“Twilight, I’ve just remembered the most fascinating story! I’m sure you’d love to hear it!”
Discord materialized inside the Golden Oaks Library, carrying, a sandwich, of all things.
“Discord, is this really worth interrupting my-”
“I can’t hear you!” Discord interrupted. “I’m busy telling the story right now! Anyway, so this started early in my reign a long, long time ago. This was before your dearest teacher and her sister found those little magic trinkets to stone me with, so further back in time than you were probably thinking.”
“Discord, I’m not interested in a story right-”
“Of course you are! Who wouldn’t want to listen to my amazing voice?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Everypony?”
“Why, Twilight, how could you?” Discord slumped, sounding hurt. “All I want to do is tell a story, and you tell me that everypony doesn’t like me. It really wounds my heart to hear that.”
“That isn’t what I-”
“But I’m getting off topic now, story time! I was experimenting with the limits on my powers. I know, I didn’t think my powers had limits either, but apparently they do. That’s why I was experimenting, to find these nonexistent limits. Unfortunately, there are existent limits on them. I was extremely disappointed in chaos that day, those salesentities didn’t let me read the fine print.”
Twilight blinked. “Wait, you signed a-”
“So I was testing how much of reality that I could twist at a single instant, and what do I know, I found out that I could turn all of reality into a potato sandwich! I felt so incredibly drained, but I was celebrating with parties (Pinkie wasn’t there to help me throw them, sadly) and everything was awesome. Now what was that song again…?”
“What’s a potato sand-”
“Hush, Twilight, you’ll interrupt my story. A potato sandwich is when you take a potato, a piece of the sun, and the irritation of a pony, mash them together, and then transform the result into a potato sandwich.”
“That still hasn’t answered-”
“It was weird to be floating outside of reality and have a potato sandwich floating next to you. Here’s a tip from Discord, don’t turn reality into something other than reality, being outside of reality is disorienting and the entities from Beyond don’t speak Equish when they are telling you to get out.”
“Entities from Beyond?”
“But I live in the moment, and I thought what better way to celebrate my amazing feats than to eat the potato sandwich that is reality. As you might have guessed by its name, potato sandwiches that are reality are much more dangerous to eat than you’d originally think.”
“How would you guess-”
“So, after extreme effort that I performed effortlessly, I swallowed reality. Or a potato sandwich. I really could not tell the difference between them.”
“But aren’t they the same-”
“Reality simmered in my stomach for a while, and then it began to expand. At this point I realized that the magic I performed on the whole of reality was becoming undone. I have trouble with making alterations permanent, and reality wants to stay like it was because it is annoying like that. I mean, why don’t you want to be something different for a change, reality? You don’t have to be boring and stuffy like a certain princess I could mention. Be free from what you want to be, reality, and become something else instead!”
“Why are you addressing reality like-”
“So, reality snapped back to the way it was, and since it was in my stomach, I exploded into a million pieces. Then each of those pieces exploded again into another million pieces, making a total of a billion pieces of Discord scattered across the whole of reality.”
“That’s not the correct-”
“But, since I was amazingly awesome, and way cooler than that multicolored friend of yours, I could bring myself back together with approximately 57 levels of effort.”
“How do you even measure-”
“After I brought all trillion pieces of myself back together, I inspected the landscape around me, and found it still as beautifully chaotic as it had been before I accidently turned reality into a potato sandwich. All was well in the world, and not a hint of the almost accidental total destruction that being turned into a potato sandwich would cause to reality.”
“Discord, is this story even true?”
“Absolutely, Twilight. I said it, so therefore it must be true.”
“DISCORD!”
“Don’t just take my word that it is true, the story is probably somewhere in your books.” Discord swam through the air over toward one of her bookshelves, and grabbed a random book from one of them. He started flipping through it, although Twilight’s attention wasn’t focused on the book in his hand, it was focused on the bookshelves, which had the books organized in a somewhat rainbow order.
“Did you just randomize the order of my books?”
“Why yes, it is so difficult to find anything when they are organized. But as a good friend of yours, I kept it in a sort of rainbow order, since you clearly love that Six Part Rainbow Cannon of Everything that is Unfun.”
Twilight facehoofed. “Discord, do you actually have a friendship lesson that I asked you to find, or did you just come here to annoy me?”
“Wait, are you telling me that you didn’t learn a friendship lesson from that story?”
“Was there even a friendship lesson that I could learn from that story?”
“Don’t turn reality into a potato sandwich unless you want to explode into a million pieces twice isn’t a friendship lesson? And I thought I had this whole ‘friendship’ thing understood. Oh well, at least you have some organizing to do. You love organizing things, don’t you, Twilight?”
“Yes, I do, but that doesn’t mean you should randomize them on a regular basis, I don’t have the time for that!”
“Well, if you expected me to organize them, you’ve got the wrong Spirit.”
“Discord, if you want to teach me friendship lessons, you have to learn some yourself. The one that you just gave me isn’t a friendship lesson, because a friendship lesson would have some connection to friendship, not about dangerous magical stunts that only you can pull off.”
“Huh,” Discord paused for a moment, looking uncertain. “Well then, it seems I need to go out and explore some ancient temples for some friendship wisdom. Farewell, Sparkle, it was great fun annoying you! Next time, could I have another spell to snack on? Those reforming spells were terribly bland, all ordery and stuff.”
“No more eating my books, Discord! And is ordery even a word?”
“It is now! Plus, I ate some spells, not books. Completely different.”
“No touching my books, period! Next time, find an actual friendship lesson, and don’t use one that I already sent to Princess Celestia, those don’t count!”
“Repetition and copying is enormously boring, Sparkle. I won’t use one of the ones you already learned. Until next time, Twilight, and I’ll bring the best friendship lesson you have ever seen!”