Rebirth

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

----

"How long have you been holding up that sign?" Pinkie Pie was a... Pink pony. Her mane was darker pink, her eyes blue and bedecking her backside was a trio of balloons.

"Well, I haven't been here all day. I've just been showing up when the trains are coming in pony-I-don't-know." Spike nodded. Pinkie didn't make much sense on the best of days, but standing at an empty train station and holding up a sign that would never be read?

This was the same pony who sat about watching paint dry to confirm she was the real Pinkie Pie. Spike really wouldn't put it past her.

"I guess I am a pony you don't know." He sat down in front of her and favored her with a closed mouth grin. "I think I'm a dragon you know."

Pinkie Pie put her sign down and looked him over. She rubbed her chin with her hoof and 'Hmm'd' loudly a few times. She walked around him, looking over him, she spread his mane and stared at the roots.

She even sniffed him.

"Nope. You are definitely a pony. Can't be the one I'm looking for. Dragon that is, not pony. Wait." She sat down, leaning her sign against her side. "How did you know I'm looking for a dragon?"

"Pinkie Pie. It's me. You're looking for me. I'm Spike."

"Nope!" She giggled. "If you were Spike you'd be about yea tall, with chubby cheeks and cute scales and sharp... TEETH!" Spike was willing to accept that Pinkie Pie was random, but he had seen that her randomness was usually based on some internal logic strange and alien to everypony.

Except Discord.

But he's not a pony, so he couldn't be counted regardless.

Please stop blowing a raspberry at the screen, Discord.

Thank you.

So what could have happened to cause her to scream and start backing away?

Oh. He'd smiled. (Dragon's teeth...) He couldn't help that he'd enjoyed being complimented.

He stood up, he motioned to walk towards her while she backed away.

He stopped. That wasn't going to help.

Chasing her, explaining that he wasn't...

Wasn't what?

He had dragon's teeth. He was Spike.

What wasn't he going to do?

(Hurt her)

He knew that! But explaining it never worked.

He caught one more glimpse of pink turning a corner past the train station and headed off.

He'd just... Forget it. Once he got turned back into a dragon, it wouldn't matter anyway.

----

"Take him away, now! Twilight, we go!" Magically induced sleep, a nightmare forced through an unstable mind.

Luna felt no regret for her choices.

The reasons, the thoughts may have been absent from the flashback but it changed nothing. His actions, his pride had been on display.

Might over the weak, sacrificing...

Spike.

How she would tell Twilight, she did not know.

"It has grown, Twilight. Nearly complete it would seem." They were not running.

Ponies seeing a pair of princesses running through the street? Chaos would follow.

But they did hurry, Twilight struggling to keep up with Luna's harried pace.

"He said it ate a dragon, Luna! It's still the size of a pony, right?" Luna nodded ahead of her. "Then how could it eat one? I can't think of any dragon that would have-have lost to that thing without it being noticed?"

"If it chanced upon a young dragon, it could." Claws gripping and struggling, flames searing and blazing forth from cracks made in bubbling steel. "It is magic at its core, normal convention as you may be aware may not hold true to it."

The location it occurred at, the attack, was vacant still. Something lingered in the air still, blood and ash, burnt iron stung at their eyes.

Luna felt the spell before Twilight finished casting it. The ground, one long line from the other end until a large patch nearby lit up purple. Specks and blotches were all over the place, a smaller trail led down a nearby alley.

"I've never seen so much..."

"Blood, Twilight? I would be worried if you had. The creature is afflicted with a sort of failed regeneration. It seems to be incomplete even still." They followed the smaller trail, concerned, wary as it turned from a looping, lazy line into scattered splotches before stopping altogether.

"What does this mean? Is it, is the thing complete?" Twilight had seen the spots after the magic faded. Crusted brown, damp red.

The puddles filled with a green that caused her stomach to roil, churn with protest.

"I fear it so."

----

A little over a month since he'd left it, the castle hadn't changed in the slightest.

He wasn't going to mention to Twilight, or any of the others actually, but he'd tried to, well...

Take a bite.

It hadn't worked. The palace walls were made of more than just shiny, reflective crystals.

Pure magic had gone into making it, harmony in raw form sprouted it.

His teeth hadn't found any purchase, but he remembered what those walls tasted like. It had been spicy, but it left his tongue and gums feeling cold.

He tried to sereptitiously look around to make sure nopony was looking when he licked the wall.

"Eww." He spun around to face the noise, tongue still sticking out. "Do you have any idea where that wall has been?"

"Pinkie Pie?" She was standing nearly nose to nose with him. He could taste her breath.

His tongue slid back into his mouth. He could swear she was breathing cake.

"Hi Spike!" He jumped backwards when she yelled in his face, landing on his rump when his hooves slid out from under him.

"That wall can't have been to me, because Pinkie Pie is a pony, not a place you silly billy!" She giggled and bounced over, grabbing him by his hoof and pulling him back up to all fours.

"So how does Spike the Dragon become Spike the unicorn? Does it work in reverse? Could I become a dragon? I'd be all 'Rawr, I'm Pinkie Pie, I'm a dragon.' and everypony would go 'Oh no, it's Pinkie Pie the dragon, what will we do?!' and I'll say 'Bring me all your cookies.' because I'd be a dragon and they'd be all scared and stuff and they'd give me cookies so I wouldn't take their princesses and go to another castle and-"

Spike stuffed a hoof down her muzzle, trying to make sense of her words as she gnawed away at him. He pulled his hoof away.

"And then a plumber and his taller brother would go 'Release our princess' and I'd be all 'Nya ha ha, your extra lives end-" Spike clamped both of his hooves over her motor mouth, holding it shut until she realized she wasn't speaking anymore.

"Pinkie Pie. I need you to focus, can you do that?"

She nodded.

"Where's Twilight?"

Author's Notes:

A few small edits to meet my preferred length, fixed the name to the standard I've been using. Didn't write this while feeling my best and I feel like it shows, but if I lose momentum, well, that'd have a worse impact than not making anything at all.