> What You Don't Know...
>  by CloserThanYouThink
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> ...CAN Hurt You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Golden Oak Library, Ponyville-

“And here’s one more for the W’s.” Spike muttered to himself as he placed a book titled “Whinnyapolis: The City Built on Pride” onto its proper shelf. Hopping down from his ladder, the tiny dragon moved to pick up another book from his cart, but paused when he saw that it was empty. “Huh…Guess I’m done.” he said with a shrug.

Wheeling the cart back to its designated spot, lest he incur Twilight’s borderline-OCD wrath, Spike immediately looked around for something else to do. Not even two minutes of downtime and he was already feeling it again. The pervasive sense of restlessness and paranoia that had plagued him to varying degrees for the last week, and was now worse than ever. He had found that the only “cure” for it was to keep himself busy, but today even that had been a tall order, since there was now a physical element to his affliction: A bone-deep sensation that Spike could only describe as something between burning and itching. It didn’t hurt, but it was just uncomfortable and persistent enough to drive him up the wall.

Normally he would’ve gone straight to his best friend/guardian/employer/big sister with his problem. But whatever was going on in his head had made that far easier said than done. Every time he tried to speak to Twilight about it, something akin to a primal instinct screamed at him not to do it. No one could know. Not Twilight, not their friends, not even Celestia. No. One. Without fail, every attempt to talk, or even write about it had ended with him either moving on to an entirely different subject or clamming up and finding an excuse to be somewhere else.

Once he had even become inexplicably hostile when Twilight, showing how much she had grown by actually being able to read his mood, pressed the issue. With no conscious reasoning on his part, his body had turned on her with a feral snarl, teeth bared and claws at the ready.

That was three days ago, and neither of them had found the guts to bring it up since. Instead they both turned to their usual coping mechanisms for personal crises.

Twilight ran from the problem. She threw herself into her studies, latched onto any excuse to go out with her friends, and invented more “important” problems to solve when she ran out of other options. Anything to avoid confronting something that might change the status quo. She still had a long way to go before becoming a real Princess.

And Spike retreated into himself, finding he really had nowhere else to turn when Twilight wasn’t an option. Over the last several days the young drake had been prone to bouts of deep introspection, and didn’t much like what he had discovered. It caused questions to pop into his mind; some that he didn’t know how to answer, and many that he didn’t want to answer.

Did he really have any friends? The obvious answer was a resounding “yes”, but was it really so clear-cut? The more he thought about it, the quieter that “yes” became, until it sounded more like one of Fluttershy’s strangled whimpers than any kind of confirmation.

If he had such good friends, why did it seem like they never made time for him? When was the last time anypony had sought him out for any other reason than because they wanted something? When was the last time anypony gave him the time of day if he wasn’t offering his services? When was the last time he was included in anything as more than an afterthought?

In fact, just yesterday the Elements of Harmony had themselves a nice picnic, putting aside their individual responsibilities for the sake of their friends. Then what was supposed to have been just a lunchtime thing turned into an entire day of fun and relaxation. All without him. And the saddest part about it was that it likely wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he had been there, for it was when Spike was with the Elements that he truly understood the phrase “All alone in a room full of ponies”.

Unless he inserted himself into conversations, he was excluded. Unless he humiliated himself, he was ignored. Unless he was borderline rude in making himself known, he was marginalized.

With friends like his…

“There has to be something I haven’t done yet!” Spike practically screamed to himself, eyes wide with panic as they darted around the library.

But salvation was nowhere to be found. The floor sparkled like polished metal, not a single book was out of place and not so much as a speck of dust remained. On the first floor, at least…

-Royal Palace, Canterlot-

As the door to her personal quarters closed behind her Princess Celestia let out a long-suffering sigh and stretched out her long, sleek, statuesque body. Various pops and cracks sounded from stiff joints and vertebrae, each one accompanied by a stifled groan.

‘Maybe I should schedule a spa day…’ the alicorn thought. While a good stretch did wonders for her joints, her muscles were as tense and knotted as ever, to the point where merely flapping her wings would send twin jolts of pain right up her spine.

Yes, one of these days she needed to take some time to pamper herself. She deserved it; she’d earned it dozens of times over per day. The problem was finding the time to do it. Her days were so swamped that even little breaks like the one she had now were rare and precious commodities. And gone were the days when she could turn to her dear sister for a reprieve.

Though the night was her domain, once upon a time Luna could often be found wandering the halls of the palace during the day, still full of energy since the night court was generally uneventful. After all, her older sister had had a thousand years to put systems and ponies in place to keep things running smoothly after she went to bed.

Unfortunately for said big sister, this led Luna to create the Moonlight Patrol: A regiment of elite Night Guards led by the Princess herself, who would protect Equestria’s citizens from whatever threats crawled out of the darkness.

Luna loved it, coming home just before dawn every morning feeling accomplished and waking Celestia up before retiring to her own bedchambers. And while Celestia was happy for her beloved sibling finally finding fulfillment in her life, Luna not being available put quite a bit of strain on her. One would think it would be no different from millennium the Sun Goddess had spent ruling the entire nation on her own, but times were changing. Pony society was advancing, as were other races, and every other day seemed to bring something new.

And speaking of new…

“You are either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to sneak into MY room like this.” Celestia said, her voice soft, yet carrying all the power of a thunderclap as her horn crackled dangerously with the beginnings of a combat spell.

“It’s a fine line, but one I like to think I still walk with grace.” came a reply in smooth baritone.

Celestia’s heart skipped a beat; that voice sounded so very familiar. Dare she hope?

The air in front of the door to her balcony shimmered and warped as the intruder dropped his invisibility spell and revealed himself. A powerful four-legged form, taller and bulkier than Celestia’s own impressive physique, covered in scales in a shade of purple so deep it could easily be mistaken for black. Sharp, emerald-colored spines set in three rows down his back, starting at a large blade-like crest atop his head and getting progressively smaller until they terminated into little more than tiny barbs at the end of his long, serpentine tail. Two leathery wings folded against his sides, each one likely as long as his entire body when outstretched. Two twisting horns protruded from the back of the creature’s head, lending to an already sinister appearance that was even further reinforced by his beastly yellow eyes with their snake-like vertical pupils.

A dragon: A creature that normally lurked within mountain ranges and deep forests.

A dragon that knew magic: A creature that normally lurked within nightmares.

With a squeal akin to a filly getting the best birthday present ever, Celestia launched herself at the higher reptile.

And the dragon welcomed her with open arms, effortlessly absorbing the force of a collision that would’ve turned a lesser being into paste.

“AL!!!” the alicorn cried, flinging her forelegs around the dragon’s neck, her natural magical aura protecting her from the array of sharp edges along his back.

“It’s good to see you, too, Tia.” the dragon, Al, gently wrapped both his arms and wings around the mare.

Neither of them knew or cared just how long their embrace lasted, but when Celestia finally released her grip and pulled back, Al was surprised to see her cheeks stained with tears.

“Three-hundred and seventy-eight years…” Celestia choked out, fresh tears spilling from her eyes. “You…You just left me and…” she couldn’t continue as the floodgates opened for nearly four centuries of pent up emotions.

Al cocked his large head to the side slightly. “But you…I…”

Celestia attempted to wipe her eyes, but it was no use. “I remembered what you said, why ‘we’ could never work. I had a home, a throne and a whole nation that relied on me; while you were nomad by choice. I remember you told me that you were the type to fly off without a second thought the moment you so much as heard of something new and interesting. I guess I should have seen it coming, but…”

“Tia…”

“But I never thought you would just…leave like that!” Celestia’s entire form trembled as she sobbed. “You didn’t even say goodbye; you just disappeared! I tried to send ponies after you, I tried to track you with magic, but nothing worked. At most I would hear the occasional rumor about a dragon matching your description from traveling merchants, but by the time they got to me you were already long gone. More than once I even exhausted myself teleporting all around Equestria trying to follow whatever vestige of a trail you left behind…But nothing ever came of it.”

“Tia, I…”

“My best friend, my ONLY friend, and you just…abandoned me…”

“I’m sorry, Celestia.” Al held her head in his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes. “A thousand times over, I’m sorry. I didn’t think, I didn’t consider your feelings, and that is inexcusable, but…” the dragon momentarily broke eye contact as he searched for the right words. “I forgot. I was ancient by the time I met you, and after a thousand lifetimes of dealing with other immortals, I forgot that you were new to our world. Even now, with your seventeen-hundred and thirty-eighth birthday right around the corner, the second-youngest immortal I know is still twice your age.”

“What-“

“We take each other for granted, Celestia.” Al explained with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We are as constant and unchanging as the planet itself, and for most of us time has little meaning anymore. We don’t bother saying goodbye or giving our reasons for departing, because we know we will see each other again. It’s never a matter of ‘if’, only ‘when’. But you’re different, Tia, and I never suspected that I had impacted your life so much in our brief time together.”

“…It may be different for you, but I wouldn’t call two-hundred years ‘brief’.” Celestia murmured, her eyes beginning to well up again. “Did I mean so little to you?”

“No!” Al all but snarled. “Don’t ever think that, Tia! Regardless of our differences, regardless of my behavior, don’t ever doubt the love I had and still have for you.” he then brought their lips together in a kiss that spoke of both passion and restraint. The kiss of a former lover who wanted nothing more than to rekindle the fire, but knew that it would only burn out again.

Celestia attempted to follow him when he finally pulled back, but caught herself before she did something embarrassing. “Your words say one thing, but your actions…”

“Are something I will look back on with shame for the rest of my days.” Al said, his own eyes beginning to sting with an unfamiliar sensation. “But if you are under the impression that I’ve spent all these years forgetting about you, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m sorry my transient ways made it so difficult for you to find or hear word of me, but your stability made it easy to keep track of you, my dear. No matter where I went, I would always hear of how you were thriving. Whether it was in tones of jealousy or awe, I would hear of the beacon of unity and progress Equestria was becoming under your rule.”

The alicorn looked down, her right forehoof scraping the floor nervously. “…While that time may be known as one of my finest moments as a Princess, I can’t help but feel…dirty when I am praised for it, because I know the truth. It wasn’t the result of my love for my subjects and my desire to see my kingdom flourish; it was my coping mechanism. I was alone, Al. So completely and utterly alone…I poured myself into my role to keep from going mad. It was the only connection to anything that I had left. My sister was gone, you were gone, and I found that the life I cherished so much was little more than a hollow shell. I felt pathetic. The Princess who preaches the virtues of unity, friendship and family, had no friends or family of her own.  All that remained, the only thing that still meant something, was my kingdom. And so I latched onto it as if my very existence depended on it, because I truly felt that it did.”

As Al looked upon the Princess and her limp mane, drooping wings and sagging posture, internal barriers that had withstood countless tragedies, betrayals and heartaches with barely a dent crumbled like old parchment. Guilt and shame the likes of which he had never felt before came crashing down on him with all the force of an eastern tsunami. But even they couldn’t compare to the all-consuming fury directed entirely at himself.

How dare he? How dare he do this to one who deserved only love and kindness? Such a majestic creature, the very embodiment of benevolence and selflessness, and now she lay broken before him. Broken because of him.

Alduin had never liked his name. Bestowed upon him by his parents to ensure that he would be destined for greatness, it was the name of a Godly entity dragons worshiped as THE driving force of change throughout all universes and realities. But as its many names, including titles such as “The Great Adversary” and “World Eater”, suggested, it was not a force of good.

A being that existed in the space in between realities, Alduin would search through all the different worlds until it found one that might be ready to take its next step, but needed a catalyst to do so. Then, taking the form of a massive dragon with scales as black as its heart, Alduin would wreak havoc upon the land, devastating its people and civilizations one by one until they developed the means to stop it, whatever they may be. Those worlds that defeated the malevolent God were deemed worthy and would thrive in Alduin’s wake, regardless of whatever destruction it had wrought. And those that couldn’t would be consumed by the dragon’s fire, reduced to their base elements and left to start over again. Either way, Alduin would then move onto the next world that needed a little something to get the wheels turning.

The name was given not in the spirit of destruction and strife, but in the hopes that whoever had it would leave their mark on the world and be a force of change. Al never saw it that way and shunned the name as much as he could without completely denouncing it. But now, seeing what he had done, he knew he deserved the name and had done it justice. Because in a world that had been terrorized by the likes of Discord, Tirek and others, surely he was more of a monster than any of them. For he had done, without even trying, what none of them could ever accomplish.

“The sins I have committed are too much for me to atone for…But I will try.” Al said firmly before taking a step back and bowing as low as he could. “I, Alduin, pledge myself to thee. Ask what thou will of me, do as thou will to me, for my will is yours. My body is yours. My soul is yours. My power is yours. I, Alduin, pledge mys-“

“NO!!!” Celestia roared, shaking the entire palace. She had been caught off-guard before, having never seen or even heard of a creature as proud and powerful as Al willingly submitting to another. But as the dragon began to speak, so too did powerful magic begin to swirl and condense around them both. It was old magic, far before her time and perhaps even before Al’s, but his words were more than enough for her to recognize what he was attempting to do.

“Celestia-“

“No.” the Princess interrupted again, not as loud but just as firm. “I won’t allow it. As long as you are in MY kingdom, in MY palace, I will NOT ALLOW IT!” she gave a surprisingly dragon-like growl as she put a hoof under Al’s jaw and wrenched his head up to look him in the eyes. “I will not see you bound to me by magical chains, do you hear me?! I will not see you enslave yourself!”

“I could think of worse masters to have.” Al smiled as the white-furred mare laughed despite herself.

“And I could think of worse servants. But if you are to be by my side, it will be by your own choice, always.”

“But this IS my choice.”

“For now, but what about the future? I don’t know what magics you just summoned, but they were ancient even by your standards, and potent even by mine. You were going to bind yourself to me forever with a spell that I doubt either of us would be able to break. And I don’t need to remind you that ‘forever’ actually means something to beings like us. So maybe you feel this way now, but what about a thousand years from now? Or five-thousand? Or ten? What happens when your ‘sins’ have been absolved and your ‘debts’ cleared, yet you’ve still got an eternity of servitude ahead of you?”

“…” Al had no answer for that.

“I don’t want you here out of some sense of obligation. I want you to wake up every day and make the decision to be here with me, whether as a friend or…” Celestia trailed off with a light blush.

“Or something more?” Al ventured with the beginnings of a grin.

“Or something more.” the Princess nodded and planted a chaste kiss on his scaly, though surprisingly soft lips, pulling back before he could reciprocate. “And if you do feel the need to indulge your wanderlust…just remember that a little courtesy goes a long way.”

“I will, but I think I’ll be sticking around for a while yet. I have more than a few stories to tell, and if even a fraction of what I’ve heard about your kingdom is true, I suspect you may have just as many.”

“Oh, do I ever.” Celestia giggled. “But first…” they both turned to look at her chamber door as the sounds of dozens of galloping hooves and clattering armor reached their ears.

Al scratched his cheek nervously. “So, should I hide, or…?”

-Golden Oak-

“What’s wrong with me?” Spike croaked from his secluded corner all the way at the rear of the library’s basement. He didn’t know why he was down here, just like all the other times he’d felt compelled to wander around down in the dark over the last several days. All he knew was that it was safe down here. Safer than upstairs. Safer than outside.

Why? If he knew that, maybe he’d feel better.

“It…It has to be a dragon thing, right?” he muttered, his right hand raking its claws over his left shoulder in a futile attempt to get at the accursed itch under his scales. “It’s not magic. No, not magic…I know what that feels like.” all his years as Twilight’s guinea pig, as well as his various encounters with magical baddies let him easily recognized when something was trying to manipulate him.

“Zecora…Maybe she can help? She always seems to know more about dragons that anypony else…” but going to Zecora would mean having to go outside, and he couldn’t do that. He had tried, but as soon as his hand touched the door he’d felt as if Nightmare Moon was on the other side.

So he couldn’t go outside, but what about Celestia?

Spike looked down at the scroll in his limp left hand and slowly, shakily brought it up to his face. The penmanship was terrible, as he’d had to fight with his own body to scribble every letter, but he was sure the Princess would get the gist of it if he could just…

He took a breath and blew out. There was no fire, or even smoke; just a weak rush of air, barely enough to move the paper. His left arm fell and he moaned in frustration.

Frustration. If there was ever a single word to describe his entire life, it would be “frustration”. Frustration as his size. Frustration at his status, or lack thereof. Frustration at his treatment by so-called “friends”. Frustration at his “mother” for leaving him in the care of a pony as casually neglectful as Twilight Sparkle. Frustration at his very existence as a dragon in a land of ponies.

And who could he go to with these frustrations? His friends? On the off-chance they even cared to begin with, how could they possibly help him?

The only way they could make him grow larger was to give him things to horde, and that was the last thing anyone wanted, himself included.

Celestia didn’t have time for his piddly problems, and the other Elements had no business trying to show Twilight the error of her ways when half of them were worse than her.

And if there was one thing not a single one of them knew anything about, it was being a stranger in a strange land. Even Fluttershy, with all her social anxieties, at least had the benefit of being a pony. Not to mention having friends who gave a damn…

“I have to stop thinking like this.” Spike shook his head, as if that would help clear it. “They ARE my friends. They DO care about me. I know they do…”

Yes, his oh, so caring friends. Friends whom he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of all day. Friends he knew he wouldn’t see at all today, since Twilight was away in Canterlot, being trained in proper etiquette and who knew what else.

Friends who couldn’t even be bothered to tell him that they were having his quasi-sister’s birthday party in an entirely different city…

“I still never got an explanation for that.” Spike grumbled. “Just a bunch of excuses and a couple of half-assed apologies.” he’d never really gotten over that particular snubbing, but what could he do? It was HER birthday, so what would he look like if he made a big deal about it?

Just one of many situations Spike found himself in where, even though he was the one who’d been wronged, saying as much would only make him look bad. So, aside from the occasional sarcastic quip, he shut his mouth and let it go.

“Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I don’t speak up enough.” Spike said, feeling his eyelids start to droop but fighting to stay awake. “They aren’t mind-readers, except Twilight that one time, so how could they know how I feel if I don’t say anything?”

Or maybe his problem was that he was quick to give them an out by blaming himself for their shortcomings…

“I think I need a nap.” Spike yawned, idly noting that his jaw felt strangely stiff all of a sudden. In fact, his entire body wasn’t faring much better. “Yeah, that’s it. I’ll get some sleep and wake up with a clear head and more energy!”

However, as soon as he resolved to take a nap, he didn’t need to anymore. The fuzziness in his brain was gone, his limbs didn’t feel like lead weights and he no longer felt the desire to never leave the basement.

“Huh. Well, I guess I-?!?!” and then his back exploded.

There was no other word to describe it; it felt like a bomb had gone off under his skin just above his tail. The pain made his legs buckle and his vision swim, and was such a shock to his system that he couldn’t even breathe, let alone scream. But that was only the beginning.

The white-hot lance of agony shot up his back, into his skull and radiated throughout his body. His blood felt like Chimera venom in his veins and the popping, cracking and ripping noises that filled his ears made him think his body was tearing itself apart. And as he managed to open his eyes and look at his right hand, he saw that was exactly the case.

Right in front of him he witnessed his hand twitch and contort of its own accord. He felt the bones breaking, fragmenting, and somehow reform much larger than before. He felt the tendons stretched to the absolute limit, some of them even snapping from the strain. And then the bones in his forearm quadrupled in size in mere seconds, ripping every fiber of muscle from them and stretching his hide so much that he could see the pale purple skin in between his scales. It also caused a jolt of pain that nearly made him swallow his tongue, and caused him to miss the muscles in his arm stretching and bulging, slithering their way back up to their proper attachment points.

He didn’t need to see it to know that the same was starting to happen to his left arm, as well as his everything else. He could even feel his organs sliding, shifting and swelling inside him. Unfortunately his ribcage hadn’t quite caught onto what was happening and wasn’t expanding to cope with the enlarging organs. Spike soon found it impossible to breathe as his lungs no longer had room to expand, and actually felt his heart being squeezed between them.

He was going to die. He was going to die right here, right now, alone and unloved in a basement. There was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. His vision was fading, and contrary to all the clichés, there was no warm, welcoming light; only cold, unyielding darkness.

-Royal Palace-

“I…don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that before.” Celestia said as she stared up at a now bipedal Al with equal parts awe and horror.

She had already known that dragons had some rudimentary shapeshifting abilities, as almost all of the ones she’d encountered could change their size at will. But that was always a very uniform event, with every body part growing at the same time and rate. Even Spike’s “greed growth” had been much the same. What she had just witness from Al was something altogether different and far more disturbing.

Al had told her that dragons were unparalleled masters of body manipulation, and to demonstrate had morphed himself into a naturally two-legged form. Celestia had expected some kind of spell, and perhaps it was; but it sure as hell wasn’t one she’d ever want to learn.

It started with the sound of shattering bone and only got worse from there. Al’s entire body trembled and squirmed, even though he himself never moved. His entire torso and neck shortened as his spine compressed. His hips widened and his shoulder blades visibly shifted under his scales. His hind legs lengthened and bulged with new muscle, as did his tail, becoming much thicker and heavier for balance. His chest flattened and widened into a form similar to the upper half of a centaur, and Celestia very nearly turned away at the sight of the dragon’s muscles writhing like a nest of snakes under his skin as they settled into new shapes and positions. Every jerk and twitch was accompanied by sounds of breaking bones and tearing muscles, but through it all Al himself never made a peep.

And now, with his transformation complete, Al stood before her as a nine-foot tall behemoth.

“Most haven’t.” the dragon replied. “As you can imagine, the process leaves us extremely vulnerable. But fortunately, we aren’t limited to full-scale transformations. You see, dragons possess magic just like ponies. However, unlike unicorns, pegasi and alicorns like yourself, we are all but unable to channel it externally. But manipulating it internally allows us control over our forms unmatched by any other creature. Where you can use your magic to, say, shape a block of clay, we can use ours to shape our own bodies.”

“Does…Does it hurt?” Celestia asked, already dreading the answer.

“Like you can’t imagine.” Al answered without hesitation. “In all my years I have found nothing that compares to it. It’s been so long and I do it so often that my brain has effectively been conditioned to ignore all nerve impulses when it happens, but it’s still unpleasant. I always find it funny when I hear younglings from so many races complain about puberty and how terrible it is.” the dragon snorted, releasing a small cloud of black smoke from his nostrils. “They have no idea how easy they have it.”

“Wait, THAT is what dragon children go through?!” Celestia gasped.

“Oh yes, and unfortunately these days most don’t survive it. The pain is too much and they go into shock almost as soon as it starts.” Al sighed. “Dragon culture has gone downhill over the centuries, and that includes parenting. So many dragons had to go through it alone, so now they think that’s how it should be and that’s what they do to their own young. If you survive, you’re worthy; if you don’t, oh well.”

“But that’s…”

“Barbaric? It is, and unfortunately it has shaped how ‘modern’ dragons behave, and thus has shaped how our race is seen by others. In my day a dragon’s pride was based around their accomplishments. Now, surviving puberty is the only badge of honor one needs to see themselves as superior to all others.”

“…How do any of them survive if it’s as bad as you say?”

“Instincts, mostly. Before it happens your mind and body go haywire with all sorts of strange, contradictory feelings and urges. You want to be alone, but you resent those who aren’t by your side. You want to ask for help, but you don’t want anyone to see you. You want to gorge yourself, but you also want to horde your food. You have all this pent up energy, but all you want to do is lie down and sleep. That’s how most of the survivors do it; they find or make a cave, seal it off and sleep through the whole thing. But with no one to tell them how to interpret those instincts, so many young ones end up going about it all wrong.” Al shook his head sadly. “They’ll try to ignore it and go about their lives, and get caught completely unprepared. Or they won’t eat enough before sleeping and wake up in their caves too weak to even dig themselves out.”

Celestia shuddered, forcing herself not to think about young dragons starving to death trapped in their own caves.

“Have you ever helped any of them?”

“Any that I came across. Whether it was guiding them through the preparation, or caring for them until their strength returned after the fact; I did what I could. Some even appreciated it.” Al finished with a grunt.

Hearing the plight faced by draconic children, Celestia’s thoughts inevitably turned to her own little hatchling.

‘Ooh, little Spike would be delighted to have someone “show him the ropes”!’ the Princess smiled. But with her thoughts turned to Spike, she remembered what Twilight had told her earlier today.

The borderline antisocial behavior.

The sudden affinity for skulking around in the dark.

The refusal to admit that anything was wrong.

The “nest” he had made in the library’s basement, walled off with piles of miscellaneous stuff…

“Tia?” Al inquired, not at all liking the expression gradually forming on the alicorn’s face.

“Al…At what age do dragons typically go through puberty?”

“Depends on the species, but most reach that stage in between sixteen and twenty; not too far off from ponies and other mammals. Why?”

“…”

“…So, I take it the rumors I’ve heard about your ‘Elements of Harmony’ being seen with a baby dragon are more than just rumors?”

“…” Celestia nodded mutely, her body starting to twitch with nervous energy.

“When did you hatch him?” Al asked with a deep sigh.

“Seventeen years ago…”

-Golden Oak-

The two immortals arrived in a blinding flash of light, accompanied by a “bang” that could easily be mistaken for a cannon shot. Far more fanfare than Celestia’s normal, more controlled teleportations. But this wasn’t normal and control was just about the last thing on her mind.

“Spike?! Spike, where are you?!” seeing no sign of the baby dragon, the Princess moved towards the stairs to the second floor. However, she didn’t account for the polished floor and would have fallen on her haunches if not for Al’s huge hand stabilizing her.

“If your suspicions are correct, he’s most likely in the basement.” Al said, looking around the library and noting that it was most certainly not designed with someone of his stature in mind.

Celestia ignored the stomach-churning sounds of Al returning to his four-legged form and took to the air, rocketing towards the basement door at speeds that would make a Wonderbolt proud. But a familiar and revolting stench caught her nose before she could even open the door and froze her in her tracks.

Blood.

“SPIKE!!!” too distraught to even bother with magic, the Goddess’ body smashed through the two inches of solid wood like it was wet paper and hurtled down the stairs, her hooves not touching a single one.

Spotting the wall of junk Twilight had told her about, Celestia raced to and through it, uncaring of whatever she destroyed. Her horn lit up with a subconscious glow to light her way and…

Her world stopped at the sight of a purple lump lying in a pool of glistening red.

The otherworldly shriek that tore from her throat would become a thing of legend in Ponyville. Saturated in magic, the sound washed over the ponies in the streets like a tidal wave, knocking many off their hooves and causing others to fall to the ground weeping for reasons they couldn’t understand. It would haunt the nightmares of all who heard it, and eventually become the subject of dozens of different stories passed down through generations.

Everypony would have their own opinions as to the origins, but the only ones who would get close to the truth were those who likened it to the howl of a mother who’d lost a child.

“Calm yourself, Tia.” Al said, walking around her catatonic form to inspect the fallen hatchling. “He’s earned his badge.”

That snapped Celestia out of it. “He’s alive?!” she shot over to Spike’s side, the blood beneath her hooves not registering with her at all. “He’s alive!” she cried, finally hearing his ragged breaths.

“And fully formed as well.” Al remarked as he gently tugged on Spikes arm, moving it back and forth to test the range of motion. He nodded to himself, then did the same with one of the not-so-little dragon’s two new wings.

“’Fully formed’?”

“You saw that the transformation is a multi-step process. Well, when you don’t have control over it sometimes a couple steps don’t go all the way through and things get…stuck, for lack of a better term. He’d be able to fix it once he woke up, but it looks like he’ll be spared that extra agony.” Al looked down as he noticed several small, pebble-like objects spread throughout the puddle of blood. “Ah, looks like all his teeth came out just fine as well.”

“’Teeth’?” Celestia croaked, doing her best not to think about the small, hard object under her right forehoof as she slowly lifted it.

“Mm-hm. This is how dragons lose their baby teeth.” Al said distractedly as he felt all over Spike’s hide for any lumps of misplaced muscle or bone. “As the skull elongates, the sockets become too large for the old teeth and they’ll either fall out on their own, or be pushed out by the new ones…” he trailed off when he finally caught the look the alicorn was giving him. “Sorry.”

“So he’ll be alright?”

“He’ll be sore as all hell when he wakes up, but that’s about it…”

“What?” Celestia asked, not liking the dragon’s furrowed brow.

“If he is what I think he is, then it’s not his well-being you need to worry about.” Al said somewhat grimly.

Celestia blinked. “Isn’t he the same species as you?” one look at the color of Spikes egg alone had been enough to convince her to save it seventeen years ago. Sure the purple and green were much lighter than Al’s own, but that could easily have been attributed to age.

“I can see why you’d think that, but no. Our species are related, but his branch of the family tree is a much nastier one. In your tongue their name would translate to ‘Kinslayer’, though a unicorn biologist from a few eras ago coined the term ‘Dracophagus’.”

“…Dragon-eater?”

“She saw it with her own eyes, and so have I. If I’m right, your Spike hails from a clan that was literally born and bred to hunt, fight and kill other dragons. But they weren’t exactly picky; they were the type to kill for sport and you didn’t have to be a dragon to be a target. As long as you could either give them a good run or put up a decent fight, they didn’t care what you were.” Al failed to fully suppress the shudder that ran up his spine. “With genes like that, even the nice ones have a killer instinct like no other.”

“Not my Spike.” Celestia said with finality.

“Not before, but there’s no telling how he’ll be now. For a dragon, instinct is a powerful thing, Tia. All it takes is one slip. One crisis, one moment of panic and suddenly ‘kill everything’ sounds like a very good idea. If he doesn’t learn how to control that, among other things, he’s a massacre waiting to happen.”

If the look in his eyes didn’t make it clear enough, his tone surely did; as was always the case, Al was speaking from experience.

“…Will you teach him?”

“Tia-“

“Will. You. Teach. Him?”

“I can, but-“

“Then do it.”

“Tia, it isn’t that simple.”

“Why not?”

“It could take years, Tia! Even if he’s a quick learner!”

“Three-hundred and seventy-eight years, Al; what’s a few more?”

“…And what about his friends?”

“They’ll understand, so long as I can assure them he WILL return. I can assure them of that, right?”

“He will be back, as will I; you have my word.”

“Then let me see you off.” and with that, Celestia’s horn shined gold and all three vanished with barely a sound.

With their departure, the library fell deathly silent and every light seemed to grow pale and dim, as if the very spirit of the building had fled and the life was draining out of it.

And then…

“Spike, I’m home! Why’d you close the library so early? Are you alright? Spike?” the soft clops of dainty hooves trailed over towards the basement, stopping at the threshold as their owner gasped at the splintered door. “S-Spike?”

 
> ...Can Change You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-????-

Spike awoke with a violent, full-body spasm, mouth agape and chest heaving as he sucked in all the air he could. Understandable, seeing as how the last thing he remembered was being starved of it. That, and pain. Mind-shattering, incomprehensible pain.

‘Was it a night-?!’ the young drake couldn’t finish the thought as a sudden surge of agony cleared his mind. The cause? Attempting to move his right arm.

“Ah, looks like you suffered a Constrictor.” a deep, masculine voice remarked, echoing off the walls of what Spike now registered as a cave. “It’s what the kids call it these days when your lungs grow before your ribs do. Feels like an anaconda is wrapped around your chest; hence ‘Constrictor’.”

With a monumental effort, half of it being devoted to trying not to scream, Spike managed to move his head towards the sound. Despite his keen night vision, he had no idea what he was looking at until the strange silhouette sitting atop a large, flat rock moved. It was a dragon. One much smaller than the few adult dragons he’d seen, but no less intimidating, with jet black scales and yellow eyes that gave off a dim glow in the darkness.

“Hello, youngling.” the black dragon greeted with a nod.

In an instant all thoughts about what had happened to him and all concerns for his own wellbeing were pushed to the wayside. He needed to know who this dragon was, and more importantly what he had done to Ponyville. Clearly this dragon had taken him back to its lair, probably under the impression that it was “saving” him from his captors. It had happened once before.

Spike began to stir, breathing through clenched teeth as every little twitch brought about fresh waves of searing pain. But he fought through it to roll onto his belly and move his arms into position to push himself off the ground. Steeling himself again, Spike attempted to rise, but his body rebelled. With the scales of his underbelly barely two inches off the ground, he froze.

Every muscle in his body felt like it was stretched to the absolute limit, and to go any further would see them ripped right off the bones. Again. His body demanded that he relax and remain still. He needed to rest until he recovered from whatever had happened to him.

But Spike wasn’t having it.

‘Get up…’

His arms trembled, biceps bulging and deltoids straining visibly under his scales, as he lifted himself onto his hands and knees.

‘Get up…’

His right leg came forward, thigh and calf muscles convulsing as he planted his foot to rise into a kneeling position.

“Get up…”

He attempted to stand, only making it halfway before his body threatened to lock up again. He teetered in an awkward position, his balance completely off, and would probably fall over if the other dragon so much as breathed on him.

“Get…UP!” and with that final roar, Spike shot upright and planted his feet. He would not fall.

“Impressive, youngling. Maybe life with ponies hasn’t made you that soft.” the larger dragon quipped.

“What…” Spike faltered for a moment when the vibrations from speaking felt like spears being jabbed through his ribs. “What did you do…”

“To the town? Nothing.” the dragon answered, snorting at Spike’s skeptical glare. “Fine. I swear by the Flame Mother that I have done no harm to your town or the ponies that live there.”

Spike had no idea what a “Flame Mother” was, but for some reason hearing the other dragon swear by it filled him with relief. However, he had clearly still be abducted and needed to clear things up.

“Listen…whoever you are, I-“

“Al.”

“Huh?” Spike blinked at the interruption.

“My name is Al. Yes, it is short for something else. No, I won’t tell you what it is.”

“O-Oh…Well, listen, Al, I…” Spike grimaced. His voice was already getting stronger, which made talking that much more painful. “I don’t know what you’ve seen, but…I’m not a slave, okay? I wasn’t captured or…sold to those ponies or anything like that…I live there by choice, understand?”

Yellow eyes blinked owlishly. “I’ll bet there’s an interesting story behind why you felt the need to say that, and I’d love to hear it later. But for now, eat, drink and build your strength.” Al gestured off to the side with a claw.

It was only then that Spike registered the sound of a stream running through the cave off to his right. His legs moved without his command, the hellish ache in his legs almost completely numbed by his sudden, desperate thirst. He all but dove headfirst into the water, smacking his nose snout against the bottom, but it didn’t stop him from gulping down great mouthfuls of sweet ambrosia.

But he eventually had to come up for air, and almost immediately he was overcome with another burning need. Now that he was paying attention, he found that the air in the cave was absolutely thick with a familiar and delectable scent.

Following his nose, Spike could only stare, slack jawed and drooling, at a pile of gems the likes of which he’d only seen in his dreams. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that this was probably the other dragon’s hoard. But Al DID tell him to eat, so…

Al watched silently as the young drake dug into his feast and the cave was filled with the sounds of gems being consumed by the dozens. While his unflappable poker face displayed only boredom and mild amusement, his mind was running a mile a minute.

He hadn’t expected this. Though he liked to think of himself as much more progressive and open-minded than the vast majority of his kind, he still couldn’t help but scoff at the idea of a dragon raised by ponies. Maybe the warlike griffons or the dauntless minotaurs could bring up a dragon that would one day be worth its scales, but ponies? No way. Too nice, too soft and too sheltered, with relatively few notable exceptions. Al knew better than to call the race weak; there were reasons ponies thrived in a world inhabited by far more formidable creatures. But tucked away in their peaceful cities, most never knowing true strife in their lives, they generally lacked the tools and techniques to survive on their own. So what could they possibly teach a young dragon?

He’d said nothing to Celestia, but Al had already passed judgment on the whelp. He wagered the boy could bake a mean cake, but if asked to throw a punch he’d probably hurt himself. He’d already resigned himself to days of watching the youngling sleep, then listening to him cry, moan and whine about the pain when he was awake. He had fully prepared himself for the ordeal of effectively making a dragon from scratch.

And then Spike did something Al had never seen before. Just hours after his growth spurt, the youngling not only woke up, but willed himself to move. Willed himself to stand, in a bipedal form no less, and even walk! Even the strongest younglings Al could remember took at least a full day just to uncurl themselves, forget about actually getting up. But this one had already shown himself to somehow be made of sterner stuff, displaying a level of willpower he had no business having, considering his upbringing.

‘Then again, he’s got some powerful motivation.’ Al thought. Spike had confronted him for the sake of his little ponies, not for himself.

After several minutes of gorging like a wild animal, Spike pulled himself away from pile of gems and was surprised by how much of a dent he’d made in it. But his attention quickly turned back to his “host”.

“Al, right? I still need to know why you…drakenapped me.”

Al rose an eye-ridge. “That’s not a word, and I didn’t.”

Spike’s expression hardened and he made a show of looking around the cave, inwardly wincing as the muscles in his neck protested the action. “This doesn’t look like the basement of the library to me.”

“Would you rather have been left in a pool of your own blood?” Al asked, cocking his large head to the side slightly.

“B-Blood?!” Spike’s hands flew over his torso to check for wounds, but he felt only pristine scales. It was then that he realized that he had changed. A lot.

He held a trembling hand up to his face; the same one he had watched morph and grow right before his eyes. Gone were the stubby little claws of a hatchling; replaced by the long, talon-tipped fingers of a young adult. The hand went to his reptilian muzzle once he noticed how much longer it was, and then the other joined it to feel around his entire head.

His rounded crest had turned into a series of back-curved spines and his ear frills were much pointier than before. His hands continued downward, over his stocky neck and down to his broad chest, now covered by huge, overlapping scales that looked and felt like plate armor compared to the soft belly he remembered. And he couldn’t help but grin at the sight of his new legs.

‘What did Twilight say they were called? Dedg-no…Digi-something…Digitigrade? Digitigrade, yeah!’ Spike gave a mental whoop as he wiggled his clawed toes. No more struggling with stairs for him; not with these long, powerful things to work with!

His tail whipped around in his excitement and when he finally caught sight of it, his grin widened even more. Long, nicely muscled and ending with a spade more akin to an arrowhead than a shovel it was, if he did say so himself, sexy.

In fact, HE was sexy now! All sleek and muscular, like he’d just walked out of one of his own dreams.

‘Or maybe one of Rarity’s…’ Spike giggled to himself. The only way this could get better was if he had a nice, majestic set of wings to complete the package…

Al nearly fell off his perch when the youngling suddenly let out a loud squeal and starting feeling up his own wings like they were long lost lovers. He’d seen it before of course; wingless whelps were always the most…enthusiastic when they gained their third pair of limbs. What he hadn’t seen before was a youngling who recovered his full range of motion not even half an hour after waking up.

He found himself eager to start teaching his new pupil.

“Your wings aren’t going anywhere unless you want them to, Spike.” Al drawled, bringing the youngling back to reality.

“How do you know my name?” Spike demanded, eyes narrowed and the makings of a snarl on his lips.

“Telepathy.” Al deadpanned, looking right into the younger dragon’s eyes.

“…”

“That’s disgusting.” Al’s scaly lips twisted in a grimace for a second, then parted in a bark of laughter when Spike’s eyes went wide and he actually took a step back. “Just messing with you, boy. Here, I’m sure this will explain everything.” he raised a hand and flicked a small object towards his soon-to-be student.

Spike caught it with reflexes honed through a lifetime of dealing with a unicorn prone to telekinetic chaos when stressed out. It was a scroll, bearing a very familiar red ribbon adorned with a stylized golden “C”; the official seal of Princess Celestia.

“Careful opening that,” Al warned, “you’re a lot stronger than you used to be.”

Taking the words to heart, Spike unrolled the scroll as gently as he could and began to read.

“My Dearest Son

I am sorry. Because of my negligence, because of my ignorance, you were made to suffer. You will never know the depths of my shame, and if you find it in yourself to forgive me, know that I may never forgive myself. You could have died and it would have been my fault.

For you see, though I have made efforts to understand dragons, it was almost always for the sake of politics and diplomacy. I cared little about their biology, beyond their eating habits. Even after I had the gall to name one of them as my son, I never made it a priority to find out what I didn’t know. I had no idea what was in store for you as you grew up, and so neither did you.

If you are reading this, my son, then you have already met the dragon Al. Do not be alarmed; he is a very old and very dear friend of mine, and it is only because of him that I know anything about what happened to you at all. I am sure you are wondering why you are with him now and not in your home, or at least in a hospital. I know you are likely still coming to terms with your new self, and it pains me to put yet another burden on you, but I must.

You must make a choice, Spike. If you wish to return to your home, to your friends, I will personally come for you. But if you choose to stay with Al, he has agreed to be your mentor and do for you what I couldn’t. He will teach you how to be a dragon, and everything that entails. And fret not, for Al is a far cry from any other dragon you have ever met, or are likely to ever meet. He is of a higher class in all regards, and I would not hesitate to trust him with my life. Rest assured you would be in the best of hands.

Speak to him, ask whatever questions you need to, and make your decision. When you are ready, use the quill and parchment I have given him and send me your reply.

And regardless of your decision, know that I love you, Spike, my little drake. I haven’t said it or shown it nearly enough since I left you in Twilight’s care, and if I have ever made you doubt it, I will spend the rest of my life making up for it.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Your mother, always and forever,

Celestia”

Spike carefully rerolled the paper before his tears could join the telltale dark spots that already littered the note.

“I suggest you remember and cherish those words, youngling.” Al rumbled. “Most dragons have never known what it’s like to have a mother who cares.”

“You read-“

“No. It went without saying that the message was for your eyes only. Even when she was writing it just feet from where you are now, I didn’t look. But you read it out loud, and I can’t control what I hear.” Al said with a shrug.

Spike blushed at that. He’d been relaying Celestia’s messages to Twilight for so long, narrating them was apparently second nature to him.

“Do you need time to make your choice?” Al asked.

“A choice…” Spike murmured to himself, eyes going wide as he was struck by a revelation. For the first time in his life, he was in a position to make a choice about his life.

There was no one around to guilt him or otherwise influence his decision. No troop of ponies standing on the sidelines with glistening eyes and trembling lips. Just him, for once holding his future in his own two hands. So liberating! So…

Utterly terrifying.

“Tell me, Spike,” Al said, not liking the look of fear and confusion on the youngling’s face, “why did you feel the need to tell me you weren’t a slave?”

“W-What?” Spike shook his head and stared at the other dragon like he was seeing him for the first time.

“There must be a reason you assumed I would think that.”

“Well…” Spike began, “it happened before. I was out on…I guess you could call it a mission with my friends, the Elements of Harmony. Long story short, hey had a tough battle and one of them ended up too injured to make the trip back home. Fortunately we happened to find an old wagon to put her on, but everypony else was pretty beat up as well. I hadn’t done much in the fight, so being the freshest of the group I pulled the wagon myself. We were fine at first, but along the way two of my friends collapsed, so we put them on the wagon as well. We went a bit further and another went down. By the time we made it back to town, only one of them was still walking next to me. We all tried to go home to rest, but the next thing we know this huge, green dragon, three stories high at least, comes crashing down from the sky just outside the town. He demands that the ponies release the baby dragon they’ve captured and enslaved, or he’ll ‘glass’ the whole town.” Spike shuddered as he remembered just how angry the dragon had been. He probably would’ve burned Ponyville anyway even if Spike had gone with him.

“Hm, sounds like he was more reasonable than your typical dragon these days.” Al snorted. “He bothered to deliver an ultimatum instead of just doing it and plucking you out of the ashes.”

“He was.” Spike nodded. “It took more than twenty minutes of arguing to convince him that I wasn’t a slave. He just didn’t get it, and from his perspective I could see why. He didn’t know the context; all he saw was an exhausted baby dragon hauling a wagon full of ponies, each one of them twice my size.”

“…Are you sure he jumped to the wrong conclusion?” Al asked after a moment of silence.

Spike fixed him with a hard glare. “Of course he did!”

“Perhaps in that one instance, but I find myself curious. What, exactly, do you do in that ‘Ponyville’ of yours?”

“I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Number One Assistant!” Spike instantly regretted announcing his title when Al narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“Out of how many?”

“…”

“Uh-huh. Anything else?”

“I…I run the town library.”

“…” Al narrowed his eyes again.

“…When Twilight isn’t around.” Spike crumbled.

“And?”

“And, I help out at the local apple orchard, and the local animal shelter, and the local café, and the fashion boutique!” Spike finished by crossing his arms and turning his nose up, much like the mare he still had a crush on.

“Well, aren’t you the busy one? But tell me, do you get paid for any of this work you do?”

“Not in actual bits, no.” Spike answered, but quickly followed up with, “B-But it’s not like I need them anyway! I get other things, like food, gems, favors, that kind of stuff. And these days the work I do at the library basically covers my rent.”

“I see. So, they use you for free labor and ‘pay’ you with food, shelter and empty promises.” Al summarized with a distinctly unimpressed look. ‘Set out the bait and…’

“Great food that I would otherwise have to pay a lot of bits for, and the rent at the place I stay would be way more than I could afford as an actual employee at any of those places!”

‘Gotcha.’ Al grinned inwardly. “But the promises are still empty?”

“…They’re not ‘promises’ per se…” Spike mumbled, unable to look Al in the eyes.

“Maybe not, but if YOU say you’re going to help somepony out, and then you don’t, they get upset, right?”

“They’re…a little disappointed, yeah, but-“

“But heavens forbid you take them to task for ‘flaking out’ on a favor they owe you, you probably get a lecture on how they have ‘real’ responsibilities that take priority.”

“…”

“Spike, you aren’t fooling anyone; not even yourself.” Al said in a surprisingly gentle tone. “I saw that look on your face when I asked about your choice. You’ve never actually had a choice before, have you? Not in regards to something like this.”

“…”

“You say that you stay in Ponyville by choice, but what are the alternatives, hm? If not Ponyville with Celestia’s student, or Canterlot with Celestia herself, where would you go? What would you do? To say you choose to stay with them implies that you have other options. Well, what are they?”

“I…don’t know.” Spike admitted in a whisper.

“Because you never had options; not viable ones. It’s always been their way, or the highway, or at least that’s how they made you feel, intentionally or not. But now that there’s nopony here to tell you what to do, you have no idea what to do. You’ve been conditioned, boy, and I’ll bet that entire pile of gemstones over there that you saw it long before now.”

Of course he saw it. The manipulations, some subtle and others so blatant that it made him wonder how there was ever a time when he didn’t see it.

Being “paid” by Pinkie Pie in gourmet cupcakes, then hearing Mr. or Mrs. Cake gently chastise her for giving away such expensive items. How could he complain about not getting bits if he was getting expensive stuff on the house?

Being “compensated” with gemstones from Rarity and having her act like she was doing him a favor. Making him feel like he hadn’t really earned them, and thus making him work that much harder next time around.

Being reminded that it was either do chores or pay rent when he complained about Twilight’s sometimes-excessive to-do lists. Even if she said it as a “joke”, it did the trick and Spike rarely questioned why he didn’t get paid for his work, even though Twilight herself DID get paid, and quite nicely at that, for her job as the Librarian.

Being told that his workload was light compared to what any given member of the Apple family did around the farm on a daily basis if he “slacked off” or didn’t go fast enough. How could he even think about asking for compensation when his efforts were marginalized to a point that implied they were actually better off without him?

Oh yes, he saw it all. Now the question was: Did he want to go back to it?

Once again Al took his cues from Spike’s expression. The youngling was looking a bit too angry and it wasn’t Al’s intention to turn him against his friends; even if they, apparently, weren’t very good friends.

“Know that if you choose to go with me and learn, it will not be a permanent arrangement. I am not offering you the opportunity to run away from whatever problems you have at home. I WILL bring you back; that is an oath I swore to Celestia. What I offer is…you. I offer you the chance to find yourself and decide what you want your place in the world to be. I offer you the chance to be the master of your own destiny.”

Spike remained silent for several minutes, just staring off into nothing. Contemplating what he wanted from life, now that what he wanted mattered. As depressing as his home situation was, did he really want to shoulder the responsibility of being his own drake? Living his life on others’ terms had suited him just fine for so long; did he really want to give up such a cushy, comfortable life just because it wasn’t absolutely perfect? Was being undervalued and overlooked really so bad in the grand scheme? And would that even remain the case with his new body?

“…What if I want to stay?”

“There are things you absolutely need to know, and I plan on sticking around for the foreseeable future, so I’ll still be teaching you.” Al answered. “But there are some things that you can’t learn in places like Ponyville or Canterlot, even with my help. If you want to find your place in the world, you have to go out and experience the world. There’s simply no substitute.”

“And if I don’t want to come back? What if I end up deciding that I’m better off somewhere else?”

“Then you’ll have to face your friends and tell them that yourself. I said I would bring you back; I never said anything about making you stay once I did. That’ll be your choice, just like it is now.”

“My choice…” Spike muttered before turning away from Al and walking towards the mouth of the cave.

The older dragon made no move to stop him, knowing that he just needed time alone to think. Al had done all he could to appeal to the youngling, without revealing anything that would force his hand, and now it was time for him to control his own fate.

-Golden Oak-

“Twilight, please-“ Celestia was interrupted by yet another oversized book being hurled her way, only to bounce uselessly off of her magic shield.

“You know…” Twilight hissed, all but frothing at the mouth as she stared her fellow Princess down with wild, unblinking eyes. “You know where he is…Tell me!” a reading table, one of dozens of random objects floating ominously around her, raced at her mentor, who easily caught it with her own magic and set it down off to the side.

“Twilight, I-“

“Tell me!” another table flew.

“He’s safe, Twi-“

“WHY WON’T YOU TELL ME?!?!” two entire bookshelves became deadly missiles.

Celestia didn’t so much as blink, though she did spare a glance at the other five Elements lying unconscious behind her, safe from her student’s fury.

Things had gotten out of hoof fast and she had only herself to blame. She’d been so focused on Spike that she had completely forgotten about the horror show that was left behind. By the time she’d returned to clean up the mess, not only had Twilight already seen it; she had gathered the rest of the Element bearers and was in the midst of planning a search and rescue mission.

They immediately descended upon the Sun Goddess, begging for her help, though a lot of it came out as little more than incoherent blubbering. As she tried to placate them her faithful student proved to be too clever for her own good and immediately pegged her teacher as being far too calm.

Twilight accused her of knowing something and, unable to flatout lie, she admitted that she did; without admitting what it was. To say her son’s friends were outraged would be a titanic understatement. In the end Celestia saw no other option but to knock them all out before they said or did something they all would regret.

But the fourth alicorn refused to go down so easily, and further attempts only fueled her rage and grief.

And now she stood before the immaculate Princess as a raving beast. Hunched low like a panther ready to pounce, fur raised, mane disheveled, wings spread and horn crackling in open, murderous aggression. Celestia never imagined such a monster lurked within her precious student, but then she hadn’t seen Nightmare Moon coming, either.

“You killed him, didn’t you?!” Twilight suddenly growled. “That’s why you won’t tell me!”

A shadow passed over Celestia’s eyes just for a split second; so quick that Twilight would have missed it even if she’d been herself. The Element of Magic would never know just how close she came to seeing Celestia’s own monster.

But before the white alicorn could remind the foolish girl of her place on the food chain, a wisp of sparkling smoke came in through one of the windows destroyed by Twilight’s violent episode. Both Princesses went still as the smoke stopped in front of Celestia, coalescing and bursting into a bright green flame, which quickly died and revealed a scroll that looked like it had seen better days.

“Spike…” Twilight croaked, reaching out with her magic to try and rip the scroll from Celestia’s grasp.

The Sun Goddess was surprised by how much effort was needed to keep hold of the parchment. In any other circumstance she’d have been proud of her student.

“Spiiiiiike…” the beast hissed, a malignant purple mist beginning to leak from its eyes while the whites turned a sickly green and irises burned blood red.

Celestia ignored it and began to unroll the message.

“SPIKE!!!” the beast lunged forward like it was shot out of a cannon, with a bone-rattling *BOOM* to match as it broke the sound barrier.

Eyes still on the parchment, Celestia extended a single hoof, striking the beast right between the eyes and stopping it dead in its tracks.

Twilight’s eyes returned to their normal color a second before they rolled up into her head and she collapsed. A beanbag chair surrounded in a golden aura caught her, then floated her over to rest beside her friends.

The headache she would wake up with would be legendary, but she had literally forced Celestia’s hoof. That was a concern for later, however.

Celestia didn’t even try to suppress a sob of pure joy as she read the first two words.

“Dear Mom

I wish I could say that it’s all water under the bridge. I wish I could say I never doubted you, or any of my friends and how much you all care for me. I wish I could say that I’m alright and I’m coming home. But I’m done lying; to you, to them and especially to myself. I’ve doubted you. I’ve doubted them. I’m not alright. And I’m not coming home. Not yet. Not until I can call it ‘home’ without feeling like there’s a hole in my chest.

I have issues, Mom. Baggage I don’t think anypony could understand. When I saw how much I had changed, I was so happy. I thought I was so cool, with my brand new muscles and wings. But then I spent twenty minutes staring at my reflection in a lake, and the whole time a stranger looked back. I guess the outside matches the inside now, because I’ve felt like a stranger for a long time. I never talked about it because nopony would understand, but over the past few years I’ve been asking myself who I am, and I’ve never been able to give a straight answer.

I’m Spike, Twilight’s Number One Assistant.

I’m Spike, Twilight’s pet dragon.

I’m Spike, Master of the kitchen.

I’m Spike, who will burn down your house trying to bake a pie.

I’m Spike, noble dragon and helper extraordinaire.

I’m Spike, walking disaster and professional screw-up.

I’m Spike, the drake you can always count on.

I’m Spike, the drake who never fails to fail.

I’m Spike, son of Celestia.

I’m Spike, total nobody.

I can’t live like that anymore. I’ve spent my whole life being who you all wanted me to be, or trying to be who I thought you wanted me to be. Now I need to know who I am, and to do that I need time. Time away from the ponies who can control me with nothing but a few kind words and maybe a pout for good measure.

In fact, I just need to be away from them, period. It’s too painful now that I can’t fool myself into believing they’re my friends anymore. I hate to say that, but what else CAN I say? They’re Twilight’s friends; I’m just THERE. They never visit me unless they want me to do something for them, they don’t seem to want anything to do with me if I’m not offering to help out, and I’m always being excluded from group activities.

They go on a picnic? I’ll be asked to make the snacks, but I won’t be invited. They have themselves a day at the spa? Well, someone’s gotta man the library. They have my BEST FRIEND’S birthday party in a different city? I don’t find out until she comes back, talking about how great it was.

I’m sorry to vent at you, but I want you to know that I haven’t made this decision lightly. This has been a long time coming; I’m just lucky that Al came along when he did.

I’ll be back someday. I don’t know when, but I WILL be back; you had a promise from Al and now you’ve got one from me. As for the others, tell them that I’ll miss them, but let them know that I NEED this. I don’t want Twilight popping up and trying to teleport me back to Ponyville, and you know she’ll try it if you let her. But if I ever really meant anything to them, they’ll understand that this is something I have to do.

I want to start my training with Al as soon as possible, and he said it’s going to be brutal, so I may not be able to write back to you for a while. Just know that you’ll always be Mom to me and I’ll always love you, no matter what.

Your son, always and forever,

Spike”

Though she wept openly and without shame, Celestia maintained the wherewithal to reroll the parchment and summon a small lockbox to put it in for safekeeping. Later she would apply a preservation spell to ensure that it would never decay. It would forever serve as a testament to her abject failure as a mother, as well as a symbol of her vow to be better and a reminder of what could happen if she repeated her mistakes.

“Until we meet again, my son.” the Princess sobbed. “Good luck.”
> ...Can Break You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Golden Oak-

“T-Twilight?” Fluttershy called out as she cautiously opened the library’s front door and peeked in. “Twilight? It’s me, Fluttershy.” she called again, louder.

No one answered, but in the eerie, downright unnatural silence of the library, yellow-furred pony’s ears picked something up. She crept forward slowly, wincing at every low *tap* of her hooves against the floor. She didn’t quite know why she was sneaking, especially after she had already announced her presence, but she couldn’t help it. Something had changed after Spike’s departure. Well, just about everything had changed in the four weeks since the baby dragon had vanished and, according to Princess Celestia, refused to return. But something was different about the library itself.

Despite Twilight’s valiant efforts to carry on in her best friend’s absence, the library had become a darker, colder place. Even Pinkie was hard-pressed to maintain her smile when she walked in; especially when every day saw a further decline in Twilight’s condition. The poor mare lasted ten days running the library all by herself, though ponies mostly stopped coming around before then. After that the library was closed, citing a “family crisis”.

Fluttershy had to stop to stifle a sneeze and took a moment to really look at the library’s interior. Nothing had changed since the last time she’d visited. The place looked abandoned, with dust and cobwebs on every surface and stray books strewn about everywhere.

‘Spike would never have let it get like this.’ Fluttershy thought as she rubbed her itching eyes.

The yellow mare continued her stealthy trek, straining her ears to follow the sound that was becoming more and more familiar.

‘It’s coming from upstairs…’ the Element of Kindness drew in a breath and, doing her best to ignore the tickle in her nose, proceeded upward. ‘Did the stairs always creak this much?’

She soldiered on, despite feeling like she was a character in the one horror novel she’d ever mustered the courage to read. Specifically one she remembered making her utter “Don’t do that” more than once. Upon reaching the top of the stairs she could finally hear the sound clear enough to tell what it was, and all she could do was sigh.

“…one might work…”

Fluttershy moved closer to the bedroom Twilight shared with…used to share with Spike, eyes focused on the dim light coming from under the door.

“…have enough energy…”

Under normal circumstances Fluttershy would’ve been ashamed to be afraid of one of her dearest friends. But as Twilight’s mental state deteriorated it got harder and harder for any of her friends to force themselves to be alone with her knowing they couldn’t do anything to help. They had already experienced firsthoof what happened when an alicorn went mad.

“Maybe Rarity can help?”

Twilight’s mumblings came through clearly as Fluttershy paused just outside her room.

“Twilight?” she said as loud as she dared.

“No, I’d have to spend too much time teaching her what to do.”

“Twilight?”

“Lyra’s good at magic, but we aren’t really friends and I don’t think she ever met Spike…”

“Twilight, please…”

“I could order her to help me…I’m a Princess; I can do that, right?”

“I’m coming in.”

“I wouldn’t have to do any of this if I could just get close to Celestia…”

Fluttershy opened the door, and though she tried to steel herself for what she knew she was going to see, she still wasn’t prepared.

Purple fur, once soft and healthy, now dirty and matted. Mane unkempt and greasy. Wings drooping to touch the floor and feathers literally glued to one another with grime. Tail so knotted and caked with…gunk that a good two-thirds of it would probably need to be trimmed off. And if the mare’s clearly defined ribs were any indication, she had lost even more weight in the three days since Fluttershy had last seen her.

Twilight had never been the most robust pony around to begin with, which made the situation all the more dire. Were she an animal, the pink-maned mare would wonder how she still had the strength to move around. And speaking of animals, the smell…

“What are you doing, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked gently, trying to keep the disgust out of her voice.

“…The same thing I was doing last time, Fluttershy.” Twilight muttered before turning her attention to one of at least fifty books cluttered around her.

“You know you’re not supposed to be doing that…” Fluttershy said, already starting to lose her nerve.

Last time she had caught Twilight trying to create a tracking spell that would work without an actual tracker. Most of the technical jargon Twilight used went right over the pegasus’ head, but the alicorn’s logic was that all the magical experiments she had used Spike for must have at least left some kind of magical residue on him. She hoped to make a spell powerful enough to sense that minute residue, but had apparently made little progress.

“Then Celestia will just have to come on over and stop me, won’t she?” Twilight drawled, carelessly dropping one book and picking up another. She inwardly hoped for exactly that, for in her quest to make the ultimate locator spell she had stumbled upon one that, in theory, would allow her to siphon off a small bit of somepony’s magic and use it as if it was her own. If she could just get her hooves on some of Celestia’s magic, she was sure she’d be able to figure out how to use the Princess’ special connection to him to send Spike a letter with a magic tracker attached to it.

Fluttershy walked around beside her friend, subconsciously keeping her distance, and gasped in horror when she finally got a look at Twilight’s face. The dark circles around her eyes and her sunken cheeks were bad enough, but it was the look in those bloodshot orbs that truly terrified the shy mare.

The library wasn’t the only thing Spike maintained. They joked about it all the time, how Twilight would be lost without her Number One Assistant. How he pulled her out of her “episodes” and kept her from going too far into the deep end. How she’d forget to eat or sleep if he wasn’t around to remind/”persuade” her to do it. Always said in jest, always accompanied by a chuckle or a good-natured eye-roll.

No one realized just how true it was until Spike was gone and Twilight was suddenly alone. Without her scaly, purple anchor she was a ship adrift in the rough seas of her own mind.

Something had to be done, but what? What could anypony do that hadn’t already been done, short of carting the fourth alicorn off to the psych ward?

Well, there was one thing, but…

“Twilight…What if it works?”

“Hm?” Twilight hummed, finally looking at her friend, who struggled not to flinch when their eyes met.

“W-What if your spell works? Then what?” Fluttershy swallowed the lump in her throat before continuing. “You heard the Princess; Spike doesn’t want to come back. Not yet, anyway.”

“Says her!” Twilight snapped. “That’s all we have to go on; HER word! Why won’t she let us see what Spike wrote? Why won’t she give us a straight answer, huh? All we wanted was to know why he didn’t want to come back, and what did we get? ‘Don’t ask me; ask yourselves’. What does that even mean?!”

“Maybe…Maybe something we did made him want to leave?” Fluttershy answered quietly, her eyes going lower and lower with every word.

“All the more reason to let us see what he wrote!” Twilight shouted, throwing her hooves into the air and wobbling when her weakened body was thrown off balance. “How are we supposed to make up for what we did, when we don’t know what we did?!”

“Maybe that’s the problem; that we don’t know…”

Twilight narrowed her eyes at the Element of Kindness. “You’re as bad as her.” she grumbled in disgust before going back to her book.

Fluttershy ducked her head, but behind her flowing mane she delivered her own glare.

‘I can name three mares off the top of my head who would have a clue if they ever took their heads out of their own…’ she shook her head, trying to clear it of the distinctly unkind thoughts running through it. “Twilight, if Spike doesn’t want to come back, trying to force him to will only make this worse.” she pleaded.

“Trying to make somepony see reason has worked for us many times before; I don’t see why it wouldn’t work now.” Twilight said flatly.

“And what if your ‘reason’ and his don’t line up?”

“Then I’ll MAKE them line up!” Twilight hissed, jaw clenched and shoulders hunched.

“So you’d just tell him he’s wrong for feeling the way he does?” Fluttershy practically demanded, aghast at the very idea. “Like his feelings don’t count and he should only listen to you?”

“I…” Twilight made to retort, but even in her demented state she seemed to realize how awful her previous words sounded. “Well, since you think my plan is so totalitarian, I assume you have a suggestion?”

“…Let him go.” Fluttershy whispered, more to herself than anything.

“What?” Twilight was briefly reminded of their first meeting on the day she came to Ponyville with Spike.

“Let him go.” the pegasus repeated. “Give him the space he wants, and hope that he loves us enough to come back. It’s like when one of my animal fri-“

“Spike is NOT one of your animals!” Twilight screamed, rounding on her fellow winged pony with a furious snarl. “After all this time I thought you would’ve realized that, but I guess nothing’s changed from that first day, huh? When you asked ‘what else can he do?’ like he was part of a circus act or something.” the alicorn stood up on thin legs steadied by nothing but rage and stomped towards her target. “Even after all he’s done for you, all he’s been through alongside us, you still see him like…like some exotic pet, don’t you?! DON’T YOU?!?!” she roared in Fluttershy’s face as she backed the other mare up against the wall.

“I…I…I…” Fluttershy couldn’t speak. She was too overwhelmed, too confused; too afraid.

The red haze lifted as Twilight saw her friend trembling before her and briefly wondered if there was some nightmarish creature lurking behind her. But in a moment of crystal clarity she realized the truth. She did this; SHE was the creature. She had taken the nicest pony she and anypony else had the privilege of knowing and reduced her to a quivering wreck. Why?

‘Why?’ that was a question she’d been asking for a while, and just like every time before, there was no answer.

“I-I’m s-sorry…” Fluttershy stuttered, then ran for the door like the Cerberus itself was hot on her tail.

Twilight wanted to go after her. Wanted to explain herself and beg forgiveness. But she couldn’t explain herself. Why couldn’t she explain herself? Why did just standing up take everything she had? Why was she so angry? Why was her memory so fuzzy? Why…

Why did Spike leave?

Something jumped out at her from within the muddied waters of her mind, as clear as if it had happened seconds ago. Celestia, giving her and the other Elements a profoundly disappointed look, then speaking the words that had mocked her for weeks now.

“Don’t ask me; ask yourselves.”

“…Why?”

-Carousel Boutique-

‘This is the last one.’ Rarity thought to herself as she carefully fed the shimmering, cerulean blue fabric through her sewing machine. ‘Just one more and I’ll be done for the day.’

She would be done sewing, anyway. She had quite a few orders to fill and to keep herself on schedule she would need to complete at least three dresses tomorrow. That meant her entire day was spoken for, which in turn meant the gem run she had been putting off for days now would have to be done today. And soon, too; these days she didn’t dare do evening digs.

Not without her little purple bodyguard…

“Oh, horseapples!” the unicorn hissed as the sewing needle went through her hoof. She quickly shut off the machine and glared at the impaled appendage. She couldn’t actually feel it, but this was the fifth time it had happened just today! ‘Thank Cele…Thank Luna Sweetie Belle is out and about.’

Rarity knew her little sister was only looking out for her, and she knew Sweetie was right about her overworking herself. But Sweetie didn’t know what it meant to run a business all by herself, especially one that was starting to grow by leaps and bounds. The little filly didn’t truly understand that success almost always came at a price.

Though, to be fair, Rarity herself only recently came to comprehend just how high that price could be when there was no one around to split the bill.

“Funny how having just one extra pair of hooves, er, hands made all the difference…” Rarity murmured.

Actually, it was downright astounding just how much easier her job, and indeed her life in general were with her little helper around. In the time Spike had been gone, the fashionista had been forced to admit that she might have taken him for granted. Just a bit.

When Spike began helping her four years ago, she was just starting to get noticed. Business wasn’t exactly booming and her workload was relatively light, so accepting the drake’s assistance was more her humoring him than anything. Plus, how many ponies could say they were friends with an honest to goodness dragon? That mentality persisted right up until the day Twilight burst into her boutique raving about blood, broken doors and Spike missing.

Sure, Spike made finishing multiple orders a much quicker and less taxing process, since she didn’t have to conserve and ration out her magic so much. And yes, having a fire-breathing dragon at her side made her much more comfortable going out for gem runs at any time of the day. And of course his digging capabilities unearthed more gems in an hour than she could in a whole trip with just her trusty shovel, resulting such a great surplus of materials that she could give them to Spike by the pound without a care.

But because she hadn’t NEEDED any of that, she hadn’t fully appreciated it. And even when her commissions doubled, tripled, then quadrupled, etc. and she was still easily able to keep up, Spike wasn’t a big part of the equation in her mind.

As the saying goes, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Plucking the needle out of her hoof with her magic, Rarity felt her eyes begin to tear up. “Even THIS reminds me of him.”

If she had to pick the single worst thing about Spike being gone, it would have to be the reminders, because they were everywhere. Somehow, right under her nose, Spike had woven himself so deeply into the fabric of her life that his sudden absence left a gaping hole the likes of which Rarity had never known before. A hole she tried to fill at first with her friends, but that was short-lived. They were all confused and hurting just as much as her, far worse in one case, and were in no condition to comfort each other.

So then she turned to what she knew: her work. Work that constantly reminded her of what, and more importantly who, she no longer had. Everything came back to him. Every time she went on a gem run, she had to remember it would be a solo endeavor. Every time she sat alone with the drone of a sewing machine assaulting her ears, she had to remember that there was no one to talk to. Every time she went to bed utterly exhausted, if she went to bed at all, she had to remember that there was no one she could call on to lighten the load.

And those were just the major things! There were plenty of little things that never let her forget, even for a moment. Just the other day digging up an amethyst made her burst into tears just because it was purple, and even now being stuck with a sewing needle reminded her of when Spike bafflingly volunteered to be her literal pincushion.

“I can’t get away from you…” Rarity croaked, feeling her throat start to constrict and her eyes start to sting. “You can get away from me just fine, but I can’t escape you.”

A traitorous part of her mind told her that she had just spoken a line from a non-contemporary romance novel, at least by her standards. She normally fancied the more fantastical books, where perfect mares were swept off their hooves by perfect stallions, or even other perfect mares on occasion, and galloped off into the sunset to live happily ever after. But that line had come from one of the more grounded and realistic books in her collection, where nopony was perfect and lasting relationships took time and effort on both sides form and maintain. In it, a selfish, shallow, entitled mare comes to realize how empty her life is when her longtime coltfriend finally gets fed up with her attitude and leaves her…

“Oh no, I am NOT opening THAT bag of snakes!” Rarity said, shaking her head wildly and nearly flinging her red-framed glasses off. “Focus on the dress, Rarity. Just finish the dress.”

Armed with a new mantra, the unicorn did just that; for the most part, anyway. She just needed four more emeralds to complete the order. Unfortunately, she didn’t have even one more emerald in her inventory.

Rarity looked at the clock to see it was 5:35PM; she didn’t have much time, so she’d have to be picky about what she bothered to dig up.

“Emeralds for sure, but what else?” she mumbled as she looked for the order sheets, doing her best to suppress the memories of a certain drake who would normally do it for her while she went to get ready. “Ah-hah!” she floated three papers at eye-level and quickly scanned over them.

She stopped on the second form, her chest tightening painfully as her eyes scanned over the customer’s order again and again, even after her tears made it impossible to read.

The customer wanted a dress that was distinctly “her”. Something that told the world who she was. Something that did justice to her name: Amethyst Silk.

-????-

“Sweet Luna is it boring around here.” Rainbow Dash whined, laying on her stomach with her forehooves hanging over the edge of a cloud on the western outskirts of Ponyville.

She’d found herself saying that a lot lately; far more than usual. Being able to do her job as Ponyville’s official weather pony in just minutes, or even seconds if she really wanted to, left the cyan-furred pegasus with a LOT of free time on her hooves. In the last few years she had been spoiled not only by having the other Elements to kill time with, but all the crazy things that they seemed to be a magnet for. Rarely was there truly nothing to do. Until very recently, that is.

“Stupid lizard.” Dash scowled, rolling over onto her back. “Everything was going great, and then you just had to go and screw it up, as usual!”

Spike was a nice kid, and Dash liked him well enough, but if a day went by without him doing something wrong, causing a small-scale disaster or just generally making a nuisance of himself, she considered it a minor miracle. True, it ensured that she never ran out of joke material, but sometimes his penchant for being lame was far more trouble than it was worth.

“Even when you’re not around, you ruin everything!” okay, maybe it was because he wasn’t around, but still.

Spike’s abrupt absence had far more profound effects than anypony could ever have imagined. After all, how could one tiny drake, with a reputation for throwing a wrench into the gears, have such a big impact on so many lives? But the proof was there, down in the noticeably quieter and gloomier Ponyville.

The Sugarcube Corner had lost a bit of its sweetness, so to speak, with the Cakes obviously more stressed than normal. It becameespecially apparent when somepony asked about the “adorable”, funny and friendly baby dragon that sometimes ran the register and promoted new items.

Sweet Apple Acres was still in a state of sadness and confusion. Apparently Spike had made his presence felt in his time on the farm, and virtually every pony in the Apple family wondered where he was and when he was coming back. Dash herself had learned to avoid them in town. She liked to tell herself it was because she was annoyed at being asked the same question several times a day. But if she was honest, she avoided them because she hated seeing their downtrodden looks when she told them she didn’t know what was going on with Spike.

The situation at the Golden Oak Library spoke for itself. By the time the place officially closed, nopony outside of the Elements dared step hoof in the place. Some ponies would even literally go out of their way so as not to walk too close to it on the street.

And those were just the most obvious things. All over Ponyville were various ponies who had revealed connections to Spike that not even Twilight had known about. Most of those connections were minor, but still enough for dozens of ponies to notice that he was gone and care enough to be genuinely concerned.

Even Zecora and, of all ponies, Mayor Mare had asked about him!

“All these friends, all these ponies who miss you, and you DON’T want to come back?!” Rainbow Dash threw her hooves up in outrage. “Who do you think you are?! What, you have somepony out there who cares about you more than we do? Hah, fat chance!” she snorted. “Or maybe it’s not enough for you, eh? Still a greedy little dragon.”

When he first vanished, Dash had been right there with everypony else. She was just as horrified by the pool of coagulated blood in the basement as her friends. Just as desperate to find him. Just as angry at Celestia for her, as Twilight said, complicity in his disappearance. But after a while she had come to accept it. In her mind, if Spike didn’t want to come back, that was his problem.

She figured the others would eventually accept it as well, even if they wouldn’t quite see it the way she did. But they didn’t. They dwelled on it. Some of them obsessed over it. And all of them were changed by it.

That was when the resentment reared its ugly head, not for her friends, but for the one who had all but taken them from her.

Twilight was an absolute basket case and was way too unstable to hang around with these days.

Rarity had gone full workaholic, to the point where going to the Carousel Boutique was pointless if you weren’t there to put in an order or pick one up. You’d be lucky to get a single full sentence out of the unicorn if you just wanted to talk, and that was if she acknowledged you at all. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she left the place for anything other than gem or grocery runs, but the mare was living up to her name and catching a glimpse of her outside was like spotting an endangered species in the wild.

Applejack had developed a very short fuse and wouldn’t hesitate to lay a verbal smackdown on anypony who lit it. Naturally it was Rainbow Dash herself who typically bore the brunt of it, but it was nothing like the normal barbs they traded on an almost daily basis. The country pony’s words came out laced with venom and went right for the jugular, several times leaving the blue pegasus speechless and on the verge of tears. Applejack also had little patience for those asking about Spike and had taken to glaring daggers at them as opposed to answering.

Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter herself, was really starting to freak many a pony out with her forced smiles and increasingly fake cheer. Even her pranks and parties had come to an end presumably because her heart wasn’t in it anymore.

Fluttershy at first seemed to be the least affected, at least by Spike’s disappearance. But as her friends changed and retreated into themselves more and more, Dash’s fellow pegasus, who wasn’t at all equipped to deal with such a situation, did the same. Now she was practically back to her pre-Element self, spending most of her time up in her cottage with her animals and only coming into town to get supplies and check up on her friends.

Even the Cutie Mark Crusaders were acting weird! Scootaloo was far from subtle in fishing for information when hanging out with her idol, and Dash had every reason to suspect Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom pestered their respective sisters even more. And more than once Dash had heard whisperings of search parties and “Dragon-Finding” Cutie Marks.

And as for Rainbow Dash herself…

“Yeah, I bet that’s it. You didn’t hoard gems or hats or whatever; you hoarded friends!” she seethed, glaring up at a lone cloud above her as if she was trying to will it to become Spike so she could give him a piece of her mind. “Just like a dragon; you take and take and take, and don’t leave anything for anypony else!”

Somewhere in the back of her mind Dash knew it wasn’t fair to call Spike greedy just because making friends came so much easier to him than to her. But the chain of events set off by him leaving had completely circumvented her defenses and hit her in places she didn’t like to admit to having. Places that, in her younger days, had been hidden behind much thicker and tougher walls of bravado and self-assurance.

Before that fateful day Rainbow Dash had been perfectly fine on her own. She was living the life, being paid quite nicely to do a job that only took minutes out of her day, and spending the rest of her time napping and honing the skills that would make her a Wonderbolt. And then one day a purple unicorn, with a matching baby dragon, showed up and changed everything.

Suddenly all her goals and ambitions seemed so small in the face of an honest to goodness destiny. Suddenly she was a hero, tasked with protecting Equestria, and even the entire world from threats that rivaled the Princesses themselves. Suddenly she had friends. Not just ponies who were cool enough to bother hanging out with every now and then, or ponies who could put up with her “awesomeness”, but real, ‘til-the-end friends.

And now that those friends were steadily drifting away from her, as well as each other, Dash spent more and more time alone with her thoughts, just like the old days. But in the old days she was a selfish, immature loner who was able to easily beat any and all insecurities into submission with the knowledge that she was oh, so very cool and that was all that mattered. Now she was a much more experienced and worldly pony who knew the true value of friendship, and couldn’t hide from the fact that it was worth far more than coolness any day of the week.

She didn’t want to go back to the way things were. She didn’t want to go back to days spent lazing about on clouds with nopony to talk to but herself. But what she wanted didn’t matter; it was happening right before her eyes and she was powerless to stop it.

All because of a little dragon who couldn’t appreciate what he had at home and probably went out looking for more.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Spike?” Dash asked, still focused on the cloud above. “Would you even care if you did?”

Even in her distressed and bitter state the pegasus’ mind rebuked her for such thoughts. Of course he would care! If he knew what was happening in Ponyville right now, he’d be going door to door, begging for forgiveness. In fact Dash herself often got on his case about caring too much, especially when it came to how other ponies saw and felt about him.

So how could he possibly up and leave like he did? How could he say he didn’t want to come back to the ponies he cared so much about, and who cared so much about him?

A love of reading wasn’t the only thing Dash had picked up from Twilight over the years and now that she was allowing herself to really think about it, her mind quickly put things together. If Spike thought even for a second that his friends would fall apart if he left, he never would’ve left. But he did, so the only logical conclusion was that he didn’t think it would be a big deal. It wasn’t that HE didn’t care; he thought THEY wouldn’t care. It was the only thing that made sense, but it didn’t make sense at all.

How could he not realize how important he was to them? How could he not feel the love?

Twilight lived with him day in and day out, putting up with his crap just as much as he put up with hers.

He’d probably never get a date out of Rarity, but he had to understand the significance of her letting him be behind the curtain. The only other pony she trusted that much was her own sister.

And speaking of trust, Applejack letting him work on the farm knowing full well that he could cause a disaster at any moment showed a staggering amount of it. All it would take was for one accidental fire to get out of control in the orchard and a huge chunk of the Apple family business would literally go up in smoke.

Same with Pinkie Pie and the Cakes, letting such an accident-prone drake work in their kitchen. And in their case Spike didn’t just represent a potential danger; in the last year alone he had started no less than twenty kitchen fires. But even so the Cakes never turned him away, and Pinkie kept him well-fed on the best pastries the Corner had to offer.

Even Fluttershy put the utmost faith in him when she allowed him to help with her animals. And though she sometimes treated him like one of said animals, he certainly never complained when she doted and fussed over him like a mother hen anytime he took a tumble or stubbed a toe.

“And I…Uh, I…” Rainbow Dash faltered, “Well I tried to toughen you up, but clearly that didn’t work!” she cringed as soon as the words left her mouth. Honesty may not have been her element, but such a bold-faced lie was too much even for her.

He may have been able to swim in lava, but Spike probably had the thinnest skin of anyone she’d ever met. Over the years even Fluttershy had learned to let most of Dash’s antics roll off her like water off a duck’s back, and it was a skill that had served her well in other situations. But Spike was still an easy target and as the others built up resistances and developed their own ways of dealing with her, he became her go-to when she wanted a reaction.

Sure, sometimes she wished Spike would fire back at her like she knew he could; the little guy had a sharp tongue when he was mad enough. But more often than not the pegasus just wanted something to laugh at and saw Spike as a goldmine of comedy.

But in the wake of his departure she found herself remembering the things she had said and done to him for her own amusement. Most of it wasn’t so bad, really no different than what she did to everypony else, but some of it caused her to physically wince. And when she finally started to wonder whether she had crossed a line or two, it soon became a question of how many lines she hadn’t crossed.

Making fun of his shortcomings? She honestly couldn’t remember a day where she HADN’T needled him about his size, his lack of wings and/or his generally unimpressive presence. She’d even gone as far as to question whether he was actually a dragon on multiple occasions.

Mocking him for his failures? Probably the subject of half the conversations she’d ever had with him.

Bringing up his parentage, or lack thereof? In one of the many “Nature vs Nurture” arguments the Elements had amongst themselves in regards to the baddies they’d faced, with Spike sitting just across the table from her, Rainbow Dash outright said, “Spike doesn’t have parents, either, and he turned out just fine”. That was one of the few occasions she’d apologized to anyone of her own volition, but the fact that she would say such a thing so casually to begin with left a mark that she was now certain never really went away.

“Okay, so maybe I’ve been a little careless with the things I say, but…” there was no “but”; everypony knew Rainbow Dash had no filter and no chill. She even had her own not-so-little fanclub that idolized her not just for her many feats and capabilities, but for her willingness to break the societal boundaries of things like tact and politeness, and speak her mind freely.

But could she really even claim that when it came to Spike? Yes, he got a lot of the same flippant remarks she’d give to anypony else, but over the last year or so there had been an increasing number of precision strikes aimed specifically at the drake’s faults and insecurities.

Her words weren’t careless; they were meant to provoke. To hurt. Why? Because she thought his reactions were funny?

“I guess I have been kinda mean…” Dash mumbled, unable to look at the cloud anymore.

Another lie; in recent times she was “mean” on a GOOD day. And on bad days, the things that spewed out of her mouth and into Spike’s ears would’ve had Equestria’s various villains taking notes.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Dash found herself to be a raging hypocrite as well. She still vividly remembered the day Gilda the griffon came to Ponyville and left a trail of fear and hurt feelings in her wake. On that day Dash had lived up to her title as the Element of Loyalty, standing up for her friends by calling the feathered bully out and telling her off for good.

Dash remembered thinking “No one talks to my friends like that!” before the big confrontation. But perhaps what she really thought was more along the lines of “Only I talk to by friends like that”?

“N-No, that’s different! Totally different!”

Yes, it was differen;, in the worst ways. For all of Gilda’s venom and vitriol, at the end of the day she was a stranger to everypony but Dash herself. She didn’t know Ponyville’s residents from Luna and thus nothing she said could really have any lasting impact.

But Dash DID know the residents of Ponyville, or at least a select few of them, and her words could cut so much deeper because of it. She had special ammunition; personal information about some ponies, and a certain drake, that could be wielded as a devastating weapon at anytime. In general, she stayed away from those kinds of things, if only because those ponies knew her just as well and she did them and had their own anti-Dash ammo. Applejack in particular was always ready to return fire.

But then there was Spike. Maybe it was because she knew he didn’t have the guts to use what he had, but she never hesitated to go after his insecurities, fears and things that he thought were secrets. She never fully exposed him, but what she did do was arguably crueler. She would make implications that put him on the spot and left him to fumble, fib and finesse his way back under the veil. She took special pleasure in hinting at his crush on Rarity. It was just about the worst kept secret around, but Spike didn’t know that and watching him squirm and stammer could always brighten her day.

Of course when it was said like that it made her look like a stone cold, grade A, bona fide cunt. But was there really another way to say it? Dash herself couldn’t even remember how she had rationalized it, or if she ever even cared enough to do so.

“I…I’m not a bad pony.” the Element of Loyalty, the loud, proud, in-your-face Rainbow Dash whimpered. “I swear I’m not! I couldn’t be an Element of Harmony of I was!”

True, one of the prerequisites for being an Element Bearer was having a good soul, so she could at least claim that. But everypony had a dark side, and it just so happened that Spike was the one who so often found himself the target of hers. Now out of excuses and distractions, Dash saw her “relationship” with Spike through the unbridled clarity of hindsight, and she was horrified at the malicious and downright predatory behavior he brought out in her just by being around.

Why? Clearly there was something about the little dragon that made her despise him on a subconscious level, but what could it possibly be? He’d been nothing but nice to her from the day they met, and continued to treat her as a dear friend even though she treated him like dirt.

And it wasn’t just the insults, biting criticisms and public humiliation. When she wasn’t doing that, she generally ignored him, which might have been one of her worst offenses on an ever-growing list.

Her mind went back to the last time she had seen Spike, just two days before it all started to unravel. She’d gone to the library to see about the latest Daring Do book and maybe see what magical shenanigans Twilight was up to, only to find Spike holding down the fort on his own. The drake, clearly bored and lonely with Twilight out running an errand, tried to strike up a conversation, but Dash couldn’t have cared less. She asked about the book, interrupting whatever he’d been talking about, and snatched it out of his hands when he presented it to her. He’d even reserved the copy just for her, knowing it was going to be a hot item, and she didn’t so much as throw out a “thank you”. In fact, the only thing she said to him before flying out the window was to tell Twilight she was in for tomorrow’s picnic.

The picnic Spike had no idea was in the works, if his bemused look was anything to go by. The picnic he would later be asked to make snacks for, but wouldn’t be invited to; a revelation that would garner frowns from Pinkie, Fluttershy and Applejack, but not much else.

“You didn’t have to leave…” Rainbow Dash choked, wiping her eyes in a futile attempt to stop her tears. “Even if I was horrible to you, everypony else loved you! Stop punishing them for what I did!”

But if not for Spike’s disappearance and the rapidly worsening fallout from it, how long would she have gone on as she had? How long would she have continued to torment the poor dragon for no other reason than because she thought it was hilarious? How long before she would have been forced to look into a mirror and see the ugly thing staring back for what it really was?

“I see it now, Spike. I see it and I’m sorry…So, so sorry…” the perennial tomcolt cried as she curled in on herself. “I-I can change. I WILL change! Just come b-back and you’ll s-see…I’ll earn your friendship; I’ll be the b-best friend anypony’s ever had! Just come back…I understand now, just please…please come back…” her body trembled and rocked with the force of her sobs as emotions she didn’t know how to deal with crashed over her. “Please...”

-Sugarcube Corner-

“And here you go, a dozen strawberry sugar cookies fresh from the oven!” Mrs. Cake said with a somewhat strained smile as she packed said baked goods into a pink box for her friend, Cheerilee.

The purple-furred schoolteacher eyed the treats. “My, those sure do look…interesting.” she said with a weak smile of her own.

Mrs. Cake could only shrug helplessly as she packed the last of the malformed confections. Just a few days ago she and her husband had been able to play off the oddities coming out of their kitchen as Pinkie experimenting. The fib virtually told itself because it was the best kind of lie; the kind that made all the sense in the world. Of course the party pony would get bored of being limited to standard shapes like stars, hearts and vaguely-defined animals!

The Cakes had been lucky in that Pinkie’s “designs” had, at first, always resembled SOMETHING. Be it a bug or a steam engine, they always had something to work with. And everypony bought it, literally and figuratively, because it was Pinkie Pie, and because the treats were still damn good. Even if they looked like spiders.

But as her façade began to crack and she started scaring off customers with her dull eyes and too-wide smiles, the Cakes had been forced to take her off the register entirely and relegate her to the kitchen full-time. Once that happened, it wasn’t long before the Element of Laughter began to churn out amorphous lumps that even the most pretentious of abstract “artists” couldn’t give meaning to. They were still delicious, but the cakes had seen more potential customers than they were comfortable with turn their noses up at such ugly things.

Fortunately Cheerilee wasn’t one of them.

“How’s she holding up?” the teacher asked gently.

Chiffon Cake glanced towards the kitchen before speaking lowly, “She’s not. We thought being off the register would take some of the stress off if she didn’t feel like she had to pretend everything was alright. But it seems like the more time she spends alone, the worse she gets.”

“What about your other bakers?”

“Hans and George alternate shifts with Pinkie; when she works afternoons, they work mornings and vice versa.” Mrs. Cake said. “We could change the schedules, but quite frankly even both of them together can’t keep up with her. And then there’s the fact that they don’t get along very well with her…”

Cheerilee blinked in confusion. “Don’t get along with her? How does anypony not get along with Pinkie Pie?”

Before Mrs. Cake could answer, her husband walked up to the counter.

“There’s not much Pinkie takes more seriously than cooking.” Carrot Cake explained. “And she can be a bit…overbearing if she doesn’t trust you completely in the kitchen.”

“Hans and George all but begged for the afternoon shift after she got done training them; they couldn’t get away from her fast enough. So far the only ones she doesn’t micromanage back there are myself, Carry,” Mrs. Cake nodded towards her husband,“and, well, you know…” about a week after his disappearance, the Cakes had learned to avoid saying Spike’s name within earshot of the pink earth pony.

“I see…And you say she’s getting worse?” Cheerilee asked.

“You see what she’s making back there.” Mrs. Cake gestured to the light purple box containing Cheerilee’s cookies.

“I think she’s going off of pure muscle memory at this point.” Mr. Cake said with a frown. “She doesn’t even look at what she’s doing anymore; she just does it. I mean, her eyes are open and she’s looking AT it, but it’s like she’s not really seeing it, if that makes any sense.”

“I could talk to her if you like.” Cheerilee offered. “I am a certified counselor, even if I mostly work with children.”

“We might take you up on that later, but first I think we need to take a crack at it ourselves.” Mr. Cake replied.

“You haven’t talked to her yet?”

“We have, it’s just…We keep losing our nerve.” the stallion sighed.

“You wouldn’t think talking to Pinkie would be difficult, but that’s just it; it’s hard to remember you’re talking to Pinkie.” Mrs. Cake took another glance back towards the kitchen.

“It’s so…unsettling, you know? It’ll be alright at first, but then she’ll do or say something and suddenly it’s like you’re not talking to Pinkie Pie anymore. You’re talking to something that’s pretending to be Pinkie Pie and failing.” Mr. Cake shuddered. “We know what she’s doing; trying to act like she’s fine by showing us what she thinks we want to see. But it’s just so…”

“Fake.” Mrs. Cake supplied. “But that’s no excuse. She’s part of this family just as much as our own foals; we can’t let her go through this alone just because we’re uncomfortable!” and with that the blue-furred earth pony marched into the kitchen.

That bravado lasted all of five seconds as she crossed the threshold only to see no trace of Pinkie.

“Pinkie?”

“I’m sorry…”

Chiffon nearly jumped out of her skin, not because of the sudden reply, but from how close it was. Whipping her head to left, she saw the pink mare standing barely three feet away.

“I’m sorry.” Pinkie repeated, lowering her head slightly.

“It’s…It’s alright, Pinkie dear,” Mrs. Cake assured, “You’d think I would be used to that kind of thing after all these years, but I guess not.” she chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“No, not about that.” Pinkie shook her head, and Chiffon couldn’t help but notice how her mane didn’t move an inch. While it looked as fluffy and bouncy as usual, in reality it felt and behaved almost like plastic due to whatever product Pinkie was using to maintain appearances. “Well, I AM sorry about scaring you, but I…I’m just…” the Element of Laughter began to choke up. “I’m sorry for what I’m…doing to you all.” she squeezed her eyes shut to try and block the tears the felt were coming, but to no avail.

Mrs. Cake’s heart broke for her; she had been listening and clearly took it the wrong way.

“Oh no, dearie, no!” the older mare rushed to comfort her fellow pinkette. “It’s not you; it’s us. You’ve been here suffering alone and we’ve just been sitting around, watching and twiddling our hooves...We abandoned you when you needed us the most, and I can’t tell you how sorry we are for that.” the older mare’s eyes began to tear up and her voice cracked.

“...But what if it IS me?” Pinkie’s words came out as a nearly inaudible whisper, so low Mrs. Cake wasn’t sure she actually said anything.

“What?”

“What if it’s me? What if I’M the reason he won’t come back?” Pinkie started to tremble as the dam finally broke. “I know I can be a bit much sometimes, and I know I get on some ponies’ nerves, but I never thought I was THAT bad...But what if I am, and everypony is just too polite to say anything about it? What if Spike just got fed up with me? What if he’s not the only one? What if they ALL leave me?!” she probably would’ve continued if she hadn’t started hyperventilating.

Mrs. Cake could only stare as Pinkie’s wide, panicked eyes searched her own for...something. Perhaps confirmation that she was wrong? But as much as the baker wanted to give it, the words wouldn’t come out. She screamed at herself internally, desperately trying to will herself to say something, but to no avail. She couldn’t even call for help, seeing as how she clearly wasn’t equipped to deal with this by herself.

Then, as if called forth by a higher power, her savior arrived.

“It’s not your fault, Pinkie.” Mr. Cake said firmly as he entered the kitchen.

“How do you know?” Pinkie asked, barely getting the words out around the lump in her throat.

“Because you’ve lived with us ever since you came to Ponyville. We know better than anypony how…much you can be.” the orange stallion answered. “But it’s never made us love or trust you any less. Your heart is always in the right place, and everypony knows that. Even on those occasions when you break something or hurt somepony’s feelings with your pranks, you own it and do everything you can to make it right.”

“But I don’t learn my lesson! As soon as it all blows over I’m right back at it like nothing bad ever happened!” Pinkie argued. “And I don’t always make it right…You don’t know how awful I was to Spike.” her sobs began anew.

“Pinkie, dearie, I don’t think you’re capable of being ‘awful’ to anyone, let alone such a close friend.” Mrs. Cake said, finding courage by her husband’s side.

“I shot him with the Party Cannon.” the Element of Laughter mumbled. “I watched him bounce off the walls like a pinball, but did I check on him to make sure he was alright? Did I worry about him at all? No; I laughed at him. I could’ve KILLED him and I LAUGHED about it!”

“Did you make it up to him?” Mr. Cake asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.

“I tried to. Made him a whole cake with gem dust infused in the frosting. But I lied to him about it and I don’t even know why. I told him it was an experiment to see if I could make something for a dragon if Ember ever came to visit. I don’t think he bought it, but I was still too…selfish to admit the truth. Like if neither of us acknowledged I did something bad, then it wasn’t bad.” Pinkie grimaced, disgusted by her own logic.

“But you still knew it was wrong and tried to make up for it; you learned your lesson.” Carrot pointed out. “Did you ever do it again?”

“No, never!” the mare denied immediately, sickened by the very thought.

“Well there you go.”

“But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Pinkie said, wiping tears from her eyes with a forehoof. “I was always pranking him, even when he obviously wasn’t in the mood. I laughed when Rainbow Dash joked about him, even when I could see she had struck a nerve. I didn’t say anything when we left him behind to go have fun. Just a couple days before he…left, Twilight set up a picnic for us all and I found out she never invited Spike, even though she had him make all the food! I should’ve said something, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to bring down the mood…”

“...Okay, THAT’S a little messed up.” Mr. Cake remarked.

“Carry!” Mrs. Cake hissed, nudging him hard enough to make him stumble.

“I meant for Twilight!” the stallion explained. “She invites all her friends to a picnic, except the one she had before anypony else. There’s no sugarcoating that.”

“…” his wife couldn’t argue with that.

“But it’s not just her…” Pinkie shuddered as she felt her eyes start to sting again. “When my sister, Maud, came to town I wanted her to meet all my friends…That’s what I said to her, ALL my friends. We hung out the whole day and had a great time, and not once did I ever notice that someone was missing. None of us did; we never even mentioned him. Maud didn’t meet him until the next time she came over, months later. She actually got upset with me for not telling her that there was a real, live dragon living in Ponyville and that I was friends with him.”

“Did you make it up to him?” Mr. Cake asked, not so self-assured this time.

“He was supposed to help out here that day, but I covered for him so he could keep my sister company. By her account she had a great time with him, and I’ll never forget that he actually managed to make her laugh.” even in her current mood, Pinkie couldn’t help but smile at the memory. “It was at the end of the day when he brought her back here and I invited them both upstairs for a little game night. We were just about to head up when Maud noticed him making a face and not following us. She asked him if he didn’t like stairs and he said, ‘No; they’re always up to something’. It was one of the corniest things I had ever heard, and with Spike that’s saying something. But sure enough it got my sister laughing so hard, she couldn’t stand up.”

“’They’re always UP to something’,” Mr. Cake snickered, “that’s a good one!”

“Of course you’d find that funny.” Mrs. Cake rolled her eyes, but couldn’t quite hide the slight upturn of her lips.

“Over twenty years trying to get her to crack and I could never figure Maud out. But Spike had her pegged within a day; she loves puns and Dad Jokes! He gave me something priceless that day. I had never heard my sister laugh like that, and it was…magical. I wanted to cry, I was so happy…” Pinkie trailed off, her smile vanishing. “And how have I repaid him for that? I’ve taken him for granted. Neglected him; used him. Even let him take the blame for things that were my fault…” she looked down, unable to meet either of the Cakes’ eyes.

“You mean the kitchen fires?” Mr. Cake said casually. “We were wondering when you’d finally admit to that.”

“You…You knew?” Pinkie asked breathlessly, seeming to shrink in on herself for a moment.

“Wasn’t hard to figure out once Spike had been around long enough for us to tell when he was genuinely sorry for something he did.” Mrs. Cake said.

“Mm-hm, he wasn’t a very good actor.” her husband nodded. “Little drake would almost be in tears after burning a batch of cookies, but he was cool as a cucumber when he was taking the fall for you.”

“But…why?”

“I can’t say we weren’t a little disappointed in you letting him take the blame, but it was never a big deal and we figured you two had something worked out, so we let it go. You did have something worked out, right?” Mrs. Cake asked, giving Pinkie “The Look”.

“Of course, I always made it up to him!” the pinkette answered hastily.

“Well there you go.”

“But that’s the problem, don’t you get it?!” Pinkie barked suddenly, catching the other two ponies off-guard. “I’m ALWAYS doing something that I need to apologize or make up for!I wouldn’t have to keep trying to make things right if I could stop making them wrong in the first place! But I can’t! I just DO things without thinking, and by the time it occurs to me that maybe this pony doesn’t have the same definition of ‘fun’ as me, it’s too late and someone’s already covered in glitter and crying about how long it’s gonna take to wash it all out. And sweet Luna, some of the things I did to Spike…They weren’t ‘pranks’; it was public humiliation! How can you say it’s not my fault?!”

“Because even with all you say you did to him, he still came back. Not out of any sense of duty or obligation; he came to you as a friend.” Mr. Cake said calmly. “You know how much everypony liked him around town, so you know he had choices when it came to who to hang out with and talk about comics, music and whatever else. And so many times, he chose YOU.”

“That’s right.” Mrs. Cake nodded. “Even when he helps out here, he does it because he likes being with you. He certainly wasn’t here for money, and for how hard he worked and how much he did, giving him a few expensive pastries every now and then probably wasn’t exactly fair. And I don’t know anypony who would stick their neck out like he did for someone they didn’t like.”

Pinkie opened her mouth to retort, but Mr. Cake already had her number.

“Maybe you don’t see it that way. Maybe you think you were a bad friend, but I think it’s pretty clear that Spike didn’t feel that way.” the stallion ignored the voice in the back of his head that reminded him of how passive-aggressive and prone to bottling things up the baby dragon could be.

“…Then why won’t he come back?”

“I can’t even begin to know his reasons, Pinkie,” Mr. Cake replied, “and neither can you. You can’t just assume you know how he felt or what he thought. The only one who knows Spike’s reasons is Spike.”

“And Celestia.” Pinkie grumbled bitterly, not aware she’d said it out loud.

Carrot Cake decided he wasn’t touching that one. “...The only feelings and thoughts you know for sure are your own. And if you feel you have a problem…Well, admitting it is the first step to fixing it, right?”

Pinkie mulled it over or a bit before finally lifting her head and staring into Mr. Cake’s eyes. “Will you help me? Please, I…I don’t think I can do this on my own…”

Husband and wife shared a look and nodded to each other.

“Of course we will, dearie. And I think we can even bring in some professional backup, right Cheery?” Cup Cake called with a knowing smirk.

A few seconds passed in silence before Cheerilee poked her head around the corner, cheeks alight with embarrassment at being caught eavesdropping.

“Of course, Chiffon, my offer still stands.” she chuckled sheepishly.

-Sweet Apple Acres-

“Ugh...” Applejack groaned as she set down the third and final basket around a tree packed with nice, ripe fruit.

It had been a long day. Longer than it had any right to be, if she was honest. But such was the norm these days, or at least that’s the way things seemed to be going from her point of view. Ever since Ponyville had once again become a dragonless town every day had become a slog. Just getting out of bed took a worrying amount of effort and mental pep talks, and getting through the day took even more.

The work wasn’t the issue; it never had been, though she readily admitted having Spike around, with his work ethic and surprising strength, really did speed things up. The issue was everything else. The cloud of melancholy hanging over her head, the breakdown of her most precious friendships, the constant pestering from friends and family…Sometimes it was just too much. Nopony would give her any space, but she often found herself debating whether or not she actually wanted it. Having somepony to talk to wouldn’t be so bad, if they all didn’t insist on asking about a certain scaly deserter…

When had she started thinking about him like that, as a deserter? She couldn’t rightly say. Maybe around the time Twilight started losing her mind? Or perhaps when Pinkie stopped laughing? Or was social butterfly and eternal attention-seeker Rarity becoming a hermit the straw that broke the pony’s back? Again, Applejack couldn’t say. But then hadn’t they all happened around the same time? So was there even a point to making a distinction? It wasn’t like putting a time frame to it would make her feel any better.

Because time sure as Tartarus wasn’t healing this wound. No, it was being kept open, throbbing and bleeding, with all the poking and prodding and rubbing and scratching and…

“Ah’m the darned Element of HONESTY, fer Luna’s sake!” AJ groused as she kicked at the tree behind her. “So why does everypony act like ah’m lyin’ when ah say ‘ah don’t know’?!”

Above all else, that was what got to her the most: the questions. Questions that did nothing but remind her that she had no answers, and likely wouldn’t get any for a while yet, if ever.

The farm pony scowled as her mind conjured up the litany of inquiries she received on a daily basis now.

“What happened to Spike?”

“Is Spike alright?”

“Did Spike leave?”

“AJ.”

“When’s Spike coming back?”

“AJ?”

“Do you know where Spike is?”

“Hey, AJ!”

“Have you seen Spike lately?”

“APPLEJACK!!!” the sudden shout came just as she lifted her hind legs for a kick, causing her to lose her balance and fall flat on her face.

“Big Mac? What in tarnation is yer problem?!” AJ all but snarled as she got back up.

The earth pony powerhouse only nodded up towards the tree his sister had been kicking, prompting her to do the same.

“Oh…” was all AJ could say when she saw the tree partially uprooted, with its trunk covered in her own hoofprints. How long had she been abusing this one poor tree?

“’Bout three minutes, I reckon.” Big Mac said, once again displaying his uncanny ability to answer questions no one had actually asked. “You alright?”

“…” AJ responded with a glare.

“Right, dumb question. Tell yah what, there ain’t much left to do ‘round here today, so how’s about you take a rest? Me an’ the boys’ll finish up.” the huge stallion said with a look in his eyes that told AJ it was more than a suggestion.

“Ah…Alright, fine.” Applejack conceded with a sigh. “At least let me take this batch in?” she asked, waving a hoof towards the full baskets at the base of the tree.

“Go ahead, but don’t let me catch you sortin’ in there; leave it to Fritter an’ Red.” her brother warned.

“I got it, McIntosh.” Applejack snapped as she stomped over to the baskets.

Big Mac said nothing as he watched her haul two of the baskets off. Only when he was sure she wasn’t going to look back did his stoic expression give way to real concern. Regardless of the tough front his sister put up, and now matter how much she insisted she was fine and it was everypony else who was stressing her out, he saw right through it. Maybe she better equipped to handle the loss of a loved one than her friends, but Applejack was breaking down all the same.

“Spike, I dunno what yer deal is, but if this keeps up I’ll come find you an’ drag yer scaly tail back m’self!” he growled to himself and took the last basket in his teeth before trotting off to the sorting shack.

True to her word, all Applejack did was drop her cargo off and give a nod to Apple Fritter and Red Delicious before walking back out. She bit back the snarky remark on the tip of her tongue when she passed her brother and quickly made her way towards the house. If there was one thing that could at least temporarily raise her spirits, it was some ice cold lemonade after a hard day’s work.

‘Though some hard cider sounds pretty dang good right about now…’ she thought, but quickly dismissed the notion. Alcohol could only make things worse.

The orange-furred mare soon made it to the farm house and found it oddly, mercifully empty. There were plenty of ponies on the farm who typically finished their work well before her and the house was usually hopping by this time of day. A month ago this probably would’ve unsettled Applejack, but today it was a welcome development.

The downside was that, in the almost unnatural silence, every hoofstep and creaking floorboard seemed to be amplified tenfold.

“Applejack, is that you?” an elderly female voice called out. Maybe her eyes weren’t so great anymore, but Granny Smith’s ears were as sharp as ever. Perhaps even sharper these days, seeing as how she was able to pick out specific ponies in the house just by hearing them walk around.

“Yeah, Granny, it’s me.” Applejack sighed. Of course her quest for a simple glass of lemonade couldn’t be a simple one.

“All finished for the day?”

“Yes, Granny, Ah was just gonna-“

“Oh good, then you can come help me with these pies, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Ah…Yes, Granny.” seeing no honest way out of it without being rude, Applejack resigned herself to her fate and made her way to the kitchen with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner heading to the dungeon.

Fortunately, it was an easy task and the last of the dozen cherry pies went into the big oven no more than twenty minutes later. Unfortunately, Granny Smith seemed keen to play games today. She didn’t speak a word beyond innocuous small talk and hummed happy little tunes Applejack couldn’t place. Even with their task complete the elderly mare didn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room, and it was far more unnerving than it had any right to be.

But AJ was onto her; this was clearly a ploy. Since Spike’s departure, Granny had seen fit to drop little nuggets of wisdom just about every other day. Though admittedly not nearly as agitating as the questions, it was still unsolicited advice about a topic she was desperately trying not to think about, and she’d told her grandmother as much just three days ago. But Granny was a crafty old lady with a huge bag of tricks gathered over the years, and this was one of them.

Granny had passed it down to her own daughter and it worked wonders on AJ as a child whenever she tried to hide or lie about something. Casual conversation peppered with specific words and phrases that AJ’s mind would latch onto, wondering if there was some hidden meaning directed at her. Like the time she’d been roughhousing with some of her cousins and ended up knocking over an entire bookcase, which had nearly crushed them. The colts, all older than her by a couple years, immediately hightailed it out of the house to busy themselves, but Applejack, being too young to do any real work around the farm at the time, and lacking any valid reason to go into town, was stuck in the house.

She’d spent most of the day dreading her punishment and nearly jumped out of her skin when her mother called her into the kitchen to “help out”. She stuttered and stammered her way through the most awkward conversation of her life, even worse than “The Talk”, and swore to this day that her heart stopped for a good three seconds when her mother started talking about how the colts in the family were so rough with each other and chastising her for joining them. “You’re gonna break something if you’re not careful, Jackie” were her exact words and Applejack just knew the jig was up right then and there. However, before she could confess her misdeed, her mother continued by bringing up how McIntosh had broken his forehoof the previous summer.

But the damage was done and the seed planted. AJ proceeded to overanalyze every little thing her mother said, and within ten minutes her conscience couldn’t take anymore and she spilled everything. It didn’t register with her at the time, but looking back on it Applejack remembered a self-satisfied smirk on her mother’s face that spoke of a plan coming together perfectly.

The tactic and her experiences with it were a big part of why she believed wholeheartedly that honesty was the best policy. But now she almost resented it being used against her when she’d done nothing wrong. Well, the young farm pony wasn’t falling for it, no siree!

“Ah’m not fallin’ for it.” Applejack said firmly.

“Hm?” Granny turned to her with a mildly convincing look of innocent curiosity.

“Ah know what yer doin’, Granny, and it’s not gonna work.”

“Applejack, I may be old, but I can still wash dishes just fine.” Granny replied.

“Not that.”

“Then what?”

“Pretendin’ nothin’s wrong an’ makin’ me feel all awkward and self-conscious so Ah’ll talk! You and Ma did it all the time when Ah was a filly, but it ain’t gonna work now!” Applejack said firmly.

“But isn’t that what you wanted?” Granny asked. “You said you were tired of everypony talkin’ yer ear off about yer dragon friend, so I’m not talkin’ about him.”

“Doesn’t make much difference when Ah know you really want to.” Applejack grumbled.

“Well of course I want to, and so should you; bottlin’ things up will only make it worse.”

Applejack scoffed and rolled her eyes. She never rolled her eyes at Granny. “’Bottlin’? Ah ain’t ‘bottlin’ anything; there ain’t nothing TO bottle! THIS is why Ah don’t wanna talk about it, because y’all are so busy talkin’ that none a’ ya’ are listenin’! Ah’ve already said all Ah can say and done all Ah can do about it. That’s it! Until somethin’ else comes up, Ah’m just as stuck an’ in-the-dark as everypony else! Why can’t y’all understand that?”

“…Did-“

“Yes! Yes, Ah thought about what you said, an’ you had a point. Some of us were a lot worse than others, but none of us can say we always treated him right. Maybe he left because he finally got fed up with Rainbow Dash bein’ a bi…bein’ so mean to him an’ no one stickin’ up fer him. Maybe he left because he was tired a’ Twilight an’ Rarity takin’ him fer granted. Maybe he left because he was sick a’ bein’ left behind an’ forgotten so much. But what does that leave me with, huh? A whole mess a’ maybes, which ain’t exactly a step forward in my book.”

“…” there wasn’t much Granny could say to that.

“Spike ain’t here to tell us how he feels one way or another. But Ah’m here to tell you how Ah feel. Ah’m fed up with everypony actin’ like I’m hidin’ somethin’. Ah’m tired a’ bein’ tired because Ah can’t get any peace at home or in town. An’ Ah’m sick of repeatin’ myself day in an’ day out ‘cause no one seems to be able to accept that Ah DON’T have the answers! Yah hear that, Apple Bloom?” AJ suddenly turned to the kitchen’s main entrance, causing the filly in question to freeze on the spot. “Ah don’t have answers! An’ the only one who does, besides Spike himself, is the only pony who AIN’T talkin’!”

“Ah don’t…” Apple Bloom trailed off and seemed to shrink in on herself as her big sister stomped up to loom over her with a hard glare.

“That’s right; Ah don’t. Ah don’t know why Spike left. Ah don’t know when he’ll be back, or even IF he’ll be back. Ah don’t even know if this isn’t all some kinda plot by some baddie lookin’ to bring down the Elements a’ Harmony. Ah. Don’t. Know. Ah don’t have any answers for myself, let alone for you or anypony else, so if ya’d kindly stop it with yer god damn questions, Ah’d be much obliged.” Applejack stormed off without waiting for a reply, though neither her shell-shocked grandma nor her cowering sister had any forthcoming.

All she wanted as a glass of lemonade. That’s it. But even that was apparently too much to ask these days.

‘Wherever you are and whatever yer doin’, Ah hope yer happy, Spike. Honest.’ the blonde-maned earth pony thought, seeing a cousin open his mouth and throwing him a look that promised terrible things if he didn’t close it. ‘’Cause Ah’d be mighty pissed of you left all this behind just to be as miserable as the rest of us anyway.’

-Ponyville-

In other places around the world, saying that you had “seen everything” was considered either bragging or sarcasm. But in Ponyville, it was considered tempting fate, right up there with things like “It can’t get any worse”. Anyone who’d lived there for more than a month knew better and would readily admonish anypony who said it even as a joke. But the words slipped from many a mouth when Fluttershy, of all ponies, was witnessed dashing through the streets with a look of steely determination.

The yellow-furred pegasus stopped for no one and nothing, weaving around ponies with expert precision and clearing obstacles with powerful leaps that made some wonder why she even needed wings. She was a pony on a mission and she would not be denied!

What was this mission? Simple: the most important one she had ever undertaken. Even those that ended with her helping save all of Equestria didn’t compare, not in her mind. Failure wasn’t an option, for she had no backup and there was no Plan B.

Not for the first time Fluttershy cursed herself and her oh, so appropriate name. If only she’d had the courage to do this weeks ago, when it first occurred to her, then maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so bad. Maybe she could’ve rallied the others together then, but not now. Her “visit” with Twilight had shown her the ugly truth; time was up and she was now the only one left who was…whole enough to do what needed to be done.

Though perhaps the real credit went to her Angel Bunny, indeed her guardian angel, who’d made it his mission to get her to take action. To do something about the situation other than cry and whine and mope over what-ifs and how-comes. He definitely earned something special as a reward, but that was for later. After she played the only hand she had and hopefully at least started the process of setting things right.

‘Almost there…Almost there!’ Fluttershy thought as her destination finally came into view. She had to remind herself to regulate her breathing, calling upon the things she’d learned from Rainbow Dash and Applejack when it came to really pushing her body. Her first thought had been to fly to where she really needed to go, but that was foolish. She didn’t have the stamina for it, nor the speed to make it practical even if she did.

But she had more than enough of both for this.

And for once she didn’t have to contend with the mocking voice in the back of her head. Usually doing its best to plant the seeds of self-doubt, now it was silent.

‘I’m going to do this…I HAVE to do this!’ if she didn’t, who knew how long it would be before it happened on its own? Who knew what would happen in the meantime? ‘Twilight’s already a day or two away from needing a hospital stay from malnutrition alone. Or an infection…’

It had to be now and it had to be her. And if she had timed it just right…

“YES!!!” she let out a very un-Fluttershy-like scream, scaring the hell out of the ticket clerk at the train station as she skidded to a stop in front of him. She even made him flinch once again when she slammed her bits down on the counter and spoke in as firm a voice as she could muster, “One ticket to Canterlot…Please.”