Open This Door! (No!)
"Spike, you have to leave your room."
"No!" he said, voice muffled from behind the crystal door. "I'm never leaving this room, and that's final."
"Spiiike," Twilight groaned. She had been standing in the hall some time, knocking and pleading, coming to sit down as she knew negations could take some time. "If you don't open this door, then, then I'll have no choice but to break it down!"
"Try it, horn-head."
"Horn-head!" Twilight repeated in a squeak. She blinked, tilted her head, and wondered why she found that insulting. "Well, if I do use my horn to break down your door, then you know what that means, don't you?"
"Yeah, that your stupid horn will break."
"It won't!" Twilight squeaked once again, then hating herself for being an impulsive squeaker. "My horn has endured being catalyst for the Elements of Harmony for years and was even used in a sword fight one time!"
"Nu-uh! You liar."
"I'm not lying!" Twilight replied. "Ask Applejack. She saw it and is physically unable to lie."
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because you're just trying to trick me into leaving my room."
"Darn it!" Twilight struck the floor with her hoof, the crystal floor, and it then became purple for an entirely different reason. "Spike, when I used my horn, which I totally used in a sword fight, to break down your door, do you know what's going to happen?" A beat. "Whatever poster you have on the back side of the door will be destroyed as well!"
"You...you wouldn't!"
A smirk stretched Twilight's lips. "I would. Open up."
The first thing Twilight expected to hear were footsteps. The second would've been the click of lock unlocking. The third would be the squeak doorknobs make when they're touched inappropriately and turned (left, not on). And finally, finally, Twilight expected to see the door open and her assistant behind it.
What Twilight got instead, however, was anything but her expectations. The first sound was of wood being sawed. The second was of chains clinking against the door. The third was of fire, shot like a blowtorch, around the door. And last, but not least, the final sound was the laughter of a baby dragon.
"Just try your horn now, super-horn-head!"
"Stop calling me horn-head!" Twilight said as her frustration fueled her to her hooves. "And just what were those sounds!"
"Don't play silly for the sake of the narrative, Twilight," Spike said, voice still just as muffled in case you were wondering. "You know exactly every sound I made was and the act I was in I was making them."
Twilight gasped. "So you've boarded up your door, chained it shut, then welded it even shut...er?"
A muffled, satisfied hum was her response.
"How...how did you learn to saw wood and balance the intensity of your flames?"
"By never leaving my room!" Spike replied. "By fooling around and reading up on some books, I was able to learn more than cleaning up after you! In fact, I think the only reason why I'm inept if because of you!"
"Whoa whoa whoa,' Twilight waved a hoof to block the allegations, something she didn't have to do since no one else was in the hall, but it made her feel better. "Let's not go around dropping childhood trauma on anyone just yet. I'm one of the greatest minds Equestria has seen—or so Celestia tells me—so you're bound to pick up more from me than any comic book you've got inside your room."
"At least my comic books tell me they love me!"
"What? But...what?" Twilight shook her head and came closer to the door, bring her lips close to the key-hole. Heh. Hole. "Spike, I've told you countless times that I love you. I even assuage your fears after you ran away the first time."
"Well...uh..."
"And there was that one time at the Crystal Empire!" Twilight said, raising her head with glee as her mind had found a favorable train of thought—favorable not because of the memories but because it proved her right. "Your biggest fear was me abandoning you, and remember what I said, huh, huh?"
"...that you'd never leave me."
"Excaaaaatly," she said with a smug grin. "Now that I've won, open up this door."
"But how do you express your love other times?"
"Bu-huh?"
"It seems that I have to be driven to dramatic moments before you take action, before you assuage my fears and tell me that you love me." Footsteps came from the other door, faint and light, regardless pacing. "But you told me a pony shows what they think not with words but with actions. Besides those moments, what have you done that shows you love me in causal times?"
"My care, of course!" Twilight said, rearing up onto her hindlegs and placing her forelegs on the door. Slowly, she began to knock in certain areas lightly. "I've given you a home, food to eat and books to read, and a life-long friendship that will never end!"
Spike was quiet. Silent. The two meant the same thing really. Twilight was unsure if this was a good or bad thing, waiting and knocking, trying to find some area on the door that was not occupied on the other side. Then, one knock rang throughout, and Twilight had a place where she could use her horn-head.
But, before she ignited her horn, a cold sensation coursed throughout her body. Her eyes squinted, and she became sad. It was because of this she pulled back from the door, lowered both her tone and her voice, before speaking softly to the dragon. "Spike...why did you lock yourself in your room in the first place?"
Silence.
"C'mon, Spike, I won't be mad."
A beat. Then a voice muffled voice. "...promise you won't analyze my response to the like that one pony does? I'm tired of sleeping with my mom—she snores."
"I promise I'll take them as what they are, feelings." Twilight sat down before the door. "And, in return, I'll offer mine. Then, together, we'll fix each other perspectives to our feelings, and attain some greater truth."
"...and that truth won't involve having to sleep with my mother?"
"I promise."
A beat.
"Twilight...do you think someponies would be better if they didn't leave their room?" Spike said, his voice almost cracking. "Like how Snips and Snails are made fun of for being, well, Snips and Snails. If they were getting tired of being laughed at, then they should never leave their room, right?"
"Well..." Twilight looked left and right, down the length of each side of the hall, trying to find the right words to say. She then looked forward and sighed. "You can't control what other ponies laugh at, but, at the same time, I don't think the answer is to hide away. If you really want them to stop laughing, you could ask them to stop, or stop doing the thing that makes them laugh."
"But that means you have to get better, right?" Spike said. "But, to get better, you have to fail and look silly, and that makes other ponies like Dash laugh. But, if you stay in your room, you can fail and improve all you like and nobody will laugh, right? So you have to lock yourself away until you become good enough for the world, right?"
"That's...an extremely touchy subject, Spike," Twilight said, eyes narrowing in thought. "Because, how do you know you're good enough to leave your room? What if you get better and you go outside, and then, everypony laughs anyway?"
"Exactly!" Spike's squeaked—it was spreading. "If ponies are just going to laugh and judge me, then I might as well never leave my room. I have my comics and books, food and a home, and I can still do most of my chores from inside here."
"You can't do that, Spike."
"Why not?"
"Because you're life then becomes dictated by the ponies who laugh at you. It's because of your fear of them that you've locked yourself away. You don't want that, right? For the ponies who laugh to ruin your life?"
Silence. But she knew he was listening.
"But you have scales, Spike, scales—not fur." Twilight stood up once again and brought her mouth back to the key-hole. "You shouldn't care that other ponies are laughing at you, because what does their laughter mean anyways? It's just laughter; it shouldn't affect your progress."
Then, Twilight heard it. The wood was stripped down. The chains melted and sold on the market. And finally, the door was somehow unwielded. Then, Twilight heard it, the sound she'd been trying to hear all afternoon: a door opening and a baby dragon appearing it behind it.
"Twilight," Spike said, stepping forward from the door's shadow, "you know this is just a cheap plot-point to give the story some superficial meaning, right?"
Twilight nodded her head, seizing her forehooves around her head, and pulling him close to her chest. "I know, Spike, I know." He was quick to return the embrace.
"Twilight?"
"Yes, Spike?"
"You're also still a horn-head."