A responsibility of some sort can always stand as a staple of sanity for anypony who feels to lack purpose, whether it be the responsibilities of controlling celestial bodies or assisting with a menial chore, it brings with it the sense that a task has been completed that somepony can benefit from. Perhaps this is why Spike rolled a small, red wagon along a dirt path that led to a clearing just west of the Everfree forest, a scaly grin never leaving his snout.

Or perhaps, at least in a more likely sense, it was because he walked alongside the mare of his dreams. He and Rarity had left Twilight at the cafe with nary a second glance and had begun their walk shortly after, both of them smiling and making the idle conversation that can only pass between two beings that have found a certain comfort in one another. Spike had felt a tinge of guilt after he jogged away from their once shared table, but an opportunity with Rarity was just too good to pass up. She laughed at his devilish jokes and carried herself with a pristine beauty that Spike could barely seem to see polished to such perfection even in the innermost circles of Canterlot. It was a grace that called attention without making the slightest effort. Spike began losing himself in Rarity's presence even as a voice reached out to try and pull him from his amorous daydreams.

"Spike?" Rarity's voice hung like silk in the air as the dragon seemingly continued to stare of into the world without any focus, "Spike, yoo hoo, Darling?" Rarity said, waving an expertly polished hoof in front of his dreamy eyes. Rarity cracked an amused grin as the little dragon next to her shook his head and attempted to reinstate himself into reality.

"Huh, what's that Rarity?" Spike asked, desperately attempting to hide a blush. He'd been thinking about how the light of Celestia's sun reflected off of rarity's fur, it reminded him of the moon taking in just enough light to radiate an ethereal glow and reflecting the last bit to send it's beauty into the world below.

"Goodness, Spike, drifting off into a daydream even as a mare speaks to you. Certainly I must be more entertaining than your fantasies?" Rarity cooed with a false, condescending smile. She laughed as a filly would at Spike's stuttering attempts to correct himself, "Darling, it's okay, it was just a little joke. Now, as I was saying before, do you think it would be okay for you come to my boudoir tomorrow afternoon to assist me in affixing our treasures to various designs?" Just for good measure she turned to Spike with a half lidded smile to try and seal the deal. Rarity knew it wasn't necessary for Spike, the little dragon was always so eager to please, it was more of a natural reflex. When dealing with colts she often found herself having to sway her mane or bring attention to her beauty to get them to do what she wanted, but it was different with her borrowed assistant. Spike often did as she asked with a gusto she expected from her little sister and her ragtag gang of fillies, she truly admired him for that. A true gentlecolt, or was Spike a gentle-dragon? Rarity gave her mind an internal shake to clear it confusing thoughts about the etiquette regarding dragons.

"Your boo-what?" Spike asked with the same confusion that he often regarded Twilight's lapses into scientific jargon.

"My shop, darling", Rarity said with the slightest roll of her eyes. One would think that living in a library would result in having the widest of vocabularies.

"Oh!" Spike cried with a start. To accentuate his enthusiasm he climbed on top of the wagon and stuck one clawed arm into the air as he set the other on his waist, mimicking a stance he had seen many of the first founders of Equestria strike in their paintings, "You can count on me! I'll affix those delicious jewels to anything you need!"

Rarity stopped dead in her tracks and stared at Spike, taking in the enthusiastic spectacle he had just made himself the epicenter of. She tried to hide the torrent that was rapidly rising in the back of her throat, but the resounding explosion was too much to bear. She laughed, she laughed and laughed with a mirth that young foals possessed anytime a vulgar phrase. Spike valiantly held the pose as Rarity calmed herself through the expulsion of pent up hilarity, a smile of the goofiest hero painted on his face. "Oh", another burst of light chuckles interrupted her speech, "Oh, Spike, I'm sorry, but that was just too much to bear. Your jokes are a riot, but that was just perfect." Rarity started giggling like a school filly at the end of her apology which sent her off into another tirade of laughter.

Spike leaped off the wagon, still smiling, and gave Rarity a pat on the side. "Ah, you don't need to apologize, Rarity. Making a beautiful mare laugh is reward enough for a corny joke."

Once Rarity had finally felt her laughter ebb back into a slightly quivering smile, she was able to speak, "Spike, darling, that was pure comedic gold. Especially that little vow of yours, I swear you were the spitting image of a knight." She turned to stare at the dragon, noticing the smiles they shared were one and the same. It was the radiant grin that stretched across one's face whenever a simple pleasure was encountered, a smile that came from smelling the roses or seeing something beautiful. Rarity let her eyes lose focus on her surroundings for a moment as she thought of a knight wearing armor of purple and green. It was almost ridiculous, but it held a perfect charm to it. Without realizing it, or even caring about the images that surfaced in her mind, she began to picture Spike as that very knight. But why a knight, why not a prince? Yes, that was it, his scales would look perfect against the dark robes of royalty.

She kept staring at Spike without noticing that she gradually turned to face him directly, going so far as to tilt her head down to get the perfect angle on his face. She thought of how his scales could have been made of amethysts and emeralds for all anypony truly knew when a noise shocked her out of her daze. "Uh, Rarity?"

Rarity jolted up, finally noticing Spike, rather than the intrinsic beauty she saw in him. Wait, beauty? Rarity gave herself a mental kick and, with a little convincing, concluded she stared simply for the sake of fashionable appeal. "Yes, Spike?" She replied, almost scaring herself with the minor quiver she noticed in the pitch of her voice.

Spike stood unblinking, almost scared to move, as an undaunted blush rose into his cheeks, it turned his scales to a shade of purple that the darkest of sunsets would envy to produce. "You were staring", Spike practically yelped, unafraid, or rather unable, to hide the nervousness in his voice. Rarity had been looking at him the way Twilight looked at a book she hadn't read or how he looked at rarity herself, it was enough to make his heart leap in heavy beats that shook every vein in his body. The situation gave him a lightheaded feeling of apprehension that could only have been made worse by rarity's reply.

"Oh", Rarity almost whispered as they trailed off. Had she really been staring? Was it that obvious that she had done something so unladylike right in front of Spike, to his face no less? She felt the same heat she saw in Spike's cheeks begin to rise in her own as her innermost thoughts became dominated with the one question she had no coherent answer for, 'Why?'

Thankfully she was able to shake her head and, with a clearing of her throat, turn her attention back to the clearing looming at the end of the path the two had abruptly stopped on. "In any case", Rarity quickly continued her sentence after it's long hiatus, "we should be able to get our work done just as the sun begins to set." Rarity quickly trotted in the direction of the clearing in an attempt to save face and collect her own thoughts.

Once Spike had caught up to her steady pace she quickly led him to the center of the clearing, it was a grassy patch that was bordered by the outermost edge of the Everfree forest on it's east curve. The grass that snaked out from under the leaves of the Everfree's trees as if to conquer all it could before the forces of nature somehow held it's roots back, it ran slightly over a small group half buried boulders to create what looked like floating islands that constantly dripped oceans of green water. Piles of emeralds and sapphires, along with various jewels that didn't seem to have much aesthetic worth over quartz, dotted the landscape at erratic intervals next to the holes they had created after Rarity's magic had forcefully excavated them. The patterns of gems and holes made less sense than a draconequus, gleaming mountains that loomed next to minor fields of pitch black craters, each field was smaller or larger than the least and each had no set distance from the other.

Rarity would have called it "organized chaos", while Spike could only relate it to the nonsensical art that somehow sold for millions of bits in Canterlot's many art galleries.

"Alright then, Spike!" Rarity cheered with an enthusiasm that came envisioning her fashionable victory, "I leave the job to you!" She knew yelling like an excited foal was slightly uncouth, but wasn't a mare allowed to have fun when nopony was around?

Spike responded with a salute and ran off to the first pile without a word, the wagon bouncing behind him as it's wheels hit the holes the dotted the landscape like a caricature of cheese. While his body and subconscious mind worked in tandem to pick up gems and set them in the wagons crevice, Spike's mind was aflame. The way she was looking at him and the silence they shared, it had to have meant something. If it didn't Spike thought he must have begun to finally lose his mind from all of his pent up emotions flaring and subsiding over the short walk. He remembered how close their faces had been, her eyes looked like two looming sapphires from where he stood, he had kept telling himself to do something. He wanted to confess his feelings then and there where there was no fear of imminent death. Spike wondered how it would have gone if he had bared his heart on the line at that exact moment. Would Rarity have pressed her hoof over his mouth? Would there be a statement of bitterest denial or would she stir the fires in his heart with that of her own?

Did Rarity already know?

The last question had been in his mind ever since his first attempt at a confession. He remembered the touch of her hoof against his muzzle, a gentle brush of silk that held his feelings behind his fangs, and how she gave him the kindest smile he had ever seen. That smile, that beautiful sight that gave Spike the ability to die happy at such a young age. He felt that Rarity had smiled like that only for him and that nopony else in all of Equestria would ever hope to see, it was a blessings from the heavens themselves to Spike. Yet they had been saved and their lives eventually went back to normal, but what did the whole experience mean? Had they grown closer, even by the tiniest bit? Spike had been convinced that they had and he had been satisfied with that. Being close to the mare of dreams made him feel accomplished and at peace. He wanted more, but couldn't truly complain if everything could just stay in this near perfect way.

That short moment on the path, that miniscule exchange of words and silent sensations that seemed to drag on into the infinite expanse of time itself, had blown his contentment out of the water like a depth charge. Spike felt like it was just the white flash one would see before an explosion passed over and alter it's surroundings. The fact that all he could see and think about was the moment they shared left the sensation of a swarm of invisible butterflies fluttering about in his stomach.

As Rarity had predicted, Spike finished his task just as the sun turned to a great, wavering orb of crimson and touched the horizon. She regarded him with a smile that Spike automatically reciprocated despite his internal conflict and, without a word, turned to lead him back into the hamlet of Ponyville.
Their trip back home was silent, no words needed to be said between Rarity's feelings of success and Spike's tumultuous emotions. Spike looked up from his daze and was shocked to see the entrance of Carousel Boutique looming before him, he was further dragged into the surrounding reality by Rarity's voice, "Well, here we are." She turned to face him with a smile as the glow of her magic opened the door behind her, "Thank you ever so much for your help, Spikey-Wikey, I couldn't have hoped to do it without you." She gave him another gratitude filled smile, "And on that I must bid you adieu", she said with an accentuating bow. Rarity was ready to turn and enter her home when she heard Spike call out to her.

Spike stood as straight as he possible could, determined to get over his nerves and speak as truthfully as he possibly could. "Rarity", he began and looked up to meet her eyes.

She looked into his eyes and saw something, some glint that made her breathing tense and her heart flutter. She didn't understand, nor did she regard the miniscule twinges, she could only wait for him to continue.

Something inside of Spike buckled, some boyish clasp that just couldn't bear the weight of the ramifications his decision could bring, and he looked down, returning to the stance he had held before he called out to her. Spike looked up and sighed, "I just wanted to tell you to have a good night", he said with a bittersweet smile.

Rarity exhaled lightly and drew herself back into her home after uttering a short farewell to the dragon.

Spike stood on the porch and let the few tears he had held back at the moment his cowardice had made itself known out. They ran down his face like hot streams of magma, yet he didn't utter a single sound, all he could do was mentally berate himself for his inability to say the three words that had stuck in his mind for months. He turned and let his back hit the door, not noticing the accompanying strike his tail made on it's wood, and confessed to himself and the scenery around him, "Rarity, I love you." He stood on the porch until his words faded out into the sounds of the wind and the birds descending into night, once he had wiped all signs of his tears from his face he left and struck out for his home. He wanted to go eat a comforting ruby and retire to his basket of a bed, the idea of being unconscious had never seemed so appealing to the nerve wracked dragon.

In the entryway of Carousel Boutique, Rarity stood facing the door with a hoof over her mouth and tears running down her face.