Rediscovery

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

----

In the weeks to come, Twilight Sparkle would offer something to Spike's life that had been missing since he'd joined the world of humans.

Companionship.

On particularly rare occasions the two would go to the city's public library, but more often than not it was merely the casual atmosphere found in their tutoring sessions. The breadth of their conversations covering anything and everything.

From Twilight Sparkle's observations on events and people to stories told by Spike of the adventures he'd been on or heard about in the past.

Heavily edited, but still it brought joy to both of their hearts. He finally had someone to talk to who treated him as an equal.

And Twilight?

Spike listened when she spoke. He may miss her meaning, or maybe her context, but he wouldn't interrupt her mid-word. He didn't insist he'd already heard what she was telling him, or that it didn't matter so he didn't need to know.

He didn't make fun of her for looking at things differently, for thinking of things differently.

He would, in a good natured way that still took her a moment to process, poke fun at her, that was true. But he didn't dwell on her faults, belittle her mistakes.

Spike didn't make her feel bad for being herself.

----

He'd been trying for so long now, he'd lost track of the time.

It was late though. The moon sat high in the sky, no pale beams of light crossed through his window.

"Just push out your will and think 'Up!', the magic should do the rest."

The instructions had been amazingly simple, but failure after failure after failure had him convinced he couldn't do it.

He had magic! He knew he did!

So why wouldn't it work?

"You need to want to lift the book. You need to look at that book, realize it's not going to move without you doing it."

Where was he failing? How was he failing? He wanted the pencil to lift, he wanted nothing more than to go home to lift the pencil.

So why couldn't he?

Spike flopped down on his bed and groaned.

He'd levitated books once, he'd repaired his glasses once. He knew he had the magic.

Did he just not want it enough?

Want...

Spike sat back up, his legs dangling off the bed and looking at the pencil on the desk.

He raised his hand, ready to catch the pencil and-

"Spike want!" The feeling of pins and needles in the palm of his hand didn't worry him so much.

The feeling of the pencil impacting his palm should have made him feel elated, overjoyed!

He figured it out!

Except... The smeared scales sinking back into his palms represented a different issue.

Greed. His greed. It made him stronger, empowered him...

Crippled him.

In the throes of his envy, he couldn't think, he couldn't reason. Just take, take and take.

He flopped over, groaning as his head sank into his pillow. He couldn't shouldn't use this.

Or if he did, he couldn't use that.

He got back up and put the pencil on the desk before returning to his bed.

He put his arm back up, his hand open.

The warmth of their fur as they held each other.

A letter unsent. Full of truth. Never to see the light of day.

His friend hurting, her cries muffled against him as he did what little he could do to comfort her.

His fist closed.

Spike opened his eyes and stared down at his closed hand. Looking at the nub of the eraser sticking out between his thumb and fist.

And scales. Crawling out from between his knuckles and almost extending to his wrist.

Spike smiled. He could do this, he could really do this!

----

"You're a hard pony to track down, you know that?" Spike looked over his book at who had chosen to interrupt his first solo visit to the city library.

A cocky smile, perfect hair and clothes that almost outright said 'Rebel'.

"That's the first time I've been told that, actually." Spike set his book down, a fictional story about magic and doorways to fully focus on Sunset Shimmer.

He was curious, he'd admit. He hadn't been able to keep track of her here, he didn't know how she was doing so well.

"Either way, Thorn, got something I thought you'd be interested in." She'd been practicing her smile, learning how to take advantage of her canines to seem intimidating.

Spike was unimpressed.

He'd seen bigger.

"And that is?"

"Celestia's been writing to me, since I've been here." Spike raised an eyebrow at her confession, not wanting to say that made a lot of things make sense. "And she thinks her sister is about to come back!"

"That is interesting, but I don't see how Nightmare Moon on the other side will do me much good." He wanted to smile as she floundered, her thunder momentarily gone as she recomposed herself.

He didn't though. He wanted to seem uninterested, not be a jerk.

"Geeze Thorn, how long ago were you thrown in here?" She was looking at him like a particularly interesting puzzle, one where she wasn't sure she had all the pieces.

"It's been a while, I couldn't tell you exactly when." Monday morning, Ten Fifty-Seven A.M., three months after the One-thousand and Second summer sun celebration.

"It must've been a long time ago, if you still remember that. I couldn't find any books that even mentioned it except for a small footnote in Silver Shoes journal, the royal accountant back when that happened." She sat down finally, looking more curious than menacing. "But here's the thing, Luna's going to raise the moon and, if Celestia doesn't stop her, she's going to keep it up. That's going to cause some serious problems with the limitations on Starswirl's enchantments. Might even be enough for you to go back through."

"I think I'll pass." He picked his book back up, flipping between pages to find his spot.

"But-but-between you and I, we could rule Equestria! Between my knowledge of current events, court and magic as well as your dark magic, we could take down Luna take over what's left!" She was incredulous, how could he pass up this opportunity?

"And then what?" Spike set his thumb against the paragraph he was on and looked at her, really looked at her. "We tell everybody what to do while the moon hangs in the sky? As plants wither, everything freezes and everything dies?"

Alright, it wouldn't happen quite like that. Something that Nightmare Moon was doing in that one timeline kept everypony alive in eternal night. Relatively warm, too.

But Sunset Shimmer didn't know that.

Instead she was staring at Spike, her eyes wide and her mouth open. Trying, and slowly succeeding, in envisioning his words.

"Oh... Oh Celestia." She'd been to the northern lands, once before. Desolate and biting, the cold seeped into her very bones from memory alone.

"The sun may burn, may be cruel." Spike remembered these words from a Power Ponies plot, one involving a Bison called 'The Chiller' saying this just before he... Went away. "But the sun is the mother to all life as we know, the source of beauty at dawn and the gentle reminder that the cold of night need not last forever."

"I hope, for everypony's sake" How would he say this? How do you sound cryptic about the ending of a book you've already read without giving it away? "That Luna remembers this, too."