---

Spike wrapped the scarf that Sweetie Belle had knitted for him around his neck a bit tighter to block out the sounds of the loud train around him. He missed her already. He kind of wished that Equestria had those marvelous little devices that he’d seen on Earth, those small rectangular boxes that the human versions of his former friends called cell telephones or something like that. He just wanted to be with her, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, even Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Those five had quickly become good friends after everything, and even though Diamond had once been a bully, she was now actually one of the sweetest fillies Spike knew.

She was a prime example of how someone could change from one state to the next, but Twilight and her former friends didn’t seem to take that lesson to heart, even though Spike knew that Twilight had, herself, been somewhat picked on back when she was a filly back in Celestia’s school. He knew this because she’d told him about it when he was old enough to understand. And now, those same bullies had come forward, apologizing to Twilight for their behavior. Although, when he thought about it, that could very well have been just because she’d become a princess.

Even so, Diamond had become a likable pony, her and her friend. Sure, the little light pink filly could still be a bit bossy at times, but she would always apologize. Lately, she’d been trying to do better and had been succeeding. She’d been one of the few ponies who he’d told about everything that had happened to Jason at the hooves of ponies in town. In fact, it had basically been those five he’d told. Diamond hadn’t come out of her tent for a few days after, and when she did, she admitted that she, too, had hurled insults at the human back when she was cruel and mean. The others had tried to reassure her that she wasn’t like that anymore, but Spike could tell it still haunted her. The rest of them agreed not to mention it for a while until she got her thoughts sorted and made a Cutie Covenant, the CMC’s version of a Pinkie Promise, not to mention her actions until she was ready to discuss it.

He grabbed the scarf and looked at the cutie mark knitted onto the end of it. The shield of three different colors with a purple star in the middle with a musical note inside. He was impressed that she’d been able to do that so well. He’d been in such disbelief that he had to ask if Rarity had helped make it. When she denied it, he’d praised her work as amazing, something which had made the filly blush.

And now? Now all he wanted was to go spend time with them. Helping other ponies in town. Playing with each other at the CMC clubhouse that had somehow been missed by Jason’s changeling army. And most importantly of all, just lying next to Sweetie Belle on the newly growing grass, looking up at the stars underneath a blanket.

Spike wasn’t as blind as he had been anymore. He felt something special for Sweetie, and he was somewhat sure she felt it for him, but he didn’t want to assume. He really liked her in a way he hadn’t liked Rarity. He’d never really tried much with Rarity. It was a crush on her beauty, nothing more. Sure, he’d said all those things about her personality, but mostly it had been a physical crush.

With Sweetie Belle, however, he’d gotten to know the filly pretty well over the past few months. She was a phenomenal singer, wrote really great music, could make amazing clothes like her sister, was a talented ice skater, and could actually use her magic pretty well. Sure, she might be a terrible cook as was obvious when she tried to make him something for a picnic only for it to turn into a gray mush, but he didn’t think less of her for that. In fact, he’d promised to help her learn how to cook if she wanted, which she’d gladly accepted with wide, excited eyes.

He knew he had deeper feelings for her than what he had felt for Rarity for all these years, but he was scared to tell her. What if she rejected him?

No, he was at least fifty one percent sure that she liked him back. Or at least, that was his hope. He sighed softly. Here he was, with seven mares he’d once looked up to as the pinnacle of what friendship should represent, and all he could think about was the cutest young mare back in Ponyville. He wished that she was here with him. It would make this trip much sweeter.

He looked at the seven mares around him. He’d taken a seat at the very back of the train, and as such couldn’t really see most of them since they were lying down on their booths. Those he did see had emotionless expressions on their faces. The tension in the train car could be cut with a knife. Even Spike could tell that there were invisible walls built up around everypony there. Walls they’d built themselves that would be nearly impossible to come down.

Despite himself, it hurt to see his former friends, if they even considered him that during the time before Jason, acting like this. He’d used to be jealous, wanting the kinds of friendships that they had with each other. Now that he had said type of friendship, he couldn’t imagine being without it anymore, and he hoped that the act of finding a friendship problem might begin to help them become friends again. He leaned his chin on the palm of his hand, putting his elbow up on the windowsill, and went back to looking out at the scenery…

---

Twilight had her nose buried once more in a book. A very familiar old light beige book stood on a bookstand on her chair, a lighter beige depiction of a griffon with one of its claws outstretched on the front. The cover had no title, but on the very first page, written in faded black ink, the title, Bygone Griffons of Greatness, was written in large, fancy script. The author, a pony simply named Ink Slinger, was incredibly detailed, using outside sources that Twilight had cross referenced ever since Gilda had come to Ponyville all those years ago.

However, when normally a book would calm her upset nerves especially lately, she found that she couldn’t really concentrate on the words on the page. She gently pushed it away, electing instead to look out of the window. Her thoughts went back not to Jason for once, but back even further before he arrived. Back to those couple of days when Gilda herself was in town.

She hadn’t seen much of Gilda during her visit, since she’d been busy with some experiments back in her old home Golden Oaks Library, but she hadn’t really gotten to know Gilda. All she knew was what she’d heard secondhoof from Pinkie and Rainbow Dash afterwards, and what little she’d seen of her at Pinkie’s party. For years, she thought she’d misjudged Pinkie on how mean Gilda had been, and while the griffon hadn’t exactly been the nicest creature she’d met, now Twilight was wondering if there was more to the grumpy griffon than she’d assumed. For years, she’d read the book beside her as well as the other sources referenced, but now she realized that all of those papers and scrolls had been written from a pony’s perspective.

With the lesson she’d learned with Jason, she was now requestioning everything she’d thought she’d known about other creatures. What if there were dragons out there who liked things like, say, poetry or tea parties? What if there was a reason for Gilda to act the way she had. The only other griffon she had seen was an occasional mail delivery griffon who had brought the occasional letter or package from Griffonstone, and she realized that ever since Gilda’s visit she’d avoided said griffon.

She lay down on her stomach, staring up at the partly cloudy sky that was passing above them. The train car was one that Princess Celestia had privately booked for all of them, and as such each of them had their own booth and sleeping spot on the sleeping car behind them during the three day long trip up north, past the Unicorn Range and Galloping Gorge, right through the Crystal Mountains, right nest to the Yaket Range where they might catch a glimpse of Mt. Everhoof, across the Celestial Strait, then back down to Griffonstone Station where they would have to walk or fly for a while to get to Griffonstone. They would have taken a train to one of Equestria’s three western coastal cities, Manehatten, Fillydelphia or Baltimare and taken a boat across the ocean, but the weather on the Celestial Sea during the winter was always harsh and since the sea was considered no-creatures land, no pegasi were there to make the crossing passable.

Ever since the incident with Jason, Princess Celestia had closed the borders to other nations as a precaution to all tourists. Trade was still maintained, but nobody coming to Equestria could come in unless they had an Equestrian identification or passport. Other creatures who had been stuck in Equestria during said lockdown were allowed to go home, but not to come back. Twilight wasn’t sure what to think about her old mentor’s reasoning for such a thing, but she’d not spoken to the Princess in months. She did know, however, that most ponies had welcomed the decision, which scared her. It showed just how much the ponies mistrusted other creatures. But she’d been friends with Spike for years before then-

No, she hadn’t been a true friend to him, or even a family. She had always referred to him as her number one assistant. Nothing more. She’d always left him behind whenever she and the girls went off on important missions together. Yes, part of her was looking out for his safety since he was a baby dragon, but she should have been more considerate of his feelings. Would it have been so bad if they included him more often. He’d used to look up to them, and now all she saw in his eyes whenever they talked was disdain, hurt, and resentment.

She looked down at the light brown booth and sighed. She’d not only taken Spike for granted, but the Princess had been right. She’d mistreated Spike so often and hadn’t thought about the consequences. She was surprised he was still in Ponyville at all.

In an instant, she remembered one of Discord’s last words down in the dungeons that day, when Discord had been telling Jason about what he’d done. And she shivered at the memory:

“Why didn’t you leave?” Discord asked, looking up at Jason who was looking down at the draconequus behind his facial mask.

Jason looked down at Discord, his body stiffening slightly. “What?”

“You could’ve left at any t-time, so why didn’t you?” Discord repeated.

“The…portal I used was one-way, I…”

“Not this world, Ponyville!” Discord shouted at Jason, startling even Twilight who had never seen the draconequus lose any composure like that. “Why didn’t you leave that little village!? Why did it never occur to you to try somewhere else!?”

“What, and get the same treatment from the Manehattanites? Or the Cloudsdale pegasi?” Jason snorted derisively.

“You didn’t know for sure it would’ve been the same! Surely you could’ve tried! And even then, you still could have returned to the Princesses! So why didntcha!? Why didn’t it even occur to you to try!?”

“I…” Jason’s head cocked to the side, as if he was thinking about something

“I-I’ll tell you,” Discord continued, his voice trembling. “It’s because I didn’t want to lose my newest toy.”

His newest toy…that’s all that they had been to him. Just pieces on a game board for his own amusement, Twilight realized with sudden clarity. Her mind began racing again, thinking back to other examples of Discord’s actions betraying them. Lord Tirek, the Smooze at the Gala, not even telling her about the plunderseeds, and then Jason. What was it he had said once? “Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?”

No…in the end, she realized that even though he might have been reformed and better than he had been, he would still have continued to do things that would have inconvenienced ponies at best and done irreparable harm at the very worst, and he’d gotten himself killed for it. She’d even begun to like the ancient being, but even as he’d spun words about changing, he hadn’t lifted either his claw or paw to undo the deadly harm he’d inflicted on the human.

She briefly looked over at Fluttershy in a booth a few spots down. All she could see was her rear end and tail curled around her. She’d taken it hardest of all when Discord had been shot. Even if it had been to save Twilight, Fluttershy couldn’t even use that as some measure of comfort to know that the being she’d been friends with for years was gone forever.

Twilight then looked over at Spike. To her surprise, he was actually wearing clothes. He’d worn them before whenever he’d gone to visit the Crystal Empire, more specifically a trench coat, hat and glasses, but now he was just wearing a pair of warm looking slacks and a dark gray jacket with a white and pink scarf wrapped around his neck. She saw a familiar cutie mark on the end of it, but couldn’t quite place it until she remembered about how he’d said Sweetie Belle had stayed with him that night. She lay back down, closing her eyes. She hoped that the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were better friends to him than she’d ever been…

---

Applejack looked out of the window at the passing countryside. Out of the corner of her eye, the Canterhorn mountain where Canterlot had been built loomed in the distance as they approached the long tunnel that had been dug through it. She slowly took another small bite of the apple in her hoof as she thought long and hard about many things. Things that she presumably should be writing in her new journal. She grabbed her saddlebag, pulled out a brown book and a pen, then began to write.

So, I’m not really sure what to write about in here, to be honest. Or even where to begin. Big Mac says I should use this thing to vent or talk about what I’m feeling where nopony else can see it, but it’s a bit hard to do that when my thoughts are all a big jumble.

I guess I should talk about what happened with Jason Wright, for a start. Even if it was Discord who gave me a small nudge, I didn’t think twice about breaking his ribs. He didn’t even do anything. He was just coming up to say hi, probably. Guess I’ll never know now. I just lashed out like he was some monster. He might not have been one then, but we made him into one.

Is it weird that a part of me can’t blame him for how he treated us all? Stars and Bars, I can’t believe I just wrote that. Then again, I just don’t know what to think. Ah, gosh! Now I’m even more confused. Maybe I should just take a break.

No, I promised myself I’d write in this thing until I couldn’t write no more, then take a break and do it again. So back to Jason. Anytime I saw him, I remembered the stories Granny would tell us after mom and dad died, about the dangerous dragons who would kidnap and eat bad little ponies, or the griffons who would steal everything in sight. And then when Jason arrived, and after I heard about how Twilight had turned him away, well, I just reacted. Discord’s magic spell on me be damned.

I always thought I was a caring, loving pony. So why couldn’t I see what I’d done to him? Or even Spike for that matter! Or any other creature that wasn’t a pony!

Applejack paused to get a grip on her emotions. She looked over at the young dragon who was leaning against the window looking out, the scarf around him being used as a temporary pillow. She’d seen him hanging out with Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle a few times ever since the day Jason had left. Whenever she’d asked Apple Bloom about what they’d done, the little yellow filly’s face had lit up a bit, and for a few minutes while she recounted their day, Applejack could almost pretend that things hadn’t changed. It seemed that her little sister espoused friendship to another species better than she had. And she was supposed to be the damned Element of Honesty.

When she’d calmed down enough that her mouthwriting wouldn’t be illegible, she grabbed the pen again and continued writing.

Sorry, had to calm down a bit. But I was just thinking about young Spike. I remember during one of our family’s reunions I called him over and just used his fire to light the wood for the cauldrons on fire. That was it. I called him all the way from Ponyville for ten seconds of his time. And I didn’t even think about how he might have felt about it. And then there was the time we teased him about him being nothing like other dragons. Well, he was raised by ponies, so of course he would be, but we were kinda cruel about it. Then there was the time I saved him from those timberwolves and just brushed off his thanks, but it was a bit much. Even so…my dear stars and bars, I really do have a problem, don’t I?

I’m not a smart pony, not like Twilight. But I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Why shouldn’t it be that other creatures can’t be friendly? If we can stoop so low that we abuse an innocent for years, why can’t other creatures do the opposite? And what about the livestock, no, they shouldn’t be called livestock. What should I do about them? I mean, they’re not animals. They’re talking creatures just like I am. But on the other hoof, they seem to enjoy being here-no, I need to talk to Granny and Big Mac about it, and the others too. Ah, I don’t know.

Maybe I should think about something else. Like maybe this friendship problem we’re going to solve. What kind of problem could it be? Come to think of it, I don’t know anything about griffons. I’ve only met one, and she was a grumpy one. I’ve seen another one in town a few times, but I didn’t talk with them. And why all of us? Why even the Princess, of all ponies? Is there something really big going on? And why during Hearth’s Warming season? Not that I feel like celebrating much this year, anyway. Pretty sure I don’t deserve it.

It's a weird feeling, being in the same train car as the others after all this time. It feels a bit nosta like the old days, but at the same time not. It’s like the air in here is made of thick applesauce. Nopony’s talking to each other. We haven’t really talked since Twilight told Shining Armor, Princess Luna and Princess Cadance about what we did to Jason.

…I miss them…

---

Rarity was taking the chance away from all the angry eyes directed at her to catch up on some of her craft. She was knitting a thick scarf for her little sister to give to her for Hearth’s Warming. It was also meant to be an apology for how she’d been acting for the past few months. The luggage space above her booth was packed with her new belongings, which at the present wasn’t much. All she had were her toiletries, a few rolls of wool just so she could distract herself, some boots for the cold weather and so she didn’t get too dirty, and some warm clothes and what little bits she had.

As she continued to knit the scarf, she let her mind wander again. And to her surprise, for the first time in a while, her thoughts wandered to Spike. Maybe it had been the way he’d looked at her earlier that morning or that he’d been spending more time with her sister and her friends, but she found that she did miss spending time with him. But as she thought about why she missed him, she paused her work.

Did she really miss him? Or just miss the thought of him? She had known that he had a large crush on her for years, and she realized then, to her horror, that she’d been utilizing that crush for her own gain. Some Element of Generosity she was…she’d been using him as her gopher. Her pack mule!

She put her knitting down and buried her face in her hooves. No wonder Spike had looked at her with such disdain earlier, or why he’d forbidden her to call him Spikey Wikey. She might not have treated Spike as badly as she’d treated Jason, but she still had been no friend to him, that was for sure.

At that thought, a wave of anger washed over her. She wished that the human hadn’t even come, now. She wished he’d stayed back wherever he’d come from and left them alone! If it hadn’t been for him, her shop would still be standing! She’d still have a successful business! Things would be better!

But…at the same time, she wouldn’t have realized all the things about herself that made her sleep poorly at night. How despicable a pony she’d been. Those thoughts she’d had about the human she’d callously insulted had just flown off of her tongue regardless of Discord’s involvement. Now that she thought about it, the few times she’d seen Jason after the first meeting, his clothes had been rags and he’d been dirty. She knew he’d been living out in a cave in the Everfree, and at the time all she could think was “Good riddance! Monsters should stay where they belong!”

She felt sick to her stomach as she remembered those thoughts. If she’d truly was meant to represent generosity, then she should have given anycreature that same treatment. Not just ponies. Where had she learned such abhorrent behavior? Not from her parents, although they’d behaved in a similar manner to her by throwing garbage at him whenever he came into town. Now they were considering leaving Ponyville out of guilt and shame once they realized what they had done and how it had come back to bite them.

Rarity shook her head. She’d been having these same intrusive thoughts over and over again, and it was getting her nowhere. Picking up her knitting needles, she put all of her concentration back onto the scarf. Yes, she had done all these things. Yes, she was constantly paying for them by being constantly reminded about it by many of the villagers in town, but this trip out of the town was a chance for her to escape that, at least for a while. It might be the breath of fresh air she needed. Sweetie Belle would be safe, she was sure of it. She was confident that her little sister would recover from this. After all, she hadn’t heard about or known about Jason until the occupation and destruction of Ponyville.

Still, as she knitted, her thoughts wandered back to Spike. She looked over at him and saw the scarf he wore. She recognized the work as belonging to her sister. It wasn’t as elegant as Rarity’s own, but it had been made with tender care. And had the cutie mark she’d earned after helping Diamond Tiara stop being a bully.

Despite herself, she smiled a little bit. Sweetie was a good filly. She’d make a very good friend for Spike. Maybe even in the future, if things went back to more of a semblance of normal, a romantic partner. She could just see it now. An adult Sweetie in a wedding gown designed by hers truly, and Spike, tall and handsome now, wearing the suit specially ordered for him. The two standing in front of everypony exchanging vows and the two leaning in and kissing…

She came out of her reverie when she accidentally stabbed herself with one of the knitting needles. She winced and put her hoof in her mouth instinctively. She pulled it out and saw, to her relief, that she hadn’t punctured herself. With the bittersweet thought about a potential match between Spike and Sweetie Belle on her mind instead of the awful past three months, she continued knitting…

---

For the first time in months, Fluttershy was truly alone. Angel had desperately wanted to come with her to Griffonstone, but the pegasus had put her hoof down, telling him that she trusted him the most to help all the critters she’d recovered from the forest and take care of them. He was the buck of the house while she was gone. Ever since she’d come back, he’d matured so much, taking care of the few critters she’d managed to recover whenever she was either too depressed to do it or whenever she had to go into town for supplies for her and the others.

He’d ranted and raved up a storm when she’d refused, but finally had accepted when she’d nearly broken down and begged. He promised to take care of everycritter and explain to them what was happening when the few who were still asleep woke up.

She had very little to bring, so what she did bring fit in one side of a saddlebag. And it was all she had to her name since all of her other belongings had been burned to ashes thanks to Jason.

No, not quite. Sure, he’d been the instrument, but if she’d even once showed a pinch of her supposed Element of Harmony, then things might have been different. She’d always been a scaredy-pony, but what she’d done to Jason had been worse than neglect. She’d ignored him out of sheer terror. And it had ended in the death of the one being she’d actually fallen in love with.

Despite her personal feelings for him, though, she had been slowly realizing on the few hours they’d been on the trip that he might not have been the one for her. Yes, he’d been doing better ever since Tirek, but when she had listened to his casual confession about his so-called prank on Jason, her and the others, her heart had shattered and she’d felt more betrayed than during the Tirek incident. Even if his last words had been accurate, about him having it coming, she still couldn’t help but mourn him.

When they’d gone through the dark tunnel under the Canterhorn earlier, she’d actually welcomed darkness for the first time. It made her feel a bit more safe and secure, especially with the blanket that she’d asked the conductor for just before they’d entered the tunnel. She let the loud noise outside cover up her quiet sobs. She hadn’t been able to hold back her tears despite the fact that she felt that she’d shed enough to fill a vast lake. Her eyes hurt, but she continued to mourn.

Mourn Discord.

Mourn the loss of Ponyville.

Mourn the loss of her friends.

But most of all, she would mourn the loss of a potential friend. A friend she could have made had she not let her complete terror consume her. The guilt and shame of what she’d done to the poor human who hadn’t been shown an ounce of kindness since arriving in Equestria ate away at her. She couldn’t help it. She took things like this very seriously. She remembered when she’d become Mean Fluttershy. She’d gone to overly extreme lengths to cut herself off from the rest of the world just because she’d taken Iron Will’s practices too far. But back then, she’d had her friends to help talk her down.

Now, even though her friends were in the same car as her, they might as well have been miles apart. She covered her head with her blanket and blocked out the sunlight that came in from the outside. Sunlight was for ponies who deserved it.

And she didn’t deserve it yet, if she ever would at all.

---

Rainbow Dash leaned against her hoof, watching the world go by outside the train. It was sunset, and she was growing sleepy, meaning it was almost time to retire to their private sleeping car. She was never much of a thinking pony, but with all the silence she was met with during her time on the overnight guard, all she had time to do was think.

It was both a blessing and a curse to be alone with her thoughts at night. On the one hoof, she was away from the majority of hate filled eyes directed her way. On the other hoof, it gave her the chance to reflect on what she’d learned from this whole awful ordeal.

She learned that she was nothing more than what the Princess had called her, sadistic and cruel. It had made her sick to hear how the Princess, who had approved of her many times before, now saw her as no better than the ponies she’d had to execute, but Rainbow couldn’t exactly blame her. Even with Discord’s influence, there was a small part of her that had recognized that whenever she’d shot lightning at Jason that it had been hurting him, but she’d callously dismissed it as she’d viewed him as just another Everfree monster to chase off.

And she’d also made a few other discoveries about herself too. Discoveries that made her question her own nature.

She would casually insult those ponies she called her friends. Calling Twilight an egghead. Making fun of Fluttershy for her fear and calling her a liability. Even pulling cruel pranks on other ponies.

She then remembered Twilight’s very first Nightmare Night in Ponyville…

Rainbow Dash was sitting on top of a dark thundercloud, approaching an unsuspecting group of foals surrounding Pinkie Pie. Twilight was there with Spike and they were busily talking to the group.

She giggled maniacally, raised her hoof and used her pegasi instincts to push a bolt of lightning out of the cloud right down on Pinkie. She let loose the bolt.

“Buck-kak!” Pinkie squawked before launching herself into the air and running away, followed close by the group of foals who ran off screaming.

“Rainbow Dash, that wasn’t very nice!” Twilight shouted up at Rainbow, who’d fallen over on the dark cloud laughing.

“Lighten up, old timer,” Rainbow said dismissively before leaning over the cloud and looking down at Twilight, “this is the best night of the year for pranks.”

Twilight pointed over to Spike. “Look what you did to Spike!”

Spike, who was lying on the ground, had a panicked expression on his face and looked like he was choking, but in truth he was just so caught off guard that he was coughing.

Despite what she’d said after that, pranks like that were never in good fun. In fact, thinking back, she’d been mean to Spike as well. She glanced over at the young dragon who was now dozing in his booth. Her ears flattened and she looked down. She’d really screwed the pooch up on this one. She was too ashamed to say anything to him even though she really wanted to. Even if she had, she’d have understood if he never forgave her for all he had been put through at her hooves.

Just like Jason.

She looked down at her wings. The same wings that hadn’t flown in months. The same ones that she’d used to help push clouds towards the innocent human just to torment him mercilessly. She was suddenly angry and wanted to tear them off. She didn’t deserve them. She had been too prideful in them, and they’d only been an instrument in her inevitable downfall. Her and her friends.

She reached down to bite at them and pull, but stopped, moved away, and leaned back to look out of the window. As the sun reached the western horizon, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a way for things to be set right.

---

Pinkamena walked out of the train’s lavatory after the ponies had retired to bed after eating their dinner. She swallowed the remaining bile in her mouth, wiped her lips, and slowly trotted to the bunk where she’d be sleeping for the night. Outside, the bright sky glittered with stars which shon down brilliantly on the world, but she turned away from them and looked down at the covers.

She didn’t deserve these comfortable bedsheets. She kicked them off of her, leaving them in a pile at the bottom of the bed and curled up on the mattress, something she also didn’t deserve. However, she very well couldn’t kick that away, could she?

She curled up into a tight ball, moving closer to the window so she could feel the cold. She’d have opened the window and let the icy winter air in, but that would wake the others, and they didn’t deserve that.

She hated herself so much. How had she let her blind trust in her Pinkie Sense steal the laughter of an innocent being who just wanted to befriend her and her friends and everypony in town. No, even if that had been Discord’s doing, she still should have been more…what was the word Twilight used? Discerning. That was it. She should have been more discerning.

She’d been so concerned with her own safety that she forced herself to ignore the heartbreak in the poor human’s eyes whenever she managed to see him from her hiding place.

She grabbed her mane and covered her eyes…

---

Celestia lay in bed, unable to really sleep. She didn’t want to really dream tonight. She had a lot on her mind.

More specifically, the young dragon in the bunk above her.

Despite what her sister had told her that morning, she hadn’t found the courage to talk to Spike and apologize for everything she’d put him through, either directly or indirectly. She had faced down many different villains in her life. Sombra Tirek. Discord. Chrysalis. But despite that, she hadn’t felt so nervous to just talk to Spike and apologize to him.

She took a deep breath, pulled her covers aside, stood and turned to Spike’s bunk. It was time for her to stop being a coward. “Hey…Spike? Are you awake?” she asked softly. He was turned away from her, the gray blanket covering all but his head. He was snoring softly. She sighed. “Well…that’s to be expected. You were up early…” she took a deep breath. “I’ll have to say this again sometime soon, but for what it’s worth, I am extremely sorry for all you’ve gone through because of my poor decisions. I’ve put you through so much…well, so much shit through the years. Shit you never really deserved. No, you definitely didn’t deserve it. That spell I placed on you, using your egg as a means to test foals in my magic school, and trusting you with Twilight and her friends. You needed so much more…and I never gave it to you. I failed you…I failed Jason Wright…I failed everypony else who’s in this car with me.”

She stiffened when Spike shifted a bit in his bed, but when he went still, she exhaled somewhat and continued. “If I heard you right in Twilight’s castle, you’re starting to hang out with foals your own age. It makes me happy to hear that you’re recovering from what happened to you. I know it might not make sense to hear this from me right now, but friendship really is magic. And not just literal magic, but metaphorical. I hope those friendships you’ve made last forever. And once more, I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you. It was wrong of me, and you should never have had to endure any of that. And, to make it up to you, that spell I cast on you? I’m breaking it now.”

She raised her horn and it glowed. His body briefly glowed a green hue, then there was the sound of shattering glass as the green hue itself shattered and faded into the darkness. The spell had been broken, never to be cast on him ever again. Afterwards, she stared at him for a while, not moving. There were tears in her eyes as she looked at the sleeping young teen dragon. She was just about to head back to bed when Spike suddenly sat up. She froze, eyes wide as she stared at him. Spike turned slowly, his own eyes full of tears as he stared back at her. There was silence between the two as they locked eyes.

Finally, in a hoarse, trembling voice, Spike said, “I heard everything…thank you…it means a lot that you said that, but actions speak louder than words. Thanks for lifting that spell, but for me, it’s not enough. I want to forgive you, I really do. I thought of you like a mother for years despite everything…but I’m not ready to forgive you yet. Just…give me time, please.”

Celestia nodded. “I deserve that, I know. But I understand. I’ll respect your wishes, young Spike. Sleep well.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you too.” And with that, he turned back around towards the window, covered himself with the blanket, and was soon fast asleep.

Celestia herself climbed back into bed and covered herself with her blanket. She felt slightly lighter than she had in weeks, if not months. She promised herself that she would make things right with the young dragon, if only to know what it was like to be a mother to a young foal, or in his case a hatchling. Before she fell to sleep, she whispered to herself, “I’ll make things up to you, Spike. That’s a promise…”

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