experiments as his sister. One minute you’re perfectly comfortable being completely oblivious to how attractive your sister is and the next you’re perving on her in the shower. He was just done for the day and needed to get out of the library.
Quickly, he tidied up his workspace and returned the poetry anthologies to their respective shelves. He noticed that Twilight had never decided on how to reorganize the novellas. Figuring she’d probably want to finish later, he left them lying in a pile on his desk.
Satisfied that he’d cleaned up properly--a skill which had been ingrained into him by Twilight--he grabbed his keychain and headed for the door. He was about to flip the Open/Closed sign hanging on the front window around when he realized that it had never been flipped to begin with.
“That explains the slow day,” Spike thought, grabbing his signature purple hoodie from the coat hanger.
As he pulled it on, it occurred to Spike how unlike Twilight that was; no matter how tired she may have been. He checked his hair in the mirror by the door, making sure it wasn’t too messy and shrugged off the thought. Even Miss Perfect herself had off days. It was an inevitable side-effect of her high-strong lifestyle, but no matter how many times Spike tried to convince her of this she would always turn a deaf ear to it.
Well, it was no matter to worry about now. Twilight even said she was going to take it easy for the rest of the evening so he needn’t feel too concerned. If worse came to worse he’d force her to bed once he got home--in a manner of speaking. Damn thought experiments...
Spike locked the door behind him as he left. The sun was nearing the horizon and he was supposed to meet up with Applebloom and the others in town later in the evening. He stowed his keychain in his pocket and started on his way.
Chapter Notes
Mage: One of the races of Equestrians. Known for their ability to freely use magic usually via their hands.
Dragonchild: A human descendent of Dragons. Can posses a plethora of magical attributes (IE. Breathing fire, flying, super-strength, etc.)