Strife

~Chapter 1~

Strife

Equestria's seemingly boundless sky was awash in the exuberant hues of brilliant yellows and softly warm oranges as the setting sun retreated behind the mountainous horizon to make way for its nocturnal sister. It was a sight Spike never seemed to lose interest in, one he would silently gaze at whenever a chance arose. Of course, he'd never tell anybody about his private fascination, it'd ruin his macho-dragon appearance. His bright emerald eyes lazily traced the constellations formed by the shiniest of stars in the young night sky, barely visible behind the veil formed by the gentle purple colors of twilight.

"Twilight..."

He reluctantly tore his gaze away from the darkening heavens and walked back inside his shared bedroom from the stone balcony he'd been standing at for an amount of time even he had lost track of. Her name was a thorn in his heart that'd never left him, and it hurt him every time he would so much as think about uttering it. It carried so many memories with it, so many years of childish crusading that never failed to bring a sad, nostalgic smile to his face. He could never enjoy them like he wished he could, though.

No, he'd tried to hold on to their blissful happiness for as long as he could, countless times, but there was always one dreaded memory to crush his hopes: the day of his departure from Ponyville. The day itself unfolded rather smoothly, with more than a few tears shed by many of those who were there to see him, Rarity, and Sweetie Belle off. After that...that's when things slowly started to change.

Still, he didn't want to think about that, lest his mood deteriorate any further than it already had.

Spike had moved to the industrial semi-metropolitan boomtown of Trottingham, running the Sparkling Diamond Boutique alongside his little "family." The years he'd spent chasing after the fashion designer's heart, serving as her unofficial assistant, had given him a substantial amount of progress in the designing arts, and they proved to be invaluable over the years he had worked at his home business.

Sparkling Diamond...Sparkling...Sparkle.

He shook his head as he futilely tried to free his mind from the grip his nagging feelings had ensnared him in, each and every one of his dark thoughts painted in an array ranging from more contaminated nostalgia to an inkling of depression splattered on a canvas of longing. Five years is a very long time in itself, but it is an eternity when spent separated from your closest and most trusted companion. He'd asked himself so many times why he never set aside some time for himself, a couple of hours at least, and made the trip to Ponyville. The answer to that question was conveniently revealed a second later as a voice he had heard for every day of his life for the past half-decade called out to him.

"Spike, darling! Would you mind coming downstairs for a second?"

The adolescent drake let out a little huff before trudging past the grand four-post bed he slept in, making his way towards the staircase leading to his elegant home's first floor. So many photographed faces stared at him as he walked through a hallway completely lined with pictures, most of which were of Rarity and himself, but one framed photo stood out from all the others at the end of the hall. He forwent going downstairs for the moment, opting to instead take a closer look at the well-known photography by taking it down from the wall and cradling it in his skilled claws. He could feel the familiar sting of tears on his draconic eyes as they threatened to break free from their restraints.

A younger purple dragon smiled at him from the picture, his wide smile a testament to the unadulterated happiness in his heart as he rode Twilight's back with a letter to one of his esteemed rulers in the palm of his hand, surrounded by the five other mares that had once been a part of their tightly-knit inner circle of friends. What he wouldn't give to be able to go back to those simpler times, to leave behind the pains of the present and bask in youthful joy.

Knowing full well that Rarity would call for him again if he didn't move soon, Spike returned the nostalgic photograph to its rightful place on the wall and wiped away a stray tear before heading downstairs.

Ponyequins clad in his marefriend's magnificent creations greeted his arrival at the living room with their faceless gazes, following him with their nonexistent eyes. He shuddered at the familiar, disturbing sight of the creepy wooden constructs in the darkness of the lightless room. He'd never been able to get over their ominous appearances and would have gladly burned them all to smoldering ashes had Rarity not scolded him for even suggesting such a thing.

A bright light coming from the home's workshop pierced through the suffocating darkness of the lifeless livingroom, accompanied by the telltale sounds of the alabaster fashionista of the house hard at work. Spike gladly walked past the fabulously dressed wooden figurines, smiling a little when he spotted the teenage filly that brought in most of the excitement to their little family through her bedroom's open door. Sweetie Belle had made quite a name for herself in the short time following her cutie mark's long-awaited appearance, and the microphone with three little orbiting hearts on her flanks seemingly guaranteed that any song she broadcasted through her radio channel became a hit single. Still, fame came with its own sacrifices, and she paid for it with most of her free time, preventing her from visiting her foalhood friends back in Ponyville.

The smile on Spike's face was once again slain as he thought about the unofficial disbandment of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

"I can relate, Sweetie Belle..." His short soliloquy went unheard by anyone other than himself. He tried to push all of his dreary thoughts away as he grew ever closer to the violet-maned unicorn, who had surely heard his heavy footsteps before he was in the workshop with her. Rarity turned away from what she was working on to greet her dragonfriend, her sapphire eyes shining with an unnatural twinkle that told Spike she was thrilled about something. He didn't get to think much more than that before she spoke to him in a voice that mirrored the excitement in her eyes.

"Ah, dear, would you please do me a favor and stand on the fitting pedestal? I've got some great news to tell you!" Spike groaned internally at the prospect of being measured again, but he supposed the little tidbit about "great news" would keep him interested enough. However, he didn't like the nervous undertone she impressively tried to hide as she spoke.

The purple drake began to ponder the unusual tint her voice carried as he stepped up onto the stand, surrounded by three mirrors reflecting his image right back at him. He grew self-conscious for a second when he looked into one of the mirrors, worried that he might have put on a couple of pounds due to his recent lack of exercise, but it was a needless worry. He was still his usual self; his belly was no bigger than it always was, his green spines were still slightly pointy, and he was still an average pony's height. He didn't understand why Rarity took his measurements every single time she wanted to make him something, especially due to the fact that a dragon's limbs would only grow due to a growth spurt, but she insisted on doing it against his whines.

"So, what's all this about good news?" Spike opted to get himself out of his pool of thoughts to gather more information from the real world, not to mention that he had become so absorbed by said thoughts that the unicorn was already halfway through her measurements. The sudden noise startled Rarity out of her work, much to her embarrassment, but she quickly caught on to the path the conversation was going to take.

"Well, you know how we've been planning to expand the business, right?" Spike noticed the minuscule droplets of nervous sweat forming on her otherwise pristine brow, leading him to think that the news she had wouldn't be all that 'Great'. He also noted how she used 'We've' instead of 'I've' when she spoke, it was a little detail that had pestered him throughout the years. Whenever a decision had to be made, or plan of action created, it always went the direction Rarity wanted. She decided that they had to move to Trottingham to improve their business, she was the one to select the house they lived in, she was the one that got to name the boutique itself. All of these things just let Spike be reminded of the one of the most fatal flaw his perfect happiness had.

He had little to no say in whatever was done in the relationship.

"I guess so, why do you ask?" he just hoped that whatever it was that the unicorn had in stock wasn't anything he would have any trouble with. He seriously didn't want to be reminded about his submissiveness in the family's decisions. Rarity began to fumble with her hooves as she gave off a nervous chuckle, just her chuckling was enough to let Spike know that something was up.

"I decided to purchase that building in Canterlot," the dragon being measured froze at that point, barely containing what he had to say as he let the mare continue, "the movers said we could get everything we need over there by next week if we start packing by Wednesday."

Rarity misinterpreted Spike's silence, thinking that he didn't see the move as being that bad. Of course, she didn't notice his clenched teeth or the look growing in his emerald eyes, so she didn't expect the harsh undertone lining what he said next.

"Rarity...when did you do this." the unicorn was caught off guard by being put on the spot by the dragon, and the question was one she dreaded to answer. She had grown used to him going along with everything she said or did, but apparently she had done something to upset him.

"Uhm...yesterday."

"And why wasn't I told of this?" his tone only grew more abrasive as he continued his questioning.

"I just thought that you'd want this, you've always agreed on everything we decided to do so I thought this would be okay."

"Okay? How is this okay Rarity? And when have I ever gotten to 'Agree' on anything we do?" she had crossed a border with the drake, and his questions almost counted as shouts.

"What about when we bought this house!" Rarity immediately went on the defensive, responding in kind to the sudden accusation aimed towards her. Spike being mad was a sight that she rarely ever saw, but for him to be mad at her was a first that she didn't like at all.

"You mean when you bought this house! I wanted to buy the one down by Trotson Avenue, but you were so centered around buying this overly-sized building that you didn't even listen to me."

"Well you should have told me that, how was I supposed to know?" the unicorn was surprised by how blunt her love was being, she had grown used to the docile dragon that she had seen throughout the years.

"You were supposed to have listened instead of trying to think up ways to use up the extra space in here, which looks really bad since you never took the time to fill it in." Spike began to lose his control over his pent-up emotions, and he began to vent them out through the argument.

"I'm sorry then! The payment is done and the house at Canterlot is ours, we can't just leave that behind! What's so wrong with the move anyway, you said you didn't really like it around here."

"I keep saying I don't like it around here because its fairly far away from Ponyville, but you never take the time to hear me out! So, obviously, if you tell me that we're moving all the way to Canterlot, I'm not going to like the idea."

"What do you want to be around Ponyville for anyway! We left that behind us years ago!" if there was anything she could have said to disable the argument immediately, then that most certainly wasn't it.

"You left that behind years ago, I never did! Because, unlike you apparently, I don't abandon my closest friends just so that I can earn some extra bits!" he reached the apex of his frustrations, letting out the core of the pestering feelings he's had bubbling inside him, but he surely didn't expect what the unicorn responded with.

"How can you say that! You haven't sent a single letter for the past four years! So if you expect to place all the blame on me you can forget it!" Spike froze at that, just because it was true. He hadn't had any sort of communication with the small town for most of his time away. His best friend could be dead and he wouldn't even know about it.

"Tha...that..."

"If you would have only pestered me on how you wanted to go to Ponyville every now and then, I would have let you. But now, for not chinning up, we are all going to Canterlot to live better lives."

"You know what Rarity...you're absolutely right." she didn't hear any anger in his words, and she was left amazed by how quickly she had managed to calm him down. She was preparing to thank him for being so cooperative, but she never got the chance to do so before he spoke again, "I'm going to do just what I want to do!"

Spike shook off the measuring tape wrapped around his arm as he jumped off of the fitting pedestal he was standing on. His face was a mask of indifference towards the mare's questioning gaze, one that was laced with determination as he donned a beige jacket to help him weather the cold of the night air. With speed unseen before by anyone, the purple dragon dashed away from his house, leaving behind his current problems so that he could attend to unfinished business. He still took the courtesy to shout out one last thing to the mare standing by the house's doorway,

"Don't wait up for me!"

Rarity's eyes followed the purple dot in the distance, tears of silent fear trailing down her cheeks. Fear born from the cut that had been left between her love and herself, and she didn't know how deep it was. Somehow, that just made it hurt much more. A teenage filly inside the house called out to her in confusion as to what all the shouting was about just as the sprinting dragon disappeared down the road. The mare didn't know what to tell her sister. Was this all due to her negligence towards Spike's wishes, or had it come about because the drake never spoke up loudly enough?

So, with a heavy heart, the fashion-inclined mare walked back into her spacious home to think about her life, wondering all the way what her dragon could be up to.
______________________________________________________________________

"I'll show her, I'll show her just how loyal I am to my friends." the frigid air whistled in Spike's ears as he sprinted down the dirt path leading to the town he had abandoned five years ago. He hated to admit it, but Rarity was right. He had left behind everything just as much as she had, he hadn't sent letters or ever gone on a single visiting trip, though the latter was due to the white unicorn always taking up his schedule with design orders.

He actually began to ponder what he would do when he arrived at the small town, and only one thing took up his to-do list. He needed to see his lifelong friend again, if only for a couple of minutes so that she could bash his head in for not contacting her for so long. The drake actually chuckled as that scenario came to mind, how very likely it was to happen.

His peace of mind, however, was ravaged as the fresh memory of his one and only argument with Rarity emerged. He didn't know what to feel anymore, him bringing up the fact that she couldn't listen so bluntly had left a serious dent in his relationship, one that could possibly destroy it.

Spike let out a sigh as he continued his mad dash, maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh. That thought was flushed away by the memories of all the choices he could have made if Rarity had only paid attention to his contributions to the decision making, and any remorse he had was quickly drowned by the resentment they carried with them.

The time was unknown to the purple dragon, but he knew that he had covered quite a distance by that time. He was proven correct when buildings came into view in the horizon, but it certainly wasn't what he was expecting.

He gawked at the size the town had grown to while he was gone, it had evolved from a quiet town to a bustling city that shot bright light into the skies above. The sight not only impressed him, but it also stirred a fear deep in his heart, one that drove him to keep running faster.

"Oh no! What if she moved away!"

The lavender mare he knew wasn't exactly fond with big cities, much like him, so he didn't see why she would keep living in what was bound to become one. He severely hoped that her friendships were enough to keep her tied to the growing town, or else he'd find himself having a hard time locating her anywhere in Equestria.

The distant constructions grew closer in a matter of minutes, and Spike found himself running past many bemused ponies walking the street. Along the way, ponies would call out his name as they recognized who he was. That made the drake feel a little more comfortable since he now knew that not many had left the area, but he had to make sure that his special librarian hadn't packed up and moved along.

He reached the town's center in no time at all, and the sight of his old home brought pure joy to his wildly beating heart. The town would never have kept the treehouse instead of replacing it with a more modern structure, so now he was mostly sure that his friend still lived inside.

Wasting no time at all, Spike sprinted to the entrance of the Golden Oaks Library with a smile plastered on his face. He was excited to see his ex-caretaker again, not to mention that he wanted to show off his new size, but he would never admit the latter. With a barely restrained claw, the dragon tapped loudly against the wooden doorway that separated him from his old friend.

His smile began to dampen after a minute passed without the door being answered, causing more fear to rise in his mind. Just as he was about to knock against the door again to try and get the attention of the mare he hoped was inside, the deadlock from the entrance clicked open right before the door was pulled in, but he wasn't looking at the mare he needed to see.

His emerald eyes instead focused on the slim creature's amethyst ones, barely managing to will themselves away from them to look at the rest of her perfect features. The dragon that had answered the door was colored a purple slightly deeper than his own, and she was about an inch higher than he was. Two horns adorned her forehead, one placed on a spot above the other, and they both jutted out through her dark purple hair, which had a single violet highlight. He curiously noted a towel wrapped around her waist before he looked back up into her slitted eyes.

The female dragon widened her eyes as she mutually recognized the drake in front of her, and a warm smile accented by her blushing cheeks grew on her face right before she threw her arms around the stunned male, pulling him into a crushing hug before he could protest, it's not like he wanted to anyway. Her body had left him in a paralyzed state, but her voice was almost enough to cause him to pass out from the sheer shock.

"Spike, is that really you?"

Reunion

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~Chapter 2~

Reunion

Spike didn't know what in the name of all that is holy was going on. For one, he was being strangled alive by a devastating hug. Two, the one responsible for the hug was a female dragon, probably a little older than he was if her appearance was any indication. Three, the aforementioned female had a voice exactly like Twilight's. And all of this combined with the oxygen deprivation he was going through was really taking its toll on him, causing his vision to blur away into an inky darkness.

"Spike! Oh I've missed you so much that you can't even begin to realize how glad I am to see you!" the enthusiastic dragoness pulled away from the hug a little to look at her visitor's face, and only then did she notice the color of blue beginning to mix in with his purple scales. Scared that she might have already suffocated him, the slim dragoness disentangled herself from the younger dragon, and he immediately started breathing in greedy gulps of air to fill his pleading lungs, "Sorry about that, it's just...wow."

The double-horned female began to look over her new guest just as he had moments ago while he returned to his normal shade of purple, curious to see how time may have changed him. She found that nothing much had changed about him, except for the change in size, he still had that cheeky look to him that really gave him even more of a young appearance. After half a minute of gasping for breath, Spike looked back up at the mystifying dragoness inside the house he had set out to find, not exactly disliking the view. He shook his head to clear away that stray thought, but only him speaking would be enough to cover it up.

"Twilight? Is that you?" the spiked dragon took a turn for the awkward and extended a claw to poke the other dragon's soft cheek, but he was focused enough to see the roll of her eyes before she responded.

"No, not really. I'm just the new assistant Miss Sparkle employed, and she was really insistent that I change my looks to match hers for some weird reason." Spike missed the playfully sarcastic tone when she spoke, and he was about to start stuttering apologizes for poking her like a freak. Thankfully, she caught onto the look on his face a decided to be blunt with him, "I'm kidding Spike, of course it's me."

"B-but wha...how in the world did you-"

"Become a dragoness?" Twilight finished the drake's bewildered question for him, saving him from a pile of failures to speak. She knew that if she were ever to see her scaly friend again, her new looks would be a interesting subject to talk about, but now she found her eyes drawn a lot more to his older physic as well. Spike, of course, was completely oblivious to her roaming eyes due to how madly he was nodding his response.

"Do you want to come inside? It's pretty cold out there tonight." a bone-chilling gust swept through the busy streets of nighttime Ponyville, accenting her generous offer the taller being gave. With but another nod, the spiked dragon walked past his bookish friend into the cozy oaken library he once called 'Home'. It was a sight that he had longed to see for a quite some time, almost as much as he wanted to see the mare he had grown up with. Well, technically he hadn't actually seen the mare he spent most of his life with.

That train of thought prompted him to turn around and look at the horned dragoness, and he was greeted by the sight of her cutie marks still on her rear, but more importantly the newly uncovered tail slithering towards the wooden doorway. Just as Twilight lifted the towel in her claws to dry her head, her dexterous limb closed the door with a soft click.

'Okay, so she's managed to get the hang of using her tail, so that means she's probably been like this for at least a week.' not one to interrupt a thorough drying, a habit that had developed over the years with Rarity, Spike decided to try and decipher how in the name of Celestia his bookworm of a friend managed to turn herself into a dragon. The transformation itself was anatomically right to the last detail he knew, except for two curious lumps on her chest that he was having a hard time keeping his eyes from. He had never seen a female of the draconic species, so he just assumed that they would look very similar to what he looked like.

"You want some cocoa, Spike? I started heating up a batch before I went up to take a shower, and there's probably too much for me to finish on my own." the dragon was snapped back to attention by the sudden voice, silently berating himself for drifting off like that.

"Sure, that'd be great, but would you mind telling me about...y'know." Spike used his claws to gesture towards her different body. His curiosity was desperately nibbling away at him, urging him to find some answers on the sudden developments he was facing.

"Ah yes, I almost forgot about that. Here, take a seat by the fireplace while I got get us those mugs of cocoa, then I'll explain everything you want to know. But I'm going to warn you right now, you have just as much explaining to do, Spikey." with that, the draconified Twilight walked away from the living room and into the kitchen after her little tease, leaving behind a dragon with more things on his head than he could handle.

His life had seriously changed in the span of an hour and a half. What with the fight with Rarity, him witnessing the newly developed city of Ponyville, and the discovery of his closest friend now being the same species as he was. He distracted himself away from his thoughts by letting his eyes roam the library's main lobby.

Nothing much had changed, books were still piled high on the tables the dragoness conducted her research on, unused scrolls lay rolled up on a weathered writing desk, and pictures still adorned the walls that weren't taken up by the bookshelves. The latter caught Spike's attention more than anything else, and he stood from his floor cushion to get a closer look.

He found pictures of his closest friends, Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Lyra, Rari...wait a minute, one of those didn't exactly belong there. Anyway, the young dragon cringed a little as his emerald eyes fell on the picture of his marefriend, it brought back memories of their dispute. As much as he didn't like it, he had liked the fight, he had liked the freedom it gave him as opposed to his submissive self. Of course, all it took was one sight to banish any and all pestering thoughts, a sight that hadn't been there when he had left the small town to move to Trottingham. A sole wall, separated from the rest of the photographs by bookshelves, bore its own plethora of memoirs, but these weren't just of friends and acquaintances.

"Oh...my...god."

Spike's eyes glazed over as he took in the ingenious piece of art, one that was constructed by using pictures of times only he and Twilight spent alone with each other. There were pictures of them as babies in Canterlot, some of the picnic trips they would go on, stargazing nights, and even some of the day he had left. The overall shape was a circle, and the pictures got more recent the closer to the center they got, but that detail was dwarfed in comparison to the effect the placement of the photographs had. The colors of all the pictures combined made one big painting on its own. The purples of the twilit nights were used to color in what clearly looked like two smiling dragons with their foreheads pressed together and their eyes locked with one another, one with green spines running down its back while the other had two horns poking out through its hair.

"Do you like it?"

"Ahhh!" Spike jumped away from the dragoness' sudden appearance next to him, he had gotten too absorbed by the skilled craft that he hadn't noticed her approach. She carried a mug of warm cocoa in each of her claws, and a giggle enticed by her lifelong friend's jumpy behavior slipped past her lips.

"Y-yeah it's really nice. Did you make this on your own?" the spiked drake clutched at his chest a little to ease his pounding heart, and he couldn't keep the light shaking out of his voice.

"Yup, that took me about a year and a half to pull of successfully. Here you go by the way." Twilight handed him one of the steamy mugs of chocolate before turning tail to take a seat by the inactive fireplace, with a thankful Spike following suit shortly afterward.

Before they began their friendly chatter, the dragoness surprised her guest yet again with what she did next. She cupped her claws in front of her mouth, drew in a deep breath, and released a barrage of lavender flames into her fireproof palms. The containment resulted in the fire shaping into a glowing ball of the element itself.

"Whoa, I didn't know we could do that." Spike lifted his claws to look at them before mimicking his host's procedure, getting an effect similar to Twilight's, although his was considerably smaller in size.

"Like I always say Spike, if you practice enough, you can do anything. Now come on, toss it into the fireplace so we can get rid of this accursed cold." the dragoness had taken the time out of her schedule to fireproof her entire house due to how commonly she was tempted to use her flame breath. She never understood quite how fulfilling it felt until she actually got to do it herself.

Both of the draconic beings tossed their flaming spheres into the oaken fireplace, getting a fire that would swirl with the two different colors they had thrown in. After ten seconds, the flames lost the magic they carried and turned into a normal, orange fire. Spike took the time to enjoy the moment, just sitting there drinking a mug of sweet cocoa with his most trusted friend, knowing full well that he was only enjoying the eye of the storm.

They were both sitting side by side, staring with thoughtful expressions into the rejuvenated flames, neither knowing what to say to decide the path their conversation would take. Surprisingly, Spike was the one to man up and face the consequences of what he had done, putting aside his curiosity to mend the bond between Twilight and himself.

"I'm sorry Twi...for everything." a single tear dripped into his mug, he knew the direction their talk would take now. She would lose the hospitality she had shown so far since she would be reminded about how he had failed to do such a simple task. He knew she would berate him for all the times he could have been there. The five birthdays he missed, the five 'Ponyville Arrival' anniversaries, the five annual stargazing trips they took, each and every one of them was a subject that he fully deserved to be crushed with. He seriously wished she would bash his head in, just so that he could feel that he had paid back some of his huge debt to her.

Paranoia had absolute power over his mind, dragging him into the depths of depression he should have felt years ago, but only one thing managed to save him in his time of need. It was the one thing that mattered most to him.

Spike's flinched instinctually as he chastised himself for the scowling he deserved, but it never came. His ears weren't assaulted by an onslaught of reprimandations, nor did Twilight's peace change. The only effect his sorrowful words prompted was for a warm tail to unconsciously wrap around his own in a gesture of comfort he hadn't felt before, and when he looked into his host's eyes he saw no trace of ire or strife in them. The dragoness put down her cup of cocoa to put her soft claw on Spike's shoulder, letting him know that his fears were ill bred.

"Spike, you have nothing to be forgiven about." he couldn't believe what he was hearing from the friend whom he had betrayed so harshly. In fact, he didn't want to hear, he wanted to let her scream her frustrations out on him just so that he could feel slightly better about himself.

"But it's been four years since I've even sent you a letter! How can you just let me off the hook like that!?"

"Shh...I never said I'm letting you go without explaining yourself, but I am telling you that I'm not mad with you just because something like this came up." she disabled the dragon's argument with her gentle voice, leaving her time to fill in the rest of what she had to say, "Yes, I was very sad when you left, heck, I still miss you every day you're not here, but I understand that you have things to take care of on your end. You can't always be sacrificing your time to spend it with an old friend."

"That's just it Twilight, I never take the time out of my life to visit you. I don't even use ten measly minutes to write to you, I don't deserve to just slid by this as if it never happened."

"Would it make you feel any better if you explained to my why it is that we got sort of... detached from each other, if that's what you can call it. I would think that you living out your 'Perfect' life with Rarity leaves little time for you to come down here to Ponyville anymore." her tone saddened a little around the end, but she quickly masked it before it became too apparent. It seemed to always happen to her whenever she talked about her dragon's relationship, but she never really understood why.

"You're partly right about that, but you're way off on the 'Perfect' there, just like I was."

"What do you mean?" Twilight had never really pried into his love life, other than the obvious fact he was infatuated over the mare he currently had as his marefriend. Still, that little fact was five years out of date. Spike sighed as he prepared himself to let out what he actually felt, to the only living thing he would ever fully trust.

"I...I cant help but feel that I kinda, uhm, rushed my choice a little." that already had the dragoness hooked to the conversation, she couldn't believe that he would ever have doubts about being with her fashion-inclined friend, "It's just that I feel useless with her. Here in Ponyville I was her assistant, seeing only the small decisions that needed to be made to run the boutique, but actually being a co-owner is completely different."

"How so? I thought you didn't mind having to go into the business industry if you were ever to get Rarity to accept your advances."

"It's not the business that I'm having trouble with, it's her attitude. I never noticed it before because I didn't spend much time personally with her, but when I started living in the same house as her I started to tell that she always seems to want everything to go her way. Whenever a decision has to be made, she abandons everything I have to say and just goes and does whatever she wants to do. It's incredibly frustrating!"

His venting led him to start shouting again, but it also gave him a clearer state of mind since he was flushing out all of the plaguing thoughts he had sealed up inside his head. The only thing keeping him from going into a raging rant was the tail still entwined with his, and the way it seemed to hug his own tighter whenever he grew angry soothed him back down to a rational level.

"It sounds like you two have some issues to work out, have you tried talking to her about it?"

"Yes, but she's only actually heard me out once, and I'm not even sure if she listened to what I had to say. It's just so...I don't know what to do Twilight, I'm scared."

At that, the dragoness wrapped her arms arm around his neck and pulled him into a hug much softer than the one she gave him upon his surprise appearance. She really hated that she didn't know how to help out her loyal friend, having nothing but hypothetical knowledge on romance, but she tried her best to soothe things out as much as she could. Spike took in a staggering breath, catching the scent of the lavender shampoo his host had used shortly before his arrival, letting his senses cool down before they separated again. Throughout all this, their tails never separated from their wrapped states.

"Don't be afraid, Spike...you never have to be afraid. Do you know why?" Twilight's amethyst eyes locked with Spike's emerald colors ones, and she let her rhetorical question hang in the air before she continued in the same, nearly imperceptible voice, "Because I will always be there for you, no matter how dark things look for you. You can always count on me to give you whatever you want, whenever you want it."

Something happened the instant her pledge to the younger drake was completed that neither of the purple dragons understood. It was is if they both just cleared away any and all problems of the outside world, leaving only the two of them with each other. This was their circle of complete trust, even if it only held the duo as its members, and the only secrets it held back were those that were hidden deep within their egos.

Spike didn't know what to think other than how content he felt, no, he it was more like a feeling of elation. Twilight had not only forgiven him for his negligence towards her, but she had sorted out his life's problems in the span of one conversation. He now clearly understood that she would be there for him when no one else was, that she would give him the respect and sense of maturity that he had never asked for but had always wanted. It's was somewhat fitting that they were of the same species at the time they became even closer to one another, even if though it wasn't required for the process of mending the bonds of their faded relationship.

"Thank you Twi, you always know just the right things to say whenever I'm feeling down." that sappy gratification was responded kindly with a scratch on a spot on the back of his head that he never actually figured out to get to on his own, and it always managed to make his tail wag whenever someone else did it for him.

"It's no problem, I'm just doing what I would always do for you."

'For me...' Spike pondered that little bit of information really deeply. He knew that he and Twilight had always been closer to each other than any of their other friends, but with her just saying those two extra word made him feel even more special. It was as if he were being pampered by the promise of attention it subtly carried with it. Trying to keep himself from deterring from the conversation, the young drake moved on to the subject that had trapped all of his curiosity since the moment the door to the library opened.

"Anyway, my personal dispute aside, what's happened on your end ever since I left?" the deep atmosphere began to fade away to make a path for the friendly chatter that was sure to ensue, much to the dragons' mutual joy.

"Well there are the little things such as what's been going on around town, or there's the major issue you actually want me to talk about. Which'll it be?" the dragoness grinned at her playful teasing, but she was right, he was itching to know what managed to turn a pony into a dragon.

"How about we start with how in the world you're a dragon now."

"Yeah, I figured you'd want to hear about that. Anyway, if you must know, I've been living my life out as a dragoness for the past three years." before she could continue, Spike expressed his clear shock at how long he had been uninformed on the situation.

"Three years!?"

"Pretty much. I was working on a certain high-end spell that I wanted to try out ever since you left, one that would help me out with a couple of personal problems, but I messed it up really badly. I added too many fire ruby shavings into the mixture, so when they mixed together with the sanguine rose extract it resulted in me being blown up along with the rest of the basement."

"You managed to blow up the basement, through the layers of granite?"

"Science is unpredictable Spike, add a little bit too much of something or fail to put in a crucial ingredient and you'll end up with something way different than what you were aiming to accomplish. For me, that was the explosion's genetically-altering properties, which 'Formatted' my deoxyribonucleic acid to one that nearly mimics a dragon's. Since it was a just a format and not a entire mutation, my new body retained a lot of my characteristics, such as my age,coloration, and my magic."

"Whoa, must have been one heck of a spell for it to cause such a drastic change in you. What were you working on anyway? Sanguine rose extract is rarely used on normal magic, being more useful in ritual spells, but I never knew you practiced that branch of magic."

"Well, I was working on bri-..br-..." the dragoness' eyes lost their focus as they grew to a blank, soulless state. It was a sight that terrified Spike through sheer worry.

"Twilight, are you okay?"

Fearing that he may have caused her to lose herself in her subconscious like she tended to do when she was younger, the spiked dragon began to search for all the subtle signs that indicated how badly she was trance-locked. Her new body, as great as he thought it looked, made finding these details much more difficult, but he eventually managed to track them all down. The trembling in her slitted eyes, her right claw unconsciously scratching the pillow underneath her, and her tail giving off a little twitch every now and then.

Three signs meant that she wasn't lost to the point he had to call Princess Celestia, which was a good thing considering he had lost his D-mail connection with her after years of not exercising his ability. All he needed to do was snap her out of the comatose-like state was to create a noise loud enough for the job, which wasn't really that loud at all. As he prepared to unleash his shout, Twilight's mind was heavily at work, processing thoughts and ideas at speeds that the spiked drake would never be able to achieve

She was in a dark chamber, the roots tangling down from the ceiling caused the light from the massive cauldron to cast ominous shadows that crept across the granite walls. A book that she was never supposed to have ever used floated in front of her muzzle. Her uncaring eyes swept over the arcane words etched forever into the unaging paper, tossing the entire thing aside once she was prepared to begin. The only sign that she had any emotion left was the small, honest smile on her face as she turned to look at an object in the corner of the room, one that had marked the only happiness left in her heart. With the words of power spoken, she tossed the ingredients into the purple liquid. That was were it had all gone wrong. In just a couple of seconds, the cauldron was consumed by a purple explosion, followed shortly after by the gloomy room itself. It left nothing behind save for an underground dome and a new dragoness, whose amethyst eyes snapped open to find herself without the problems in her life solved, and a new predicament to face.

Before Spike could release his shout to awaken the zoned-out female dragon in front of him, she jolted forward as she snapped out of her nightmarish memory, putting her forehead against the drake's and her snout barely an inch from the his quickly blushing one. She didn't really get a sense of what was going on until her mind took the time to sort itself back together, so they stood paralyzed like that for a minute. One was stuck because her nerves wouldn't respond to her command yet, and the other was just there out of enjoyable confusion. Spike's question was long forgotten as he waited with baited breath, only confused further by the pang of disappointment he felt after the suspenseful minute full of anything but movement.

Twilight managed to regain control over her draconic body, finally able to see through her physical eyes as apposed to her mind's eyes, but the only thing she saw was yet another set of slitted eyes staring back. With cheeks blazing from the proximity, both dragons pulled away from their positions and decided to dampen the awkwardness in the vicinity by talking more.

"Sooo...yeah. You don't want to talk about it then?" the dragoness would have thanked her loyal friend if she weren't so flustered that she responded immediately in an attempt to bury whatever had just happened a couple of seconds ago.

"N-no, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm not sure I'm ready to let that out of my system just yet, but give it some time and I'm sure I'll be able to tale you some other day. Okay?" that question was something Spike didn't need to be asked, because it was always the same answer.

"Whatever you want Twi, just don't think too much about it. I don't want you relapsing into your trances as badly as when we lived back in Canterlot just to satisfy my curiosity." he was okay with letting the horned dragoness do whatever she wanted, but it wasn't because he felt he needed to be submissive like he did with Rarity. Here, he was offered a choice. And to think that if the alabaster unicorn back in Trottingham had done the same thing he probably would have never gotten to see the new resident dragon in Ponyville.

"Uhm, do you have anything else you want to talk about, anything not related to the accident?" the little proximity incident was already left behind, but it surely wasn't forgotten. It was still fresh in both of their minds and it refused to leave whenever they tried to will it away, leaving them with conversation as the only way to keep themselves from deeply pondering what had happened.

"Does it count as 'Related' if I ask you how you've been doing ever since you were turned into a dragoness?"

"Not at all, Spike. After you left for Trottingham to move into your new home, I concluded my primary studies on friendship, and they're currently getting the book I wrote to be accepted by the printers. Anyway, boasting aside, I went on without anything major to catch my interest for year until I came across a rather interesting tome that marked the beginning of my latest studies. I spent the next year after that mastering the arcane arts inside the book, but my accident both cut that branch of my research short and began my current project."

"What would that be? I don't see the usual materials you use whenever you conduct a major experiment laying around anywhere."

"That's because I don't need anything more than a quill and a journal for this. Seeing as how I'm stuck indefinitely in this body, I decided to conduct an field report of how being a dragon in everyday life differs to being just the average pony."

"So you're researching...yourself?"

"Yeah, you've got the idea. I can't read your thoughts, or anyone else's for the matter, so I can't find out the subtle influences dragon nature places onto your actions. I can't hear that little voice in your head that urges you to abandon all morality and just follow your instincts." okay, that sounded a lot creepier than she wanted it to.

"And how has that worked out for you? You haven't grown to a giant size and terrorized the city yet, right?"

"Pfft, of course not! You should now best than everyone else that I have a very strong mental fortitude. One that is strong enough to hold back base desires such as greed."

"I wouldn't exactly say that considering you just fell into a trance a couple of minutes ago, or that time with the Want It-Need It spell, or that time at the paraspri-" Spike was enjoying his friendly teasing more than he probably should have, and that prompted Twilight to pull out her trump card.

"Your one to talk, what with your little emerald eyes staring at my breasts ever since you walked in here." the mischievous grin on her face nearly shocked him as much as the revelation as to what the curious lumps he had stared at were, "Yeah, I saw that."

Twilight couldn't hold her laughter back any more than that, Spike's burning face was the perfect catalyst to tickle her funny bone. Times like these were the ones she missed most of all, times where she could just let herself be herself without being judged harshly by the public. The spiked drake had just spoken about her bouts of insanity as if they were nothing more than memories to laugh at, nothing like the demeaning labels some of the ponies in Equestria would weigh her down with.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't know what they were, honest! It's just that I've never seen a girl dragon before and I was curious as to what they were!" Spike cupped his claws right before he began to beg, "Please don't throw me out! I'll never d-"

The dragoness barely containing some stray chuckles pressed her index finger against his lips, silencing his unneeded pleas for forgiveness before he had a heart attack from the strain.

"Don't beat yourself up over it, I wouldn't have expected you to know what they were. Besides, you're just following what your instincts urged you to do, the very thing I'm currently studying. You've actually just given me another little post of information, thanks for that."

Both of Twilight's horns lit up in their purple aurora as they summoned a hefty notepad, a quill, and an ink well. Her busy scribbling was enough to buy him some time to calm down his erratic breathing. His body felt numb due to most of his blood supply having found its way up to his head, and a migraine would have surely taken over if his good mood wasn't there to drive it away.

He was surprised to see that the other dragon had already written an entire page out of a single little fact, but that was just Twilight being Twilight. What surprised him even more was that his eyes were still getting drawn towards the core of his earlier embarrassment , and just knowing what they were was enough to evoke strange thoughts in his head that he couldn't quite process in the waking world.

Twilight blushed when she noticed that Spike was still looking at her perky lumps, knowing full well that she shouldn't be taking something like that so lightly. But, if she was really honest, she didn't care to object in the slightest. The dragon next to her was the closest friend she had ever had the pleasure of growing up next to, he was a trusted companion, so she guessed she could spare him this one time. Besides, she was conducting sociological experiment to see how she would affect those around her, and dragons weren't exactly commonplace in the land of Equestria, so this technically was a crucial part of the program. Not to mention that it made her feel nice that she would have such an effect over him, but that train of thought always hit one major roadblock that blocked off the satisfaction she would develop.

Spike was still in a relationship with Rarity.

It was a fact that made her grit her teeth unconsciously. Occasionally when she thought about them being together, instead of having her special dragon back home with her, her ire would spark. She didn't hate Rarity for her choice of accepting Spike, but she just couldn't stop herself from occasionally growling at one of her pictures. She chalked it up to be an effect of her dragon instincts kicking in, injecting jealousy into her system to try and make her win back a...potential mate. She couldn't have stopped that thought if she had even tried, it was too true to look past. Spike was an exemplary model of what a male dragon of his species was supposed to grow up to be, so it was only natural that her body would try and urge her to go reclaim him.

Estrus still seemed to affect her every year, but a dragon's variation of the season wasn't exactly as docile as those the mares went through. She needed to find another dragon to breed with, nothing else would be able to free her from the pestering burn she would feel while she went through the excruciating process of 'Sweating it out'. It was the one thing she really hated about her new draconic biology, but the double magical output granted by her second horn was enough to make up for it sometimes. Sometimes.

When she sneakily turned her eyes back towards Spike, he wasn't looking at her anymore. Instead, his scarlet face was pointed stiffly at the cup of cocoa in his claws, staring into the dark liquid as if it would reveal the secrets of life if he looked at it long enough. He almost spilled it when a grandfather clock Fluttershy had donated to the library rung out the midnight bells, adding another scare to the huge tab he was building up on that visit alone. But the loud clockwork had a point, as much as both the dragons didn't want it to be true, it was time to say their goodbyes to each other once again.

"Are you going to walk all the way to Trottingham? Because if you are, you probably shouldn't wait until the cold worsens." her instincts once again pushed her to make an offer she would have made anyway, but the dragon side to her had completely different purposes, "Or you could stay the night, whatever makes you happy."

Spike got up from the floor cushion at the same time Twilight did, setting his mug down on a coffee table next to him, and as much as he wanted to say something else, he said,

"I would love to stay the night Twi, but I have something that I need to take care of back at Trottingham. Don't worry Twilight, I'll come visit you tomorrow."

"Promise?" the dragoness was deeply saddened by the imminent departure, and she wanted to make sure that she wouldn't be abandoned again. She wouldn't be able to bear through the pain any longer than she already had.

"Promise."

Both dragons found themselves sharing a warm hug at the doorway that lead to the chilly nighttime air waiting outside, neither of them wanting to let go of the other. But, there is a wise saying that consists across the multiverse that applies to situations like these. If you love something, let it go, and if it returns that means that it truly loves you as well.

Just as Spike began to leave the library's doorway and Twilight began to walk back into her lonely home, both of them felt a tug on their rears that caused them to fall onto their backs. Both dragons had their heads next to each other's on the floor, and they both looked down to the source of their little incident. Apparently their tails didn't like the aforementioned saying and decided to stay entwined with one another even as their respective owners began to walk in opposite directions, pulling them back together after they were stretched to their limits.

"Heheh, let me take care of that." Twilight's horns lit up again as they began the tedious task of disentangling their purple tails, and she quickly found out that it was very difficult to do because they would try to wrap themselves again whenever her magic got to work on a different part of the knot. After another minute of fumbling, the rebellious limbs unlatched from one another, and both of the draconic beings couldn't help but feel strange without the extra warmth coiled against their tails.

"Well, that was really fun Twilight. I'll come see you again tomorrow afternoon!" Spike began to dash away from the oaken library that housed his draconified friend. He had a lot of thinking to do, both of his plans for the future and the jumbled all his emotions had turned into.

Twilight watched with a sad smile on her face as her very special dragon disappeared behind one of the tall buildings dotting the city of Ponyville, thinking about how much she had enjoyed her cocoa with someone she could spend some quality time with. Spike had promised her he would come tomorrow, but the paranoid portion of her mind began to inject depressing thoughts into her consciousness, scenes in which he never comes back and leaves her alone until the day she would die. The dragoness trudged back into the library repeating one line over and over in her head to banish the negative attitude that was trying to integrate itself into her.

'He made a promise...'

Development

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~Chapter 3~

Avoidance

Spike huffed out in exhaustion at the door to his house, the dashes to Ponyville and back again had deprived him of the last traces of energy in his body. He, of course, regretted nothing. It had been a wonderful night that started the path to fully mending his relationship with Twilight, and he couldn't help but feel that the unexpected twist of her being a dragoness now was the metaphorical cherry on top for his late night trip.

Now however, he was exhausted, and he desperately wanted something to quench the thirst he had built up on the return trip. Using the key hidden under the floor mat in front of the door, Spike unlocked the boutique to let himself in, greeted once again by nothing other than the damned wooden ponies clad in various dresses. The building was plunged in darkness, letting him know that the two other ponies in the house were probably already asleep. His draconic eyes allowed him to navigate through the rooms devoid of light with ease, and he quickly found himself in front of the house's refrigerator. Rarity had insisted that they should replace the icebox the used to have, one of the few things he actually agreed with.

The darkness in the kitchen was sliced away by the fridge's light when Spike opened the door, returning hastily after he had retrieved a orange-flavored soft drink and closed the door on his way upstairs. He thought of what he should tell the sleeping alabaster mare when she woke up, finding it difficult to think about such things without someone encouraging him the way Twilight did during his visit. His drink was long gone by the time he reached the white doorway leading into his shared room, and his free claw reached out for the golden door handle.

"Locked, just fan-tastic."

He knew that was a sign that Rarity was either really angry at him, or doing some deep thinking of her own. He also understood that it would be pointless to force his way in, all that'd manage to do is break the door and put the unicorn on the other side in an even worse mood than the one she was already in. With a dejected sigh, Spike tossed the empty can in his claw into a waste bin as he walked into the bathroom.

A coat of sweat still gave him a sheen that shone when he flicked on the lights. He needed a hot shower to help him clear his head, not to mention avoiding waking up smelling like a bog, so he stepped into the stall and turned the temperature as high as it would go. The scaldingly hot water raining down on his scaly body was nothing compared to the lava pits he swam in when he was younger, so it only served as a nicely warmed downpour. The dirt accumulated on his skin melted away, much like the physical and mental tension he had acquired while he was on his trip.

His thoughts, as clear as they had become due to his relaxation, were still confusing to him. He didn't know what he felt towards Rarity anymore, not since the dam created by his patience was broken. There was little hope that things between the two of them would ever be the same again, but that line of thought simply connected him with the other pressing matter at hand, Twilight. Or, more specifically, how he planned on making things right with her again. She had put his fears of her rejecting him to rest, but the guilt in his heart was still strong, and it wouldn't bu quelled until he felt like he had actually given it his all to mend the bonds with the dragoness.

He faintly noticed that something felt...different, whenever he thought about his lifelong friend and her new form. The purple drake continued to feel the small surges of confusing new emotions when he decided to stray his thoughts towards the older dragon. He couldn't help but like the idea of teaching the studied dragoness the little secrets only someone that has lived in a dragon's body for their entire life could know, but judging by her higher knowledge on using her fire breath she probably already went through studies of her form herself. Very thorough studies, like she usually likes to do.

'Okay...gonna stop thinking about my friend's body now.' both, the tint on his cheeks and the imagery coming to his pubescent mind failed to be dispelled by the measly amount of will he put into his internal statement. He felt something on his own body beginning to stir, much to his surprised embarrassment, and he switched the water from scalding hot to freezing cold to stop it before it became a much bigger problem. That probably wasn't a good idea considering that he failed to remember he was a cold-blooded creature, and the frosty water nearly caused him to go into hypothermia before he managed to escape from the chilled stall. At least his 'Problem' was taken care of, but now he was shivering cold and sapped of any energy he had received from the soft drink.

'Whoa, that was...interesting?' the images began to come back slowly, but he was quick to cut off the flow, 'No! No, it was just Twilight being her regular self, and don't you dare make me think otherwise. Damn, traitorous brain.'

That was just what he needed, more complications arising because of his hormone-driven mind. Spike toweled himself off as best as he could while trying to warm himself up with the friction, walking back downstairs shortly afterwards to find where he would be sleeping for the night. His gaze fell upon a luxurious blue couch, one that was barely big enough to house his outstretched figure, but it would do. Before drifting off to a dreamscape dotted with crying angry white unicorns and a purple dragoness hiding stealthily in the shadows, Spike gave said one last thing to himself.

"Have a good night's sleep everypony, cause tomorrow I'm surely going to need it."
______________________________________________________________________

Twilight roamed the halls of her library home, trying to quell the pestering fears that plagued her mind. She had the greatest night from the past five years on that day, all because her special dragon had finally come to visit her again, and he even left her with a promise of his return on the following day. It brought about utter joy within the depths of her secluded heart, but a looming smog of doubt still hovered over her euphoric state, canceling it out by whispering dark taunts into her ears.

Her tail whipped at nothing in particular as she shook her head to clear away the gloomy thoughts coursing through her.

"I don't need to think like this anymore...he made a promise, and I trust him."

Trust. It one of the most valuable tokens of friendship, yet it was also the easiest to corrupt, to betray. She was heartbroken when she got the news that Spike was going to move away, but she let him go with a faux smile on her face because she wanted him to be happy, no matter how that would affect her. The letters exchanged between the two of them were enough to hold their friendship together, barely, but when those stopped coming she was left with nothing but her library.

After that, well...she didn't want to think about that anymore than she already had. Still, she had grown more isolated from the world around her, feeling as if a piece of her soul was ripped out when her dragon left, and that little piece had been annihilated ever since the exchange of updates between Spike and her ended. It had been erased from the face of Equestria along with any fantasies of ever seeing or hearing from him again, but this one night had changed everything.

Deep in her mind, past the sea of recent euphoria and the haze of aged depression, lay a flickering flame called hope. One that refused to be put out by her traitorous subconscious' futile attempts, but it was significantly dulled by the way Spike had parted. She loved that he had promised he would come back to see her again the following day, but she trembled at the similarity his goodbye had to his final letter, planting new seeds of doubt in her head.

Right before the letters stopped being exchanged, her favorite purple dragon had sent her news on what he was planned to do for his one-year anniversary with Rarity, saying that he promised to write to her the following day after the celebration was over. He promised.

She waited, and waited, and waited, but the letter she was expecting never came to her doorstep. She dashed over to the post office to ask Ditzy Doo if anything directed for her had been mixed up in the deliveries, but nothing came up. Nothing ever came up after that, leading up to the aforementioned destruction of a vital portion of her happiness.

"No, I have to stop thinking about the past. He's back now, we can start fixing what we had...together."

Her battlefield of a mind started to settle down as her resolve grew, fueled by her dreams and aspirations to light up the darkness cast by the blockade of hopelessness. Her dragon nature was urging her to migrate closer to the only other dragon she knew, whispering the plans of how to relocate quick and easily into her ear. She, of course, suppressed it like she had learned to do so over the past years, but it was stronger than ever before. Having seen Spike for the first time in her new body had activated parts of her instincts that were usually only activated during the estrus seasons, increasing the variety of urges her draconic nature would try to make her follow along with.

Honestly, she was having a hard time saying 'No' anymore, and the only thing stopping her was her morality code.

"Ugh, I need a bath, and sleep. Lots of sleep."

Wading in steaming hot water helped sooth her exhausted nerves greatly, giving her the final push she needed to be able to sleep at all. She lay on the spot she had been come to sleep in for such a long time now, finding that having had a taste of companionship after so long only made her feel even lonelier when no one was around. With a mighty sigh, Twilight lay her head down onto her pillow, relishing the cool surface as she sunk into its plushness.The dragoness curled herself under the blankets just before she spoke softly to anyone listening, drifting off to a blissful sleep at last.

"Goodnight Spike, I'll see you tomorrow...I hope."
______________________________________________________________________

The morning sun's rays filtered in through the semi-transparent drapes covering the windows to the Sparkling Diamond Boutique, falling directly onto the eyelids of a purple dragon snoozing on a luxurious blue couch. He began to stir from his sleep due to the annoying sensation the solar rays caused, and he had to shield his eyes from the offending light with a numb claw to avoid letting the stinging grow even worse. With a groan, Spike hopped off the couch and dropped to all fours with a yawn before stretching out his limbs, arcing his back very akin to the way Opalescence would do as he popped all the kinks he had received overnight. The sofa was comfortable, yes, but it wasn't exactly fit to sleep on.

He turned his head this way and that to try and see if anypony had already woken up before him. His emerald eyes spotted nothing, but his ears picked up small noises coming from the kitchen, not to mention the smell wafting over to him. His stomach growled for being teased with such a succulent scent, but his mind was set on settling things with Rarity. His patience was running thin with the alabaster mare already, but he still held it together somewhat enough to be willing to try and fix things with her.

With determination blazing in his eyes, Spike crossed the archway from which the smell of food originated, finding a unicorn already sitting at the breakfast table. Of course, it wasn't the unicorn he was looking for.

"Good morning Spike! How'd sleeping on the couch treat you?" Sweetie Belle greeted the drake with the energy she always managed to mysteriously summon in the mornings, snapping any trace of rebellious drowsiness still clinging to him.

"If you look past the sore neck and the back pains, then it was not that bad actually." the dragon somehow managed to smile through the small grimace he gave, rubbing the back of his back to try and sooth the lingering annoyances, "That aside, did you get any rest? You've been working really hard lately trying to rise through the scoreboards."

"Yeah, I have enough juice to last me the entire day, but I would have gotten more if you and Rarity would've lowered it a few notches yesterday. What's got both your tails so badly in a twist anyway? You two are usually so quiet and reserved, not at all like the shouting you guys did last night." Sweetie scratched her right ear with her hoof, faintly noticing the feeling of the cooled golden ring piercing she had on it as she awaited Spike's answer. A small frown had grown on his face as he started to remember the events that had played out yesterday with the older unicorn, but his response wasn't delayed.

"Sweetie, have you been in a relationship yet?" the question intrigued the teenage unicorn filly because of how spontaneous it was.

"Yes I have, I think my last breakup was the fifth one already. Why do you ask?" now, the singing filly wasn't the everyday whorse who was spreading her hind legs for anything she saw fit, but she did like testing the waters every now and then with a variation of younger stallions. Unfortunately for her, the stallions of Trottingham were more than a little snobbish, and they always chased after her flanks rather than try to chase her heart. It was a fact that frustrated her to no end, but she wasn't one to give up easily after failing, a trait she had developed over the years as a crusader.

"Because I've got some things I need to talk about with Rarity. I can tell you what it's about, but I've got to ask you one thing first."

"Go ahead, I'm all ears."

"Will you be cool about whatever I say, because it does involve your sister?" a nod from the filly was all he needed as a response, "Where is she by the way?"

"Well, she woke up about an hour ago, and everything was the same as usual. That is, until she found you sleeping on the sofa. After that, she started acting a little erratically, saying that she was going to go for a walk and for me not to..tell...you. Uhm, oops?"

Spike's right eye twitched as he realized what the fashionable unicorn was doing, and it was exactly the thing he wanted her to stop. She was avoiding him, again. Whether it was done out of fear or out of anger, he couldn't be sure, but he very much knew that his newly strengthened patience was beginning to crumble already. In a desperate attempt to stop himself from falling into a rage fit, he grabbed a piece of french toast from a platter on the dining table and took a massive chomp out of it. The buttery flavor managed to distract him from the spikes of ire in his mind, but they were still going on without him there feeling them, still destroying his will to bear with the unicorn's evasive nature any longer.

"You won't tell her I told you, right?" Sweetie Belle was basically pleading him to keep secrecy, and he was about to let his unstable emotions get the better of him and lash out at the innocent filly, barely stopping himself by staring deeply into her eyes. She had done nothing bad to him, in fact she had actually helped him out just a couple of seconds ago, so she didn't deserve to get any of his venting directed at her.

"Nah, but now I have even MORE I want to talk to her about." his anger seeped heavily into his voice, sharpening it enough to cause the young unicorn to recoil a little at how alien it sounded.

"Do you want someone to hear you out right now?" Spike knew that he needed to let out everything he was bottling up, but it had never occurred to him that his marefriend's younger sister would be the one helping him in his time of need. He graciously took up the offer silently by sitting down at the circular table, just across from Sweetie, "So what's going on between you and my workaholic sis'?"

"It's nothing new, but it's something that I've been pushed to speak out about. I feel like I'm drifting away from her, Sweetie Belle, each day since we've moved here she and I have talked less and less. It's as if we were just what we were before I confessed to her, me being the assistant that follows in her hoofsteps, letting her do as she pleases instead of what I would like for her to do."

"I guess I understand, except for that last bit. Haven't you two always agreed on everything before?"

"Before she became my marefriend, yes, but I've rarely been given the chance to make any contributions to the decisions we're supposed to be making together. Before I can even say anything, Rarity takes the reigns and steers them anywhere she wants."

"If it's such a big issue why didn't you mention it sooner?"

"Because I could bear with the sacrifices I made for her, but this thing about moving to Canterlot is just pushing the line for me. I spent most of my life there and I can tell you it isn't a pretty city to be in if you aren't living at the castle. It is full of corruption, greed, and backstabbers trying to reach the top of the power pyramid of society. I worry that if we move over there Rarity will become just as twisted as the rest of the mares of business drawn into the 'Glamorous' city, doing everything she can to exceed those around her only to lose it all when she gets masterly swindled by another aristocrat trying to take over all of her possessions." not a single lie left the drakes lips as he spoke. True, he hadn't mentioned all of this when he argued with Rarity, but he didn't do it because he knew she couldn't listen. She had always dreamed of being among those of high class, so she wouldn't be deterred from her path by what she could easily think was a lie fabricated by the purple dragon.

"Something tells me that's not the whole story, Spike. What aren't you telling me?" weeding out the cheaters that had pined after her white flanks had given her an uncanny ability to detect lies. She was no Applejack-level lie detector, but she could easily tell when the dragon was lying due to the five years she spent living with him, learning his little signs he would give off. Caught with no way out, and without a reason to avoid the perfectly normal question, he explained the core of his reluctance to leave.

"It's just that I feel guilty for...for avoiding Twilight so long unintentionally. I wish I could just take it all back, before I ever left her behind without as much as a letter for three years."

"Dang, I haven't heard that name in a long time. So that's one of the main reasons you don't want to leave?"

"It's probably the biggest one of all. That's why you saw me sleeping on the couch a little while ago, I had run all the way to Ponyville to finally see her again, and I felt happier than I have ever been recently when I did. The look on her face made up for the exhaustion I went through to get there, but it also let me know just how much it had hurt her to not hear from me in such a long time. I even left her with a promise that I would see her again today, and I intend to keep it, but I wanted to settle things with Rarity here and now. For her to tell me to just abandon Twilight like that is just...just...I can't even find a word to describe it right now."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating a little?" Sweetie noticed the look of hurt on his face the second it appeared and quickly worked to rectify it, "Don't get me wrong! I respect whatever decision you make, but you can't forget that you've both been really stressed out lately. Maybe all of this is just a result of you guys overworking yourselves."

"No, I've been frustrated with her neglecting me so much for a long time now, tired of her choosing to expand her business rather than to hear what I have to say. Now, she just tipped the scale a little too much, and I thought I would be able to fix it today by talking with her about it. Apparently that isn't possible because she's trying to avoid me in every sense possible now, and that's just the last push I needed to make a decision I'm most likely going to regret in the future."

"W-what are you going to do?" Sweetie let her imagination run wild, crafting scenes where the older dragon rips her sister in half and chars the body in a bout of green flames.

Were they unlikely? Yes.

Did that make them leave her head? No.

She watched silently as her question floated in the air, waiting for the response that would either cause her to sigh in relief or run for her sister's life. Spike stood from his spot at the table with eyes burning coldly with the flames of his determination, and when he spoke it was in a straightforward voice that held little reluctance in it.

"It's time for Rarity and I to take some time apart."
______________________________________________________________________

Twilight stood by her kitchen's window, watching the sun shift from it's early yellow colors into the orange that marked the afternoon. Her sad frown mimicked the suns decent, growing darker with every second that passed by. She was alone in her library again. There wasn't a purple dragon next to her, telling her stories of his time away, there wasn't a friend she could trust at her side, with whom she could share her deepest secrets, and there certainly wasn't a lovely drake there to make her heart flutter.

She had her house, her books, and a cabinet that beckoned her to give into its influence.

The latter drew her attention away from the darkening horizon, causing her to leave the window that had taunted her all day to unleash the corruption behind its wooden panel. With nothing else that was worthy left to lose in her life, Twilight began to lose her will. Within the cabinet, she found a glass and a bottle of wine, both of which had gone untouched for about three year's time. One claw extended to grip the alcoholic beverage while the other got a hold of the cool glass, the keys to saving her from her tormenting thoughts. The cork screwed off easily, having been opened repeatedly in the past, giving access to the half-bottle's worth of liquid within. The strong drink poured into the tall glass, which was then raised into the air by a shaky arm. The rays of the dying sun reflected off the droplets falling from the dragoness' face, highlighting the frail words slipping past her lips.

"To us."

Bonds

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~Chapter 4~

Bonds

Trottingham, 3 hours ago...

"Damn it, where is she hiding?" Spike made his way through yet another crowded street of the city he currently resided in, continuing his tiring search for the alabaster unicorn hidden among the masses. He had gone from pony to pony, asking every single one of them whether or not they'd seen her. After all, Rarity was pretty much the mare with the highest level of aristocracy in the surrounding area, so everypony around knew who she was. His questions received mixed results, pointing him in different directions that led to various celebrations scattered around the city that he had no wishes of attending.

For just a single second, the purple dragon contemplated with admirable interest the lengths Rarity had gone to in order to hide from him, but it was cut short as he returned to his tedious hunt. He was almost positive she was jumping from location to location to throw off his unending search, and the tactic was very much effective against him.

His emerald eyes trailed up into the sky, which was beginning to darken due to the sun's slow decent from its apex position. The drake started cursing inside his head, knowing that each minute spent in his search was time that he could possibly need to reach Ponyville in time. Everything was starting to fall apart for him. Rarity was still concealed from his piercing gaze, Twilight was still alone inside her library, and he hadn't the slightest idea of how to attend to both of those problems at the same time.

Spike briefly considered leaving a letter back in the boutique that would explain everything to the fashionable designer, but he discarded it as quickly as it entered his head. If he was going to settle things with Rarity, he would do it face to face like a man.

His snout twitched as a familiar scent reached his senses, drawing his attention to a small cocktail party taking place in a public park. Living in a boutique for so long had increased many of his natural senses, smell being one of them since his marefriend had a tendency to spray herself with strong perfumes she made herself, testing them out by asking Spike what he thought about them. They were a little too strong for his liking, but now the overpowering aroma served as a beacon he used to slowly track down the hidden mare. His curious sniffing caught the attention of various of the ponies socializing around him, making them all turn their heads to look on as he got closer to a white mare wearing a violet dress that matched her mane perfectly.

The fashionably dressed unicorn noticed that everyone was looking at something behind her, and her heart caught in her throat when the dragon that had finally managed to find her down called out.

"Rarity?" Spike walked closer to the alabaster mare he had been looking for all afternoon, readying himself for what he had to say. He coughed as he was left standing in a cloud of dust, rubbing away the blinding dirt with his claws just in time to see Rarity round the corner of the street. He groaned internally, not at all happy with the prospect of having to chase her down again.

Spike blasted away from the public cocktail party on all fours, reaching speeds that no pony on land could ever hope to outrun. Still, the fashion designer already had a good head-start, and he was having difficulties tracing down the scent while he ran. He followed his nose down an alleyway, thinking that he had finally cornered her, but it was all just a well played trick. She had abandoned her perfume-doused dress to distract him while she kept running, letting him know that she desperately wanted to avoid talking with him. Rarity would rather take a punch to the gut than leave one of her creations lying on the filthy floor, yet she left one of her favorites in a grimy alleyway as nothing more than a final attempt to stop Spike from catching up to her.

He shook his head to stop his unnecessary observations, every second he wasted thinking was another second Rarity had to escape. The violet silk stayed behind as the purple dragon dashed past filthy puddles of water on the floor, splashing his legs with cold water that stung him as the rushing wind chilled it even further. The number of houses blurring at his sides began to thin as he reached Trottingham's city limits, and the cobblestone pavement underneath his feet turned into a dirt road.

He caught sight of Rarity in the distance, running up a grassy hill that hadn't been reached by the city's industrialization yet, but there wasn't anywhere else to run after that. She might have been willing to abandon her dress, but there was no way she would ever go into the Whitetail Woods on her own, much less near nightfall. There were stories about seclusive creatures in there, not exactly as savage and primal as the ones from the Everfree, but most of them were rumored to be just as mischievous.

Spike could tell the Rarity had already exhausted herself, seeing the shine of the setting sun reflect off of the sheen of sweat coating her huffing body as she leaned against a lone tree. The dragon rose back to his bipedal stance, walking slowly towards the tired mare with his nerves steeled for what he was about to do.

"Rarity, please stop running. We need to talk, now." impending doom filled the air between the two of them, and silence reigned the small field they were in as they waited for one another to speak. Rarity took up the offer to talk, yet what she said was almost imperceptible to Spike's excellent ears.

"It's...It's all my fault, isn't it?" the unicorn looked up from the floor, clashing her sapphire eyes in a deep stare against the emerald ones of the drake that had chased her across the entire city. They held none of the usual enthusiastic energy she carried around everyday, nor did her expression seem as composed as she usually molded herself. No, her eyes trembled to match the expression of sheer nervousness plaguing her otherwise pristine face, assuring the dragon even further that she understood perfectly why he wanted to talk to her.

"No. Don't you dare blame yourself for all of this." Spike had to face the facts that he had blocked out in their last conversation due to his repressed frustration, whether he liked them or not, "I'm not exactly innocent about this either. All of this is because of me wanting more attention, like a selfish child, but I can't change who I am. And I'm not only damaging our relationship with that little flaw of mine, I'm damaging your entire life, Rarity."

"That's not true! You've done nothing but good for me." the welled up tears in the white mares eyes found a way to escape, riding her emotional agony all the way down her cheeks to drip down on the healthy grass, tainting it with sorrow no one ever wishes to face

"Have I really? When you wanted to move here, I gave you a hard time as you tried to convince me to leave. When you decided to set up a new boutique, I opposed where you decided to place it. Now, you want to move to Canterlot to find the fortune and fame you've always dreamed of, always strived for throughout your life, and I'm just a roadblock in your way." Spike let a shame he didn't know he had harbored surge through him. He had made Rarity seem as if she were the criminal the last time he spoke to her, but know that he looked back on everything in the past, he was just as big of a uncooperative being as she was.

Both the unicorn and the dragon turned their heads towards the cold ground, asking themselves if that was really what their supposedly 'Perfect' life actually was behind the facade that had been unknown to either of them for so long. Spike behaving like a neglected child demanding attention that wasn't being given to him while Rarity was the obliviously ignorant mare that had her sights set so far in the distance that she couldn't see the difficulties of the present. Both of those were flaws that created artificial devotion within them to try and keep their shattering world together out of fear of facing the reality, but the protective pane of lies had not only cracked on that night, it had been completely erased from history.

When all is said and done, what is left to fill the void?

"I'm s-so sorry." Spike found himself in a hug with the unicorn he had called his marefriend for the past five years, not exactly knowing how he got there, but technicalities didn't matter to him at the moment. He wrapped his arms around her neck, embracing her to share the sorrow that he was equally responsible for bringing about.

"I'm sorry too, Rare, but we can't live like this anymore. I want you to be successful with your life, and I know that I'll always be that extra weight you don't need holding you down if I don't let you go." Spike pulled away from the hug to look her in the eyes as he spoke, "We'll always be friends, there's no doubt in my mind about that, but maybe that's just as close as we can be without obstructing one another."

"It just...it hurts so much." the tears spilled from her sapphire eyes freely at that point, nothing would be able to stop them from their rush even if she tried her hardest. It was just too much for her to handle, to finally see how drastically different her life actually was rather than what she believed it to be, to know that it was the end of the one relationship she ever hoped would fill the emptiness in her heart.

"It hurts me to do this as well, it really does, but we can't pretend like nothing's wrong anymore. You and I need to take some time apart to straighten out what we have in our lives. I'm going back to Ponyville to fix things with Twilight, if that's even possible at this point, and you should pursue your dream with this chance you have. Go to Canterlot to set up your new boutique, like you've always wanted, and don't let Sweetie Belle out of your sight while you're there. She's becoming a star, but I've seen what happens to the new celebrities in that city, and none of them have ever turned out as a happily ever after tale."

Spike had already slipped out of the embrace they had shared moments ago, searching for anything he could say to seal the deal, so to speak. He felt nothing, nothing but shame and agonizing pain in his heart for having to do what he did, and it all came to be because of a rushed decision that could have been avoided if he had been more careful. His childish infatuation all those years ago had potentially destroyed any normal relationship he could ever hope to have with Rarity ever again. Perhaps they would never call each other 'Friend' again, only time would tell if their scars would ever fade away, or if the wound left behind was indeed too deep to ever be overlooked in the future.

"I think I should leave...Rarity?" his departing line transitioned into a bewildered question as he noticed the forlorn look in the unicorn's eyes, which were bland in comparison to their usual bright appearance. Her makeup had all but completely fallen away from her face, leaving streaks of darkness painted across her neutral expression. Spike feared that he had caused some kind of mental instability, though that was very much unlikely, and that unlikelihood was proven correct when she nodded numbly. He thought that he saw her lips mouth unheard words, but it was clear enough to him that the conversation was over.

Rarity didn't move at all as he walked away with his head dipped in shame, casting looks back at her as he set off into the sunset, and even then she remained immobile. The clouds cleared away, leaving the sky bare for all awake to adore its spectacular display of the cosmos, but she didn't pay it any more attention than to the horizon her eyes had drifted off to. Raging silence filled the vastness of the Melodic Prairie's mutely rustling expanse, only being accented by the frozen mare atop the hill.

'It's all my fault.' her body remained paralyzed as her mind shifted into overdrive, going to the one place Spike had specifically tried to divert her from just moments ago before he departed.

'I wasn't good enough,' her horn light up as she removed her pearly earrings, tossing them into the field as if they were nothing more than simple stones among a common quarry.

'I wasn't pretty enough,' next, she kicked off her opal heels, burying them into the dirt with the strength with which she stomped them with.

'and most of all, I wasn't generous enough!' her hair clips snapped off as her curls were released to their naturally flowing style, draping down across her neck as they nearly covered her eyes. She hated herself for not being the perfect mare she strived to be, swearing in the name of Celestia that she would better herself in any way she could, no matter the costs. She was determined to not let her love life with the dragon end there, not willing to let go of her fantasy life without a fight. Infatuated determination took control of her since that moment, and her eyes regained their sparkle of determination, but it wasn't the same luster as the one she had before. No, this one shone with lies that were yet to be overlooked, realities that may well never come to be traveled, all created by the mind of a mare who had expectations too high for the horrid reality that life truly was behind its glamorous facade.

'I'll show him just how far I'm willing to go to win him back.'
______________________________________________________________________

Spike ran.

He ran from everything he wanted to leave behind, not being able to withstand much more of the torture he had put himself through. The shame was still there though, taking the first class ride as the forefront of his mind right in between sorrow and guilt. It seemed to the purple dragon that he had talked enough on that day, yet he found himself yearning for another conversation, one that would provide a shoulder to lean on for him.

His rampant emotions coalesced into a few tears leaking out of his emerald eyes, and they stung his face as they were chilled by the wind rushing past him. They were drops of poison that tainted the rustling grass underneath him, poison so strong that it almost seemed to cause the plant's life to wilt away just from the agonizing pain embedded within them.

The drake's slightly blurred vision turned towards the twinkling night sky, cursing himself for every star he could point out. He knew that he was extremely late, and that didn't exactly start him off on the right foot considering he wanted to patch things up with his best friend after four complete years of interactive neglection. One stray thought tumbled into his mind's eye, one that showed Twilight at her doorstep with her arms crossed and a disapproving frown on her face.

"I thought I could trust you. I guess I was wrong, again." she walked back inside the library before sealing him out forever, leaving him alone in the cold world around him.

Spike shook his head, clearing away the daydreamed nightmare as he sped up his quadrupedal dash. He didn't understand why he had such a horrendous terror towards abandonment, or why it had increased so dramatically since the adventure to the Crystal Empire he had gone on when he was younger. From the day he had been hexed into believe that Twilight disowned him by Sombra's shadow magic, Spike felt that very fear concentrated to degrees that haunted his sleepless nights, but there was always one curious consistency.

It was always Twilight.

No matter the circumstances, it was always that lavender unicorn slamming her door shut to keep him out of her world, and watching her do it as a dragoness stung no less than watching her block him out as a pony. Perhaps it was the fact that they had grown up together having no one else to call a friend than each other, or it could be that they had rubbed off on one another so much over the years, but that was a past that could only be revisited in memories.

Spike pushed himself even more, feeling his muscles go sore as he reached his maximum limitation. He wouldn't fail her like he had in the past, not ever again. The foliage of the path leading to Ponyville thinned away to give way to the lightly industrialized town itself, which had its lights flaring up into the dark sky. There were a couple of ponies walking on the paved sidewalks, many of which the dragon had never seen in the town when he still lived there, but he spared no time for formal pleasantries as he rushed down the roads leading to the growing city's center.

The drake screeched to a halt on his aching limbs as he neared the Golden Oaks Library, barely managing to stop himself from busting his head against the solid doorway leading inside the tree house. He took a couple of seconds to regain his breath, taking in greedy gulps of precious oxygen as his cold-blooded system used up all of the excessive heat on his body. When he felt that he was presentable, Spike reached out and knocked on the door, readying his 'I'm sorry for being late' face for the owner of the house.

No one answered.

A slight tinge of paranoid fear entered his mind because of that. He knew that the librarian he knew would have at least given a sign that she was inside. He lifted his balled claw to tap against the wooden passage again.

Silence reigned yet again.

His worst terrors began to creep their way out of his subconscious mind, each one looking even more similar to the situation he was in than the last. They whispered darkly into his ears, telling him that he would never be able to see his best friend again, that he would never be able to get the forgiveness he doesn't deserve. Those malicious voices spurred his tears again as he began to believe the worst possible reality. Just before he gave into the darkness of doubt, a beacon of hope cut through the smog in the form of a old memory. It led him underneath the doormat he stood on, giving him the key to escape his nightmares by revealing a literal key.

Spike let a smile spread his face as he picked up the spare key to the house, one that Twilight had made for him after he developed the tendency to lock himself outside when he went to check the mail. Wasting no time at all, the dragon inserted the golden key into the doorway's locking mechanism, granting him entry into the library.

The sight inside was nothing like what he saw last time. Books were strewn around on the floor, the dead fireplace only served as a reminder of the cold in the air, and the lack of light would have been blinding had Spike's eyes not been biologically adapted for the dark. Two factors drew his attention towards the kitchen's archway, the first being a sole flickering light emanating from the room itself, and the second would be a sharp stench in the air that led towards the light. Following his senses, the purple drake mutely walked across the seemingly abandoned library, thinking about what could be waiting for him inside of the kitchen. Of course, he didn't have to think much more as he stepped into the lit up room, but it wasn't exactly something he wanted to see.

"Twilight!"

Spike dropped everything going on in his head to rush towards the downed dragoness, nearly tripping over an empty bottle that likely explained the concentrated smell in the area. Twilight was sprawled out on the floor, clutching a glass in her claw as she slept. The wall she was facing from her spot on the ground had two puncture marks on it, without a doubt a mark left by her twin horns impaling it before she passed out.

The purple drake knelt down by his lifelong friend's side, placing one hand under her head so that he could turn her onto her back without harming her fragile neck. He immediately noticed that the bottle he had just avoided tumbling over wasn't the main source of the alcoholic smell, but he couldn't believe what his senses were telling him. Twilight was the farthest a living being could be from a drunk, never touching the vile liquid in her life alongside Spike, yet here she smelled as if she had doused herself with the strong drink just minutes ago. He only had enough time to take in the fact that her face was coated in tears, both old and fresh, before her eyelids slipped away lazily, revealing the precious amethyst eyes hidden behind them.

It took Twilight a couple of seconds to realize that there was a face in front of hers, a couple of more for her to process that it was Spike who was holding her head up, and even more time for the message to pass through the drunken haze her mind was in.

"Shpike? Is that you?" her head swam in the mind numbing faux euphoria she was cursed with because of the amount of alcohol she had ingested before she passed out, but no amount of wine could change the fact that she was Twilight Sparkle. And, if anyone had a mind that could be able to maintain a degree of rational thinking after downing an entire bottle of strong drink, that would be Twilight.

"Of course it's me Twi. I'm sorry I'm late, but I'm here, just like I promised." the purple drake decided to set aside his personal issues to deal with the new sight of his drunken companion, knowing that it would probably be a waste of time explaining his break-up while she was in her intoxicated state.

"J-just like you...promised?" the thick smog that had formed inside her head due to the accursed drink she drank began to dissipate as the cogs in her consciousness started to spin faster, responding to the unintentional catalyst he had slipped into his speech. His four, final words were what set her off, unlocking the wells of repressed pains inside of her that she had desperately attempted to drown out with alcohol.

Spike grabbed her claws with his own, helping her to stand on her shaky legs. He was about to offer her to lean against him so that she could balance herself better, but she took matters into her own accord and threw herself at him, locking her arms right under his own as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. The tears came, tears long overdue to be shed that had been hidden away because of what they contained within, for they weren't all of sadness. Some boiled with her untamed rage, more of them felt as if they dug directly into the drake's skin with the cold talons of depression, but one type of tear outmatched every other one, both in frequency and power.

These were the tears of betrayal.

Every single one of them carried a memory inside of them, nights she spent alone with nobody to wish away her horrible dream terrors that haunted her, the five birthdays that she was forced to put a hollow smile on her face so the one of her pink friend wouldn't disappear, and every last moment she lacked the one being with whom she could trust with her deepest and most painful secrets.

Spike mimicked her in every way, from the warm embrace of compassion to the tears of past agonies, wondering every step of the way how he had managed to overlook such a dent in his heart for so long. The damage done was still there, wrapped in a bandage of facades and distracting trivialities that had masked the five year old infection underneath, allowing it to spread throughout their systems unbeknownst to them.

The bandage was ripped off on that night.

The salty cascades pouring from their eyes slowed as the venom within them became less and less concentrated, slowly being drained away from their bodies. Stuttered sobs still rang out in contrast to the deafening silence, getting rid of the majority of the traces of toxic negativity within their subconscious minds save for a few stray roots still grasping onto their hosts like a parasitic animal.

Through the hidden pain that had finally been uncovered and the tears of melancholy, a sense of satisfactory bliss pulsed throughout the draconic duo's bodies, leaving naught but the cores of their very beings left exposed to one another, each one knowing that they would never hurt the other out of their free will. It was a rare occurrence that not many got to share in their lifetimes, to share who you truly are with the one closest to you, and it was all because those who never truly achieved their symbiotic harmony were too cowardly to put in the key catalyst.

Trust.

The lifelong companions shared it fully, nurturing it ever since the first day they met, strengthening it to the point that no simple betrayal would ever be able to extinguish the fire of loyalty they harbor in their hearts. They didn't need to speak as they maintained their embrace beside the flickering candlelight, no words were required to express what they could just as easily show with a sign of affection as subtle as a nearly imperceptible nuzzle.

The night was young and bright, but it would have to wait until another day to shine down upon the draconic comrades. One had suffered a stab to the heart with a blade of guilt while the other had begun to give up hope on reality itself, yet they both shared the draining consequence on their energy, leaving them on the brink of blessed unconsciousness.

The dragoness began to shift between the waking world and the dreamscape, having a hard time telling both of them apart as her drunken haze fused with the one brought about by her drowsiness. Her potent lethargy almost seemed to transfer onto the purple drake she was sharing the moment with, extracting a yawn from him that put an end to his minuscel sniffles.

Spike understood that not much more needed to, or could be, done on that night. The previously unstable emotions that had rocked Twilight and him before their wordlessly affectionate embrace had settled down to adequate levels, and all that was left to do was to put an end to that page of their story to begin the next by saying goodnight to Luna's nighttime shift.

The dragon and the dragoness wobbled their way through the still library shoulder to shoulder, keeping their mutual silence with gentle expressions blessing their faces. The stairway leading up to the master bedroom was a challenge to them, mostly due to the bad motor-coordination skills Twilight had at the time, but they eventually triumphed in completing their quest to the second floor of the house.

A tiny squeak echoed through the empty halls of the oaken building as the door to the bedroom was opened, allowing the duo to step through into the organized space inside. Warmth dominated Spike's beating heart as he took in a sight he wasn't expecting to see in the bedroom he hadn't entered for the past half decade.

His small basket still rested on the right side of the floor next to the bed, exactly where he remembered leaving it before he left. Of course, warming his heart was all it could do at that point due to the fact that he was twice as big as he was the last time he slept inside of it, so he set Twilight on her bed before starting to make his way downstairs to another night of sleeping on a couch.

"Spike?" the slur in her soft voice was gone as she whispered out her beckoning call, drawing his attention instantly. Her eyelids kept trying to close on their own, and a yawn interrupted her from continuing for a couple of seconds, "Can you sleep over tonight? I don't want to be alone...not again."

A small bud of guilt sprouted from the negative roots still embedded inside his subconscious mind when he caught onto the almost imperceptible end to her fearful confession. He shook his head and was about to tell her that he would be right downstairs in case she needed anything, but she patted the spot next to her before he could start talking. He didn't even hesitate to take the offer of sleeping on a bed, mostly because it was what she wanted, but he couldn't exactly deny that just the idea of sleeping on the living room couch brought an ache to his back.

Spike nodded again in acceptance to her proposition, making his way around the room to the opposite side of the bed. The plush cozy mattress sunk in slightly as his weight bore down on it, and a purple aurora brought the blanket up to his neck, shielding him from the cool chill in the environment.

The two draconic partners faced each other as sleep's euphoric grasp began to take hold over their minds. Twilight somehow managed to summon enough willpower past the inhibitors of drowsiness and drunkenness to be able to speak on last thing before passing out.

"I missed you, my number one assistant."

Spike's old title brought a smile to his face and a gloss to his emerald eyes. He loved hearing it then just as much as the first day he had been awarded with it, and it always seemed to carry a rush of fond childhood memories along with it. The deposits of poison still lingering in his mind were blocked off from spreading any further by the visions of the past, simpler times where he and Twilight didn't have to go through such drastic bumps in their relationship with one another, times where it was just him and her having each other's back as they resisted the hate thrown at them. Reality had given him a gift that many in the world underestimate, a gift that would change the path his life would take forever, and that was called hope. Sleep reached out to him, and he gratefully gave in to the wonders awaiting him in the dreamscape, barely managing to respond to the sleeping dragoness next to him before he too slipped into the unconscious realm.

"I missed you too, Twi, more than you can ever imagine."

Faded Flame

by Ink Stroke

Strife

Reunion

Development

Bonds