Chapter Three

Beleaguered Arrival

The sun, carried on by the spell Celestia had placed on it, had almost completely touched down on the horizon as Spike opened his eyes. Blinking in the early evening light, he rolled back the curtains to see the glimmering of the ocean. It was a first for him, really: he had never laid eyes on water larger than a river or a lake, and to see nothing but vast, powerful waters... he wasn’t afraid to admit it scared him a little. He did know how to swim, but in a place that big, he felt like he would be lost forever should he fall in. Who knew what terrible dangers lurked beneath those waves?

A flash through the other curtain-drawn window caught his eye, so he turned away from the sparkling ocean and instead drew back the curtain to see another flash of light, this time brighter than the other one. Blinking, Spike was not sure just exactly what he was seeing. Clouds, dark and menacing, were barreling down on the carriage, almost like they were intent on smashing into it like a herd of buffalo. The winds had considerably picked up, judging by how the carriage was now rocking modestly, compared to not at all before. Another flash of light outside burned an image of an angular, jagged bolt as it arced across the sky. Other than that light, the clouds obscured anything that may lay beyond them: the curtain of rain below them seemed to connect with the ocean as if the storm and the ocean were one single entity.

“A thunderstorm? Out here?” Spike thought, knowing full well the princess and he were sitting in a very electrically conductive vehicle that was going to become very close to those monstrous clouds in a very short amount of time. The metal that held the entire carriage together was like a giant lightning rod, just begging the clouds to strike it. His first thought was to hide under a blanket until it passed, but seeing as he had none, he decided to do the next best thing: wake up Celestia.

Quickly, he leaned over her, but then he hesitated: how does one wake up a princess, especially one like Celestia? Was there a certain, ancient protocol for something such as this? Spike wasn’t sure if there was a protocol, and so decided to go for broke. Gently poking her in the back of the shoulder, since she was facing away from him, he whispered, “Celestia? Uh, Celestia, you might want to wake up.” He still remembered being raised in the care of Celestia when he had just been hatched by Twilight. She had been and still was a comforting presence, but now... he wasn’t sure what he felt around her all these years after leaving her care. Safe and secure, for sure, and maybe a bit confident in himself, but her ethereal glow now made him feel a bit... odd. As if he wanted to say something, but just couldn’t.

“Mmm... no... I want a banana smoothie,” Celestia whispered, snapping Spike out of his own thoughts. She was clearly still off in a rather odd dream, as everypony knew Celestia loved bananas. “The portals... put the cube on the... pedestal... dammit Luna, stop eating the... glue and crayons.” Okay, she was really off in a bizarre dream: what was all that stuff about portals and crayons?

Spike in response to that, poked her more urgently, taking care not to press too hard into her shoulder with his finger. “Celestia! Please, you need to wake up!” He was almost to the verge of shouting, as would anypony in his situation. Even pegasi retreated to shelter when a thunderstorm, especially an uncontrolled and wild one, came into an area.

Turning over mid-poke, Celestia’s eyes opened slowly. “What... what is it, Spike? Are we at the island already? It hasn’t been thirteen hours already, has it?” Her long nap after the lack of sleep the night before felt incredibly refreshing, though her body was still a bit sluggish to her commands: her hind hooves, or feet, as they were called by dragons, felt all prickly.

“Not... exactly,” Spike said, hoping she’d wake up faster now that he somewhat had her attention. It wouldn’t do them any good for him to panic in such a small enclosed space, but he was getting rather worried. “You might want to take a look outside like, right now.”

Celestia, rubbing her eyes, sat up and looked out the window. After blinking a few times, she simply turned back to Spike. “Fear not, Spike, as we are almost to our destination. Those storm clouds only form this far out to sea if there is land close by. If I remember correctly, the island should be on the opposite side of that storm.” She could feel the magic of it pulling her closer, like a small pebble being pulled down the side of a steep hill by gravity’s power.

“...what,” Spike deadpanned, not noticing how his tail involuntarily curled closer to his body. “But... but aren’t we in danger? This carriage is made of metal: highly conductive metal, I might add!” That was true enough: also, they were kind of going to fly right into the middle of the damned storm.

“Yes, but the inside of this carriage is completely lightning-proof: I cast the spell myself many centuries ago, so there is nothing to worry about,” the princess said, closing the curtain. The carriage swayed again slightly as another gust of wind buffeted the flying contraption. “I should also like to thank you for listening to what I said earlier and refer to me by my name not my title. We will not be so formal out here, as it won’t matter to anypony, especially me. Now, with that out of the way, would you like to know of the island in a bit more detail? Besides Luna and myself, I doubt any other pony, or dragon for that matter, knows of its existence.” Somewhat abrupt, but she knew she needed to help him slowly understand what this “quest” would entail. Too fast and he might freak out; too slow and it might be too late for the planet. Oh, curse unfortunate timing and forgotten obligations!

“Well, uh...” Spike began, unsure if now was the best time for storytelling. What would happen if the carriage was struck by lightning? Would the wings be damaged? Would the welds holding much of it together sheer apart from the high winds? “Sure, I guess. You’re welcome, by the way, Celestia.” He forced his tail to unfurl away from his body, the tip coming to rest alongside Celestia’s own wispy one. It wasn’t his fault they both had longer tails than most ponies: he was a dragon, and she was an alicorn, after all.

This did not escape Celestia’s notice, but unbeknownst to Spike, she inwardly sighed. It was going to be hard to get him what he needed to do. She’d have to take it slow, make it seem real: of course, if it became real, then she might have more problems than she did at the moment. Her heat was upon her: it would build slowly for the remainder of the time, until it came to a peak for several days straight. Then, like a light bulb bursting, it would cease, and if Spike did what he had to do, the crisis would be over. She didn’t even want to think of what would happen if he successfully impregnated her.

There she was: getting sidetracked again by her thoughts. Noticing the confused look on Spike’s face at her silence, she gently cleared her throat. “This island, like many smaller and isolated ones around the world, was formed by volcanic activity: hot magma coming up from fissures in the planet’s crust over many, many years. This one, in particular, is less than three hundred years old.”

“It is?” Spike asked as it grew slightly darker in the carriage: they were drawing closer to the storm. “Then, if it’s so young and not known by anypony else, then how did you or your sister find it?” Wait, Luna couldn’t have found it, as she was still Nightmare Moon and imprisoned on the moon three hundred years ago. Unless... Celestia found it last year after her sister’s return?

“It was an accident, really: I was out in this very carriage, flying across the ocean to visit some friends of mine over in Saddle Arabia, when a freak wind blew my carriage off-course. By the time the wind stopped, I found myself over the island. I placed a spell on it so I could remember its location, and so I went on my way.” Celestia paused for a moment as the interior of the carriage grew very dark all of a sudden. It was now official that they had passed completely into the storm, with the dark clouds seeming to swallow them up and press in on them from every direction.

A bright flash of light coursed through the clouds outside, temporarily illuminating the interior of the flying carriage with an eerie glow. “I had something... placed in the volcanic mountain. The volcano itself is currently not active, so we shouldn’t be in any danger from it.” It was a lie and she knew it: there was nothing placed in that volcano by anypony. She felt bad, lying to him like this: it wasn’t like she was leaving out something like before. She was actually telling him a lie, something she normally abhorred. But... she had to give him a motive to be there. She couldn’t just say “Spike, my heat will destroy the world unless you buck my brains out” or something like that... right?

“Well, I won’t be in any danger from the volcano,” Spike politely reminded her. “Dragon, remember? I can swim in magma.” He paused for a moment, a thought crossing his mind. “This... thing, you mentioned: what exactly is it? Is it some sort of ancient alicorn artifact, like that amulet, or a giant spell amplifier?”

“I would prefer not to say, but it is something akin to... a vessel,” Celestia said, the unintended double entendre not lost on her. It was a vessel: her inner vessel, which Spike needed to “pilot”. “It needs, as some might say, to be completed. This... vessel, will save us.”

“Okay, I guess: what do we need to fill it with?” the dragon asked, completely clueless as to why the princess was acting so... bashful with her explanation. Was it an embarrassing thing to talk about for her?

Before Celestia could blush or respond to that unknowingly sexual question, a bright flash illuminated the carriage, followed by a massive rumble that shook their very teeth. In an instant, a great shake threw the carriage around, sending the two passengers sprawling onto their backs. Their luggage sailed through the air and landed on the opposite sides, narrowly missing both occupants as they did so. The ride was now much rougher, as if they had been...

“Have we been hit?” Spike asked in a loud shout, his ears still ringing from what had sounded like an explosion. For a younger dragon, loud noises were much more severe to their hearing than for an older one. At least noises not made by them: other foreign noises could damage their hearing rather easily.

“I... I don’t know: I think so,” Celestia responded, her voice barely any louder and yet still enough for Spike’s ringing ears to hear. “We’re not exactly plummeting out of the sky, so... one of the wings must have been damaged!” That would be a rather unfortunate occurrence: they still needed this contraption to get them all the way to the island. Dropping into the middle of the ocean would be a sure-fire way to get lost and/or die.

“I’ll take a look!” Spike shouted back, almost tripping over himself as he got back up and lurched for the window. Peering out, he gazed upon the black clouds around him, the flashing lightning providing all the light his highly sensitive eyes needed. The left-side wing looked like a great crack had formed down the middle, and a few flecks of golden feathers flew off with every flap.

“Yeah,” he said, turning back enough so Celestia could see his mouth. “The left wing looks damaged all right: it-,”

He was cut off by another massive burst of light outside the carriage, followed by another rumble that seemed to make their very bones shutter. The carriage lurched again, this time from the right side. Spike tumbled backwards, landing awkwardly on top of Celestia.

“Spike, your spines: they’re digging into me,” she said into his ear, feeling suddenly rather hot under her collar at the fact he was laying on top of her. No pony or dragon had ever gotten this close to her, and with her heat only twenty or so days away, she was beginning to feel... odd. Were her symptoms and the changes in her they brought already beginning to manifest?

“Sorry your highness,” he muttered, rolling onto all fours. He scampered over to the other window and peered out: extending out from the half-way point, the right wing was missing all of its feathers. Instead, all that remained was a thick gold rod tapering to a point, likely the frame that had held it together. Like a damaged tree branch it flapped around in the wind, looking completely scorched.

“Uh oh,” he said, turning to look at the princess as she joined him at the window. “That doesn’t look good.” Mentally, he slapped himself for such an idiotic comment. “Well no shit ‘that doesn’t look good’: half the damn wing is gone!” he thought.

“I agree, Spike: we can’t have far to go now, but I fear the wing’s damage may be too great to-,” the princess began before another bright flash from outside made their eyes sting. Another rumble, not quite as loud, was then accompanied by such a violent thrashing that it was like the carriage was being shaken by a full grown Ursa Major.

Celestia and Spike fell back, with Spike landing on his back. Celestia landed a mere second after him, having spun in midair to try and correct her fall. She landed right on his chest, knocking the wind out of the poor dragon. Well, when you had two massive breasts attached to your chest like she did, it was no wonder Spike suddenly found he was unable to breathe.

“Air,” he gasped as Celestia’s long flowing mane of hair flew up in his face. Suddenly, the dark world had a bit more color to it: hues of green, pink and blue covered his vision, and unfortunately, his airway. However, Celestia withdrew, aware of how she had landed on him and also aware that she must have been smothering him with her mane.

“I am sorry, Spike,” She said, trying to pull him up into a sitting position as he breathed in a gulp of air. “I-,”

Another bright flash and loud crack surrounded them, the carriage twisting again as though punched by some monstrous green giant. As it flipped, Spike felt himself fly forward as Celestia flew backwards, landing on her rump with a slight slapping sound and a tiny “oof”. Almost in slow motion, they both watched as Spike’s snout fell below her chin and wedged itself firmly into her dress, his face disappearing into the valley between her two breasts. It kept going, until barely his head’s spines were poking out of her dress.

“Spike!” Celestia cried out as Spike’s own muffled reply was smothered by her pelt and clothes. It was unfortunate for the dragon that he could breathe, but not get himself out. Celestia’s gown fit her like a tight glove, and so his face was truly stuck in her heavenly bosom. The lower part of her dress was caught under his chin, tight enough to hold him there but not enough to restrict his airway. Her soft pelt rubbed against his face as he kept wriggling his head side to side in order to try and get free: no such luck, as he was in too deep.

“Oh no, this is bad: so very, very bad,” he thought to himself, trying to pull his head free but remaining stuck. He tried to stand up to give himself better leverage, but his legs had become trapped by his clothes bag, and as the carriage rolled again from the high winds outside, he felt weightless for a second. Only, this weightlessness was ended by the fact that the carriage had completely flipped, and with a grimace of pain, he felt himself land on his back, his clothes bag now wedged under him at an odd and uncomfortable angle. Then Celestia’s full weight came down on him again, knocking the wind out of him again. His hot breathe came out, sending what looked like a balloon travelling down the inside of her dress and across her belly.

The princess shivered unexpectedly: that had felt... good. Another hot breath washed over her, and she shuddered slightly, suddenly not able to find the exact words to tell Spike to stop. His warm head, stuck inside her heavenly bosom, vibrated slightly every time he grunted and groaned in his efforts to free himself. Then, like he should have done before, the dragon reached up and grabbed the ends of Celestia’s breasts and tried to pry them further apart. All he did was squish them more around his head, with Celestia’s suddenly sensitive nipples rubbing against his palms.

Celestia, even in her slight state of panic, let out a soft, low moan. Oh wow, that was... unexpected. No, scratch that: it felt great. Her nipples grinding against his palms through her dress’s fabric as he somewhat roughly kneaded her large mammaries in an effort to be free: she felt a tingling in her body that she had never felt before. Was this what it was like to be turned on? To feel tingly and hot and filled with shivers and light-headed and-

The carriage lurched again, not from the storm, but by the now-frantic flapping of the remaining bits of the exterior wings. Due to the damaged nature of both, the carriage continually rocked from side to side, and then Celestia felt something strike her rump. “Oh!” she cried, looking back in time to see whatever it was strike her again. It was Spike’s long tail, the long spade-shaped end making another loud smacking noise on her toned ass. It hit again, the feeling of her rump bouncing upon impact imparting a strange sensation in her nether regions.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” she cried, trying to muffle them more so as not to alert Spike to exactly what he was hitting. Should she tell him, or should she continue to explore this delightful feeling? It was like feeling a tingling sensation up and down her entire back, starting from right below her skull and ending right where Spike’s... magnificent tail was slapping against her. “Spike?” she asked loudly, suppressing the urge to moan again as Spike’s tail smacked her in the ass again. Did all mares like this? Or was she just one of those turned on by such an act? “Do... do you need help?”

“Mmmph!” Spike said from within her bosom, nodding his head up and down. This made her breasts bounce slightly around his head, which made it look like he was not stuck and was instead shoving it in and out of her cleavage. Such a thought had an unexpected side-effect for Celestia’s body: her nipples hardened further under his palms, sticking into them like eraser buds. The tingles in her body continued, and if Celestia didn’t know better she’d say they were greatly increasing in not only intensity, but frequency as well. It was almost like it was building towards something, but towards what, she wasn’t sure. Was this the feeling of approaching something what she had heard other mares describe as a “climax”?

“Here, let me help,” Celestia said, equal parts of her body and brain screaming to not help him out at all. She forlornly ignored it, and pulling her breasts apart farther than Spike must have been willing to, she watched as his head popped out and fell back onto her small purse.

“Celestia, I am so sorry: please forgive me! I tried, but I got stuck and-,” Spike rambled in a hurried apology, only for Celestia’s finger to lie across his lips and silence him.

“Spike, it is quite all right: I understand,” she said softly as another lurch rolled them again. This time, the carriage rolled right-side up, with Celestia landing on the bottom and Spike haphazardly sprawling on top of her. This sudden change in position had the unintended side effect of squishing Celestia’s breasts up and almost out of the fabric completely. In fact, her areolas were making themselves known to the world as their edges poked out, threatening to spill her breasts out completely. Another lurch from the carriage, and they did spill out, pointing towards the sky like two large watermelons. The princess quickly reached up with her hands and shoved them back in before the dragon saw this, shuddering slightly as the hyper-sensitive nipples scraped against the fabric upon reentry. She felt so embarrassed and elated and disappointed, and all at the same time. Maybe she should have left them out for him to see? Starting from there might have made things a whole lot easier for them to progress from.

That and something rather... big, was pressing through fabric against the lower part of her dress, right above where her... special area was. She glanced down as Spike shook the dizziness from his head, his eyes thankfully closed during her exposure. That large bump she was feeling must have been his...

“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes widening at the realization. For her to feel something like that, through two sets of clothes it had to be... quite impressive in size. She did remember reading a book on dragon biology that stated different species of dragons had one or two... members, with the two-membered species usually having smaller ones. This... this didn’t feel like two, and for a second, she also remembered the single... membered ones had something a bit special about their own. It was something the author had gone into great detail about, as the author had been a mare and she had had a dragon for a lover. But for the long life of Celestia, once more, she could not recall exactly what that “special addition” had been.

Spike shook his head again and rolled off of the princess, muttering a “sorry” as he lay on his back next to her, feeling as though his eyes were rolling around in their sockets. No, scratch that: it felt like they were cut loose from their bonds and were threatening to roll out of his skull should he open his eyes. “I thought you said this thing was lightning-proofed,” he moaned, rubbing his shoulder from where he had landed on something hard.

“The carriage itself, inside and out, is,” Celestia said, the tingling in her body slowly dissipating. Odd: she was missing it already, and though her heat was only barely beginning to start building up, she could already tell she would like to do that a whole lot more. “The wings were not proofed, as... I never took the carriage through... a thunderstorm.” Her panting was not from fear, but from a slowly dissolving sense of elation. She had been building up to something, and was now coming to realize just how long she had been holding her breath during the act.

“Yes, probably... a bad idea, when you think of it,” Spike said, gasping for his breathe once more. It was like every time he landed, he was either squished by something or landed on something hard. Right now, he had rolled over onto both his clothes bag and Celestia’s purse. What had his tail been slapping against while his head was stuck in her... royal milk makers? Whatever it had been, it was firm, and yet strangely... smooth. Dragon tails were sensitive, after all, and he could still feel the softness beneath his spade-shaped end.

Outside, the darkness dissipated a bit, even though rain lashed against the window as it had been for the entirety of their time in the storm. The large droplets looked more like hail, save for fact they splattered instead of shattered against the windows. The lurching of the carriage was still pretty bad, but Spike got up to look outside once more...

Only for another lurch to smash his face into the side of the window. “Ow,” he muttered, steadying himself to get a better look. Strange: the clouds themselves were still black, but they seemed to be... moving away. Rushing back to the other window, Spike looked down and saw a glittering ocean below. Well, except for one rather large splotch somewhat in the middle. It curved upwards like a giant fang, with some more of it spread out low around it like a plate.

“Celestia?” Spike asked, motioning for her to come by the window. “Is that the island?”

Celestia picked herself up, set her crown back into place (it somehow having stayed on her head during the struggle), and crawled over to Spike’s side. “Yes, Spike: that is indeed the island,” she said, smiling. “We’re almost there. We should-,”

She was cut off by a sudden tearing noise outside of the carriage: it was not fabric, but metal. Looking out in horror, the pair saw the left-side wing drop away from the carriage entirely, flecks of gold trailing after it. A small gust of wind, the last gift from the thunderstorm, struck the underside of the remaining wing: this immediately sent the carriage into a shallow dive, spinning out of control as it did so.

“This is why I don’t like flying!” Spike shouted as he tumbled around the interior of the carriage, bumping himself against everything and Celestia. “Or at least, not in a thunderstorm!”

Celestia, even as she tumbled, found Spike’s shout to be rather... comical: or at least, what he had said was comical. As it was, partly to relieve stress and to just laugh, she giggled. This drew Spike’s attention, as he grabbed onto a surface and pulled himself close so as to not just keep flying around the interior.

“Why are you laughing?” he cried out as he ducked, his actions saving him from having the princess’s purse land squarely in his face. “Can’t you see we’re gonna crash? It-,”

He was stopped by something round, soft and tightly bound sucker-punching him right in the face, sending him tumbling once more. It had been her rear, and Celestia only laughed harder at the impact. Why was she so giddy all of a sudden? Were the feelings she had felt during their... close time together messing with her head?

“Celestia!” Spike cried out once more, his arms flailing about as they spun. “We need to get out of here! Can’t you just-,”

He was cut off as his hand, flailing around, enclosed itself on her horn. In an instant, Celestia’s eyes went wide, her nostrils flared, and a bright beam of magic shot forth from her horn like an explosion. The carriage top burst open, and Spike went sailing out, his hand slipping off of the alicorn’s horn.

“SON OF A BIIIIITT-,” he cried out, his voice trailing off as he fell away from the carriage. A small bit of the carriage top caught him in the tail, violently spinning him around for a few seconds. As his uncontrollable tumbling finally smoothed out, he used his arms to spin himself around in mid-air. He was able to just notice how close the island was below him before a bright white figure slammed into him, arms grasping around his chest from behind. Large white wings flared open, capturing the wind and slowly decreasing their speed. Spike looked up in shock to see Celestia holding him aloft, her wings starting to beat to keep them from tumbling down.

“Spike, before you thank me,” Celestia shouted, a grunt interrupting her sentence. “You should know something.”

“What?” Spike shouted back, noticing a slight trail of smoke from the carriage. It seemed as though Celestia’s magical explosion had set the interior of the carriage on fire.

“We’re still going to hit the ground hard, so I’m going to try and land us in that river,” she said, nodding in the direction as they fell. “It’s going to sting if we hit at the same time, so... please forgive me.”

Spike looked down and indeed, there was a river less than a hundred feet below them. It was not terribly wide, but seeing as it was close to the beach, it was most likely slow-moving. It wouldn’t be any better for them to escape a fall from this height, only to die by hitting boulders or being swept away by a powerful current.

Wait, why had she asked for him to forgive her? “Celestia, what are you- AAH!” Spike shouted as he felt the hands slip from around him, his body separating from Celestia’ by a few feet. It might have been miles for all he cared: in less time than he would have liked, he impacted the water like a rock, sending a fountain of water high into the air behind him. Celestia landed right where he had, the cold water washing over her suddenly-exhausted body. That explosive spell must have taken a lot out of her, since her wings suddenly refused to beat under the water.

The area, silent after the splash, was soon interrupted by the sound of a dragon bursting forth from the water, roaring in surprise and anger. “What in the name of Tartarus did you do that for, Celestia?!” he cried out, looking around for the princess as he treaded water. The somewhat murky liquid started to foam around him from his arms and legs thrashing to keep him above the water. Strangely, the princess was not there with him: she was not floating, nor was she on the shore, and she wasn’t hovering above him...

Spike’s anger imploded as a sudden realization came over him: she hadn’t come up from under the water like he had! Looking around, Spike dunked himself under and peered through the gloom, searching for the princess. She couldn’t have gotten anywhere in a hurry: the water was barely moving at all, and-

“There!” Spike thought, seeing a wisp of colored mane floating up from the bottom. Swimming down and over, he followed it until he found Celestia. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth... was open.

“Shit! She’s drowning!” Spike thought, sweeping her up in his arms and pushing off the bottom. Though the princess’s wings dragged them down, they soon broke the surface of the slow-moving river. Spike, treading water as best as he could with Celestia’s weight adding to his own, swam towards the shore, the sands luckily forming a gradual slope. With Celestia held under his arms, Spike rushed out, looking entirely like a lifeguard on television who had just rescued a drowning mare. Only in this case, it was real: he set her down on the beach and tilted his head by her mouth. He heard a slight gargle, and tried to remember what to do next.

“Chest compression?” he thought hurriedly, unsure of himself at the moment. He went for broke and roughly pushed down on the princess’s chest, the force expelling some water from her lungs. Another pump, more water, all the while her breasts flopped about in her soaking wet dress. Her wings were soaked and slowly leaking water from the soft feathers, sand coating the backs of them as they were spread out behind her like a fallen eagle’s.

It was like it wasn’t even working! He felt she still had a pulse, but why wouldn’t she wake up? “Come on, princess! Wake up!” Spike shouted, going down and breathing into her lungs, his mouth covering hers as his fingers pinched her nose shut. He could not smell any vomit on her, so she hadn’t thrown up or anything while unconscious. Two short breaths were right, but had he given enough air in each? He gave another chest compression, ignoring how the wet dress clung to her body. “Breathe, dammit!” he shouted.

Then, on the fourth pump, Celestia’s eyes shot open as more water spewed from her mouth. Coughing and retching, Spike gently turned her over onto her side, helping to expel the rest of the water from her lungs. He held her in place, knowing full well she’d only hurt herself if she tried to do anything but expel the water. As an afterthought, he gently patted her on the back, not to help expel water, but to try and reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

It was one of those rare times that Spike was thankful for Twilight’s pushy attitude towards certain things. He had been going to the pool a year back and had seen a colt almost drown there. Twilight, upon hearing this, forced him to enroll in a lifeguard class. He learned everything to do with lifeguarding, and had thankfully never needed to use his skills back at home. But out here? He had just saved Princess Celestia’s life.

After sitting with her for a short while, Spike saw she had finished dry-heaving and had started breathing normally. “Celestia? Are you okay?” Spike asked, looking down from behind her.

“Yes, Spike, I’m,” -another cough- “fine,” she said, groaning slightly at the pain in her wings. They had slapped onto the water behind her: they weren’t broken or anything, but they sure hurt like Tartarus. “How... how did I end up here?”

“I carried you out of the river,” Spike said simply, wiping his nose on his soaking shirt. “You, uh... you weren’t breathing, so I began rescue breaths and chest compressions.”

“Rescue breaths? Chest compressions?” Celestia repeated softly, her free hand coming up to wipe away the larger droplets of water still on her soaking-wet face. “Where... where did you learn to do that?”

“At the Ponyville YPCA,” Spike said, referring to the Young Ponies Center for Athletics. “Twilight made me take a lifeguard course there last year.”

“Did she now?” Celestia said, lifting her head to slide her free hand onto her arm. She laid it back down, making somewhat of a makeshift pillow. “Why... why did she do that?” She let out another small cough, but it sounded like there was no more water. It did sound like something her student would do, and she couldn’t have been more grateful that Twilight had done such a thing.

“She heard about a colt that almost drowned there, and so wanted me to be able to help, should the need arise,” Spike said, sneezing a bit: that water hadn’t exactly been warm. He had just gotten some in his nose was all. Hopefully he wouldn’t coming down with anything, and if he did, then how would he help her with the... quest?.

Celestia was quiet for a minute or two, enjoying the feeling of oxygen freely returning to her lungs. She had felt the water enter her lungs, felt her mind start to slip away... and then strong hands lifting her up, the pale light of the sunset suddenly shining through her eyelids. She had almost died, yet... Spike had been able to save her. Spike had saved her life.

Slowly sitting up and rubbing her shoulders, Celestia looked at Spike. “Thank you, Spike,” she said softly, trying not to notice how the wet clothes clung to his body. “Thank you... for saving my life.”

“Of course, Celestia,” Spike said, rising to his feet. “Just... take my hand.”

Slowly, Celestia did, marveling at the surprising softness of the scaled appendage. Letting Spike raise her to her hind hooves, she felt her knees give out after a few short seconds. Spike thankfully caught her, and supporting her on his shoulder, he walked with her towards a tower of smoke on the other side of a sand dune.

Passing through a patch of thick grass on the crest of the dune, Celestia found herself looking upon the shattered remains of her flying chariot. It was bend, twisted, entirely wrecked: the rest of it was on fire, and judging from the smell of the smoke, all of their clothes had gone up in the blaze. Pieces from the remaining were scattered everywhere, and off in the distance, the other wing stood straight out of the ground, like some macabre sign showing how close they had just come to death.

Suddenly, there was a bright spark, and a shimmer surrounded the immediate area of the carriage. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished, the wreck collapsing in on itself like a burning building.

“What was that?” Spike asked, looking at Celestia as they walked towards the crash site.

“That was a spell dying, Spike,” the princess said. “I fear our way home is, for the moment, not available.” A small burst of flame followed by a minute billowing of black smoke followed her words. “I think that might have been my purse, as your clothes likely fell somewhere out in the ocean.”

“So we’re stranded here, without spare clothes?” Spike asked as he led the both of them down the sand dune, going slow so that they would not fall. “I’m gonna be stranded on a deserted island with the princess, and if our clothes become too damaged, we’ll eventually be naked,” he thought, sarcasm apparent in his head. A naked Celestia? While he did find her attractive, what was he going to do? Avert his eyes every time she was in front of him? Fashion her some clothes out of the local vegetation?

“In a sense, yes,” Celestia said. “But this is the island we need to be on, and tomorrow we’ll start making our way towards to mountain.” As she said this, she pointed weakly at the volcano: it seemed to stretch much higher into the sky than it had appeared from up in the clouds.

“So... what do we do now?” Spike asked, looking around for some form of shelter. There were no caves on the shoreline, and there was no driftwood to make a makeshift shelter. The sun had completely slipped below the horizon: just how long had they been up in that storm? The stars were coming out and the gloom of night was descending upon them like a blanket.

Celestia pointed over to a cluster of trees, their vegetation making them look almost like a shack on a tropical beach far to the south. “For now, we need to take shelter under there. We shouldn’t start a fire, either: we don’t have to worry about any animals attacking us, but it might attract mosquitos or similar insects, and a lot of this grass is too dangerously dry.” They’d be at least mostly protected from wind, anyway: any real breeze from the ocean would chill her to the bone.

“What about you? It’s gonna get cold tonight,” Spike said, seeing how the princess shivered slightly. Her pelt was not thick like an alpaca’s: it was not meant to hold in heat, and she was going to freeze as the island lost heat during the night. The interior would likely stay much warmer, but out here along the coast they were particularly susceptible to winds and any more possible rain. It didn’t help that their clothes were still retaining water and would likely not dry for a few more hours. He glanced down at his wrist: wow, his bracelet from his friends was still there, twinkling in the sun's dying rays.

“Well... since the best way to care for someone as wet as I am is to keep them warm, you’ll just have to cuddle up next to me,” Celestia said with a straight face, smiling slightly on the inside, but showing no sign of her feelings to Spike. “You’ll be warm enough, I think: you dragons, from what I’ve heard, are like great furnaces all by yourselves.” This wasn’t some ploy to eventually get him to mate her when her heat fully arrived: she actually needed him to do this. She was weak from her near-death experience, and as such, she couldn’t just instantly dry herself out with magic or make them a shelter in an instant.

This somewhat threw Spike for a loop: she was being serious all right, and she was right, but for some reason, Spike felt as though she were... being friendly. Friendlier than usual, or ever, really: how often did the princess of the sun ask anypony to cuddle up next to her? How many ponies, regardless of gender, would kill to be in his position, getting to snuggle up to their ruler like a friend or... lover?

In a few short minutes they reached the cluster of tropical trees and kneeled down, the ground thankfully soft due to the thick patches of long grass and piles of sand. Laying down first with help from Spike, Celestia rolled onto her side and gently pulled the dragon down next to her. Spike, not exactly sure why, did as she “subtly” suggested and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly to him to keep her warm. He then laid his tail across her legs, hopefully keeping them warm: she had curled them up closer to them, so that her knees were touching his.

Celestia, doing her part, scooted one wing under their heads like a pillow and the other she used to mostly cover the pair of them like a large, soft blanket. She was still a bit wet, but Spike was giving off more than enough heat to help speed up the process of her drying out. She saw through her suddenly-sleepy eyes that Spike’s own eyes had already closed, and he was beginning to snore softly. The train-wreck of an arrival had taken a lot out of the dragon and herself: they were lucky to have survived that.

“Welcome to the island, Spike,” Celestia said, gladly embracing his warmth as she too drifted off into dreamland. Around them, the slight breeze of the thunderstorm’s aftermath carried with it the smell of wet plants and the promise of a calm night. High above, a few clouds parted, causing the light of the moon shone down upon them. Its embrace was a comforting one to the two stranded creatures, since they were so far from home and now had no real way to get back, should their problem sort itself out in the end.

Author's Notes:

Many thanks to my proofreaders for helping me out with this! I won't be needing any more: sorry to all you aspiring ones. This chapter was fun to write and is nearly 2,000 words longer than I originally had! Again, thanks to my proofreaders!

So... what do you think?