Chapter 1: The Satyr

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The rain fell as heavily as the tears streaming down Spike’s face as he sobbed, trying to reign in his tears so he could finally get some sleep. He’d been here for nearly an hour, and what had started out as wails had subsided to quiet sputtering, his eyes having gone red from crying for so long. If he’d been at home, the Golden Oaks, he’d be sleeping like a baby, but he wasn’t home. He wasn’t even sure he could call that place home anymore. This was ten times, no, fifty times worse then when Owlicious had showed up, this wasn’t just jealousy, he’d done something horrible, for real. Thinking about it made the lump in his throat jump and renewed his sobbing, right as it was subsiding, but it came to an end even quicker this time, in the end turning to nothing but heavy, gasping breaths and tears streaming down his face. In the end he simply laid down on the cold grass, trying to force his brain to shut down so he could finally have a moment of peace, so he could get some sleep and keep moving in the morning. Whether it be his brain finally giving in, or an unseen Luna taking pity on the tired, miserable dragon, but he finally fell asleep.

At least he was blessed enough to not have dreams.

He groaned as he woke, and he opened his eyes to the same dirt road he’d fallen asleep aside. Maybe it was the crying, or just the situation hitting him in full force, but Spike woke up exhausted, not even wanting to move an inch from his sleeping position under the tree. He layed in the grass, eyes half lidded, but awake, and he stared at the ground next to him, watching a band of ants trailing along to their anthill. He flinched as he felt a ladybug of all things land on his nose. He stared at it angrily, and given the reason he was out here, he felt it was well deserved. A twist of good birthday luck spurred on an instinct that he didn’t even know he had and a power that he didn’t even know he had turned his happy birthday and the next few days into the worst bad luck he’d ever experienced.

And if this ladybug was meant to represent good luck like ponies said it did, he really could’ve used it two days ago.

Still, his anger crumbled to pieces at a thought that he’d shied away from, because he wanted to believe more than anything that it wasn’t true, he had every reason to think it wasn’t true, but still, it cropped up, like an annoyingly persistent weed that the farmer of his field of thoughts had to tend to and yank up every few minutes.

Even if he hadn’t known this would happen, he could’ve stopped it. He could’ve stopped taking things, stopped trying to build a hoard and now what? He didn’t and he was paying the price for greed. What was the word Twilight used? Avarice. It was Avarice he’d had, and now he was paying the price.

It was all his fault, and he was stuck with the results.

Twilight stood over him, her face somewhere between utter vexation and bitter disappointment. He kicked at the ground like he tended to when he felt guilty or ashamed, and he avoided her eyes, hoping to not have to see that those emotions were directed at him.

“Honestly, I have never been this disappointed in you, Spike.”

He closed himself off, like he was trying to protect himself from a predator, he tried to get out an apology, but she cut him off before he even got the chance to speak.

“Look at me, Spike.” He looked up at her, cringing at her expression. She sighed, and pointed all around them. “Do you see this? Do you see how much damage you caused? You dragged Rarity around like a trophy, broke a water tower, destroyed the market, and smashed up half the town! We’d struggle to rebuild half of this in any reasonable amount of time, not to mention the rain that’s supposed to be coming soon, that the pegasi can’t postpone because they already missed the last one, and look at me when I’m talking please!” He snapped back to looking at her, and given any other situation he would’ve questioned the point of pointing if she didn’t want him to look.

“I’m really sorry. I don’t even know what happened, I barely remember anything from after my birthday!” She gaped at him, like he’d said something terrible, and he took a step back.

“You don’t even know how you caused all this!? You did all of this and you don’t even know how? Ugh…” She shook her head and walked off, trying to calm down. “I need to go write Princess Celestia. She can help fix this.”

“I can help-”

“No.” Her tone of voice was so firm that Spike stopped in his tracks, stunned. “I want you to think about what happened here.” She kept walking, and Spike didn’t follow. He sat down on the edge of the crater shaped like a giant version of his foot, And he stared at the dirt there, trying to stop the tears from welling up in his eyes.

And then she said the words that might have broken him.

“Equestrian scientists said dragons were so haunted by their own avarice they’d stop at nothing to acquire more of everything, even if they didn’t need it. You saw it for yourself, and this still happened. How did you turn out so… so… this.” He whipped around, and stared at her retreating silhouette, his ears just barely catching the last of her words. “I thought that I had done a good job raising you.”

He couldn’t stop them anymore, and he clamped his hands over his mouth, trying to stop himself from sobbing out loud. He hopped up and ran as fast as he could, neglecting to bring anything from food to even just a blanket in his haste to get as far away from Ponyville as possible.

Eventually Spike managed to drag himself up and started on trying to find something to eat, or anywhere besides under a tree to sleep. He screwed up his eyes, trying to remember the wilderness survival book he’d read a few days ago.

The one Twilight had gotten him.

For his birthday…

He sighed, and shook his head, trying not to let his own sadness consume him again. He wasn’t going to waste another day crying, he couldn’t afford to. Twilight was probably looking for him, and he really didn’t want to be found. As he trudged along the muddy dirt path, he thought about the things he’d seen for founding food.

“Okay, white, yellow, and green are bad, and rub it on your skin first if you aren’t sure.” He wasn’t sure if it’d work with scales, but also, he could digest gems, so he had little to worry about to begin with. He just really hated the feeling of being sick. Eventually, he happened upon a stream., and there he came in contact with an unfamiliar sight. A goat-like creature, standing on its hind legs, distinctly tall and lanky, and covered in pristine white fur, except on it’s torso, where brown skin was seen beneath the long coat it was wearing. Spike didn’t make any moves to approach, but he did observe as the creature rolled up its sleeves, and placed flowers in the water from a pile at his side. The flowers opened up as they were placed in the water, and the creature smiled at the sight. Eventually, he dusted himself off and stood up, and before Spike could get out of his line of sight, the creature spotted him, and hiked it’s coat up to make it’s way across the stream.

When he made it across, Spike became well aware of their difference in height, and marveled at the creature that might have stood at Celestia’s height. Still, it wasn’t attacking him, and he was willing to admit that he was a little desperate for a positive social interaction. The creature sat down, now low enough to look Spike in the face.

“Hello, young dragon out all by yourself. Is there a momma or daddy dragon I should be waiting for, or are you here alone?” Spike sheepishly waved, but shook his head.

“Oh, I’m alone. I kind of ran away from my friends…” The creature raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well that’s no fun. What’d they do to make you run?”

“It wasn’t them. It was my fault.” The creature looked like he didn’t believe him, but he didn’t press it further. Spike was happy about that, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell him without crying. The creature scratched it’s chin.

“Well, if you ran away, and it’s this early in the morning, you probably ran away last night, meaning that you probably haven’t eaten in like 12 hours. Based on your size, I’d guess you’re around 13, but even then you still need to eat around twice your bodyweight a day to grow, so I’d assume you’re-” Spike’s stomach gurgled before he could even finish talking. “-Pretty hungry. Dragons are big eaters, so it was pretty easy to make that guess. That said, it’s right around breakfast, so if you want to eat, I’m making.” Twilight had warned him about strangers, but he was hungry, and tired, and honestly didn’t care. He nodded, but the creature didn’t start walking in any particular direction, looking between the trees like he was trying to decide the best one. When he noticed Spike looking confused, he hissed.

“Oh boy, I’m already off. Well, that’s one today. I forgot to explain that to you. Alright, so , I’m a satyr. That means nature magic is my big deal, and we don’t build our homes out of trees,” He stood up, and walked over to the nearest tree. He tapped the bark, and the cracks in the wood seemed to fill with a mysterious glow, the light was soft, but bright, and Spike’s jaw dropped as he witnessed the unfamiliar magic. “We live in them. Now, it’s best if you get as close as possible and focus on the light. If you don’t get close enough you’ll probably just smack your forehead on the tree.”

Spike walked up to the tree, and took another look at the Satyr, who nodded encouragingly. He allowed himself to get as close as possible without his nose bumping into the tree, and focused in on the light streaming through the cracks in the bark, seeing what looked like a room inside. He pitched forward, and he came up standing in a room, looking something like a combination living area and dining bar. The floor was, to his surprise, carpeted, and the walls were a beautiful finished oak, making it look much more like he’d walked into a house than a tree. The Satyr came in behind him, and went straight to work, assessing the contents of his fridge, before pulling out a mound of various ingredients and herbs. He moved with a purpose, turning the pile of vegetables and fruits into a number of large plates of food. Spike sat at the bar, watching as he moved, when something dawned on him.

“Excuse me, I don’t know your name.” The satyr paused, before springing right back, throwing the last of the meal, a few fried eggs, on a plate to avoid them burning.

“Ugh, two today. In any case-” The satyr grabbed himself a plate full of a bit of everything, leaving the vast majority of the food to Spike, who nearly went into a fit of hysterics at the sight of it all. This was how much he was supposed to be eating at meals? No wonder he was so small. “My name is Kipkirui. You can call me Kip, or Kirui, or the full thing. It doesn’t bother me much. I’m seventeen. Nice to formally meet you.”

“Well, my name is Spike. It’s nice to meet you too. I’m actually sixteen, by the way.” An expression flashed briefly on Kip’s face, but Spike didn’t catch what it was.

The two ate rather quickly, and while Spike finished a ridiculous amount of food in the same time it took Kipkirui to finish his significantly smaller plate, Kipkirui, upon finishing, got up and got himself a glass of water, waiting until Spike finished eating. Spike stacked the plates neatly as he finished, not wanting to leave a big mess. He was a guest after all. Outside of that, he felt absolutely buzzed with energy, and for the first time… well, ever really, he felt completely satisfied. It suddenly dawned on him that he probably had been undereating his whole life. No wonder Kip thought he was only 14. He briefly considered that he would probably be a lot taller if he kept eating like this, but that line of thinking was interrupted by Kip speaking up.

“Alright, I can handle those plates later. For now, do you have somewhere you need to be? I have the time to join you if you’d like.” Spike shook his head, already grabbing the plates.

“No, I don’t have anywhere to go right now. I can handle the dishes, I am the guest in your house after all.” Kip stopped him by grabbing the stack out of his hands.

“Typically the host is the one that cleans. If you’re really that worried about leaving a mess, I’m giving you full permission to sit down while I handle these. Otherwise, we can leave them here, and work out where you want to go, either until you find a place to stay and set up a hoard,” Spike discreetly shivered at the thought. He didn’t want a repeat of the past few days. “Or, until you find someone to stay with. There’s a few roaming dragons around here that wouldn’t mind taking you with. Or even if you just wanted to stay here, that’s fine too. I can’t say I’m the best roommate, I stay up late, and I’m either very organized or pretty messy, no inbetween.” Sounded like Twilight. “But, if you’re willing to stay, I’m willing to have you.” Spike thought it over. He always thought living by himself would be pretty cool, but he really didn’t want to go out and start a hoard or something. If it was anything like last time, he would start hoarding random objects, and then start stealing. And meeting other dragons was something he always wanted, but he liked the idea of having a home. Somewhere to sit down and rest. Being a roamer didn’t seem like something he’d enjoy. Honestly, staying with Kip didn’t seem half bad. He was used to Kip’s habits from living with Twilight, and the Satyr knew more about dragons than he did.

“Are you really sure you’d be fine with me staying here?” Kip nodded, and Spike smiled. “Then yeah, I’d like to stay with you!”

“Well then, let me show you around. My house isn’t exactly huge, but it’s big enough for maybe 3 people, so it might not be easy to get lost, but there’s also a few specialty rooms that you might want to have a look at.”

Wow, okay, that’s a problem.

He’d had two ‘skips’ today, and he hadn’t even had the most important one. The kid was massively underweight and undersized. He was a whole 3 years older than Kipkirui had thought he was, and that was a problem that Kipkirui had not anticipated. That said, at least he knew now.

He stood up from his chair, and stretched. He’d definitely have to show Spike the botany room and the Observatory, but probably not the sanctuary. That’d be a little overwhelming.

“Alright, so there’s this floor, which is just the general living space.” He pointed out the bookshelves, telling Spike to ask first if he wanted to borrow anything, and the desk, saying that he could go over there, but to try not to mess with the crystals. When questioned about the crystals, he went into a bit more detail about their creation:

“See, the crystals themselves are just amethysts, but there’s this little floaty light spell that you can use which makes them weightless, and they glow.” He grabbed one out of the desk drawer, an old topaz that he didn’t really need, and quickly cast the spell, his horns glowing with what mostly appeared as a bluish-purple plasma, which was quickly reabsorbed upon the completion of the spell. The Topaz glowed a dull orange, and he passed it to Spike, who simply let it float over his open hands like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. “They’re fun to have around, and they glow different colors depending on the gem. Diamonds are really cool, they have like a weird rainbow thing that happens. Next time I go gem hunting I’ll see if I can find one.”

“Awesome…” Spike’s next question was about what he called the “weird flat stone” by the couches.

“Oh, that is the Pictolith. See, Satyrs like figuring out spells that work with the natural world rather than transforming it too much. It’s made of this kind of glassy rock that works really well for transmitting magic, so it’s enchanted to play a bunch of shows and things made by satyrs and creatures that work with satyrs. Mostly because who has the time to constantly go see plays?”

“How has no one else come up with this!?”

“Satyrs are secretive, but I wouldn’t guess that most races are far behind. Ponies already have projectors and radios, this is probably the next step. C’mon, you can try that out later, for now, let’s go see the upstairs.”

Ch. 2: Learning The Satyr

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Spike had already thought the tree home was impossibly cool, and he’d already been living in a tree before this. It was just so generally magical, like the whole house was enchanted, which it likely was. That said, aside from the literal magical feeling, it had a lot of interesting things that gave him a lot of insight into his lodger’s personality, allowing him to compile a list of likely personality traits.

The most important on that list was that Kipkirui capital-’H’ hated being dirty. He explained it as his fur being white made it really susceptible to staining, but he even seemed viscously uncomfortable with his skin or hooves getting dirty too. It was almost uncanny, he washed his hands for almost a full three minutes after getting syrup on them from carrying the breakfast plates. His justification was as follows:

“Syrup is horrible. It tastes amazing, but it’s sticky, hard to see, and if you get even the tiniest amount of it on your hands it immediately is on everything you own. It transmits like a disease.” Honestly Spike could see where he was coming from, but three minutes seemed excessive.

Of course, this excessive cleanliness translated into his living quarters, which were so free of dust and dirt that they might as well have never been, well, lived in. There were three bedrooms on the second floor, the largest of which was Kipkirui’s, but Spike was given a choice between either of the two “smaller” rooms (in quotations because he didn’t believe that they were smaller, he thought they were just not the master bedroom because they didn’t have a bathroom attached).

Speaking of Kipkirui’s attached bathroom, his desire for cleanliness was reflected in both bathrooms, which featured massive bathtubs, with water jets, and various mechanisms that made Spike think he would drown long before he managed to get clean in one of those. That said, the second thing he found was that Kipkirui was prone to either absentmindedness, or forgetfulness.

He couldn’t pick out any one specific example, but there were a handful of moments, like Kipkirui forgetting to explain any of the bath functions to him without prompting, saying he was going to tell Spike the difference between the two rooms, before freezing for a moment, and unintentionally moving on. Even when Spike first met him, he forgot to explain what he was AND forgot to tell him his name. Spike didn’t want to press him on it, but it was odd to say the least.

In any case, he did find that the rooms were virtually the same size outside of layout, and while one was slightly bigger, the smaller one had one of those beds embedded in the wall in a sort of alcove. The moment Spike saw it, he fell in love.

“I want this one.”

“Feels like a cave?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t lived in one, but it feels right.” Kipkirui had a sort of confused smile.

“You haven’t lived in a cave before? Did you not live with dragons?” Spike jumped on the bed, almost wanting to go to sleep right there.

“Nope. I was pretty much raised by ponies.” Kipkirui shrugged.

“Huh. Well, that’s interesting. Either way, if you’re not going to sleep right now, wanna see the green room?” Spike sat up on the bed.

“Green room?” Kipkirui beckoned, and wanting to see how he managed to build a green room not only indoors, but in the weird pocket dimension they were in, Spike followed. Halfway down the hallway, Kipkirui simply sighed and turned around.

“I forgot to tell you about the lights. Alright, look here.” He walked back into Spike’s room, and said, “Purple, four.” The lights illuminating the room grew dimmer, and turned a rich purple. While Spike did note another brief moment of forgetfulness, he was more occupied with the lights, and in a brief moment of childlike wonder, he really, REALLY wanted to sit there and watch the lights change color for the next twelve hours. Kipkirui went into a deeper explanation of how the lights work, including a deeper explanation of the magic behind them, which Spike appreciated, but the demo for how they worked was boiled down to this: The lights worked with twelve colors, and ten brightness settings, with yellow and seven as the default. Spike was now generally pretty convinced that enjoying a cave-like atmosphere was a dragon thing, because the lights set at blue and three felt absolutely perfect. He didn’t linger on it long, wanting to see the green room, but he wondered if he could find a way to get a radio, or whatever the Satyr’s equivalent might be. Having some music would make his living space perfect.

The green room wasn’t half bad either.

It wasn’t anything super special or magical, aside from the crystal heat lamps, but the plants he grew inside were unfamiliar to the young dragon. Aside from the titanic red and purple flower that filled one corner of the room and smelled of ash, other plants included a row of creeping vines that grew pink and blue flowers with intricate petal designs, and a small, Venus Fly Trap like plant, that moved a little too much like an animal for Spike’s comfort, and it seemed almost as conscious as one too.

Then came the Observatory room.

The floor and walls were a pitch black that made Spike feel like he was walking on glass over a very deep hole. The ceiling on the other hand, was a picturesque night sky. There was also a mysterious globe in the center of the room.

“Uh, Kip, what’s this?”

“That is the astrarium. If you find a constellation, it connects the lines for you, here, it’s midsummer, so we might find Scorpius, or Virgo.” Kipkirui guided him in using the Astrarium, telling him which directions to look in and where to move, before stopping him. “Right there.”

The two looked up at the ceiling as the lines formed between the stars, forming the image of Virgo. Spike was entranced.

The tour of the house ended there, and the two returned to the first floor. While Spike found himself involved with one of the programs on the Pictolith, Kipkirui went to his desk, scribbling down various whatevers, and working hard enough that eventually Spike went to inquire about it, after finding out that the Satyr he’d been a fan of on the show was cheating on his wife. That’s what he gets for jumping into a mid season episode with none of the background knowledge.

Either way, he approached Kipkirui’s chair, and before he could even ask, Kipkirui had an answer for him.

“Okay, so you remember the fly trap plant in the Green Room?” Spike nodded, choosing to just jot it down as being a predictable question. “It’s a prototype for something bigger. Have you ever had the misfortune of dealing with Timberwolves?”

“I’ve heard of them. I lived near the Everfree forest, but I never saw them myself.” Kipkirui nodded.

“Well, in short, they’re aggressive, smelly, very large, and despite no one knowing if they actually have to eat or not, they have a tendency to attack virtually anything that moves. That said, most people assume they don’t need to eat outside of typical plant stuff, so they could make excellent pets. I’m trying to create a potted version first, but it’s rough. See, we tamed wolves and made dogs by feeding them and housing them, and eventually they transformed. So, how do you tame something that doesn’t need to eat?”

“Er, how?”

“Complex magical plant growth formulas and equations.” Spike perked up at that. This was something he was familiar with, he could help!

“I know all about those! I used to be a unicorn’s assistant, and we did magic equations all the time. I still remember her transmutation formula, she almost turned a rock into a drum instead of a hat. Not that fun considering it was on my head, but it’s funny looking back at it.” Kipkirui smiled, spread out his notes across the desk, and moved his chair over.

“In that case, mind pulling up a stool? Let’s see if what this needs is a fresh set of eyes.”

Working with Kipkirui revealed trait number three. He and Twilight were almost uncannily similar in their work habits.

Spike ended up being a common sense filter more than anything else, it was just a thing with smart people apparently, they usually ended up being too smart to see where they had made either really simple mistakes, or where they made things way too complicated. The difference was, Kipkirui wasn’t as big of an overachiever as Twilight, likely because he didn’t have anyone to impress, meaning that he usually ended up being more receptive to simple solutions and taking the easy way out rather than being so by the book.

Mostly because there was no book.

That’s one big thing he learned, Kipkirui was entirely self taught, he’d grown up an orphan, and didn’t have any teachers or mentors. The reason he was so advanced was because, in his own words, Satyrs were “progressively traditional”, doing the same thing with new technology since they’d been in Equestria. He said that even though the methods worked, they were pretty outdated, and he had a pretty big number of discoveries under his belt at how young he was because he learned on his own and learned how to take shortcuts. The conversation came up at lunch one day, when Spike got the courage to ask about Kipkirui’s background. He felt a pang of sympathy for the Satyr. He’d been lucky to have Twilight and Shining Armor when he was growing up, and growing up by yourself seemed so… sad.

“Well, what about you, Spike. You’ve got me telling my not-so-sob story, mind telling me yours?”

“Oh, sure! See, it starts with this pony, Twilight Sparkle, my kind-of-sister, kind-of-mom? She technically hatched my egg, but she’d only six years older than me and her parents did most of the raising. She’d hatched me as an entrance exam thing after a crazy wild magic surge. Until around last year we lived in Canterlot,”

“Pony capital?”

“Exactly. Then, Celestia sent her to Ponyville on a mission so secret that even Twilight didn’t know about it. She told her to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration, and while she was there she made some friends, and stopped Celestia’s sister with some powerful magical artifacts called the Elements of Harmony. We’ve been in Ponyville since.” Kipkirui nodded, finishing the hot chocolate that he was inexplicably drinking in the summer.

“Well, if you don’t mind me asking, do you want to go back?” Spike paused, before heaving a sigh and shaking his head.

“My friends probably miss me alright, but with how little Equestrians know about Dragons, and the fact that I nearly destroyed a town because of that, I think staying with you until I learn what makes me tick is the best plan of action.” Kipkirui reeled, and Spike realized that he hadn’t told him why he’d run off in the first place.

“Destroyed a town?! No offense, but you barely seem capable of killing a spider, much less destroying a town.” Spike cringed at the very true but still very embarrassing observation.

“Yeah, it was an accident. After a bunch of birthday gifts I got real takey, and just turned giant from some weird greed growth. I didn’t hurt anybody physically, but I messed up a lot of people’s houses or businesses, or just generally scared a lot of people. The ponies of Ponyville are nice, but be honest with me, wouldn’t you find it pretty hard to live with someone if you knew they had the potential to cause that much damage?”

“I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t this Twilight manage to pacify an Ursa Minor? Sounds like a big damage potential to me.” Spike looked a bit like he’d been slapped with some unfamiliar news. “I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not like it wouldn’t be hard, but honestly it would be pretty easy if you know what to deal with.”

“That’s the problem, they don’t. Ponies don’t know much about dragons.” Kipkirui raised an eyebrow.

“Have they tried? I’ve found that dragons have pretty good memories, and are more than willing to talk about themselves or Dragons in general.” Spike thought it over, and his outward expression reflected his inward confusion.

“I… really don’t know. Anyway, I really don’t think I can go back until I get it all sorted out.”

“Maybe you could write your own book about Dragons?”

“Do you know any?”

“Excluding you, five.”

“Huh.” He pondered the idea, but it was being forcefully shoved to the back of his mind by another thought. His friends. Twilight in particular. She was prone to overthinking, worrying, and worst case scenarios, and he hadn’t even thought to tell her where he was going. His eyes went wide at a very real possibility.

For all Twilight knew, he was never coming back.

No, for all Twilight knew, he was hurt, or dead.

Ch. 3: The Gem

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It had been five days, twenty-two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and seventeen seconds since Spike had gone missing.

It had also been six days, eight hours, twenty-two minutes, and around eight seconds since Twilight had last gotten some decent sleep.

While half of Ponyville was in a near frenzy trying to find the young dragon before something unsavory did, the other half remained relatively unbothered by his disappearance, either not knowing him well enough to worry, or their opinion of him having soured after the Growth incident.

Twilight had searched everywhere, and she meant Everywhere, nearby, being so thorough that she spent almost nine of the most recent of those hours exploring almost every square inch of Sweet Apple Acres, with the help of an equally frazzled Applejack, before nearly collapsing from exhaustion.

Spike was nowhere to be found, and Twilight was falling apart.

Why did she say that?! She knew how he responded to others being angry with him, and it wasn’t well, she was supposed to be the older sister, she was supposed to help, not do whatever that mess was. And how he was lost, possibly hurt, and she couldn’t do anything about it because her stupid locating spells couldn’t find him, and now her friends were on her back, telling her that she “needed sleep” and that, “not sleeping for six days isn’t healthy”, and that she “looked like she was losing her mind”.

Pinkie even said that it was worse than the Lesson Zero incident. Of course it was, Spike was missing! That’s like if your whole house got up and ran away!

Honestly it might as well have left with him. She hadn’t been back to Golden Oaks since learning that he had gone missing. Finding him was too important. She hadn’t even written to Celestia about helping to fix Ponyville.

Oh she’d forgotten to write Celestia.

She backtracked, walking through town looking like she’d walked through a tornado on the way there. Her mane was a mess, unkempt and sticking out in whatever direction, and her eyes made her look positively shell shocked, wide eyed, but with her pupils having shrunk so small most would assume she was having trouble even perceiving light at that point. The townsfolk stared at her as she passed, most having some expression of sympathy.

She was so tired, but she couldn’t stop looking.

She pulled her head off the pillow, disoriented. She didn’t remember falling asleep, much less even making it back to the Golden Oaks. The lights were off, and judging by the fact that the curtains weren’t drawn and the room was still dark, it was the middle of the middle of the night. Did she even write the letter? If so, it was probably incomprehensible, and she would have to send a clarifying letter before Spike spit up a response from a very confused Celestia. She looked down at her desk, before realizing that it was both too far away and too dark to see what was likely half written and illegible on her desk. She jumped down from her little alcove area to take a closer look.

Nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe she’d been so tired that she’d gone to bed on autopilot? No, that didn’t make sense, she knew she had a task to do, she probably would’ve tried to do that first, even if it turned out ridiculous.

She sighed, and decided to just head downstairs, get some food, and recuperate. She had to think about where she hadn’t looked already.

When she went downstairs, she was greeted by her friends, all in various sleeping positions, having attempted to get comfortable wherever they could. Except one Rainbow Dash, who, despite her penchant for naps, was still up. Rainbow caught sight of her before she made it down the last step, and greeted her.

“Oh, you’re awake. We thought you would’ve slept until morning at least.” Twilight shook her head.

“What are you all doing here, what happened?” Twilight inquired.

“Well, you came in here, half asleep and not making sense. I dragged you up to bed, and you passed out. The rest of us were gonna talk to you about where to look, so we decided to stay here until you woke up. We were trying to make plans ourselves, and then the rest decided to ‘rest their eyes’ and here we are three hours later.” Rainbow recounted. “Now, I’m sitting here, bored, and I don’t want to wake the others up. So, we got two options. We go out now, try to look for Spike some more and hopefully get back before the others wake up, or you go back to sleep because you probably need it, and I go out to look myself, because I can’t sleep either way.”

“How long have I been out?” Rainbow Dash’s face twisted up in displeasure.

“Ugh, math.”

“Just give me the numbers, I’ll do the math.”

“Okay, you got back in at eleven, were half asleep mumbling for thirty minutes, I put you to sleep, you woke up for like ten minutes still crazy talking, and then you went back to sleep until now, it’s two in the morning.”

“Okay so that’s… twelve hours and twenty minutes. I think I’m good to go back out.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t sleep for like five days. Logic says if you need eight hours a day, and you didn’t sleep for five, you’d need forty hours of sleep.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“I’m not sleeping for two days straight, Rainbow Dash, I’m fine. I just gotta write this letter to Princess Celestia, and then I’ll be ready.” Rainbow shook her head.

“No need. We finished most of the repairs today. Only thing still banged up is the big footprints in the ground, and they'll take a few hours at most.” Great, so yelling at Spike was even more unnecessary than it already was. It had taken four days to clean up. Her sadness must’ve shown on her face, because Rainbow Dash was by her side in a couple of seconds to console her.

“Hey, I get what you’re probably thinking. Princess Celestia won’t care that you didn’t write her, she’ll probably be happy that we cleaned up on our-”

“No, that’s not it at all. I yelled at Spike over a mess that didn’t even take as long as I thought it would to clean up, even without Celestia. I know he hates when people are upset with him, we had this same problem only three months ago! I really messed up Dash.” Twilight felt absolutely crushed, and either the Elements were projecting her emotions to her friends, or they had excellent timing, because both Applejack and Fluttershy woke up pretty immediately.

“Hoo, I didn't mean to fall asleep like that. What time is it?” Applejack pulled her hat back up on her head, and stood up. Fluttershy rubbed at her eyes, before peering out of one of the Golden Oaks’ windows.

“Late. Really late.”

“It’s two in the morning. Twi woke up a while ago, she’s feeling pretty crummy about Spike.”

“Aww.” Applejack had a comforting presence, and she was usually the best at getting Twilight out of a funk. “We’ll find him, Sugar Cube. Even if we have to search the whole of Equestria.” Fluttershy nodded.

“I’d even look in the Everfree Forest if we had to!” Rainbow Dash spurred her on.

“Well, the Everfree is really scary, but I could probably help…” Fluttershy was quiet, but trying to be supportive nonetheless. Twilight smiled, even if it was still tinged with sadness. She knew she could count on her friends.

The four of them set to work, ruling out places they’d already checked, and marking places they could take a second look at, or places they hadn’t been. Eventually, Pinkie and Rarity were up to join them, and the six set off in pairs to look for the missing dragon.

Kipkirui had found that Spike had one absolutely major personality trait.

He was helpful to a fault. It was nearly insane.

Unless he was sleeping or eating, the dragon was always willing to help if you asked, be it trimming the leaves of the plants in the Green Room, cleaning dishes, or just reorganizing the bookshelves, he was always willing to help if you asked for it, and he seemed to lack much else to do, other than sit and watch the Pictolith. Kipkirui was used to working by himself, so he usually forgot to ask for help, and that wasn’t good for Spike, who got bored relatively easily if he wasn’t working, and bounced between things very quickly.

So, he decided to do something about it.

“Spike, are you awake?”

“Getting there.”

“Well, we’re heading out today, so you should probably get up and have some breakfast before we gotta go.” Spike opened one of his eyes at Kipkirui, who was already dressed. He was wearing a shorter coat today, but with one of those weird neck ruffle things, and an unwrinkled dress shirt. He looked downright fancy, like he was going to a party, not just ‘out’. Then again, Spike grew up around Ponies, and clothing for them was pretty formal or work only to begin with. For all he knew, this was just a satyr thing. Or maybe just a Kipkirui thing. Spike thought he was a good person, and he was a great roommate, but he did come off as… what’s the word Twilight called Pinkie? Eccentric? Yeah, that.

“Alright. Give me a minute. Before I get out of this bed, do I need to dress up, because if so I might need five more minutes.” Kipkirui shrugged.

“If you want. I’m mostly dressed up because I felt like it.”

“You saying mostly makes me think there’s another reason.”

“We’re going into a Satyr town, and I gotta go to a magic shop. Those guys are pretty much just a bunch of elitists, and if you don’t dress up they look at you stupid.” Spike groaned.

“What do you have in my size in terms of fancy?”

“Check the dresser. I stocked up. Food isn’t done yet, so no rush, I was just warning you.” Spike yawned a thanks, and Kipkirui, bless him, had the kindness to close the door. Once he knew the door was closed, Spike practically rolled out of bed, and briefly laid on the floor, before stretching and standing up.

“Blue, five.” The lights were just dimmer than normal, but bright enough to get his eyes to start working properly. He walked over to the dresser, and pulled open the bottom drawer.

“Hey, we match!” Spike had deliberately picked out the jacket most similar to Kipkirui’s, from the cuffed sleeves with gold lines, to the faux gold buttons and white trim on the bottom. However, where Kipkirui’s was a bright red, Spike’s was a dull teal color that better complemented his scales.The one thing he was having trouble with was the stupid neck ruffle.

“Yeah, I thought it would look nice. Quick question, what do I do with this stupid neck ruffle thing?”

“It’s called a Jabot. It’s worn on the collar of a dress shirt, like a tie.” Spike silently ‘oh’ed, and folded up his collar to put the Jabot where it belonged. Much better. “Very distinguished.” Spike puffed up a little at the compliment.

“Is there any chance that we could pick up a few books?”

“That’s the plan. A few other things too. I need pumpkin seeds.” Spike tilted his head.

“Why pumpkin seeds?”

“Pie.” Spike nodded, and got started on the simple breakfast. Mostly just a fruit platter, but there was a special treat today. Kipkirui had been out yesterday, and he wouldn’t tell Spike why, until now. “Remember how I wouldn’t tell you what I got while I was out yesterday.” Spike nodded. “Well, here you go. I had to deal with the Diamond Dogs to get this, and they hate making fair deals, so I hope you appreciate this.”

With that, he placed a sack on the table, and pushed it towards Spike, who quirked an eyebrow, before picking it up, and grabbing the contents out. His eyes went wide at the familiar scratch of gem against his claws, and he pulled out a whole topaz, cut like a star.

Wait a minute, he talked to Diamond Dogs to get this, meaning that it wasn’t cut. It had to have been formed like this, which meant…

“This is a Swirling Topaz… Named after Starswirl the Bearded because of their natural star shape! They’re not just great magical focuses, they’re supposed to taste incredible!”

“Yeah, it took me enchanting about 50 common crystals with the gem light spell for them to give me it. I hope you enjoy it.” Spike licked his lips, staring at his reflections in the glittering faces of the orange stone. He raised one of the points to his mouth, and bit down.

He was nearly in tears.

It was exactly how he thought it would be.

Now, he wouldn’t describe gems as having flavors per say. Granted, many gems were made of common chemical structures that might be found in foods, but it’s still a rock. There isn’t flavor there. But there is energy. And the energy is what Dragons think tastes good. The energy was deep, like floating over the ocean, or standing in a hot air balloon looking over the edge and seeing the ground miles below you, that feeling of being so far above. But there was a twist to it, an edge, something like the satisfaction of completing a task you know you understand well, and knowing you did it well. There was also a certain freshness to it, like the feeling of an empty schedule after days of hard work.

The entire gem had the energy that he’d feel after helping Twilight prep for a massive exam or project, and hearing that she passed with flying colors, and that they could take a break to just be. That feeling, those memories, tinged the flavor with melancholy, and the flavor was just as sweet and happy, as it was sad and nostalgic.

“So?” Kipkirui inquired. Spike swallowed the bit of the gem, and he wanted to save the rest for a time when he really needed that pick me up, but he was, if nothing else, relatively hungry at all times, and Kipkirui had intentionally created a smaller portion because he got Spike this, and it was certainly worth eating the rest right now, not just because it was incredible, but because it was gift.

Sometimes giving and taking were somewhat interchangeable, and though either one can lead to terrible outcomes, in moderation, most things would be fair game.

“It's incredible. Like a candy from when you were younger that you have a ton of good memories with, and you’re trying it for the first time in years.”

“Wow. All that from a gem?”

“Hmm, creatures that can’t eat them don’t get it, but gems don’t have tastes, they have feelings. That’s what you get when something spends years underground affected by the feelings of the creatures around it, they take in those feelings. That’s how you get special like these, or fire rubies, or act-tongue amethysts.”

“Act-tongue?”

“A-c-h-t-u-n-g. I can’t always pronounce it without falling over it, so just say Act-tongue instead.”

“Achtung. Ak-toong. Isn’t that Pferman?”

“Yeah, it means look out. Some Pferman pony named them after using one to mix some potions and learning that it’s basically super energy. He stayed awake for ten days.” Kipkirui’s eyes widened.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Spike bit off another point of the star. “Should we get going? I can eat on the way.”

“Nah, we got around twenty minutes before the magic shop opens, and for the first ten minutes there’s only one employee, so it’s really just window shopping. Eat your gem, We’ll head out in like ten minutes. I half expected you to stay in bed a little later, so that’s why I told you so early.”

Spike swallowed the bite of gem he was eating.

Today would be interesting, and probably really cool, if seeing a completely new Satyr town was any reason for it to be.

Twilight and Applejack walked along the forest, coming to a stop in front of a massive tree.

“Have you tried yer location spell recently?” Twilight shook her head.

“I’ll try.” She closed her eyes, and felt the familiar spark of magic envelop her horn, and she focused on the one magic signature so thoroughly ingrained in her mind that she couldn’t forget it if she tried. She gasped, and her eyes flew open in shock.

A return pulse.

She took off at a run.

Ch. 4: A Real Goodbye

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Spike knew next to nothing of Satyrs.

Like a significantly larger number of creatures and folk than he’d expected, Equestria knew next to nothing about them, and prior to meeting Kipkirui, he’d never even heard of them. And because of that, he’d chosen to try and make sense of them by keeping a mental list of things Kipkirui had told him, or things he’d seen and assumed might be an overarching behavior of Satyrs.

He’d lived with the hyper organized Twilight his whole life, lists made things make sense.

The first thing he’d discovered is that there were different kinds. Pictures of Kipkirui’s extended family littered around the house revealed that while his uncle bore greater similarities to a moose, his aunt was much more like Kipkirui himself, a goat. That said, outside of appearances, Kipkirui bore some similarities to his Cervid uncle, and shed his horns annually. Spike discovered this after finding a box in a hall closet labeled old horns. He said that they typically fell out in late winter, which would be interesting to see if nothing else.

The second thing was that they were terrifyingly musically inclined. Everything that Kipkirui did had a natural rhythm to it, and virtually any instrument he touched seemed to bend to his will, even a simple harmonica. When asked about it, he beamed, and pulled out a large book and a pan flute.

“See Spike, most Satyr magic is done through music. Our horns can best be seen as conductors, or amplifiers, but the music does a lot of the leg work. You can cast spells without it, but it’s much easier with. Pan flutes are preferred, but we can do it with pretty much anything. It’s a bit of a magical adaptation. For example,” He flipped through the book, before stopping on one page in particular. “Watch, and see.” He ran his fingers along the pan flute a few times, before speeding into a joyful melody that felt like an incredible mood booster. As he played, his horns began emitting that same plasma-like energy, and the flute began to glow too, as the few clean dishes lying in the sink began to float themselves into the cabinets.

“Woah.” Though it wasn’t particularly interesting, he’d seen unicorns float things around all the time, but the fact that it was a brand new way of performing magic that he hadn’t seen yet was intriguing enough.

“Eh, two birds, one stone. I could do something a lot cooler, but I’m not good at memorizing melodies. Of course, for a lot of spells there is a certain intent basis, you can just freestyle and think of what you want to happen and it’ll happen, but the fancier stuff takes the actual music to do.” He closed the book, leaving it on the table. “The one big spell that I memorized was the Mini Star, it basically just makes bigger versions of the gem lights that can actually create heat or cold.”

“How do you choose which one?”

“Major or minor key.” He tweeted out some notes, and a small, slightly warm, yellow light floated aimlessly down the counter. He played the same notes again, only this time in a minor key, and a pale blue light appeared. Spike put his claw next to it, and had the strange sensation like the heat was literally being sucked out of the area the light was in.

“Cool. I can’t do magic with it, but I can play the piano.” Kipkirui nodded, slightly impressed.

“I didn’t peg you for classical.”

“Honestly it was more a thing I picked up than actually setting out to learn it. I heard a lot of piano growing up in Canterlot. Then I kind of reverse learned how to play, playing what I’d heard, then looking at sheet music and seeing what notes I was actually playing, and then learning how the Piano worked. “ Kipkirui had moved from impressed to near shock.

“How do you even do that? That sounds like more trouble than learning to play the Piano from scratch.” Spike shrugged.

“It’s just how I learned. If you happen to have a piano I could show you.” Kipkirui shook his head.

“I never got a piano. Didn’t know where’d keep it. Plus, I can’t play.”

“But you can read sheet music?”

“It’s like a weird mental block. My hands don’t like to make the right motions.”

It sounded a bit weird, but Spike could understand it. He hated a few specific types of calligraphy because his claws hated making the letters loop right.

The third thing he’d learned, and this is the one that he’d been almost completely sure was a Kipkirui only thing, was that habits and routines meant nothing to them. Kipkirui lived without structure and without routine, and Spike couldn’t tell if enjoyed it or not.

He never told Spike to wake up at a specific time, and he was never up by a specific time, and he went to bed when he felt tired, never trying to stay up to get something done or go to sleep early if he had to be up early. He ate when he was hungry, and even though he did have named meals, the reason he usually left the vast majority to Spike wasn’t just because he had to eat more, it was because he only ate as much as he needed to feel satisfied, and when he felt hungry in the middle of the day, he made something to eat.

Now, Spike wasn’t judging, he had a lot of those habits too, but living with Twilight he’d expected at least mild rigidity. She got up at seven in the morning, and went to bed at nine at night, always. Assuming the rare situation where she had to be up earlier, she would adjust accordingly, and make sure that she always got exactly ten hours of sleep. Unless she was in the midst of a worry fit, freak out, or deep study session. It was clockwork, and she held him to a looser, but still relatively similar system. She let him sleep earlier usually, but in return she usually woke him up when she woke up. Unless he really protested, then she let him sleep in. She let him snack, but she made sure that he didn’t over eat. Was it over eating if he was supposed to eat so much? Well, it was usually junk food, so it still probably counts. Regardless, Kipkirui had no qualms about waking up at noon and going to bed at five in the morning, heck, Spike had seen him do it in the five or so days that he’d been here. It didn’t interrupt him much, but he found it odd to have such a lack of structure.

Of course, he became much more willing to believe this final thing was a Kipkirui only thing, because if it wasn’t, he doubted that Kipkirui would know exactly when the store opened, or that the employees would probably show up late.

As they walked through the somewhat dense forest, Spike had a moment of wondering how Kipkirui’s clothes managed to stay so immaculately clean when he frequently walked through dirt, plants, and mud, given that he never seemed to leave the forest. Kipkirui was tall, sure, but when you kick up dirt, height doesn’t help your coat stay clean if the dirt flies upward, and it did, constantly.

“How do you do it?” Kipkirui looked over at him.

“Do what?”

“Stay so clean. I’m struggling to keep minimal dirt off me here. You’re a bigger target and there’s nothing on you.”

“Satyrs are nature mages, and unless it’s sticky, or something only semi-natural, or even not natural at all, it kinda just slides off of us. Dirt, grass, twigs, it all just kind of slides off.”

“How does that extend to your clothes?”

“It’s magical in nature, so it's more of a field of magic than my skin or fur doing the work.”

“Wow, I wish that were me.” Kipkirui reached into a pocket on the interior of his coat (Spike knew because he had the same pocket) and pulled out a smaller set of pan pipes. He ran across the pipes quickly, playing a melody that seemed slightly familiar to Spike, when a wave of magic flew from his horns and washed over Spike. He looked himself over, and realized that the light amount of dirt and grass that had accumulated on him practically melted off, and he smiled. “Thanks!”

“No problem. Recognize that melody, by any chance?” Spike furrowed his brow as he tried to remember.

“Was it… part of Sonata number 17 in D… no, C!” Kipkirui nodded. Spike pumped his fist in celebration. “My limited knowledge of classical music paid off.”

“It’s a popular one, and it sounds pretty alright on Pan Flute, if a little high.”

From then on the walk to the village was a game of music, Spike trying to guess what songs Kipkirui played, while Kipkirui tried his best to translate the notes.

Twilight moved as fast as she could, hoping to catch up to Spike, who continued to move away. Weaving through the trees wasn’t easy, and she got caught up a few times by places she couldn’t squeeze through and had to move around, but it barely slowed her down at all. She needed to find him. Applejack was right with her, and she was faring even better. She even quipped about it being good training for the next rodeo. The pings got louder and louder, and when she eventually happened upon a clearing, she saw him. Spike, oddly dressed up, talking with a creature she didn’t recognize, standing in front of a tree even larger than the one she’d first caught ping of him at. She ran out of the last of the trees, smiling more than she had in days.

“Spike!” He turned to face her, and a whirlwind of emotions seemed to hit him at once before it eventually turned to happiness. He ran to her, and the creature he was standing with followed.

“Twilight!” He hugged her forehoof, and she hugged him back, nearly in tears. Eventually he let go, and she pulled back. Applejack caught up and got the same treatment

“Well there you are, sugar cube. Twilight’s been in a right frenzy ever since you left.” Spike seemed a bit downtrodden at that.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you I left. I got caught up in my own head.” Twilight shook her head.

“No, I really shouldn’t have yelled at you, I know how you hate that. I’m just glad you’re safe.” He waved to the creature standing a couple feet back from the three.

“He’s the reason I’m safe. Meet Kipkirui. He’s a Satyr,” Spike said. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve never heard of them.” Kipkirui interjected here.

“You wouldn’t have. We’re pretty secretive, and we don’t typically communicate with any other races. Except Zebras.” Applejack nodded.

“We know a Zebra. Her name is Zecora, she lives a bit out of Ponyville in the Everfree forest.” Applejack remarked. Kipkirui smiled.

“Zebras and Satyrs often communicate and work with each other on nature magic. We have similar bases, if different styles, so we typically work together pretty well. In any case, I found Spike the day after he left, and he’s been with me since.” Twilight bowed her head in thanks, and simply reiterated that it was no problem.

“I asked to stay with Kipkirui for now, and he said it was alright.” Spike said. Then, his face turned somber. “I think I’ll still stay with him for a while longer. I don’t know how long.” Twilight’s face fell.

“Are you still upset with us, is there anything we can-” Spike shook his head, trying to not let her fear spiral.

“It’s just that… I want to learn a little, that's all. Equestria doesn’t know a lot about dragons, heck, this probably wouldn’t have happened if we knew a little more. Satyrs might be kind of solitary, but they know a lot about everyone and everything. I'm pretty sure if you gave him some time, one of Kipkirui’s books has something about ponies that you didn’t know.”

“Like how earth ponies have a natural magic field that makes soil easier to break and makes crops take less nutrients from the soil, which can only be neutralized by a powerful outside source like Windigos.” Kipkirui interjected.

“See, like that. He knows a lot, and I want to learn more about dragons, without being around so many ponies that if something goes wrong I could really hurt a lot of people or mess a lot of stuff up.” Spike hugged Twilight, before tapping on her horn and blowing a small jet of the purple-green mist he used to send letters. “There, now you’re directly connected to my letter channel. I’ll write to you every week, just like how you write Celestia, alright?” Twilight’s face showed her confliction, but after a few seconds she wiped her eyes and pulled the dragon into a tight hug.

“Please stay safe, and write as often as you can, okay?” He nodded into the hug, and when she let go, she turned to Kipkirui. “I’ll send his comics over when I get the chance. Where do you live?” Kipkirui grimaced.

“Might be a bit hard to pin an address since I live in a pocket dimension inside of trees. Just send a letter through Spike and tell me when I can stop by to pick them up myself.” Twilight slapped her forehead.

“No wonder my locate spells didn’t work. Alright, I will. I love you, Spike.” She could see him trying to force back tears too.

“I love you too.”

On their return trip through the forest, Applejack questioned her on her intentions.

“I understand not wanting to make him upset, but are you sure letting him go with that Kipkirui fella is a good idea?” Twilight sighed.

“He seemed well intentioned, and if he was going to do anything to Spike, he probably would’ve by now. I’m more upset that Spike didn’t want to come back to Ponyville.”

“Because you’re upset he chose someone over you?” Twilight shook her head. She knew enough about jealousy from the modeling incident.

“No, I’m upset that he’s right. Ponies don’t know nearly enough about dragons. I might be a good friend, and he’s definitely family, but things like this are probably gonna keep cropping up. Us not knowing enough about dragons is gonna become a recurring issue at some point, and I’d prefer that he stay with someone else who knows what could happen than stay with us and be caught in the dark.” Applejack nodded, as somber as Twilight felt.

“Telling the others is not gonna be a fun time.” Twilight groaned.

“Tell me about it. What do you think Rainbow Dash is gonna think?” Applejack cringed.

Ch. 5: The Village

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Spike stared at where his friends had taken their path out of the forest. He swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat that had formed during their near-tearful goodbye, and he felt a strange tightness in his chest as he forced himself to turn away from the path, walking back towards the gigantic tree.

“Spike, you know it’s okay if you need a minute,” Kipkirui said. Spike simply shook his head, and sniffed hard, forcing it all back. Kipkirui looked at him with a furrowed brow and wide eyes, like he didn’t believe Spike. Still, he didn’t push. “Well, if you’re sure, let’s head inside. You’ll get a kick out of the doors opening.”

He motioned for Spike to back up, who quickly took a few steps back. Kipkirui tapped on the bark of the tree, and a single, relatively uniform crack glowed brightly, before spreading along in an arc, forming a very large pair of arch top doors. Rather than swing open slowly like Spike had expected, the doors swung open with gusto, and Spike realized then why Kipkirui had told him to stand back. If he hadn’t, he could’ve very well been hit, and thrown a very good distance away, not to mention the force of the initial impact likely could’ve broken bones.

Well, if he wasn’t a dragon it could have. He still remembered how terrified Twilight had been when that heavy ladder had fallen on him. Honestly, the thing that had been hurt worst after that was his pride. And his willingness to go on tall ladders.

“Those seem excessive.”

“Height, maybe. Width, no. I’m lucky, doors aren’t bad for me with my horn width, but my uncle probably wouldn’t be able to fit anywhere in my house.” Spike blinked.

“How-”

“Around 5 feet from end to end.” Kipkirui started walking like he hadn’t said something nearly unbelievable to Spike, and Spike had no choice but to follow along.

The town was incredible. It was jaw-droppingly huge, and while Spike had had expectations based on the size of Kipkirui’s house, this literally exceeded every single one. Aside from the sheer size of the interior, it was designed so intricately, and yet so naturally that it looked as if it could’ve grown that way. The interior walls were composed of titanic, jutting shards of amethyst glittery and free of imperfections, but deliberately rounded out so as to not have any chance of cutting someone. There were ring-shaped floors far below the entrance floor, and floors far above it, all of which had multiple bridges leading into the center area, sort of like a wheel, where intricately carved crystal platforms seemed to be teleporting people to different stores and floors. The exterior edge was lined with a few shops and other buildings built into the walls, but the bridges and the interior edge of the ring-shaped main platforms were lined with residential houses, which he began to realize were deliberately built on crystal platforms so you could look into the space above. The entrance floor lacked the residential buildings, having only the crystal platforms. He was in a perpetual state of awe as his eyes caught more and more details, and he only snapped out of it when he saw Kipkirui staring at him.

“It’s incredible.”

“Only the first 100 times you see it. After that it’s really just routine. C’mon, we should see about getting you some books for your bed shelf.”

“You don’t have to spend money on me. I’m doing alright just reading what you have.”

“Yeah, but I got the money to spare. It’ll be fine.” Spike kept quiet about it, but he did slightly fear that getting too much would trigger another catastrophic greed growth. So, he distracted himself by asking the one question he’d had.

“How did you meet your family?” Kipkirui hummed a question, and he elaborated. “Your aunt and uncle and cousins. Didn’t you say you grew up alone?”

“I did. It was… I want to say a year ago now. I got bored, and I went looking. Turns out my dad passed before my mom had me, and my mom had gone out on her own a long while ago after she and my grandma got into it over her going to school. Mom disappeared when I was around four, so I started doing my own thing. Twelve years later, I started thinking about mom, went looking. Turns out they both had a sibling each. Found my uncle on my mom’s side, learned who my mom had married, and found my dad’s side of the family.” Just thinking about it made Spike feel kind of bad for the Satyr. He didn’t know who his dragon family was, for all he knew he was an abandoned egg, but he had had Twilight, Shining Armor, her parents, even Celestia to a degree. Only having a family once you were basically all grown up, and when you’ve been taking care of yourself for so long, the thought was making Spike’s head spin. “They’re all pretty great. Until I told them I was doing alright for myself they nearly got into a fight over who would take me in. I…” For the first time since Spike had known him, Kipkirui looked sad. “I wish I had met them earlier. I did alright on my own sure, but I think I might’ve done better with people around other than this one pony merchant who used to give me free bread every day.”

“I’m really sorry.” Kipkirui sighed, and blinked before suddenly changing directions.

“We’re on the wrong floor. The magic shop’s a floor up.” He didn’t acknowledge Spike’s apology, and Spike sort of understood why. He just didn’t want to think about it anymore.

As they stepped on the crystal platform at the center of the town, Kipkirui grabbed a hold of Spike’s hand.

“It’s easier this way. That way I don’t have to tell you what to press, and you don’t have to climb up to hit the buttons.” There was a central podium on the platform, and it projected a screen of magic similar to the Pictolith back at Kipkirui’s house. He couldn’t see what was on it, he was quite a bit too short. At around half of Kipkirui’s height, spines included, he was far below the eye level of the screen, which was around Kipkirui’s chest height. “Heads up, you should probably try to not look around while this happens.” Kipkirui said. He could tell that Kipkirui was pressing something on it, when the world sort of swirled. Like if you started turning and from the ground up, it stopped turning, making the whole space look twisted. Then, suddenly it bounced back to normal, and Spike felt very, very nauseous. He fell to the ground, fighting back heaves while Kipkirui sank down, patting him on the back reassuringly. When he finally stopped feeling like he was immediately going to throw up if he opened his mouth, he had one thing and one thing only to say.

“I hated every part of that.” Kipkirui nodded, looking remorseful. In his defense, he had warned Spike, but Spike still scowled at him slightly.

“It’s not fun the first time. If you’re like me, you adjust pretty quickly and by the third time it doesn’t phase you anymore.” Spike raised an eyebrow at him.

“And if you aren’t?”

“I am so sorry.” Spike stood up, his nausea finally subsiding. The shop they stood in front of didn’t particularly fit in with the rest of the town aesthetic, being all cold stone masonry and dark colors compared to the warm woods and vibrant colors. Kipkirui huffed out his nose as he stared at the door, displeasure evident on his face as his lip curled and eyes narrowed. Finally he sighed and closed his eyes.

“Let’s go deal with some jerks.”

Spike had never felt such animosity in his entire life.

This anger was so foreign to his mind that it almost felt as if someone else’s emotions had been implanted directly into his brain.

Not even Owlicious had made him this mad.

“I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone that much in my life.” Kipkirui groaned.

“Tell me about it. I hate bragging, I try to be pretty humble, but that guy who runs the counter has the audacity to call himself a better spellcaster than me. Me! Oh sure, I invented a literally revolutionary crystal growing technique at thirteen that is the only reason this place is so full of amethyst that we could fully stock an elder dragon’s hoard by shaving ONE of the walls, but yeah, you’re the better spell caster because you learned a flight spell, which is literally just modified basic levitation, but on yourself.” Kipkirui hadn’t told him about that one, but he didn’t have it in him to think about it. He was completely and solely angry. “Let’s go to the bookstore. It’s nice, calm, and the people there don’t make me want to charge somebody.” The anger vanished, and was replaced by vertigo and fear.

“Please don’t tell me we have to go on the weird elevator thing again.” Spike couldn’t see Kipkirui’s face over the massive bag of stuff, that Kipkirui hadn’t let him see the contents of, but he assumed it was one of remorse.

“...Sorry.”

Spike ended up on the floor again. He recovered quicker, but he still was not looking forward to having to go back down to the main floor.

The bookshop was nice though.

It was run by an elderly old Satyr, with a sheeplike visage, and four-horns, who greeted them kindly upon their entrance. While Kipkirui stopped to inquire about a few things in particular, he asked Spike to pick out five to ten things he wanted and he could get them. Spike mentally blanked at that, finding that ten might be a few too little. He wasn’t as intense a reader as Twilight, or Kipkirui for that matter, but he was still prone to spending hours reading if he was interested. That said, he did go looking, and while he found a few Satyr-made comic books, he only picked up three of those, not wanting most of his ten to be picture books. He wandered around, looking through different sections for topics he already had an interest in, like geology, or magical chemistry. He found two of each, his favorite of which was Rare Gems and How To Prepare Them, written by a dragon named Skulk, who despite the intimidating name, was pictured on the interior of the book jacket as a heavy-set, friendly looking dragon of his mid-forties. Okay, that’s seven.

Unfortunately, after that, he wasn’t able to find much else he would’ve been interested in, or that he didn’t find the price too egregious to ask for. He preferred hardbacks, and those ran high. He was going to just ask for the seven that he had, when something caught his eye. A remarkably thick book, entitled Legends of Old Deities, Heroes, and Monsters.

Sold.

He carried the eight books back to the front desk, where Kipkirui had grabbed a few of his own.

“Found anything good?” Spike nodded, and struggled to place the stack on the counter to be paid for. Kipkirui shelled out the cash, pieces of silver cut in different shapes, presumably for different amounts, like it was nothing, but he did ask Spike to carry the books, as he had his hands full with his bag.

They arrived home around mid-day, and while Spike decided to sit on the couch to read, Kipkirui was hard at work with feverence, setting up some sort of globe on his desk, while he wrote things down. Spike would’ve been inclined to help, but the book he was reading was much too enthralling for his own good.

It went into ridiculous detail on such a ridiculously high quantity of deities that Spike struggled to process them all, until he got to one in particular. After passing the sections on primordials and titans, the book moved into gods, the most recent era of deities as it claimed. And there, the first one listed, was a dragon. Jupiter, the Lord of the Skies and God of Lightning. Shown with incredible wings, and a javelin of pure electricity, distinguished by his electric blue and yellow scales, and glowing blue eyes. He was listed as the King of The Gods, whose might, along with his brothers Poseiden and Hades, had insured the reign of the gods following the death of their father Kronos.

He was incredible.

The list of his successes and failures was possibly the longest he’d seen so far, but he’d mostly been enthused in the tales and history of the god, because it was positively enthralling how someone could be so good and so bad.

He was flawed, but overall still a relatively decent leader, aside from his tendency to have mortal children to solve his problems.

He was utterly entranced.

Ch 6: The Forest of Hope

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He should not have fallen asleep reading.

He turned as far as his spine would let him go, trying to crack it and relieve some of the tension he’d gained from his horrendous sleeping position. Not only had he fallen asleep practically on the book, meaning that the marks from where the edges of the book had stabbed into him were very clearly visible for the time being, he’d fallen asleep halfway off of his bed entirely, with his head and arms trying to find rest any way they could, leading to a terrible crick in his neck, and a devastating pain in between his shoulders. He made one last vain attempt at stretching before simply giving up on it and going downstairs, expecting that Kipkirui would at least be awake to complain to. As he climbed down the rungs of the ladder that connected the second floor to the floor below, he realized that Kipkirui was nowhere to be seen, not even being at his desk like he typically was at the early hours of the morning. Spike checked the clock, making sure that he hadn’t woken up at some ridiculous hour, but was proven wrong in that theory by the clearly displayed 7:00 AM on the clock. He muffled a groan as he accidently turned his head the wrong way, the crick in his neck sending a sudden wave of pain through his shoulder.

Where was Kipkirui?

The satyr was consistent in a few things, and one of them was always letting Spike know when he was heading out, meaning that he at least had to still be inside the house. Spike’s first thought was the green room, and just as he walked back to the ladder and climbed the first two rungs, he choked an inhale as the bookshelf beside him swung open, startling him into falling off the ladder. Out walked a slightly glowing Kipkirui, who was wearing clothes that Spike had never seen before. Something akin to a cloak, draped over his left shoulder, and wrapped over the top of a fancy, full length purple dress. He was also carrying a small package of some kind, wrapped in simple brown wrapping paper.

“Why are you glowing?” Kipkirui raised an eyebrow at him.

“Did you fall off the ladder?”

“Not important. And yes. But why are you glowing?” Kipkirui reached down and helped pull Spike up.

“How much of that book did you get through?” Spike narrowed his eyes.

“You’re dodging the question.” Kipkirui shrugged. “Fine, I got through a lot of it, or at least half. I don’t think I got to any of the monsters, but I finished most of the gods, so-”

“Honestly, the monsters aren’t that important. Really, all you needed to read was the section on gods. Anyway, here.” He handed Spike the parcel he’d been carrying, before walking over to his desk, and pulling out a small obelisk of some kind. A tapering, black tower, topped with an amethyst pyramidion, and covered in gold lettering. He waved for Spike to follow him to the counter island, and Spike did so, genuinely confused on where all of this was going. Kipkirui wasn’t much of a secret keeper. Granted, Spike had known him for about a week, but for the most part, he seemed like he never intentionally withheld information, and answered questions to the fullest extent possible. This wasn’t exactly in character for him, regardless of circumstance. As Spike sat down at the counter, Kipkirui’s weird glow had yet to dissipate, sticking in the air around him like rim lighting. “I didn’t sleep much, or at all, last night, so excuse me if my explanation gets a bit wonky in places. That said, this is already hard to explain when I’ve slept well and have had time to write out a script, so it’ll probably be a little wonky even if I explain it pretty well.” Kipkirui tapped the letters along the side of the obelisk, and shouted for the lights to dim. The amethyst rose from the top of the pyramid, and Spike watched intently, as the amethyst projected a three dimensional image into the air.

“Let’s begin with the simple part.” The amethyst projected three separate images, three symbols, something akin to the house crests you’d see with royal families in Canterlot. “Magic, as we know it, draws from three sources. Source one, the Pneuma, or spirit.” The first of the three, a rhombus shape looped by circles, moved to the front. “This is the magic we see in Unicorns, where the outward manifestations of it can be changed rather than just being innate, compared to number two, Soma, which is the magic that basically everything else has.” The second, a heart wreathed in whisps and sparkles floated to the front, glowing a deep emerald green. “The magic that makes Earth Ponies so strong, allows dragons to breathe fire, and lets pegasi shape the weather counts as Soma. It’s innate, and although it can be practiced, it’s not particularly manipulatable. It does what it needs to do. The third form is Spitha.” The third and final symbol, something akin to interlocking horns wrapped around a sort of minimalist depiction of a sprouting plant. “This is the magic that Satyrs use, the kind that comes from an understanding of the world’s innate magic, and the way the gods have affected the world. And that’s where things get tricky.” Kipkirui stretched, and yawned.

“Gods? Like in the book?” Kipkirui nodded, and Spike blanked. “So you’re telling me that gods seriously affected the world in a way that lets you draw magic from it. That implies that they were real.”

“Perceptive. Present tense though.” Spike’s eyes went wide. “I hate to drop a revelation like that on you and then say hold on, but neither of us have eaten breakfast and I’m falling asleep here. Do you mind if I at least make something hot so I can chug it and shock myself awake?”

“Oh, uh, sure. I’m just gonna… sit here and have a moment.” Kipkirui nodded.

“I get that.”

“Okay, let’s get one thing squared away. Most of what you read in that book wasn’t true. The gods were and are dramatic, and they enjoy reading ridiculous stories about themselves. For the most part. Sometimes depictions of Jupiter…” Spike shivered.

“Don’t remind me. The myth of Leda is horrible.”

“Tell me about it. Of all things, a swan. That said, the gods and their forebears, being the titans, giants, and primordials are all on relatively good terms. There are some feuds, like Minerva and Ares, Demeter and Pluto, but for the most part, every conflict the Gods have had boils down to an argument you’d have with your sibling over the last cupcake.” Spike gave him a disbelieving look, eyebrow raised.

“That’s not the part I’m having trouble believing. So you’re telling me that a bunch of stories and myths are real, and that they had most of those myths written because they like seeing how people perceive the gods? That’s insane!” Kipkirui raised an eyebrow in a half smirk.

“Remember Nightmare Moon?”

“How do you know about that?”

“I own a lot of books. Plus, if the night sticks around a little too long, you’re gonna wonder what’s holding up the sun.” Spike pointed at him.

“That’s another thing! How could Apollo and Celestia both exist? Wouldn’t they fight each other or something for control?” Kipkirui waved him off.

“Apollo and Artemis are surprisingly willing to designate their responsibilities as the Sun and Moon mostly to Celestia and Luna so they can focus on their other duties.” Kipkirui scowled at his empty mug of tea. “In any case, I assure you, they’re very real. You could meet them if you wanted to, and they were willing.” Spike was officially entering the information overload territory. His eyes screwed up, and he rubbed at his temples as he tried to stave off the headache that always came with too much new information at once.

“Okay, well, can we circle back around to why you were glowing? I know you said it was related to all this, but I want to get through that question before I learn any more life changing things.” Kipkirui winced.

“This is still pretty life changing. Remember how I said you could meet the gods? Yeah, if they like you enough, they sort of become a Patron? It’s like a sponsor, but with magic.”

“I’m assuming you have a patron then?”

“Three actually. Demeter and Pan are the regular ones, but I’m studying Apollo’s gift of prophecy.” Spike took a deep breath.

He did not know how much more of this he could take. Ever perceptive, or as he now knew, possibly just reading the future, Kipkirui walked around and patted him on the shoulder.

“I get that it’s a mess. When I first started learning I felt like I was losing my mind. Still, if you want to take a break from this, open your present.” Oh, right. The parcel. Spike stared at the twine wrapping on the box as his lip subconsciously curled. It’s just one gift. No hoarding, no mess. Spike suddenly lunged at the package, simply ripping it open in the hopes of locking himself in.

It was a small, silver globe of some kind. It was light, only around a quarter of a pound, and when placed upon the small platform it came with, it floated, and emitted a soft purple glow. It was just a light, but a fancy one, and according to Kipkirui, it could do a few other things too. But, as much as Spike wanted to explore the thing’s functions, he had enough information to process, and he did not need more. He spent the rest of the day in a routine of reading through the book on gods and monsters, reading through the associated stories and wondering just how people could come up with all of that. Sure, godly influence, but at least some of it had to have no gods involved.

Eventually he asked about the bookshelf.

Kipkirui’s response was incredibly exuberant, and Spike briefly wondered if Kipkirui had a secret lab that he hadn’t been told about.

Good gods it was so much more.

Behind the bookshelf was a staircase that led impossibly far down, and opened to a room possibly larger than the first floor of the Satyr village. The air was crisp, like standing in a grove of trees, likely because he was. Somehow there was a small forest in its entirety contained in the pocket dimension Kipkirui called home, irrefutably the doing of the Satyr as he stared at the room in pride. He took a deep breath, and the glowing returned.

“Welcome to my paradise, Spike. The Grove of Hope.” Spike gaped.

“Oh my goodness.” There were no words but those. This was far beyond the scope of anything he’d seen or experienced before, and he stared in unabashed awe as the incredible forest responded to Kipkirui’s very presence, the trees in the center parting to reveal a beam of glowing, golden light.

“Say Spike,” Kipkirui began. Spike looked at him, still in a state of near shock. “How would you like to meet a god?”

Ch. 7: Jupiter Optimus Maximus

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“So… I just touch the podium.”

The podium in question was a beautifully carved stone pillar, likely marble, with various letters Spike didn’t recognize etched into the sides of the base, leading into an intricate swirl pattern that eventually went from one solid piece to multiple floating pieces, likely sustained by magic. It positively radiated power, and Spike felt like there was a weak repulsion field, something keeping him from touching it if he tried without actually putting his weight behind it. It was beautiful, it was powerful…

And it was absolutely gods damned terrifying.

“Yep. You should be careful not to touch the runes on the base, that’ll turn you into a conductor for the magic, and while that won’t exactly hurt, residual magic usually leaves your mouth tasting like you’ve been licking copper for the past few days.” Spike felt saliva well up in his mouth in a semi-sympathetic reaction. He swallowed, somehow feeling both a mild sense of existential dread and overwhelming peace. His body wasn’t reacting to his fear at all, it was just kind of… there.

“Alright.” Spike reached out a claw, and the moment his palm made contact with the swirl of the podium, it felt like he’d been sent careening down a river, getting tossed around and scraped against the edges of an invisible barrier that held the current in place. He tried to open his eyes, but he might as well have kept them shut for all the good it did to see surroundings moving so fast he couldn’t begin to make sense of. He felt himself rush through several different locations, one like the familiar heat of fire, one bearing the cold darkness of the underground, a few that felt like meadows or fields, even one the felt like being underwater. He lingered in some for longer than he did others, but eventually he came to a hard stop, perfectly deposited on his feet as he opened his eyes.

He found that he was standing on a cloud.

<hr>

Jupiter had to fight for this one.

It was simple. A pure hearted dragon with an absurd amount of innate magical potential and a willingness to learn. Even Ares wanted him, something Jupiter and nearly every other god was not comfortable with.

Ares might not actively work to incite war, but he certainly incites conflict, and that is <i>not</i> something the world needs more of at this moment.

The dragon landed on his cloud, and Jupiter was quick to gather his bolt and approach.

He did not expect the young dragon to scream at him.

<hr>

Spike slammed his hands over his mouth, looking at the clear visage of the Dragon he’d seen multiple times over while looking through the book. This was Jupiter. He was too stunned to even move as the god sank into sitting down on the floor, legs crossed. He seemed…

Way too dad-like to be a god.

The image depiction of him wasn’t inaccurate, it was just too sharp. Jupiter looked, for want of a simpler term, kind. He had a strong jaw, but it was more on the round side, and while visibly muscular, he wasn’t all sharp angles and hard muscle. He really just felt like your average neighborhood dad. Or a chill ranch farmer, like Big Mac.

“Hello.” It was really all Spike could think to say. He wasn’t quite sure how you address a god. It’s the type of thing people don’t exactly teach you. Jupiter simply held out a claw and shook his, smiling.

“Hello. I have a feeling that you already know who I am. I can’t say that I’ve been watching you directly, but I did have to make my case for you to show up here instead of in any of the other deities’ domains.”

“...Other gods wanted to talk to me?”

“Most of them. Excluding Artemis, nothing personal, she only ever accepts female Clients, so you wouldn’t have ended up there, and Hestia, because she doesn’t take Clients. Ever. There were a large number of minor gods too, but they don’t have the kind of pull we do, so you’d have to actively seek them out in your free time.” Spike’s mouth had fallen slightly agape at the news, and Jupiter chuckled. “Now, it’s time to discuss what you’re here for. Most Dragons take on the patronage of Hephestus or Notus. We are creatures of fire, it’s in our nature. But I’d like to make you a rare offer. You will be one of my Clients, an agent of the skies and thunder. Now, that means emulating my duties in the mortal realm.”

Spike felt, and probably looked positively awestruck. He managed to blink himself out of it, asking: “Well, what are your duties?”

“Among the gods, as king I work to ensure fairness among my fellows and protection of the living world. My job is to protect, and to make liars and the deceitful be honest before their fate so that they may make peace with it. I am the keeper of oaths, protector, and the least exciting, patron of the market.” The last one had a bit of mirth to it. “In short, you will act as a shield for the common man, placing yourself firmly in their aid. Do you think you can handle that?”

This could not have been more perfect.

“Of course! Helping people is what I love most! Even when I’m not the best at it, I’m still glad to try! This is perfect, it’s what I love to do!” Jupiter gave a soft smile, and rose to his full height, grabbing the bolt that he’d sat down, and holding out the handle to Spike.

“Then, I officially take note of you as a protege and client of myself, Jupiter. Take hold, and it’ll become your new reality.” Spike hesitantly grabbed hold of the handle of the javelin, and Jupiter let go, allowing Spike to carry the full weight on his own. Despite being absurdly large for the small dragon, he somehow managed to hold it confidently, and he even smiled, holding it above his head like a symbol of victory.

And suddenly, it was like he was being pulled back up the same way he’d came. But something about it felt more controlled, like he was moving with the current instead of simply ragdolling through it.

He opened his eyes, which were suddenly seeing much higher up on the podium. He whirled around, and looked at Kipkirui, who seemed shorter.

No, he was definitely taller. Spike looked over himself, and felt a wave of confusion as he saw that he’d shifted into some new, much larger body. He wasn’t overly muscular, but he was strong. It was sort of how Rainbow Dash had said fliers were built. They needed to be lean because size increased drag, but they needed to be muscular in order to generate the proper strength necessary to turn and twist and do tricks in the air.

He also had wings.

And not just regular wings, huge wings. So huge that they seemed nearly disproportionate. It was when he folded them that he considered them being magical in nature, because they seemed much smaller than they would naturally fold when he folded them up. It was… odd.

“So… I’m guessing it’s a god having something to do with the sky…”

“...Yes…” His voice even sounded different. Kipkirui started pacing around him.

“Let’s see here… Lean build, so it’s probably not Notus. Your scales haven’t gone white, so it’s probably not Boreas. Eurus likes shifting patterns, and your scales are uniform, and Zephyrus is as much a nature god as a wind god, and I’m not getting the vibe that I usually get from nature gods…”

“Do you want a hint?” Kipkirui nodded. “Storms.”

“Well, I already guessed Eurus so-” And just as quickly as he started guessing again, Kipkirui whipped his head around. “No way.”

Without even thinking about it, Spike raised his claw and electricity crackled between his fingertips as the smell of ozone filled the air. “Way.”

“Jupiter himself… that hasn’t happened in years…” Kipkirui seemed awestruck. Not even, flabbergasted was the better word. “You need to be on the lookout for the next storm. Jupiter is notorious for giving gifts to his followers during storms. And because you’re a new protege…”

Somehow, the distant boom of thunder penetrated the layered pocket dimensions, ringing through the Forest of Hope. Kipkirui gave Spike a split second glance before sprinting up and out, Spike in tow as the two raced outside the tree, looking as the downpour formed above them, with no help from pegasi.

Distantly, in Ponyville, ponies complained as the sky turned dark with no one’s influence, and families scrambled indoors as thunder boomed and lightning flashed. Twilight and her friends looked in the vague direction that they’d last encountered Kipkirui and Spike, and saw as a lone lightning bolt struck mere minutes away from where they’d seen them last.

And in front of Spike and Kipkirui, a tree was struck, splitting in two as a lone piece of wood remained, carved divinely from the two broken halves, and forming the distinct shape of a wooden staff, topped with a lone piece of shimmering tanzanite.

Ch. 8: Gifts

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Spike had spent the past twenty minutes staring at the Tanzanite.

It wasn’t normal, that he was sure of, evidenced by the miniature lightning strikes that seemed to flash through the gem every few seconds or so. It was a beautiful thing, and it felt like it was resonating with his very soul as he looked through every facet of the intricately carved stone.

Honestly, it might’ve been.

He’d read his book on rare gems, and this wasn’t in there. Either it was so rare no one had seen it yet, or it was made specifically for this staff, one of a kind. And Spike wanted nothing more than to remove it from the staff and put it in a glass case or something so it could sit there and look pretty. And especially so it wouldn’t get damaged somehow. Luckily, it didn’t seem entirely possible that it could be damaged. The staff hovered a couple inches off the ground, and it seemed to perfectly right itself no matter how much tipping force was applied, so it didn’t seem possible to scratch it on the ground or on walls, especially since the magic field that let it levitate extended in a full spheroid around the object, keeping it from bumping into walls even if it caught some momentum and started floating around the room.

Also, apparently Jupiter’s gifts extended into modifying Kipkirui’s house.

On the surface, nothing appeared different, which is why neither of them noticed when running outside to see the effects of Jupiter’s thunderstorm, but when they came back inside, and Spike ascended the ladder to his room to keep reading, mostly because he wanted to finally get back to the monster section of his book, he came up to find that his wardrobe had been modified, all of his clothes transformed to fit his new size, including the same purple robe and cloak that Kipkirui had, which had appeared alongside all of his resized clothes..

Then came the big stuff.

The entire layout of his room had been shuffled, specifically to make room for a single statue of an eagle, which he learned upon touching it for the first time, was a portal into his own private sanctum, much like Kipkirui’s bookshelf, though he would say that Kipkirui’s entire house was a bit of a sanctum. The interior was beautiful, an elegant marble spire that housed another eagle statue, and after spending around ten minutes inside he started gaining the same glowing that Kipkirui had when in his own sacred area, but with the added flair of cool, electric blue fog rolling off of him.

The Marble Spire was empty, but it held some presence. The smell of ozone and the feeling of impending electricity hung over the area habitually, and it practically exerted an overwhelming force.

Spike felt so at home it was strange.

“The initial decorum was a statue of myself.” Spike nearly threw himself into an early shed as Jupiter’s voice came from behind him. “One of my sons informed me that the statue was unnerving. I can certainly understand why, sometimes my presence can be a little unnerving, as you likely just noticed.” The god of thunder absently held his hands behind his back, staring at the Marble Spire. “Of course, I do try to personalize them a little. Still, you can change what you want, or if you lack the resources, I can help out just a little. I wouldn’t suggest getting used to divine help though.”

“I’m sorry, because this is probably gonna be rude, but how am I meant to address you? Is it ‘Your Majesty’, is it-” Jupiter silenced him with a raised hand.

“Spike, you need not worry about that. I will be the first to admit, Gods are dramatic beings, myself in particular…” Jupiter gave him a thumbs up. “But honorifics are for the days of old, and for those who we haven’t chosen.” His arms returned to their idle position behind his back, done with the moment of reassuring humanity. “I actively worked to get you to show up in my domain. I put in the effort to have the privilege to be your patron. To address me by name would be fine. Though if you do want honorifics, most just refer to me as Lord Jupiter. Your majesty is so…” He simply shook his head, exasperated. “It’s not preferred. I have to go now, okay? Enjoy what I’ve given you. And if you need me, I’ll likely be there. I don’t have many proteges, and most of my duties are relatively self-governing, so I have free time.” Jupiter gave him one last smile, before the clouds condensed around him, and when Spike waved away the fog, he was gone. Spike stood there for maybe a moment extra, before turning to the spire, flying to the top, and laying a hand on the stone eagle topping it.

He nearly jumped out of his scales for the second time that day when the eagle bowed its head at his touch. It made a sound somewhere in between a honk and a screech, which Spike snickered at, having not expected it. When he removed his hand, the stone eagle flew in a circle around him, and as his vision faded out, and back in, he was in his room at Kipkirui’s house again, the lights in his room were dimmed, and he heard the distant sound of spattering oil from downstairs. Spike took a deep breath, before grabbing his new staff, and heading for the kitchen. He’d had enough change for one day, and more than enough gifts. All he wanted was something for breakfast, because it was already hitting eleven, and he hadn’t even eaten yet.

<hr>

“Hey, Kip, what arE YOU- HOLY GODS!”

The room was practically filled with food. That’s not even an exaggeration, Kipkirui had exceeded the kitchen space, bleeding into his desk space and the living room, putting plates on whatever flat space was available. There were even pancakes on top of the fridge.

“...Does this not seem excessive to you?” Kipkirui leveled him a questioning glance.

“You didn’t eat dinner last night because you were so into your book, and neither of us had breakfast. I want you to take a moment and actually listen to your body. How are you feeling?” Spike blinked a couple of times, not exactly sure how to respond. So, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and listened to how he really felt. And how he felt was...

Honestly, Spike felt like someone had beaten him with a sack of potatoes. He was mentally and physically drained, and maybe there was a bit of emotional strain too. He was tired beyond his own comprehension, and it wasn’t until he took a minute to actually listen to himself that he realized just how tired he was. But before he was tired, he was hungry. Very hungry.

“Okay, wow. I need some food. And a nap.” Spike slid into the bar, blinking rapidly as he felt his eyes overcome with the sudden onset of exhaustion and dryness, and he grabbed the nearest beverage, a glass of orange juice, and drained it, funneling just a bit of cold into his body to try and snap himself awake. “Either way, emotionally, I’m exhausted, but I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. Jupiter is… surprisingly paternal.”

“Well, his wife is the goddess of marriage. Affairs aside, he's a pretty good family member, and even though it kind of goes against the God’s codes, he’s always shown a bit of favoritism. I’ve heard stories, but I haven’t seen anyone directly talk about it besides you. He hasn’t had any mortal children in centuries, and he hasn’t taken on any protege in about as long. Jupiter’s stuck to the god’s realms for the most part, in recent years.”

“So, I’m Jupiter’s first protege in centuries. Y’know, as much as I like titles like that, it’s the type of thing you can’t say without sounding like you’re bragging.” Kipkirui smiled, setting down the last of about fifty plates.

“You’re right about that, but hey, flaunt it. Why not, I got to brag about having a direct connection to Pan for a while.” Kipkirui took a sip of his own glass of orange juice. “Until then, eat some food, and afterward, you are taking a nap, because I refuse to let you stay up for no reason.”

Spike would say after the fact, that he ate a little more than some food. Of the 50 plates, Spike ate 40.

Ch. 9: Midnight

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Twilight was once again, up in the dead of night.

It wasn’t for any particular reason. She just didn’t feel like sleeping. Maybe she could, but she could just as easily end up laying there for two hours straight and getting even more restless. Times like this were rough. She couldn’t do much in the middle of the night, because all of her typical options for practicing in the day had some kind of major drawback, or just a minor inconvenience that would definitely snowball if she let it start. Practicing spells was a pain, either because they were too loud or because of what could go wrong if she screwed them up somehow. Reading was always an option, but she got tunnel vision with a good book, and she didn’t want to find herself looking up from her book and seeing the sunrise. And finally, wandering around looking for problems to solve or ponies to help wasn’t an option, because nobody else was awake.

Ponyville had a strangely monolithic sleeping schedule, and she would’ve otherwise felt tempted to research why, if not for the fact that it was probably just coincidence. That, and a lot of ponies just closed their doors, but didn’t go to sleep.

So, here she was, silently scratching away at a piece of parchment, writing something or other that she’d probably look back at in the morning, revise it, and throw it away. She liked to read, but the idea of writing or publishing something of her own didn’t seem appealing. That said, outside of the scratching of her quill on the paper, Ponyville was silent, devoid of even the hoots of the few owls that remained in the area (Owlowiscious included, who was perched silently in the corner of the room, head tucked beneath his wing as he slept), and completely, totally empty. Which is why she nearly jumped out of her skin when a quiet knock sounded at the door, interrupting her focus, and unfortunately, her quill stroke. She placed the quill in its ink well as quietly as possible, before trotting to the door and swinging it open.

“Greetings.” Came the deep voice of a thestral, one of Luna’s guards. He wore a peculiar armor for the guard, a much more streamlined and lightweight version, befitting of his much larger than average wings and slim build. He wore them along with a saddlebag, which he placed at her feet before bowing his head respectfully, rising up, and pushing the bag to Twilight. “Princess Luna requests your audience, and as she must do her duty of keeping the dreams of ponies safe, she asked me to bring you this.” Slightly surprised, Twilight flipped the clasp of the saddlebag, and levitating out the lone item contained, a bottle of swirling blue, with what appeared to be glitter, or another iridescent manner of particle, floating inside, and the bottle itself was wax sealed with a beautiful gold wax. “Princess Luna’s sleeping drought. Typically, she’d ask you to only drink half and return the rest, but she said specifically that with how fleetingly she’s seen you active in the dream realm, you ought to drink the whole bottle.” He bowed once more, before returning the saddlebag to his back, and taking off, leaving Twilight to wonder what Luna had to inquire about so urgently that it couldn’t wait until she fell asleep on her own.

<hr>

To say the potion worked, might’ve been an understatement.

She’d drank the bottle on the bottom floor of the Golden Oaks, and had barely managed to make it to her bed before she found herself in an area of shifting colors and swirling clouds. The Realm of Dreams.

“Greetings, Twilight Sparkle. I take it that my delivery made it to you?” Twilight bowed, nodding her head silently. “No need for that. I would like to consider us friends, and I ask that you limit the formalities in that department.”

“Right. What was it you wanted to talk about?” Luna hummed, her horn glowing briefly as a set of chairs and a table materialized in the ethereal space. The two sat down, and some unseen entity, be it Luna’s magic or simply the Dream Realm itself began magically brewing a pot of tea.

“Have you talked with Spike at all since your falling out? It appears that he’s brought himself some… let’s say divine attention.”

Twilight frowned, shaking her head. “I really haven’t been able to figure out exactly what to say. I sent one letter, but it was mostly just a lot of pictures.” Then she blinked, as if the second half of Luna’s statement only then dawned on her. “Did you say divine attention?”

Spike held out his hands, brows furrowing in concentration as he stared at the crystal, feeling a weird burning sensation well up in his palms as the crystal levitated, before falling back onto the counter top. He groaned as quietly as possible, trying not to wake up the sleeping satyr on the second floor as he quietly tried to get a grip on at least the basics of magic, both for himself, and as a cool surprise for the satyr to see when he woke up. He sighed, staring at his claws like they were supposed to know what to do. He looked back at the book, tracing the symbol onto his palm for the sixth time, before holding out his palm again. He felt the same burning sensation, and the crystal levitated all the same, but still, no luck. It was supposed to be a beginner level spell. Entrapment. It was meant to store an object within a much smaller object, for storage or moving, but for right now he couldn’t seem to get it to work. He tossed the crystal aside, checking the book again, when he found a passage that his eyes had skipped over, something that made the reason he was struggling obnoxiously clear.

“Crystals are a unique tool for practitioners. Many find that, due to their innate ability to absorb energy, crystals are great conductors for magic.” And right about here he had stopped reading last time. Unfortunately, the formatting of the page had caused the next line to appear as a different passage entirely, which he realized as he continued reading, it was not. “However, some find that when loaded with simple spells, that latent energy absorption can backfire, neutralizing the spell. It’s a common mistake for many young or experienced practitioners to make when attempting to use them as a focus for low level spells.

The terrors of improper formatting.

He sighed, before trying to think of another way to use one of the many crystals in storage, before grabbing up a different one than the one he’d been using, and placing it on the counter, looking at a Magnetize spell that looked promising.

Though, if he had looked for the crystal he’d been using, he would’ve noticed as it slowly glowed from the inside out, before slowly floating towards his idling staff, and being absorbed into the tanzanite.

Even Jupiter has to set up plans in the background sometimes.

Still, that aside, Spike tried again, vigor renewed with the knowledge that he was necessarily doing anything wrong, and felt the familiar spark of determination welling up inside him. He traced the symbol into his hand, and pointed his open palm at the crystal, feeling the burning sensation push outward, and the symbol blazed to life in the air, playing a quick set of notes, which wrapped around the crystal before absorbing into it.

Testing time. Spike walked to the other side of the room, and tapped a wall, the same symbol swirling into the wood before disappearing, and he took a brief breath, before giving a thumbs up. The crystal floated upward, and the sigil reappeared on the wall as the crystal floated toward it, and as it traveled the full distance across the room, Spike smiled as it came to a halt, floating directly in front of the sigil magically etched in the wall. He opened his palm, and released the thumbs up, the crystal falling straight into his open claw.

He probably should’ve stopped there, in hindsight.

Still riding the high of his first successful spell, he decided to mess around with it a little. The instructions in the book were very simple. Thumbs up was attract, thumbs down was repel. Simple. What the book failed to mention was the effective range of the spell was well over 300 feet, and was much faster the closer the object was to the sigil. Which meant that as Spike held the crystal in front of the sigil once more, and held up a thumbs down, he wasn’t even close to prepared as the crystal shot out from in between his claws at a disturbingly high speed, sending it shooting directly away from the sigil, and imbedding itself firmly into the wooden wall on the opposite side of the room, with a sharp knocking sound much akin to a dart sticking into a dart board, only much, much louder. He stood there for a few seconds, completely still as he listened closely for shuffling on the second floor, before sighing in relief after it didn’t come.

And nearly screaming as Kipkirui’s head poked down the ladder as he walked over to grab the crystal, making a sound like he’d swallowed his own tongue. Kipkirui didn’t look angry, as a matter of fact, he looked sort of smug, like he’d expected it to happen. It was in that split second interval between him realizing that and Kipkirui opening his mouth that he remembered Kipkirui was a divinator, and absolutely saw this coming.

“Congratulations on your first working spell. We’ll deal with the hole in the morning, for now, it’s one in the morning, and you should be asleep. Magical growth or no, you’re still a teenager, and for dragons, you’re still just a fledgling.” Just like that, Kipkirui was back up the ladder, and after standing still for a couple more seconds, Spike grabbed his staff, and climbed up after him.

“In short, Spike now has someone very powerful in his corner.” Luna drained the last of her tea, placing her front hooves on the table. “I hope that wasn’t too much information, I understand that it can be a lot for most to hear, much less understand.”

“I’m fine? It’s not that it isn’t complicated, more like… it’s just very believable when it’s coming straight from a princess.” Twilight sighed, rubbing at her temples. “It is a lot of information though. Why are you telling me this?”

Luna was silent for a moment, looking off into the vague expanse surrounding them, before looking back at Twilight. “To reassure you that Spike will be safe. Twilight Sparkle, you must understand, dreams are a direct gate to the inner psyche of a pony, of any creature, really. To manage dreams, I must see the true feelings of a pony for what they are, and not what they’re projecting on the outside.” The table between them vanished, and their chairs scooted closer together as Luna placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “You have been distressed about Spike for quite some time. It’s understandable, he is your family. If you seek to assure his safety, begin writing to him, even if it’s about nothing at all. But I implore you, do not bottle up your feelings, because regret is one of the most dangerous emotions. It can turn into a very slippery slope.” As she said it, she winced. It was barely perceptible, but it was there, and Twilight had to force herself to keep silent, to ignore it.

“...Thank you, Princess Luna.” Twilight sighed, and she felt disturbingly tired. She blinked a few times, and holding her eyes open only became progressively more difficult each time, the sudden onset of exhaustion reaching every inch of her body. She was only dimly aware of the dreamscape fading away around her, as Luna said, very quietly:

“Goodnight, my friend.”

Author's Notes:

Ah, running two plots at once is always difficult.

So, Twilight is running on fumes still. It makes sense, but apparently she wasn't aware of it.

Spike is doing his thing, and is still getting used to the whole set up.

And now, we reach the beginning of the conclusion of Act 1. Chapter Eleven will be the beginning of Act 2, so that'll be interesting. Chapter ten will just be preparation for that, so let's see how that goes. All in all, thanks for sticking around as I get my stamina for writing longer things comes back, and thank you for reading. Share with your friends, leave a comment (Please, engagement is the only reason I have motivation to write ever), and tell me if you're excited to see the results of all the little things I've been piling up in the background.

Interlude 1: A Cry For Help

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Spike’s dreams were haunted.

No, not menaced by some part of his past that he required closure on, but quite literally haunted. At some point, he’d evidently picked up a ghost, because the same figure of semi-intangibility floated by his side as his dreamscape shifted through various locations, repeating but two words in a pleading voice, yet never moving or even appearing to open its mouth. It didn’t blink, merely shifting colors and sliding around the ground as Spike walked through the forest of his dreams, as though the area surrounding him was a backdrop for the space that he and the spectre occupied.

”Help me.”

Spike blinked, and the dream didn’t hesitate to change, as dreams do, becoming an empty meadow instead of a thick pocket of forest, and those two words echoed through the area, bouncing off invisible walls and returning to Spike’s ears again and again.

”Help me.”

A hill, this time. Overlooking a village some distance away.

”Help me.”

They were in the village now. It had a large and uniquely ornamented fountain at the center, with bridges arcing towards the center, and benches positioned where the water of the fountain would cascade harmlessly behind them. The town was quiet, and the lights were off in all but one house.

”Help me.”

They were inside the house now. Dark wood floors were scrubbed clean as the sole pony inside desperately shoved anything they could inside a pair of saddlebags. Eyebrows furrowed in unwavering concentration, they pulled the straps closed, but Spike could see as their ears twitched in all directions, listening carefully for something, something Spike wasn’t aware of. They sighed as they finally clipped the last button on their saddlebags, and it was with a horrifying start that Spike looked between the identical silhouettes of the pony and the specter, and listened as the two said in unison:

”Dolos, help me.”

Kipkirui stared at him with wide eyes as he finished explaining his dream, coffee forgotten on the counter as an absent smile settled onto Kipkirui’s face.

“Anyway, that’s my dream.”

“Hm.” Kipkirui took a sip of his coffee. “Well, that sounds like either a prophecy, or a magical cry for help. Which, based on the fact that they said the name of the God of Disguises and Trickery, I would hedge my bets on them being a practitioner in danger reaching out to the nearest source of divine magic they could for help.”

“Why do you figure that?”

“Because I had a nearly identical dream. First two locations were different, but I still got the hill, the village, and the house. Only, I must’ve gotten there earlier, because I saw them scrubbing the floors.”

Spike furrowed his brow. “The floors were extremely clean when I got there.” He stood up, already headed for the ladder. “I’m guessing we’re going to the village?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s literally your job description. Protect and help the innocent and all that.” Spike nodded.

“That’s what I thought. Let me get my staff.”

Rising From Avarice, Gaining New Friends

by KingReptarAlmighty

Chapter 1: The Satyr

Ch. 2: Learning The Satyr

Ch. 3: The Gem

Ch. 4: A Real Goodbye

Ch. 5: The Village

Ch 6: The Forest of Hope

Ch. 7: Jupiter Optimus Maximus

Ch. 8: Gifts

Ch. 9: Midnight

Interlude 1: A Cry For Help