Fire; it’s such a short word and simple concept, said in countless analogies to be dangerous if left unchecked, all consuming and greedy. In her world, in civilization, the most she’d ever seen was in a fireplace, a little dancing light show that warmed up her and her lover as they held each other beside it.

She had no lover anymore. Fire was all that remained. It roared in her ears. Its heat coated her fur in sweat. Its breath stung her eyes and throat. Her entire world was ablaze.

But she couldn’t stop. Not yet. Some things were more important.

“Spike!” Rarity called out again, her voice long past the point of hoarse as the forest burned around her and she galloped through the blaze. It hurt to talk; felt like someone was scrubbing the walls of her throat and lungs with sandpaper. Didn’t matter; had to find him before it was too late.

A branch as thick as her middle came crashing down from the canopy. It brought down a hailstorm of smaller ones, the flaming twigs flying like shrapnel on impact and singing her coat. She screwed her eyes shut and yelped, cringing and letting out a fit of coughs.

“Spike, where are you?” she called out, her voice more and more faint and her hooves getting heavier as she continued her ride through Tartarus brought to the surface. Her lungs ached, each labored, shallow breath coming harder than the last. Each crunch of cinders and leaves and wood and charred bones under her hooves ate away at her mind as gleefully as the fire would her body. Each hooffall was another grain of sand falling in the hour glass, and it was quickly running dry.

Rarity’s legs slowed to a canter, then to a trot. Her hooves felt heavier than lead. Her head wasn’t swimming in disorientation, it was drowning. Her vision wasn’t clouding over, it was blacking out.

She laid her head low and vomited. Wouldn’t need food where she was going if she couldn’t find Spike or get out, anyway. If there was a way out. If it was even worth getting out.

She collapsed to the ground, only the dirt to cushion her fall. She couldn’t tell where she was. Could barely even think about where she was. All that mattered was that fire was there. Her only company, in the end.

“Spike… anyone… help me,” she choked out.

“Rarity!”

The world was no longer on fire.

It was dark instead.

Spike looked over his shoulder. He could see the growing fire behind him, in the distance. By then it was just a glow in his eyes, against the nighttime darkness. No telling how many other eyes saw it as all too bright. Or how many wouldn’t ever see anything again because of it. He tried not to think about it.

He looked up when he heard a clap of thunder. He couldn’t see the gathering clouds through the thick canopy, but he could tell they were there. Emergency rainstorm procedures; textbook way to deal with a fire, though he guessed they would have to form the storm first and then nudge it over the Everfree. Normal weather magic didn’t work there, after all. Hopefully Rainbow Dash was smart enough to realize that before it got too out of control.

He snarled and turned back to the road-less path ahead. “She better; she helped cause all this,” he mumbled to himself, his tail slamming on the ground as if she were right there behind him. “Ditched me when I needed somepony to talk to… hope she gets caught in the fire.” His heart twinged as soon as the words left his mouth.

Another, more visceral pain gnawed at him, earning a gasp from the dragon. He held his right arm tight and looked down at it. The adrenaline gone, he could start feeling the bite he’d inflicted on himself. He could certainly feel the slick blood running over his hand.

“Stupid,” he spat at himself. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Need to find some way to staunch the bleeding and keep it from getting infected, or I’ll be stupid and dead.” He leaned in and breathed hot air onto the wound, quickly drying some of the escaping blood. It would buy him some time, but not much.

He scanned the area for anything he knew he could use. Nothing, save for a few vines and some large leaves. Plenty of poisonous plants that could kill him, but he wasn’t keen on using those. The word “yet” crossing his mind didn’t disturb him as much as it should have.

He ripped down a particularly large leaf from its branch and tore down some vines. He wrapped the leaf around his wound and tied a haphazard knot around it to keep it in place. It wasn’t exactly Nurse Redheart work, but it would have to suffice.

Spike snapped off a branch of the large-leafed tree for when he had to change his primitive dressings and kept walking. Had to make sure he was ahead of the fire, if only for his own sanity. Hopefully cross the river before he fell asleep so it wouldn’t be a problem.

He walked in silence, save for the twigs snapping beneath his heavy footfalls or the occasional chatter of an animal nearby. He could see the eyes of timber wolves skulking in the darkness, but they didn’t make a move. He dwarfed them and he could breathe fire. They had more reason to fear him than the other way around. His trek was uninterrupted, save for when he had to walk around a tree or duck under a branch. He was lulled into a sort of rhythm with his own footsteps.

The solitude gave him time to think. Worse, it gave him time to remember. He tried desperately not to think about what had happened over the past day. Happy memories, happy thoughts, were much more preferable. There was that time Applejack saved him from timber wolves, back when he was young and vulnerable. He had to chuckle at his own idiocy. Dragon code? What a load. Or the time he went to try to figure out what being a dragon meant by meeting other dragons. What he learned, in a few words: being a complete bastard. He never wanted to be a dragon, in body or in spirit. He couldn’t help the former, but could avoid the latter.

Or… at least he tried.

He shook his head. His mind was being dragged down back to the past day as surely as water flowed downstream, but he tried his best to fight the current.

He remembered the day after Twilight’s coronation and how he hugged her tight, crying. He was just so happy knowing that he’d never have to see her die. No amount of hatred he held for her in the present could take away that sort of relief.

He remembered his birthday party several years back, the one that marked him as officially not a child. There weren’t any presents, naturally, but the girls had tried to make up for it. Though that was around the time that his feelings for Rarity were growing more… physical, which made things awkward. More than awkward.

He remembered when he finally got up the courage to ask Rarity out. Hearts and Hooves Day, three years ago. Rarity’s latest coltfriend had dumped her a few days prior, the idiot. He had gone to the Boutique to comfort her, and she looked like she needed it. She said how glad she was he was there, and how at the rate she was going she could never find her knight in shining armor, her very special somepony. He couldn’t remember what exactly he said; it was probably corny and sappy. Whatever it was, it worked, since he also got his first real kiss.

Spike sobbed, though no tears flowed. He was out of tears to cry. He leaned against the nearest tree and slid down its truck. He wept dryly into the night, only his memories to keep him company. Next Chapter: Dearly Desolate Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes