Author's Notes:

Sorry this wasn’t sooner, it’s supposed to be the actual 5th chapter but I accidentally skipped it during posting.

This is all focused on Spike, enjoy.

Spike was not having a good morning, he almost showed off his form to a mare he didn’t know all that well, messed up a portion of his wall with his splooge, and now was finding almost all his shirts had been shredded by what looked like cat claws. Looks like Rarity’s still looking for an excuse for us to talk at length. I would recognize her cat’s claw marks anywhere, what’s with her naming cats with a gem theme?

After Opalescence had passed on Rarity had gotten a new cat, this time she was orange furred and named Citrine Jump. Unlike Opal, Citrine was far more energetic and took a more active interest in the world around her. Citrine even seemed to actually put some visible care into her interactions with Rarity. Opal was far more passive in her displays of affection, Citrine was far more active. Spike didn’t understand why Rarity insisted on getting a cat, it was like she was trying to have herself a few steps shy of being a loony cat lady. He knew Rarity’s cat was responsible because he could see the cat hair on all the shredded clothes, he figured Twilight decided he needed an intervention when it came to his relationship with Rarity.

Spike loved his sister, dearly, but there were times he just didn’t get why she did things. Twilight was dating now, her attempts at subtly getting Spike out of the castles were so obvious to him that she might well have been waving a big, flashing neon sign telling him to get out of the castle. The problems with her plans were he didn’t have anywhere of consequence to go, he wasn’t in any romantic relationships and didn’t have a place to call his own for a temporary period of time.

Spike decided to focus on something else, his current line of thought was starting to depress him. The fact the restored idol had regressed Daring Do’s physical age to near his was a bit of a surprise, but it was an ancient artifact and who knew what sort of magics were tied up with it. Chances were it was some kind of lost magic, that would definitely get Twilight giddy as a filly on Hearth’s Warming. Nope, nope, nope, get your mind away from Twilight now, we don’t want to get back into trying to have a pity party for ourselves. Spike gave a chuckle, Pinkie would probably insist on coordinating any party he was trying to have alone, no matter what kind it actually was.

Assuming that was true, the restored idol restoring Daring Do to somewhere around her prime, why was she also undergoing a steady transition from her usual look to something more akin to what he thought was hot? Something wasn’t adding up, he felt like he needed to find some key puzzle pieces to get a better look at the picture.

Spike was in conflict, he wanted to just have things mostly remain as they were but he also wanted drastically change things up in his life. Spike wanted to remain living with Twilight, but he also wanted to have a place that he could call his own. He didn’t want to get over his crush from his youth, but he wanted to actually move on from his infatuation with Rarity.

Ember had tried to take his mind off of his then obsession with Rarity, but he had just blown off all her attempts at trying to be a good friend and nothing more. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo had tried to cheer him up and take his mind off Rarity early on but he was too interested in moping at the time. Those three eventually gave up, stating they just weren’t equipped to help him at the time.

Spike was confused, his mind kept jumping back to Daring Do for some reason. When he had met her she was clearly athletically built, had a nimble frame and an almost negligible bust line. But now her body had a similar build, she actually looked for flexible now, and her bust line had jumped up to around the size of most unicorns he knew. Not to mention, her plot used to be noticeably smaller than it was now.

Spike kind of felt like a horny teenager around Daring, which led to him feeling really awkward and embarrassed around her. Her voice had almost given him a full double boner that morning, no mare had managed to get both his shafts to react like that before. He wanted to so bad to get naughty, in a fun way, with her. He found himself fighting himself at almost every turn when it came to Daring Do, made all the more problematic from the extreme emotions many dragons were prone to during the phase of their maturation that Spike was currently in.

Spike just wanted to get this whole ordeal over, chances were Daring did too. Once it was over Spike would request the princesses, all of them, find him a nice big open space away from everyone else so he could just spend his time surrounded by nothing but his collections and try and fade into obscurity. Recent events had forced him to accelerate his timetable, more than he was willing to divulge.