atma | Secret Santa Fic - A Manly Boast

Series: My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic (setting is the Paradisa RP @ LJ)
Pairing: N/A
Rating: G - Literally everything else ever is more offensive than this
Length: 1236 words by LibreOffice count
Warnings: May induce diabetes or a case of the giggles
Summary: Spike has to make good his bluff.
Notes: Written for TF as part of Paradisa's Secret Santa 2011. I've not seen MLP, but asked around and read threads and TVTropes and such to get a feel for his character. I hope it worked! Happy Holidays!

It takes a real man to make good his own bluffs. Even if he doesn't succeed, he will be remembered better for having tried than running and hiding behind the nearest large object, deemed a coward for the rest of his days. Serves him right. Sure, failure stings, but trepidation scars.

But the bluff being called on today was one nobody should have made to begin with. Something insurmountable, doomed to end bad from the second the words left the dragon's mouth. His pride wouldn't let him back down, though, and Spike soon found himself with naught more than a bib and a pair of gloves in his hand, standing by the entrance to the lobby and sighing. His equine friends were there, grinning, eagerly waiting for him to begin. Pinkie was there, blowing a noisemaker in his ear, giving everyone a balloon to celebrate this auspicious occasion, because why not?

Why, oh why, did Spike have to go and say he could lift Cair Paradisa above his head? Dragons can topple castles easy, right? Or so he read in the storybooks humans had in the library. Always prying the doors ajar, snatching the princesses out, and leaving the building in ruins in their wake. For once, that sounded like a reasonable solution. Well, he did take offense at the part where all the princesses seemed to do was wait around for a knight. They're better than that, and he knew it. Silly humans and their lazy royalty. So of course, upon reading these stories, he hatched a plan to try it for himself. If he was going to be taken seriously as a dragon, he'd have to start acting like the big league ones. They'd all get to go home if they broke it, perhaps, and they could at least see it bruised in return for all the terrible things it's done to everyone. Revenge would be his. And if he couldn't lift it? He'd damn well try to eat it instead. He'd brought a jar of gemonaisse too, you know, just in case the castle wasn't moist enough to chew on. There is no taste worse than stale castle going down your gullet.

With everyone spurring him on, he sighed, wondering just what it was he got into this time, trying to play it cool by cracking his knuckles and buffing his claws against his bib, putting his gloves on and posing. Girls dig that, right? They'd better, as Rarity was there, and if anyone was going to be impressed by this, he'd hoped it would be her most of all. Without further delay, he gripped a nearby column, claws sunk in, and tried to lift up as hard as he could. Poor guy began to sweat a bit, grunting and snorting flames out as he pulled and pulled. And pulled some more. This wasn't working, but now was not the time to give in. Not this easily.

Time for phase two. His tail was remarkably tough, so why not use it to grip on and try to drag it around and up? Sounds good to him! With an iron grip and a heave ho, he began to charge full speed in the other direction, growling some more and only succeeding in cracking the poor column, watching the bottom half of it crumble to the ground. The castle wasn't even phased, finding itself laughing on the inside and delighting in its residents trying yet again to dismantle it. Perhaps a rash of extra harsh losses across the populace would need to occur to fix this one.

Well, at least it was some progress. It may not be lifting, but it did show them that the castle wasn't entirely invincible. Maybe that's just what it wanted them to think, though. Crafty castle, that one. In one last ditch effort to lift it, he pushed his forehead to the base of the building and began to push up with his spines, hands under, tail wrapped around and trying to pry it. All this effort succeeded in doing, however, was having his hoofed friends come over and ask him to stop before he strained himself too bad.

It's a good thing he had that backup plan. Both because he wasn't about to give up just yet, his dragonhood at stake, but because ethat was honestly pretty tiring work. His stomach roared mightily, the gemonaisse pulled out right on cue and being liberally applied to the nearest windowsill. It even had some flowers growing in a little pot on the side. Hard to say no to a free side salad. He'd try to remember to apologize to the person who grew those flowers later. That is if he didn't succeed in his mission. If he did, he figured everyone would be so happy to be freed, they'd be willing to look over small details such as that. After all, mighty dragons command respect.

He leaned his mouth in, fangs bared, chomping down hard. A chunk came off rather easily, being chewed and choked down within seconds, or so it seemed. Kid must have been really hungry. Then again, gemonaisse could make anything taste wonderful. He offered to share some with his friends, only to find them politely declining, knowing their guts couldn't handle any of it, nor would they want to try even if they could. The flower, maybe. But buildings were not a good, healthy part of a young filly's diet and would only serve to cause a wave of indigestion. That's not something anyone there wanted to deal with.

Unfortunately for Spike, the castle was bigger than his stomach anticipated. Much, much bigger. He got maybe a door or two in him before having to finally resign, his belly full and round, empty jar of gemonaisse at his side, licked entirely clean. However, his ego was bruised, and he couldn't bring himself to look his friends in the eye. He let them down. He let the castle's inhabitants down. Most importantly, he let himself down. How would he get the respect and recognition he craved at this rate? He sighed and formally gave up, a sad apology escaping his mouth.

Thankfully, he did have his friends. That is one thing Paradisa couldn't take from him. They walked up, nudging him back up and congratulating him on a strong effort anyways. After all, they explained, what matters is he tried his best and can tackle more now that he knew his limits. Most people wouldn't even try to go through with such ludicrous claims as he did, and that in itself deserved some respect. Though perhaps in the future, he should watch his ego a bit and try to set more realistic goals. Yes, they were stuck in Paradisa, but that meant they had all the time in the world to train him to devour the castle in one go. One bite at a time.

Spike was truly blessed to have such understanding friends. And hey, he was pretty sure Rarity grinned watching him try to defeat the mighty castle before them. That in itself was quite the feat to accomplish. Even if he had just imagined it, it was enough to ready him for next time. No harm in letting himself have that one small victory, now was there?

And of course there would be plenty of gemonaisse to help the extra crunchy bits go down.