Celestia's heavenly sun began its gracefully slow descent through the late evening's twilit sky, ready to rest behind the mountainous horizon and let its sister orb take its rightful place in the starlit indigo nighttime sky. The last of Ponyville's residents retreated to their cozy homes, settling into their warm beds before slipping into Luna's dream embrace. The young night was calmly silent and everyone slept soundly, resting for the next day's antics.

Well, almost everyone.

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"Why-y!?" One of Spike's billowing sobs managed to escape the sore wasteland that was his throat for what seemed to be the thousandth time that same afternoon, the very sound instigating a feeling very much like a jagged knife being twisted in Twilight's heart. The studious unicorn lay among a barrage of tomes spread sporadically on her lofty bed, her amethyst eyes watching her little assistant forget completely about his macho-dragon appearance as he bawled his eyes out over the day's earlier incident.

From the bits and pieces she had been able to collect from Spike's incessant sobs, she pieced together the scenario that had taken place a couple of hours prior. The little purple dragon, along with the help of three energetic fillies whom shall not be named, mustered up the courage to finally confess his affectionate feelings to Rarity. Evidently, not everything had gone as planned, and Spike had been shedding warm tears of grief nonstop ever since, outright refusing to speak about the entire ordeal to Twilight beyond his pained sobbing.

Twilight climbed out of her cozy loft and approached the heartbroken drake, wrapping a comforting hoof around his shoulders as she, once again, tried to pull him into a caring hug. Much to her silent surprise, he looped his short arms around her neck as best as he could in response and buried his face into her velvety lavender coat, his fresh tears of dismay matting her neck as he nuzzled himself against it. Slowly, his grieving sobs subsided until they were nothing more than the occasional sniffle, and the flowing streams of sorrow spawning from his eyes began to run dry. His grip on his caretaker's neck weakened and he detached himself from her affectionate embrace, settling on a dejected stare at the floor as his youthful mind began to set aside the discordant chaos it had descended into as best as it could.

"There-there, Spike, feeling any better?" Twilight's voice positively radiated with hope towards her lifelong companion when she spoke, effectively snapping him out of his frail trance and prompting a downtrodden, albeit thankful, look from his slitted emerald eyes.

"Kinda'. Thanks, Twi. I bet I've just been a pain about this all day." A minuscule sigh rushed past Spike's lips after he expressed his gratitude with his slightly improved tone, yet a small frown grew on Twilight's own expression as she took in his half-hearted response.

"Don't say something like that, Spike. I don't mind if you need to shed a few tears. Nothing would make me happier than helping you through this in any way I can, but I can only do that if you let me." Honesty found a perfect home in the mare's voice when she spoke her heart, intermingling harmoniously with the compassion already residing there.

"I don't know, Twilight, I can't exactly explain how I feel right now beyond having the urge to break down again or just eat ice cream until I fall into a food coma." Bittersweet humor laced his words as a dry chuckle escaped him. "Have you ever felt anything like this before?"

"Well...uh...no, not really, Spike. You know that I've never even looked into finding someone to be with," a sheepish smile accompanied Twilight's meek response, growing slowly by the second until it was replaced by a newly steeled look of determination on her soft features, "but that doesn't mean I'm not here to hear you out if you need somepony to talk to. Okay?"

"Yeah, I understand. Thanks again, Twi, but I'd rather not talk about it right now. Maybe tomorrow if I'm up to it by then."

A yawn very nearly interrupted his response before he finished speaking, reminding him that sleep was still a necessity he needed to attend to. Spike shared a quick, thankful hug with his caretaker once again before retreating to his cozy basket, burying himself beneath the mountain of blankets he had filled it with. Before leaving reality to enter the world of dreams, the inseparable library duo spoke one last time.

"Goodnight, Twilight."

"You too, Spike."

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"It's just not natural, dear, a pony and a dragon just aren't meant to be together." That vile lecture rang fiercely in Spike's mind as he slept, a memory born from events that had taken place earlier in the day. He hated it with all of his still-beating heart.

"B-but why, why isn't normal Rarity?" Spike heard his own voice ask the question he had asked not too long ago, tinges of desperate sorrow beginning to taint its youthful purity, "What difference does it make if I'm a stallion or a d-dragon? Can't you look past this one difference?"

"I'm so sorry, Spike, but I just grew up knowing this, just like every other pony I've met." The memory's taunting tone continued to lash out at the drake's mind, but a mystery arose from the sensations the lashings brought about. Spike began to gain awareness that the phrase "A pony and a dragon just aren't meant to be together" cut so much deeper into his tortured heart than the actual rejection itself as it was repeated over and over in his nightmarish dreamscape.

"Why, why do those words hurt so much? They sound so...so familiar, it's almost like I've hea-" Spike immediately cut-off his internal monologue after realizing that it was surely impossible, "Nah, no, it can't be that. Who else would have said that?"

The train of thought he had hitched himself onto slammed directly into a long-abandoned pocket within his subconscious mind, releasing a tidal wave of sensory inputs to wreck havoc in his head. Blurs and distorted images composed of green, blue, and white flashed through Spike's mind, none of them making any sense due to the absence of clarity among them. Spike felt familiarity creep its way into his sensations once again, but he couldn't manage to piece the fragments together to form something he could comprehend.

"Celestia damn it, why can't I just figure this ONE thing out!?" Spike's shout of frustration echoed eternally in the endless space that was his dreamscape, surprisingly aligning the pieces he had stumbled upon through his desperate willpower. They melded together to form a scenario that forcibly sucked Spike in, putting him in a POV perspective of whatever it was he had been thrust into.

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Spike looked down at his claws, which were unusually small, and found a pink envelope with a heart stamp on it cradled in between them. He could only see through his memory self's eyes as it looked up to find a filly-version of Twilight curled up in a corner, lost in a book like she usually was, of what appeared to be one of the classrooms she used to attend. The room itself was draped in ribbons colored with various hues of pink, all bearing scarlet hearts, and a banner saying "Happy Hearts and Hooves Day!" All of the other fillies and colts that he had managed to see were exchanging letters or gifts with each other, pleasant smiles adorning their youthful expressions.

'When...when was this? I don't remember any of this.' Spike's consciousness was utterly baffled at the scenario his memory-self was a part of, asking questions he knew he couldn't answer on his own. However, he was snapped out of his thoughts as his memory-self started to mutter to itself in a slightly higher pitched voice, a voice he had lost to the years long ago.

"Come on, Spike, you can do this. Just walk up to her and give her the letter." Spike felt an elated smile tug on his memory's lips as it started to walk over to the miniature Twilight, but he felt it fade out of existence the very instant two unicorn fillies accompanied by an older unicorn colt blocked off his path, their glaring eyes telling tales of their rotten nature.

'Who the heck are these kids? Man...they look like trouble, not good. And what is it that I'm trying to give to Twilight?' The questions kept coming steadily, yet no answers came forth to quell the curiosity beginning to brim within Spike's conscious.

"Hey there, lizard, what's that you've got there in your claws?" A devilish grin spread the white colt's expression as he spoke, growing wider once his eyes settled on the object clutched between memory-Spike's claws, "Oh, is that a love letter? Let me see that." With but a flash of his horn, the letter was torn from memory-Spike's palms and into the grasp of the intrusive colt.

'D-did he say a...a l-love letter?' Spike's conscious began to grow sluggish at the sudden influx of information working it's way through his mind, 'But, I love Rarity, don't I?' Spike delved into his self and searched for any feelings towards Rarity, but he could feel nothing except what his memory-self was feeling, and there was definitely something towards Twilight there.

"H-hey, give that back!" The colt remained unfazed by the infantile drake's demands, and the ambient noise caused by the excitedly chattering foals in the room managed to drown out his shout before it reached Twilight's ears.

"Or what? Are you gonna set me on fire? OH, that's right, you're so pathetically useless that you can't even breathe flames like a normal dragon." taunted the devilish colt without the slightest hints of mercy tinging his gratingly corrupted tone, "Now, lets see who this is for."

Spike's memory-self struggled to reach for the letter with his short arms, nearly snagging it from the white forehooves currently possessing it, but he was stopped short as the blue and green fillies restrained him by locking his arms to his sides with their telekinetic auroras, malevolent smiles spreading their lips.

"Hahaha, look at this little freak! He wrote a letter to a FILLY, hahaha!" The obnoxious chortles that escaped the white colt's lips sent chills down Spike's back, and it only worsened when the two fillies added their own laughter into the cacophony they had managed to form.

"HEY, what's so funny!?" Memory-Spike was utterly baffled by the group's reaction to his love letter, his blissful obliviousness shielding him from the humiliating moment's full blast.

"What's funny is that you're such a freak that you're trying to ask out a PONY even though you're a DRAGON." insulted the blue filly with a grin showing way too many teeth, still restraining Spike as he struggled furiously to free himself.

'No...that's impossible.' Spike managed to utter those few words to himself before his memory began to speak again, confusion lacing every syllable of his naive question.

"So, what does it matter if I'm a dragon or a pony?" asked the dumbfounded memory, prompting the hurtful filly to drag a hoof down her face before she spoke again, annoyance born of having to crack through his thick skull poisoning her response.

"It's just not normal, you sick freak. A pony and a dragon just aren't meant to be together! Never have been, and never will be!" With her twisted verbal dagger plunged deeply into Spike's draconic heart, the filly pulsed her telekinesis to hurl him out of the classroom roughly before shutting the door behind him, sealing him outside.

"Never? But...I love her."

The younger Spike ran.

With no hope in his soul left uncrushed, he had nothing to fuel the courage he needed to go through with his plan. Despair the likes of which he'd never experienced before consumed him as he fled to the safety of his basket back in the castle's tower. His poor, infantile mind couldn't handle the traumatic sorrow feverishly gnawing away at him, so it did the best it could to limit the damage by sealing away the horrific memory of the psychological torture the filly's words put him through. It locked away everything in its desperation, the memories, the pain, the heartbreak...the love.

Not a single tear was shed on that day, for his body wouldn't allow it.

Spike, the dragon of the present, had lost his sense of self in the nightmarish memory, mouthing along the last few words his past self had said before his stinging eyes lost their focus and he fell into a deep, restless sleep.

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The glorious moon was still high in the sky by the time Spike awoke from his nightmare. He felt as if his chest was a hollow shell and his face was wet, drenched with tears that were long overdue to be shed. He silently began to weep again, not for Rarity, but for everything he lost due to the cruelty of three little foals. The little dragon wept throughout the night, pouring out all of the pain he had so strongly buried away until he was left with nothing but his fatigue and unbridled emotions he was nowhere near sorting out. The weight of his mind proved to be too much, and restless sleep once again overtook him.