Kids in the Clubhouse
"Okay, Spike. You can do this. It's just spending the afternoon with some other kids. You can do that, right? You've spent plenty of time with friends before, so why should this be different?" The little dragon looked up, seeing the newly-refurbished treehouse that the fillies within had taken as their new clubhouse. It was a fun-looking place, he had to admit, but that didn't make this whole thing any less worrisome. He shook his head a few times. "Alright...here goes nothing." He walked up the front ramp, and as he drew closer he could hear the sounds of voices within. They were here, he knew that, and before long he was at the door, balling his claws into a fist before lightly knocking on it. After just a moment, it opened, revealing his now-nervous face to those within. "Um...hi?"
"Oh, hey there, Spike! Wanna come in?" Apple Bloom replied. The smiling filly was a welcome sight, to be sure, but Spike still stayed quiet as he passed her. She closed the door behind him, walking past him to re-join her other friends. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were here too, smiling and waving to the newly-arrived drake, who waved back to them. Apple Bloom, for her part, walked right in-between the others, gesturing to the whole of the clubhouse. "Welcome to the headquarters of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!"
Spike looked around, seeing all the little things they'd added. Most notably, there was a poster on the far side with what looked like location pictures, like some sort of checklist. Ever the polite youth, Spike smiled back to them. "Thanks for having me." He walked closer, and as they began to sit upon the floor, so did he. "So...this place is nice."
Apple Bloom beamed with pride. "Eyup! Been in the family fer a long time! Applejack told me bout it a while back. Now, it's where we'll be whenever we wanna hang out!"
"Or talk about cutie marks!" Scootaloo added.
"Or how to get them!" Sweetie Belle finished.
Spike nodded. "Well, I know a thing or two about treehouses, so I get the appeal."
The fillies giggled, with Sweetie speaking next. "So, you're from Canterlot, right? Didn't think there were any dragons living there."
Spike shook his head. "Oh, there aren't. It's just me."
Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. "Really? How'd you get there?"
Spike shrugged. "It's where I was hatched. Twilight did it when she was trying to get into a really important school there."
Apple Bloom seemed interested. "Oh! So you've known her yer whole life?"
Spike nodded. "Yep. She's my best friend. We've always been together." He chuckled. "I was with her at Canterlot, I'm with her here, and I'll be sure to be with her where she goes afterwards."
His three new friends all smiled to him, with Scootaloo, naturally, scooting a little bit closer. "So what friends did you have over there? Lots of unicorns, I bet," she said with a sly smirk.
Spike laughed again. "Oh yeah. There were about five other mares Twilight liked to hang out with while she was at the school." Then he considered his own words. "Well, when I say 'hang out', what I really meant was that they'd all be together but then Twilight would just keep her nose in a book the whole time." Then his eyes widened. "Shoot! I forgot Moondancer's gift!" Then, after getting to his feet, he stopped, thinking on the situation for a second before sighing. "You know, it's probably too late for that. Maybe she wouldn't miss it?"
The fillies looked to one another, as if they were all thinking the exact same thing, though it was only Apple Bloom who finally said it. "So...did ya ever have any other kid friends?"
Spike shook his head. "Nah, not really. It was mostly just Twilight, her friends, her family and Celestia. There were kids around, sometimes, but I never really talked to them."
Scootaloo seemed confused. "Huh...so you've only ever been with grown ups?"
Spike didn't seem all that concerned with that assessment. "Hey, it's fine. They're still friends. And I was happy being with them." Then he glanced to each of them, before eventually gesturing to the three as a whole. "What about you? You go to the same school, right? So how are you only now being friends with each other?"
The fillies paused, looking to each other in the wake of that question, then gave similar shrugs to him. "Dunno. Guess it's just one of those things. Like living next door to somepony your whole life and never saying hello," Scootaloo explained.
Spike pondered that. "Huh...yeah, I guess that makes sense." Then a new curiosity came to him. "Didn't you spend time with other kids before meeting up with each other?"
Apple Bloom smiled. "Eyup! Mah best friend was Twist. In fact, she's comin' along later fer us ta all hang together!"
Sweetie smiled to her. "I'm really looking forward to it! I know she already has her cutie mark, but it'll be great to have her make plans with us about getting ours!"
The three fillies gave each other a simultaneous high five, and Spike looked on with slight bemusement. "I know they're pretty important to you, but are cutie marks really something to put that much effort into getting? Won't they all come in their own time?"
Scootaloo groaned. "Uuuuuuuuuuugh! You sound like my Aunts! They said the same thing when I told them what we were planning."
Spike shrugged again. "Well, maybe it's because I'm a dragon. We don't really do the whole cutie mark thing."
Sweetie looked to him with confusion. "But...how do you know what your special talent is?"
Spike stayed quiet for a time, glancing down to his own hind quarters, which he knew would be forever markless, before looking back to the diminutive unicorn. "Well, I know I'm already a pretty good scribe for Twilight. I'm always with her whenever she's got a lot of work. I doubt anyone else my age could write as well as I could," he said with more than a little pride, earning him some eye-rolls from the fillies. After a time though, he sighed. "Guess the thing I'm best at will just...you know...make itself known to me." He pointed to the fillies again. "Kinda like it'll do with you."
Apple Bloom smiled to him. "A appreciate ya sayin' so, Spike. But we're still gonna work hard ta find our marks!"
"Yeah! We're gonna go all over Ponyville and do whatever we can to find out what it is!" Scootaloo chimed in.
"It's like an epic quest from a fairy tale! And we're the brave heroines taking on the impossible challenge!" When she realised the horrified looks her other two friends were giving her, she quickly backtracked on that one. "Okay, maybe not impossible exactly."
The four children had a good laugh at that, but it was soon ended when, out of nowhere, Spike suddenly felt a very familiar gurgling in his stomach. "Oh boy, here it comes," he remarked. The fillies looked on, confused at first, but then backing up immediately when he belched out a massive burst of green fire. Then, before any of them had a chance to justifiably ask "what the heck" about this, their anger subsided when they saw the aforementioned fire form, of all things, a scroll. The freshly-arrived parchment gently fell into Spike's claws, and he promptly opened it up, his eyes drifting over the first few lines before giving a quick nod. "Ah! A message from Princess Celestia! Twilight will need to see this later!" And only when he set the scroll to one side did he finally notice the looks he was getting. "...What?"
The fillies slowly looked to one another, then back to Spike. "So...you just get messages with your fire?" Scootaloo asked.
Spike blinked. "...Yeah?"
"And they come straight from Princess Celestia herself?" Sweetie enquired.
"Yeah," Spike confirmed, sounding a little prideful on that one.
Apple Bloom scratched the side of her head. "That's gotta be kinda weird, right? Ah mean, what if she wants ta send Twilight a message in the middle of the night?"
Spike shrugged. "Guess I'll just have a bad night's sleep that day."
Scootaloo giggled. "What, was this an accident? Like you just found out one day that your fire sends messages?"
Spike shook his head. "Nah. It was a spell cast on me by Princess Celestia. Since I was living with Twilight, and since she was Celestia's apprentice, she wanted a way for her to get correspondence as easily as possible." He stared to the side, feeling just a little bit nostalgic over the whole matter. "I remember when she asked me about it. When I understood it'd help Twilight with her work, I said yes."
Sweetie clapped her hooves together, looking to Spike with utter adoration. "Awwwwww! That's so nice! You'd have a spell put on you just to help your friend!"
Spike smiled. "Yep...and also because it means I get to boast about being a magical dragon on top of everything else."
As expected, they all had a good laugh together about that, but when it ended, Scootaloo looked to Spike with an equal measure of curiosity and mischievous ness. "So...hypothetically, if we were to write a letter to Princess Celestia about how nice we think she is, you could just send it to her right now?"
Spike, noticing the now-excited looks on the fillies' eyes, cleared his throat. Well, yeah, but we don't really wanna interrupt her or..."
Alas, the fillies had simply heard "yeah" and immediately tuned out everything else. "I'll get the paper!" Apple Bloom declared.
"We'll get the quill!" Sweetie and Scootaloo said next.
Spike watched, slightly worried, as the three fillies busied themselves around their clubhouse, getting all the things they'd need to send this not-at-all-recommended letter to the Princess. After a while, he simply sighed. "So, which would be worse? Getting a lecture from Twilight about abusing my magic, or having to look at the faces of three disappointed fillies?"
Then, as she rummaged through the nearby drawers, Scootaloo suddenly stopped, then looked back to Spike with a knowing smirk. "Say...is it true that you have a crush on Sweetie's sister?"
Instantly, Sweetie dropped the quill she was holding, looking back to Spike with a massive blush, all while the latter lost all color in his face. "Okay...this is worse."