"So you do miss me, just as I missed you," Discord mused, slowly sliding her blanket down to her flank. "How delicious you are nude," he grinned, stroking her bare neck, mimicking the small smile that the still sleeping alicorn now wore. "Think this is all a dream, do you, my dear? I can turn your fantasies into realities, just like before." He lowered his head and his tongue snaked behind her ear, enjoying her soft grunt of pleasure as she shuddered. "Still so sensitive? I bet you have a real treasure trove of delights for me then," he grinned as his claw made his way down her body.
Celestia instantly awoke as something strange touched her sensitive flank and she jumped up, smacking the intruder's face, wheeling around, and bucked him across the room, slamming him into the wall. "Who are you? What do you think you're doing?" She growled, shooting a blast of magic at the shadowy figure, pinning him to the wall.
"Oh who do you think it is, Celestia? This isn't the first time I've felt you up while you were sleeping! Don't you dare tell me you've allowed others to do the same!"
Her warmth suddenly disappeared into numbing cold. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the unmistakable shape of her long-time foe and lover struggling to escape her magic. "How…how…?"
"Oooh, I just love how I can leave you speechless, even after all these years. Maybe if you release me, I'll tell you everything you need to know."
"Maybe I should just keep you here forever, keep my subjects safe from your madness."
He snorted. "You can't keep up this power forever, and even alicorns need sleep."
The two stared at each other for a minute before she relented and released him. "If you try anything, I will stop you, one way or another."
"Oh please, you could never kill me," he replied, rubbing his aching neck. "If you could, you would have done it a long time ago."
"You don't know what I am capable of, what I would do to protect my subjects."
"You know Ponyville reflected what I did to all of Equestria so many years ago, but it was never an option to kill me. So what would it take for you to even consider my death? I was certain you'd kill me as soon as I showed my face when I was free, because of what I did to Luna, so I hid in the stained glass windows. Even if you destroyed all the windows in Canterlot Tower, I would have remained safe."
"Why must you even consider such morbid questions? Why are you obsessed with your own destruction?" She asked, ignoring his jab at Luna.
He deftly ignored her question and instead continued to ponder, snapping his fingers as recognition crossed his face, and he disappeared in a flash. Fear gripped the alicorn's heart, where was he going? What would he do? "If I went to visit Twilight, how would you feel?" He asked, and Celestia turned around to see him standing behind her. "She lives in that tree-house in the middle of Ponyville, correct? Should be easy to break into, or even chop down if necessary. All that wood would make a lovely bonfire to celebrate my return."
A clenched jaw and a narrowed eye was the only reaction he got from her, but it was enough to tell him what he wanted to know. "You love your student more than your own sister then? I can't wait to tell Luna and see how she reacts. Do you think we shall see the return of Nightmare Moon, once again damning all of Equestria to wreck and ruin because ponies are stupid enough to ignore an egotistical princess?"
"I love them both equally, but Luna's immortal. She could survive anything you would do to her, Twilight could not. What is nothing to an alicorn spells death for her. Her body, her mind, neither of them can remain unscathed. I vowed to protect her when she was a filly; I accepted responsibility for her when her parents allowed her to come into my school; I won't allow you or anyone else to hurt her, do you understand me?"
"You ponies have such capacity for love. I can barely tolerate others, yet you love so many with such strength, and that other princess seems to specialize in it."
"Did Cadance free you then? Is that how you escaped?" The alicorn demanded. Why, Cadance, why?
"She freed me, but under someone else's orders," he vaguely hinted, daring her to come to the truth on her own with a sly grin.
She narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits, already tired of his games. "Who?"
He shook his head."What's the magic word?" He asked in a sing-song voice.
She lunged at the draconequus, slamming his torso onto her bed, pinning his arms down with her hooves. "Who?" She repeated, jabbing her horn into his throat. Fire blazed in her eyes as she stared murderously at him. He couldn't remember the last time she looked more beautiful.
"Oh who do you think?" He gasped, choking on his words as she increased pressure on his windpipe. Still, to die under the heat of her body and the intensity in her eyes wasn't a bad way to go. "Who loves you more than I do, besides your sister?"
A soft gasp escaped her lips, and Discord breathed a little easier as Celestia's horn was removed from his throat, only for the motion to be reversed as it dug harder into his flesh, and a ring of magic circled his throat, growing tighter by the second. "How many times must I say 'enough with your games' before it penetrates your thick skull?! Twilight would never ever do such a thing!"
"Truth, truth!" He cried, desperately struggling to escape her death clutch. He kicked at her legs, hoping to distract her enough to release her hold on him, but she did not flinch, and instead magically bound them and his tail to the floor. "Truth!" He desperately pleaded as his vision began to blur and felt his consciousness begin to slip away. He didn't want to die, there was so much chaos to bring to the world!
On the threshold between consciousness and darkness, Celestia removed all constrictions on his throat, backing away slowly as she tried to wrap her mind around this news. "It can't be…how is this possible?"
"Tartarus if I know," the draconequus wheezed, gently massaging his aching flesh. "I kept grilling her, convinced it was some kind of ruse to quietly do away with me, but she kept insisting her intentions were to play Cupid and bring us together again, as if that could ever happen."
"Agreed," she said with a firm tone, but a quiver in her jaw betrayed her true feelings. When they were young, they vowed to each other that they would never let the world tear them apart, yet here they were with a chance to fulfill that promise and he refused to even try. He's still playing games, just not obvious ones. There's no other explanation. "But if that is truly the case, why are you here?"
He paused mid-rub, staring blankly at her. "Beg pardon?"
"Once again you are free, and once again you immediately seek me out, but this time you sought to please me, not harm me. Don't even bother—" she lifted a hoof to silence him as he opened his mouth to explain. "Our time together wasn't so long ago that I forget. It was your habit to sneak into my bedroom and entice me to make love to you when we were younger."
"A thousand years of forced abstinence is hard on a male, and I hoped our history together would make things a little easier than trying to seek someone new."
"That's all you want from me? Base sex to satisfy a primal need?" She snapped, insulted by his casual attitude. "You said you still loved me the last time we spoke!"
"That's all I'm allowed!" He argued back. "I could never do what you do: day in and day out wiping the flanks of any foal that comes along looking for guidance, and heaven forbid I bring any fun into their monotonous little lives. Even if I could tolerate your boring life, your precious subjects would never allow it, and you would give in to their demands without a second thought. You didn't even give me a chance the last time, immediately you set your little attack squad after me, watching and waiting from the safety of your ivory tower."
"You didn't give me a choice. You stole the Elements of Harmony, attacked the bearers, and threatened my kingdom."
"Yet here I am now, innocent as can be, and you treat me with hostility, automatically assuming I am up to no good. Congratulations, Celestia, you've accomplished what you swore you would never do: you've become your father."
"Don't you dare compare me to him!" She snapped, her voice breaking with emotion as tears clouded her vision. "Don't you ever compare me to him!"
"Then why do you assume I'll do something bad as soon as I show up?" He demanded, jabbing a talon at her. "Because I am a draconequus, I embody chaos? That does not mean I am evil. You of all creatures should know that, but you don't trust me, do you? You weren't very welcome when I came back the first time, not the second either, and especially not the third."
"Things have changed, Discord, you should know that better than anyone," she sadly replied. "Neither of us are the same."
"You've been corrupted by your parents! You never thought I was evil, you swore to me you would never think I was evil, no matter what I did, but you gave in to their incessant yammering, 'He's not one of us, he's not an almighty alicorn, therefore he must be evil.' You damn hypocrite; you disgust me, Celestia!"
"I disgust myself!" She shouted, silencing his rage. "Over a thousand years have passed, yet still you are my one true love. I never felt truly free to love another, because my heart belonged to you. Even in my darkest hours, crying myself to sleep because you and Luna were gone, I wanted you both back safe and sound. I could never choose one over the other, not even my own sister for a vile creature who abused innocent ponies just to get back at me, and then corrupted my dear Luna, letting me watch her transform from a mare of radiant beauty to a hideous beast. Every time I ever wished that I had never met you, I immediately regret it and take it back, because how can you be evil when you gave me some of the happiest moments of my life?" She paused a moment and sighed heavily before as she stared at him, seeing only the draconequus that she wanted him to be through tear-filled eyes.
His only response was a blink, surprised by the full extent of her love for him despite everything he did. No other lover? Someone as beautiful and wonderful as her endured an empty bed for over a millennia? She suffered just like he did, though she didn't have to. "Celestia, I…"
She rebuffed his comforting paw, smacking it away with her horn. "Forget it. Just go, Discord," she ordered with a growl. "Go ahead with your plans to harm my subjects and then blame me for driving you to it because I went back on a vow. I don't know what drove you to conquer Equestria the first time, but you can't blame me for it. I wasn't the one who banished you and all the other draconequus from Alicor, that was my father, and don't even try to pretend I had a prayer of changing his mind. You know how arrogant he is, even as his daughter, my opinion holds no sway. My ability to raise the sun and moon doesn't scratch the surface of what he is capable of, so my thoughts hold no weight, and I was biased because I love you, I was blind to your true capacity for chaos. Luna and I only came after you because we could not bear to sit back and watch what you were doing to innocent ponies. She and I may have been born to be monarchs, but we care about our subjects, we put their welfare first above all else." The threatened tears finally fell and blinded her, making her close her eyes and look away. "So please, just go, curtail your freedom by making me send the bearers after you again. You'll never change, it seems neither of us will."
Her ears anxiously awaited the sound of a finger snap and a surge of magic that would announce his exit, but instead she felt an eagle's talon gently caress the outline of her face. She jerked her head away, trying to escape, but all resistance died when his lips touched hers and instead she leaned into him.
"I wouldn't have come here tonight if I didn't intend to see you," he said as soon as the kiss was broken, and the princess felt her heart soar higher then Luna's moon.
"Then spend the night with me," she replied as she pushed him onto her bed and settled down on top of him. "Make love to me just like before," she purred as she nipped and nuzzled his neck.
"With pleasure," he growled, rolling over and forcing her on the bottom. Celestia's girlish giggle quickly turned into sighs of delight intertwined with the draconequus's own.
The alicorn lazily stretched before snuggling closer to her still-sleeping lover, smiling as his paw reached up and began stroking her mane. Their bodies were still entangled from the night's love making, with Celestia's head resting on Discord's chest, a soft smile on her face as she listened to the soft, rhythmic beating of his heart. "Love you, Discord," she murmured sleepily, deftly ignoring her tingling flank. The sun could wait; just this once, she was entitled to put her own needs above her subjects.
"Turn off the built-in alarm clock," he grumbled in response.
At least she was able to put her own needs above subjects for a few minutes. "Yes sir," she teased with a smile, sliding toward the edge of the bed, pausing when she felt him grab her tail.
"When you get back, maybe we'll have another go at it," he offered with a teasing grin.
"If you think you can survive it," she teased back, leaning over the bed for a lingering goodbye kiss.
A hushed gasp from behind made Celestia pause as her heart sunk deep into her stomach. Quickly she turned, hoping to see a royal guard in the doorway, but there was only a very surprised Luna gaping at them.