Soft fur running through his fingers. Sweet perfume filling his nostrils.  Supple lips pressed against his. Warm breath against his neck with each break. Purring moans chiming in his ears. Blue eyes looking into his, when they could bring themselves to open them.

Rarity. Heaven. Two words, same thing. His Rarity, his alone, forever.

He held her tighter. Ran his hand down her back. His hand found her flank. She gasped, though clearly pleased. He felt her lips against his neck. He kissed hers in turn, burying his face in her mane.

Sounds changed. Feelings changed. Felt water running down his neck. Tears. Hers; could only be hers. He could hear her sobbing. He held her tighter, tried to ask her what was wrong, but no sound came out.

There was a loud crack. Her bones creaked and snapped like plywood.

There was a loud tear. His claws pierced her skin like paper. Blood flowed down his hands and arms like water.

He pulled away and tried to scream. No sound. No sound except her crying as she bled, her limbs twisted and spine crooked.

There was a new sound: crackling. The crackling of flames consuming tinder. Green fire engulfed her hooves, slowly turned her body into ash, which blew away on an unseen wind.

He began crying, but sound was a privilege he was still denied. He reached out, but didn’t dare touch her. She pulled away, looking up at him with pained, desperate eyes as the flames climbed her neck.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“Rarity!”

Spike awoke with a start, his eyes snapping open. His head swept from side to side, his eyes frantically looking everywhere around him.

No Rarity. No anyone. Just trees and curious animals hiding in the shadows. He couldn't tell what time it was; only that the sun was up, from what little light pierced the thick canopy. Time meant little that deep in the forest, anyway.

As the sheer terror of his dreams subsided, the crushing depression of his reality sank in. He was alone in the Everfree Forest. He was alone in the Everfree Forest after snapping at his caretaker and running away from his marefriend, the two ponies who cared about him the most, and left the rest of the girls without even a goodbye. Motherless. Loverless. Friendless. Only thing left was his own life.

Spike shifted to get to his feet, but a shot of pain through his arm made him yelp. He looked down to see his bite wound’s dressings had turned from a lively green to a sickeningly deep red.

He shuddered and gingerly pulled at the vines, which were so wet with his blood that they had the strength of spaghetti noodles. They snapped off easily, and he moved on to tugging at the leaf gently. He shuddered in pain and disgust when it made a sickening squelch as it peeled off. Beneath was a much less vivid mold of his fangs than what he’d seen the night before. The blood had coagulated and the wound had started scabbing, though it was still deep, inflamed, and ached down to the bone.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,” he berated himself again as he picked up the branch he’d torn off yesterday. He plucked another large leaf off of it and wrapped it around his arm, plucking some vines off of the tree he was sitting under to bind it again. Everything he knew about first aid was screaming at him to clean it first, but he had no access to water, let alone a washcloth or soap.

He finally pulled himself to his feet, picking up his branch. “Which way did I come from?” he wondered aloud, looking around the grove. He was drawing a blank. He couldn’t even pick out his own scent from the smell of smoke that wafted through the air, so that means of figuring out where he came from was out. He couldn’t see the sun, so he couldn’t even tell which direction he was going.

Lost. He was well and truly lost.

His stomach let out a low rumble, as if to remind him that it could get worse. Alone, lost, wounded, and hungry in a forest not known for its huge amounts of gemstones.

“Dead dragon walking,” he mumbled to himself as he started walking. Direction didn’t matter. Destination didn’t matter. He only cared that it wasn’t Ponyville, if Ponyville hadn’t burned to the ground. Even if it hadn’t, there was sure to be a death toll. All because of him.

He lashed his tail out against a tree, shaking it all the way up to the branches and scattering some birds nested there.

He got back into the rhythm of wandering again. Dodge branch, walk around tree, trip over root and curse, rinse, repeat. Time wasn’t an issue. Without a clock, it ceased to mean much. All he knew was that time was moving past him, invisible and yet no less powerful, like the occasional gust of wind that swept through the trees and across his face. His only sign that time was passing at all was his stomach getting louder and louder, clawing at him and begging to be fed more and more insistently. It got to the point that he reflexively grabbed his stomach to dull the pain.

The pain was alien. It felt like a beast raking at his insides and snarling at him, yet a crushing emptiness in his gut that demanded to be filled. He’d never gone hungry before. He was never left in want of food back home.

He shook his head. “Not home. Don’t have a home,” he reminded himself. Food would be the least of his problems if he couldn’t find water, anyway. His tongue and lips already felt dry, almost painfully so.

As more time passed, his eyes began to wander from his aimless path to the animals that watched him as he passed by them. Thoughts soon followed. Facts. Dragons were mineravores, at least primarily. They were built to get nutrition from gems. Equines were also built to be herbivores. Primarily. They were also capable of eating meat, based on evidence that primitive equines sometimes ate small birds and rodents. Most ponies didn’t like to talk about it. Their teeth were made for grinding, though. A dragon’s teeth were much sharper. Much more suited for eating meat. So in theory…

Spike shook his head and gave it a smack with his free hand for good measure. “No, no, not going there!” he spat, gritting his teeth. “No matter how hungry I get, I am not doing that!”

“Do what? I’m not a mind reader. Please, don’t leave me in suspense!”

Spike gasped and whipped around to see Discord lying on his side on a suspiciously couch-shaped rock. He could vaguely remember a rock being there, but it definitely wasn’t that shape a second earlier. Then again, Discord. Sense and logic were at an all time low wherever he showed up.

“What are you doing here?” Spike growled, flexing his claws and snorting out smoke.

“No need to be so hostile,” the spirit of chaos said, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. “I was just told to find you, but I figured that while I was in Middle of Nowhere, Everfree, you and I could have a little chat.”

Spike huffed and turned back around, walking away. “There’s nothing to ‘chat’ about, Discord. Buzz off.”

Discord popped into being in front of him, sitting in an armchair with a clipboard in his hands. Before Spike could respond, he was swept off his feet by a leather couch one might stereotypically see in a psychologist’s office.

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, kid,” Discord said, pointing his pencil at the dragon. “There are a few things to chat about. For one, I want to get your side of the story about what happened. Ponies are amusing, but not the most reliable sources of information, you know?”

Spike snarled and climbed off the couch, kicking it over for good measure. “Why do you care?”

Discord wrote something on his clipboard. “Tsk tsk tsk, signs of hostility. Not the best way to kick things off, don’t you think?”

Spike responded by swiping a claw at the psychotic serpent, though Discord was gone before he could get the satisfaction of making him bleed.

“Come now, you know physical violence won’t hurt me, and you know I’m far too persistent to just leave,” Discord said behind him, still sitting in his chair as if nothing had happened. “All I want is for you to tell me what happened from your perspective.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Spike spun around and spat a fireball at the trickster god.

Discord snapped his fingers and turned the fire into a flock of butterflies before it got more than a foot away from the dragon’s face. “Listen kid, I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but leaving it bottled up isn’t going to do you or anypony else any good,” Discord said wearily. “Tell you what: I fix up that busted arm of yours, and you cooperate with me. Sound good?”

“I don’t want your help,” Spike snarled, glaring at the unwanted visitor. “I don’t want anyone’s help. I just want to be left alone!”

“Do you?” Discord asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Because it seems to me that you’re terribly lonely out here. Nopony to talk to at all, no home to go back to; it’s enough to break a person like a twig, sooner or later.”

Spike felt his heart almost stop. “N…no home to go back to? You mean Ponyville is…?”

“Oh no, Ponyville is fine… for the most part,” Discord admitted. “Your fire is quite interesting. Water doesn’t put it out due to its magic nature. Twilight Sparkle had to suffocate it with a magically created vacuum field. By then, several houses had caught fire, including Fluttershy’s. Any animals that hadn’t died from the fire or the smoke were choked to death by the vacuum. Quite tragic; Fluttershy is still crying.”

Spike’s heart didn’t sink so much as it collapsed in on itself, turning into a gaping hole to escape what he’d done. “Did anypony get hurt?” he managed to choke out, his eyes glazing over.

Discord was silent for several seconds. Discord having nothing to say was never a good sign. “Only one. Rarity ran into the forest after you when you left and she got caught in the fire. Thankfully Fluttershy was in the neighborhood and pulled her out. She’s in critical condition due to smoke inhalation and still out cold. She’ll probably make it, but in all likelihood she won’t breathe normally for the rest of her life.”

Spike collapsed backward on his rump, though a cushion was there to break his fall. He wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes were staring blankly at the ground, the tide of guilt threatening to pull him beneath its waves and crush him. “All my fault,” he said, his voice cracking as tears streamed down his face. “This is all my fault.” He curled up, his hands over his head and his snout tucked between his knees as he sobbed uncontrollably.

“Really now?” Discord asked, slithering around the prone dragon. “I don’t find that true at all. Well, at least not completely. You messed up, yes, but who’s really to blame here? As near as I can tell, Celestia and Twilight pushed Rarity to break up with you without even talking things over with you first. That’s pretty terrible, don’t you think? If they hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.”

“Shut up,” Spike choked out, looking up and glaring at Discord.

“I know you think so. You told both Twilight and Rarity as much,” Discord continued, floating through the air in front of Spike. “It was Celestia’s idea in the first place, if I remember right. Seems like she screwed you over pretty thoroughly, didn’t she?”

“I said shut up!” Spike screamed, pouncing forward with a roar and taking another swipe at the draconequus. It was about as effective as the first time, with Discord only reappearing a few feet away.

“Oh why are you so angry, I wonder?” Discord asked aloud. “Perhaps it's easier to say the truth than it is to hear it, hm? I don’t claim to know the answers. That’s for you to decide. I’m only here to ask questions. And my last question is this: Do you want me to take you home?”

Spike panted through his sobs, glaring at Discord through his tears with his teeth bared and his claws flexing. He tried to keep his legs from shaking, but they refused to stay still. His entire upper body felt like it was made of lead. “No,” he finally answered, collapsing to his knees, his anger gone from a flame to a simmer. “No, I…I can’t. I don’t belong there. I don’t belong anywhere. There’s nothing left for me there.”

“If that’s what you want to believe,” Discord said with a flip of his bird claw and a shrug. “I’ll return and tell the girls that you don’t want to be found, but that you’re still alive and well. Though the ‘well’ part may be stretching the truth a bit. You haven’t eaten all day, have you?”

Spike’s stomach was more than eager to answer with a loud, hostile growl and sharp pain that made him grab it with both hands.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Discord chuckled. He snapped his fingers and a sack the size of a watermelon appeared in his lion paw. He tossed it over to the dragon, and out of its mouth spilled several sparkling gems. “If you ration them enough, they’ll last you a few days. You might want to work on securing your own gem hoard in the meantime.” The draconequus spun around on his heel and waved over his shoulder. “Tata!” With a snap of his fingers, he was gone.

Spike kneeled there, staring at the bag full of precious food. Food he didn’t get for himself. Food he had to rely on Discord of all creatures to give to him. His pride told him to keep walking and forget it, that he’d find food on his own and show all of them that he didn’t need them.

All it took was another rumble from his hungry belly for his pride to buckle and collapse, Spike digging into the bag and ravenously wolfing down gems. Still alone, still lost, still wounded, still parentless, still loverless, still friendless, but at least he was fed. At that moment, it was good enough for him. Next Chapter: Dearly Divided Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 4 Minutes