Chapter three

Twilight lands on the balcony leading on to her bedroom of the newly built house she proudly lives in now in the town which the young princess loves. Considering her old home was the Pony Ville library, Celestia thought it better to have something more fitting of that to a Princess. It’s a modest home, but rather large compared to other homes in the town, and still furnished and built with one that would come to expect of royalty.

Large pillars open up to the front door, and main opening that leads off to the living room, and kitchen on either side of one another. While two curved staircases leads to the second floor on either side. Well-made marble stone floors for main hallways and carpet for other rooms make up the ground while crystal clear glass lets the sun shine through on a bright sunny day, or the long crimson curtains can keep prying eyes out if the princess would like a little more privacy. Fact of the matter is Twilight wanted to keep things a little simple, but when you have the opportunity to make your own house from the ground up, you don’t really want to pass up that chance. It has a few guest bed rooms for when her friends would stay over, a well-stocked kitchen to entertain and feed a craving for when she may have one and even the balcony for her bedroom has its own furnishings of a lounge chair for when she wants to enjoy the sun out in private or use the telescope she kept from the library to look upon the stars.

However most importantly, it has a library between the duel spiral staircases in the entrance way. Something that Twilight would have dreamed up as a foal. Stocked from shelf to shelf with whatever book you can imagine. Magic books, cooking books, adventure and fantasy ones, encyclopedias galore, novels after novels, cooking books, writing books, an absurd amount of grammar books and on top of that even a few in the romance section… she was in heaven when Celestia first showed it to her, and had a ready and waiting list of books to choose from to fill it with to the brim and top off her thirst for knowledge. Although her friend Spike still maintains the library for if she may need a quick reference to something she, somehow, doesn’t have.

Taking off her crown in her rather large master bedroom and placing it on the holder, Twilight drops her the sack she uses to transfer study books to and from Celestias on the floor as she feels her eye lids drip further and further down her face as the day turned night starts to take its toll on her. That is until she hears a voice from at the balcony doorway.

“Well seems like somepony had a rather long day,” The all too familiar voice calls to her as Twi turns around and is greeted by the warming smile of one of her first friends, and the very best assistant any pony could ask for.

Spike has grown up a bit from when she first hatched him years ago. As a result his tail got longer, he has grown quite a bit taller, now even having to look down at Twilight. Also claws sharper, large powerful wings have grown on him after finally hitting the dragon equivalent of puberty, and even his fire a whole lot hotter. Never the less he’s not as malicious as one may think or has come to expect from the scaly kind. The light green eyes hold no anger in them, unless his friends are in harm’s way. And his green and purple scales make perfect armor to protect them as needed. Then again he never took on the fighting roll, as he was stuck to being Twilights assistant when she studied under Celestia learning magic, but once she switched over to more royal duties. It was decided by both him and her that perhaps he could pursue his own route, seeing as Twilight now has the ability to get as much assistance as she could possibly need with just the flick of a hoof. To stay close to home, Spike decided to stay around to be close to the friends he has come to know and love, and in the library that has held so many memories to heart.

In truth, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Twilight wraps her hooves and wings around him as bet she can with his larger frame. This was far easier when he was younger, because now he is the one to pick her up off the ground and spin her about. “It’s great to see you, Twi!” He shouts while her breath nearly is taken completely out of her. “How has the training going?” Spike asks as he takes the hint from the gagging mare and sets her back down to her hooves.

Catching her breath before she does anything more and collapses, Twilight elaborates finally, “Oh it’s going quite nicely, I got a book thrown at me today.”

“Celestia seems to be testing you anyway she can doesn’t she?” he raises a curious brow, “did you use the spell to stop it?”

“How did you know it was a spell?” Twilight asks, getting a rather ‘Duh’ look from her former assistant.

“Honestly, Twilight. If the Princess was going to throw a book at you it was either because she wanted you to try a new spell or it’s because you weren’t studying hard enough,” Spike chuckles as he makes a point, “and I think we both can agree it wasn’t the latter.”

Twilight grins at him and rolls her eyes. Both of them know full well the only thing that would occupy her time was a book in her face, before she moved to Pony Ville and met the friend she has to this day. Something that has started so many of her adventures in the past several years. However, as of now she wants to show off something she has learned recently to a certain dragon. As they reach down stairs, Twilight charges up her horn and a similar glow of black and green sparks shoots out of it. Before she lets loose a simpler version of a different spell she learned not too long ago, but one that still pulsates with dark energy running through the enchantments entirety.

The bolt blasts out and lands right in front of Spike’s feet. Making him jump back a few paces as he watches the impact point with a small amount of wonder as it start to sprout all sorts of other spikes from it as they grow and grow. Eventually reaching the point where the green light in them glows even brighter to the energy charging as it starts to build up something inside of it.

Spike shields himself with his arms and wings as takes the hint in time. Knowing full well from experiences with Twilight, if something starts to glow brighter and looks really nasty, you probably want to duck. Though thanks to the shield spell Twilight learned, she cast one around it and it’s no harm no fowl as the spell detonates on her floor and leaves nothing more than a blackened splotch on the ground. The dragon looks back and forth at the smug Princess before him and then to the spot on the ground that remains.

“Okay, okay I get it,” He answers to her shrugging his shoulder. “You’ve been hitting the books quite well I see with Celestia. Clearly she taught you a thing or two when it comes to combat spells and that evil magic sort of thing.”

“Now, Spike. You and I both know magic is not good or evil, it’s all in how you use it,” Twilight points out trying to sound professional in every way possible. “Besides, as Celestia said. In order to one day rule my own kingdom, if I were to ever get to that level or responsibility that is,” She points out that last line under her breath. “Then I would have to know all aspects of magic, be they deemed good or evil.”

Spike simply just rolls his eyes at her. He heard this speech when Twilight first started to learn other types of magic, although it’s all the same to him as far as young Spike is concerned. After all he’s a dragon, he’ll never be able to use magic, but the scaly friend could care less… he can breathe fire anyway. Although he does like to see her jump with joy when she masters a new one. “I know, Twilight, I know. But the idea of you having your own kingdom is a thought that would surprise even me.”

“What do you mean by that?” She asks not knowing what her friend is talking about.

“You weren’t exactly full of enthusiasm when it came up when you visited the Crystal Empire as a Princess for your first summit,” He points out, reminding her of that night, “I mean the extra responsibilities that come with the job, the quests you would have to do going in to danger, the fact of having an entire army at your hoof… it’s just exhausting.” He puts a dramatic claw over his fore head as if he’s about to faint.

Both of them now sit down to the couch have a better position chat with one another. Twilight then remembers that she never told him what she and Celestia talked about though before she left. “I don’t know about an army at my hoof to command, but,” She winces at even the thought of having some guard around here just for her protection, “Celestia told me that there is a guard in my future to stay here to watch over things.”

Spike pauses for a moment to get a mental image of a guard being around his friend. Seeing as Celestia must have her reasons to put her student in a place where she’ll likely trip over her own hooves more often than not because of a new pony. ‘Alone in a new home for the most part,’ Spike starts to think ahead of actually speaking, ‘and being her student you are something very special to her.' “Well go figure… I mean you are her student after all. On top of that she is training you to be a Princess of your own kingdom, why wouldn’t she want to protect you? You of all ponies should have figured that it would come to this eventually,” he takes a breather for a moment after throwing that entire explanation together on the fly. “There are a lot of strange creatures out there in the world. That’s for sure.”

Twilight is taken back by his answer after face hoofing herself as Spike basically spills everything the princess already said. ‘He sounds just like her’ she ponders before answering him for herself, “That’s exactly what she said. I guess I’m just nervous about the whole thing that’s all.”

“Has she told you who it’s going to be?”

“No… that’s still up in the air.”

“What about when he or she will come along?” He asks trying to pry information from her.

Again she shakes her head at him after not having the answers to his questions, “not a clue, this just happened tonight. I would doubt if she even found out-”

At that moment the pair is disturbed by a smaller green flame coming from Spikes mouth as a scroll materializes to on the table in front of them. The friends look at one another wondering what it could say, they know it’s from Celestia, but what would she possibly have to tell them at this hour. Twilight opens the scroll and reads it out loud…

“Dear Twilight,

I assume you would get this from Spike by now considering he stops by there to see you nearly every night.” Twilight pauses while she and Spike giggle for a moment, “I wanted to inform you that Cadance got here safely and was planning on coming down to see you tomorrow and stay. With her she is also bringing along Havoc and Rosebud (seeing as they haven’t seen ‘Auntie Twily’ in some time now). Also on that note I wanted to tell you that a personal guard has been found for you after all,” Twilight stops reading for a moment to think that over.

“Already? They found one?” Spike questions while scratching the end of his chin, “Well that was fast.”

“I know that’s what I was thinking,” she answers rereading the same part to make sure she saw it right in the first place, “hold up a sec there’s more… ‘Cadance will fill you in more about the guard herself, seeing as she knows him better than I do. He fit the bill in what you asked us to find. Off subject though, I hope you, Cadance and the kids enjoy each other’s company and I’m sure we’ll talk about this more when I see you.

With much love and appreciation,

Princess Celestia.’”

Twilight flips the scroll over to see if there is anything on the back as both her and Spike wonder the same thing. “I wonder who she could have found so fast,” Twilight asks out loud, “I mean a guard probably from Crystal Empire none the less… seeing as Cadance knows him more than Celestia herself.”

“Well who knows who it could be at that point? Though impressive that they found one so fast,” Spike answers as he gets up from the couch and bends his wings and back, cracking both after a long day himself. “Then again I’m sure I’ll hear about it later wont I?”

Twilight puts the scroll up and walks Spike over to the door, the dragon giving her a lighter embrace this time to prevent anything more from cracking. “Ill fill you in as I know more,” She informs him. Pointing out a simple fact, “After all at this rate he’ll be here soon enough,” Twi remarks half-jokingly with a light chuckle.

“Probably faster than you may think.”

“Don’t push it Spike,” She prods with a glare to him as they say their goodnights and the mare watches her friend leave out in to the streets of Ponyville.

Soon finding the drooping eyes creeping up on her yet again as she nearly stumbles up the stairs to her bed. Along the way she thinks about what Celestia said. Not able to wait to see Cadance and the little ones. ‘It has been far too long sense they got to spend some time with me,’ she thinks opening the door to her bed room and crawling in bed. All to ready to have the next day come forth to see the little ones, while at the same time her mind wandering off to a single questing abuzz in her head still, ‘but who is this colt that they’ve found?’

Author's Notes:

To those of you who will be thinking "how can she not see who the colt is?!", hang on, keep reading and her thought process will be answered.