Rebirth

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

----

"I do hope you'll forgive me for being blunt, but, you are referring to yourself as a rather young dragon, yes?"

Spike nodded.

"Breathing fire, eating gems, the whole shebang?"

"Yes Rainbow Dash. I woke up this morning as a pony after being eaten by something that makes Discord seem sane and happy."

"Not meaning to insult you pardner, but, well, how? I mean, how'd you go from bein' a li'l bugger of a dragon to bein' a li'l bugger of a unicorn?"

"I just told you Apple Jack. I got eaten by a monster. I woke up as a pony. It's pretty much why I quit my job at a bakery in Fillydelphia-"

"You worked at a bakery in Fillydelphia? Ooh, which one, which one? Was it Creche and Crumble? Wake and Bake? Dazzle's Delectables? The one run by a yak?" Spike took two steps back. Then a third for good measure.

"It was Lustrous Delectables. Anyway I quit my job-"

"You were at Lustrous Delectables? You mean the one Dazzle Sparklepants has been trying to replicate for years? The one that held off vicious takeover after vicious takeover by would be investors trying to steal their recipes?" Spike tried to take a step to the side, seeing as he was backed against a wall.

Pinkie Pie's face remained firmly affixed to his. Her eyes were boring into him. Stripping away flesh and scale to stare into his soul.

"I guess? Pinkie, I'm trying to say I quit so I could get-"

"Absolutely unimportant Spike! You were working for Sweety Lemon! Do you have any idea how big a deal this is?" The other ponies were backing away now. It was one thing to go to a Pinkie Pie party. It was a whole other matter to be a material witness to a crime.

Spike trembled when she exhaled heavily into his face. It smelled sickly sweet, like pure sugar crystals.

"N-no?"

"It's Su-uper important Spike. He never hires anypony. Ever. Nopony knows how he keeps getting top reviews!" Only the remaining elements of harmony remained in the room.

The rest weren't willing to explain what they saw to the royal guard. Nope. If they asked, everypony was at home. Reading a nice book.

Pinkie Pie? Nope, don't know her.

"He doesn't do anything special Pinkie. It's just hard work. He's there every morning before the sun is up and he's cleaning up well after it goes down. That's all, okay?" She sat down, giving him a few inches of breathing room while she 'hmmed' and 'uh-huh'd' and rubbed her chin.

"I get it Spike, you've been sworn to secrecy!" She disappeared, leaving behind a smokey afterimage and wrapped a forelimb around his shoulders. "But that's okay, you can tell your old pal Pinkie Pie, right?! Right?"

Spike gasped in relief when a blue aura grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pulled her away, pouting all the while.

"I'm sorry about that, Spike. I believe you were telling us that you quit your job and came back so Twilight could fix, well, this?" ...(Rarity...)

Spike blinked. Snapping himself out of a daydream.

He had to focus.

(Maybe letting her save me from time to time wouldn't be too bad...).

Shut up. Just... Shut up.

"Yeah actually. That's exactly it."

----

"I wasn't planning anything!" Luna was nonplussed while Twilight looked between the two, trying to make sense of what she'd heard.

"Garble, wasn't it?" The dragon nodded, held as he was in Luna's magical grasp. He gripped the bars grinding against his scales as though for dear life.

It did him no good, his claws tore free as he was slammed into the wall, his body contorting into the corner.

"I have walked your dreams, fool. Last evenings nightmare haunts you yet most vividly. I watched you devour stolen tourmaline. I saw you drag your lackeys from their slumber. You stalked the alleys away from your roost, dogging the heels of a dragon much younger than you and met him with a show of force." His skull impacted the ceiling above, broken scales lodging into stonework. His chin met the ground hard enough that Twilight was certain bone or tooth had cracked. When he was pulled into the bars once more, he looked far worse than almost anything she had seen before.

"What were you planning." What bothered Twilight most wasn't what the princess of the night was doing. It was how... Normal she sounded while doing it. There was no madness here, no trace of the Nightmare that sought to plunge the land into eternal darkness.

"...were gonna hurt him a little." Luna ignored the quiet sob and dragged him across the bars like a rack before bringing him to eye level.

"You will tell me, truthfully, whatever crossed your mind that you considered a reason to stalk our friend and bring him harm." Luna's eyes began to glow, the shadows of the room growing larger, twisting into... Gnashing teeth and twisting horns.

"Luna..." Twilight cowered into herself as the magic, so cold, seeped into her very bones.

"What kind of dragon gets a job with you ponies? Goes buying books. Had to show the upstart his place is all." The dragon wheezed between breaths, likely even that causing him pain now. "So we were gonna scare him, rough him up a little, y'know? Maybe pluck a few scales. He's a dragon, he oughtta be in Dragon Town, not working for that little prick baker Lemon." Garble's words died in his throat as a warm flood of magic pulsed, not from the cowering purple alicorn but from the still quietly, calmly incensed blue one.

He found himself still hunched next to the cot, his breathing calm and not a scale out of place.

There was a quiet clack of hooves walking away.

A door slammed shut.

He wrapped his claws around his legs and began rocking, mumbling to himself that "The blue pony princess isn't going to hurt me anymore."

Over.

And over.

And over.