• Published 7th Aug 2013
  • 9,325 Views, 247 Comments

Discord's Helping Hoof - The Wizard of Words



Ill-content with his life in Ponyville, Discord looks for a way to aleve his growing sense of boredom. Believing his is sincere, Fluttershy suggests helping ponies in ways only he can. And Discord has such a unique way to help ponies in need...

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Ya'll Crazy

“That was a good one!” Discord congratulated himself, twisting on his cotton candy cloud. His paw reached behind his head to fluff the flying treat, pulling out a few shards of glass to munch on as he did so. He loved the bite. “I was thinking of giving her a few extra heads, maybe another set of hooves, but moving her home? That was definitely a winner!”

A deep breath filled his lungs, inflating his thin torso to an almost balloon like shape. He exhaled the air with a mighty fwoosh, blowing away the clouds in the sky. A lone Pegasus below watched the sky, slack-jawed, his rump falling to the ground at the display.

“Oh, but now that means something else has to be done, and I need another pony or two or three who need a helping hoof to make it happen.” His brows waggled as he spoke, earning a curious stare from a pacing couple. It didn’t bother the draconequus in the slightest. He was used to the odd stares; in fact he was fond of them.

“Now, where can I find another pony needed, preferably a couple of them. One trick for the price of two.” His paw lightly beat at the end of his chin, his thoughts progressing down the usual broken and twisted track. That was, until, it was harshly derailed.

“There he is!”

The sudden shout from behind made the draconequus freeze.

He twisted his head with a paw, spinning it until his eyes were facing backwards but body forwards. For most ponies, the sight would have made them cringe, giving him a more than ample amount of time to make a few witty comments or deceptive remarks.

To the two ponies standing and flying behind him, however, running from him was the last thing they’d do. It was impossible for the Mad God to contain his broad grin. Quite literally, it split his face in two.

“Oh, they’ll do.” He muttered in barely-suppressed glee. His tongue ran over the rim of his stretched lips, pulling the thin linings of skin back to his long face. As much as he loved to let his mouth run, he couldn’t very well let it wander.

“What are you up to, Discord?” The lavender alicorn asked, her brow creased and head lowered. If she were of any capable of physical strength, the horn pointing at the draconequus might have been threatening. As it was now, it was just cute.

“Me?” The draconequus returned, placing his paw over the slim form of his curved body. “Why, I think I’m about up to the roof of a few of these buildings, though that may be being generous. I dare say I tower over a some of the homes.” His dark chuckle was made in solitude.

“Hey, careful. You know what she means,” the pegasus hovering in the air shot back, her gaze far more vicious than the alicorn next to her. Where the signs of aggression from the alicorn were simply adorable to Discord, the harsh and commanding words of the cyan mare were just laughable.

At least Twilight had a bit of spark behind her horn. Dash had only nothing but the sky in, on, and about her mind.

“You’re right my dear Rainbow Dash,” Discord responded with a slight bob of his head. “I really must apologize, my head simply gets away from me when I have something on my mind that I can’t afford to forget.”

As if given a cue, which it doubtlessly was, the Mad God’s head popped from his shoulders, rolling down the back of his slytherin form before falling to the ground. The mares looked from the disembodied head to the beheaded body, unsure of which to address. It was an odd though. They were so used to the antics of the draconequus that they were more concerned with how to address him than what parts of his body to address.

“See what I mean?” He supplied to the ponies, his lips moving as his shoulders shrugged. “It’s hard to keep track of myself sometimes.” His claw snapped its talons, creating a flash of light the two onlookers were more than familiar with. When the luminescence died away, Discord was one being again, complete with his mismatched eyes, forelimbs, hindlegs, and miniature wings.

“Look buddy,” Dash spoke lowly, her wings moving her closer the powerful deity. “We just got done meeting with a few ponies who crossed paths with you. Let’s just say that they’re less than thrilled.”

“Really?” Discord responded honestly, resting the elbow of his claw in the paw of his lion-like appendage. “How so?”

“You mean why they were angry and terrified?” Twilight clarified, marching the short distance necessary to match the floating pegasus’ distance from the Mad God. “Well, it certainly couldn’t have anything to do with sending a foal barely old enough to feed himself out to Celestia knows where. It certainly has little to do with making the food and pastries of an entire store decide to imitate precipitating weather formations. And, obviously, it has almost no relation with the act of moving a mare’s home to what can only be described as the center of town, a mare that values her privacy, let me remind you.”

“Oh do calm down dear, there’s no reason to remind me of anything.” Discord’s claw lightly knocked on his noggin. “Believe it or not, I have a rather solid mind. Nothing gets out once it gets in. Though to be fair, I haven’t cleaned it up in…” His voice trailed off as his claw decided to grasp the top of his skull.

Like opening the lid on a bottle, he opened the top of his head, hanging the top of his skull from the back of his horns like a hinge. Twilight and Rainbow watched with barely contained disgust as his claw reached into the confines of his skull, grabbing at something they didn’t want to see. Their fears, and horror, were alleviated when instead of a better part of his mind, Discord produced an analog clock.

He held the device up to his mismatched eyes, reading the time as his head snapped close, a small of flash of light sealing the bone like a tomb.

“Looks like the last time I took a dive to freshen up the place was half past never.” He shrugged, again, tossing the metallic clock into the air. Then hands along its face grew wings, flapping up and into the blue sky above. Dash watched it go, perhaps noting where it was in order to chase it down later. Twilight, however, kept her attention solely focused on the Mad God.

“Stop trying to talk your way out of this, Discord,” Twilight accused again. “You promised us you were reformed.”

“And I am.” The draconequus held up both of his forelimbs as he spoke. “Honest as the sky is blue.”

“Then what the hay are you doing?” Dash asked, a snarl hanging from the edges of her lips. “Going around and basically turning things upside down. That sounds a lot like the old you, in other words, not cool at all.”

“Hey now, just because I’m helping these ponies out doesn’t mean I have to do it your typical fashion.” Discord put his paw and claw to his hips as she spoke. His head waved left and right as he spoke. “I made a compromise with Fluttershy about it, so I don’t need to put with any of your sass.”

His claw snapped in the air, thrice.

No magic was performed, but the mares were left stunned and speechless, regardless.

“Huh… wha-?” Dash absently spoke, mouth unable to close her thoughts beginning to process. She got further than Twilight, however, who merely stared at the draconequus with unsure eyes and jumbled thoughts.

The two mares exchanged a look with one another. Twilight shook her head slowly from left to right, as if unsure she had seen what she had witnessed. Dash wiped a hoof over her own face, hoping to straighten her features as she did so, maybe even shut her maw.

“So… what?” Twilight finally spoke, keeping her voice low for only the pegasus in front of her to hear. “Do you think we should go and find the rest of the girls? It looks like we may have to use the Elements.”

“I’d say yes, but Pinkie is gone.” Dash knew in an instant what the dilation in Twilight’s eyes meant. It’s what allowed the pegasus to respond to the unasked question. “She left for Las Pegasus, wanted ta work on her partying skills. Perfect freakin’ timing.”

“Well… maybe there’s something else.” A lightbulb lit itself inside the alicorn’s mind. “Fluttershy! She can talk some semblance of sense into him.”

“And that’s why you just can’t get through to me, my dear little princess.”

Twilight whirled to see Discord, or more specifically, his back. He was lying in the air, floating on nothing but laying backwards as if relaxing on an unseen hammock. His body even swayed left to right, as if he were suspended from a tree.

“What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Dash challenged, beating her wings until she was on equal height with the inattentive draconequus. Discord, however, leaned his head back to look at the pegasus with an upside down smug grin. Briefly, Dash wondered if his smiling lips right then counted as a frown, as they were facing downwards. The thoughts were pushed aside as the draconequus began to speak.

“It means you’re trying to change me, and talking to the pony with more brains than brawn,” his paw motioned towards the lavender mare on the ground. “How easy is it to change one thing to another?”

“Nearly impossible.” The words slipped out of Twilight’s mouth before she could stop herself. She let out a curt sigh before she finished her thought. “Changing the nature of any object, be that it’s chemical structure or metabolic pathways, requires an almost unheard amount of magic. The closest a single pony can usually come is a temporary transformation spell. Those naturally reverse themselves according the magical lay lines of the object changed.”

“Wow, verbatim from that silly book.” Discord snorted into the air. A puff of marshmallows appeared on his chest. “Makes me feel sorry for you, not being able to think outside the box.”

“Hey!” Dash shouted to the draconequus, shaking a few of the marshmallows off his chest and to the ground. “Twilight maybe an egghead, but she can think of things that no pony has ever even imagined before. She helped us kick your butt the first time around.” Dash grinned at the successful jibe.

“That she did, I will confess.” Discord popped one of the soft sugary treats into his mouth as he spoke. He looked down to see the alicorn glaring up at him, the pegasus floating at his level doing much the same. “And not even I saw it coming. I couldn’t have been more proud.”

“Proud?” Twilight spoke the word as a question, disbelief flooding her voice. “We put you back in stone and ruined your plans. How were you- no, wait!”

The sudden declaration to halt stopped the pegasus’s flight and draconequus’s meal. They both looked down at her, confusion riddling their gazes. The alicorn, however, looked at Discord with a familiar fire.

“We’re here to get you to stop what you’re doing! Not to talk about ethics or moral quandaries!” The words caused a visible jolt in the pegasus, the realization in their decaying conversation suddenly becoming apparent to her.

“Yeah, what Twi said,” Dash spoke to Discord, hoping to reaffirm her cool demeanor. It failed horribly. The pegasus turned away from the cheery draconequus with a huff. She gave him a narrowed eye before she spoke again.

“What are you up to anyway?” The question hung like a stale smell, unpleasant but unavoidably noticeable. It was only to the alicorn’s and pegasus great dismay with the draconequus responded with another question.

“You mean you two don’t know?” Discord’s smile only seemed to grew cheerer the longer the silence grew. Twilight and Rainbow both avoided looking into his miss-sized eyes. “Both of you have been looking for me all day and you don’t even know why? Oh, that’s a special kind of disorder, the one I really can’t create. Please, let me enjoy this for a moment, it’s not often I find ponies blind to their own orders.”

The draconequus extended his forelimbs out to their fullest, closing his lids and holding perfectly still, as if hoping to catch some mystic breeze. The only thing captivating about the sight to either mare was the size of Discord, truly now a being that towered over them.

Or maybe that was because his limbs were slowly separating from one another, drifting apart like ripples in water.

“Uh,” Discord monaed as he began to move again, his limbs reconnecting with an audible crack. Twilight and Rainbow tried not to grimace. “Well I suppose I could tell you what I’m doing, but what would be the point of that?” He cracked his knuckles loudly. “Every pony from here to Tartarus knows that the best way to learn is by experience, so let me just show you two what I’m up to.”

He snapped his fingers causing a blinding light. Dash and Rainbow both shut their eyes, pushing away the offensive brightness. When it subsided, and spots no longer crowded their vision, they opened their eyes.

The first thing they saw was one another.

They were facing each other, both of them with their hooves on the ground and Discord nowhere in sight. Dash watched a confused expression take over Twilight’s gaze, her eyes screwing together as her head began to twist. She felt herself doing the same.

“Now, I’ll admit, I was having some difficulty with coming up with what to do.” The voice of the draconequus reached their perked ears. Just as quickly, they found were it was coming from.

Behind one another.

Twilight saw a claw appear behind her feathered friend, reaching upwards like a trap. At the same time, Dash saw a great lion’s paw rise from behind her royal pal. They both opened their mouths to warn one another, but as soon as they did, they felt the appendage push on their head. A claw on top of Dash’s prismatic mane and a paw over Twilight’s well tamed hair. Both of their wings extended at the contact.

“I’ve already helped one little foal achieve his dream, help a couple earn a few bits, and even made a mare more social. Now what does that leave?” Both the alicorn and pegasus turned their head to see Discord standing off to the side, his paw and claw missing from his snake like body. “I covered dreams, living, sociality, ah!” His voice brightened as a bulb appeared above his head. Dash and Twilight watched it fall from the air and crash to the ground. It turned into snow and quickly melted.

“I guess all that leaves is to make sure you two finally see eye to eye.” Both of the mares glared at the dismembered draconequus.

“What the hay are you talking about now?” Dash accused, wings beating fruitlessly. “Twi’s like one of my best friends. The only way I’m reaching any more eye level with her is gaining an extra digit in my IQ.”

“Dash is right,” Twilight swiftly agreed, a speed at which said friend was proud to see. “I trust Rainbow implicitly for a lot of things. Unless I can suddenly start stunt flying, I’m not going to be able to trust her any more.”

“Ah, but that’s where you two aren’t looking deep enough.” The two mares exchanged a confused glance to one another before glaring back up at the Mad God holding them still. “You see, I’m not a traditionalist, never was much for anything that is supposed to stay constant. But I digress, even I can see the benefits in a few tried and tested methods. Comes with the age of centuries. Now,” his claw lightly tapped on Dash’s head as his paw did the same to Twilight’s. And, just like a snake, he curled through the air, landing on the opposite of the two mares

“The best way to get two ponies to know more about one another is to stay together for some time. The best way for two ponies to stay together is to want to be together. And don’t give me that look.” His head nodded in place of his occupied paw and claw, noting the horrified look of the alicorn. “I’m a changed God, just like Fluttershy said. I’m not in the business of forcing ponies to do anything. No, now I find it’s much more for fun for them to experience what I did.”

Rainbow swallowed a ball in her throat, knowing, just knowing, what Twilight was going to say next.

“What’s that?”

“Why, an epiphany of course!” The slytherin figure rose until he was straight like a plank. Rainbow, however, was more captivated by the halo of light that surrounded the draconequus’s head. Twilight was wondering how long Discord was planning with putting himself between the two mares and the sun.

“But I can’t just say ‘realize something’ and be done with it, your minds simply don’t work that way. I could make them, but that wouldn’t be any fun. Funny, but not fun.” Twilight felt a shiver run down her spin. It ended where the paw was holding her still. “No, the best way to make some pony an epiphany is to show them what they’re missing.”

Without any ceremony, Rainbow and Twilight were drawn closer together.

The ground beneath them became minimal as they were pushed towards one another. Their hooves dug into the grass, digging up the shallow roots as the snouts grew closer together. Eventually, swiftly, all Dash could see where the lavender irises of Twilight’s eyes, and Twilight could only watch Dash’s pink gaze look back into her own.

Then, Discord said two more words.

“Now kiss.”

The distance between them was removed.

“Hmm, it does feel good to take a walk.” Fluttershy mused as she trotted lightly across the ground, her steps slow, savoring the sun on her wings. “Oh, I bet the weather team worked extra hard to make this day feel special.”

Her wings fluttered lightly, lifting in the air just enough to let her hooves rotate once before touching back onto the earth, softly as her heart. A soft peaceful tune started to hum its way through her lips, contentedness clearly evident. Ever so gently, like the subtle beating of her wings, her head began to bob and rock, swaying left and right in tune with the song she continued to produce.

Her spat with Discord from earlier in the morning was nearly forgotten in her mind. She remembered it only as an unpleasant disagreement that would quickly be forgotten when she saw the draconequus again. He was adapting to a new lifestyle, so she would be as patient as it took.

Pleasant ideas in her head and unfriendly memories forgotten, Fluttershy turned down the path ahead of her, rounding a shop of quills and heading for the market square. She had food to pick up for Angel and the squirrels. Angel Bunny needed his special carrots for his salad, but the squirrels needed smaller acorns for their new litter.

That was when she saw it.

Just off the beaten path, in a lot just big enough to fit another store, Fluttershy saw a pair of ponies locked in hooves with one another. Their muzzles were pressed against one another rather fiercely, as if they were fighting one another. Yet, their beating wings only kept pushed them closer together, as if the strength of their hooves wasn’t enough.

A hot blush ran across the timid mare’s face at the sight. She was not alien to romances, she knew, as an expert in animal care and sitting how reproduction worked. Regardless, watching such interactions was nothing she was used to, or had any desire to do.

And yet, she couldn’t look away from the pair. Not from curiosity or voyeurism, but from a small sense of shock.

She recognized the prismatic mane on the cyan pegasus, currently pushing her mate over. And she definitely knew the lavender pony on the ground, currently fitting her foreleg around the pegasus’s neck. Fluttershy had met every alicorn in Equestria, and only one of them was lavender.

“Um, R-Rainbow… T-Twilight…”

The lavender mare turned to look at Fluttershy as she spoke. The cyan pegasus currently locked in her hooves also turned to see her.

Simultaneously, their eyes widened to their fullest.

“Fluttershy!” The two yelled in tandem.

Their wings half haphazardly tried to separate from one another, their feathers twisting into one another as they tried to pull them free. Hot blushes stained their cheeks and high grunts came from their lips during the scene. Fluttershy continued to watch two, her coat nearly stained red with embarrassment.

“I…I-I can come back later…” she whispered quietly, hooves already moving her backwards. “Y-You two seem, um, very busy. Oh yes, far too busy for me to interrupt. I’ll just… go and-”

“Fluttershy, wait!” Dash screamed for her friend, finally freeing her wings from Twilight’s. The alicorn gave a small cry of shock as she fell backwards to the ground. Rainbow looked at her horrified. “Oh horse apples! I’m sorry Twi’.”

“I’m alright. It’s alright. Everything’s alright.” Her trembling eyes looked at Fluttershy. The skittish pegasus was still debating between flying away or curling into a ball. “It’s… okay, but not everything is okay.” Dash followed Twilight’s gaze.

“Fluttershy, seriously, it’s not what you’re thinking.” The canary coated pegasus meekly looked away from her friends gaze. Her hoof pushed the dirt on the ground.

“I-It’s alright Rainbow, really.” The blush across her cheeks grew hotter as she spoke. “I think it’s great that you and, um, Twilight have decided to, um…” Her words trailed off as her face began to glow, heat racing to her head. Neither the alicorn or the prismatic pegasus missed the twitch in her wings. “Date one another.”

“But we’re not!” Rainbow practically screamed, desperation flooding her. After a brief shudder at the volume, Fluttershy gave the pegasus a curious stare.

“You’re… not?” She spoke. “But you two were… oh dear…” And once more, her face began to heat with the fresh memories of her entangled friends.

“It’s really not like that Fluttershy, we promise.” Twilight quickly joined Dash’s side, their coats rubbing against one another as she did so. Neither made motion to separate. “We were looking for… for…” The alicorn started to twist her head, looking for a figure that was no longer there. Panic started to overtake her features, again. “He’s gone!”

“W-Who’s gone?”

“Discord!” Dash spoke up for Twilight, being extra sure her prismatic tail wrapped around one of the alicorn’s hoofs. “That bozo was here a second ago and now he’s freaking out of here!”

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy spoke, raising a hoof to her lips. “Why are you looking for him? Is he in trouble?”

“In trouble? Ha!” Twilight let out a bark of laughter. It made Fluttershy take a step back in shock. Dash, on the other hoof, was too busy looking left and right for the copiously compiled creature to mind. “He’s at the helm of it, again!

“H-He is..,” the meek pegasus spoke weakly, wings falling as her eyes looked to the ground. “Oh my, I-I didn’t think he’d get in trouble when I asked him do some good.”

“You told Discord to do what?!” Rainbow nearly tackled Fluttershy to the ground. A quick bite on her tail from Twilight kept the fuming mare from doing so. It didn’t keep Fluttershy from trembling in fear. “Do you have any idea how bad that is?!”

“Well, um… he was supposed to help ponies.” The excuse sputtered out from Fluttershy’s lips. She bit them soon after she was done speaking.

“Yeah, help the way he thinks is helpful!” As if to demonstrate her point, Dash spun and put her forelegs around the lavender alicorn. Twilight, for her part, was able to keep standing upright. That was the only part of her that remained dignified.

Her wings extended to their full length, chest expanding with an intake of air, and fur glow red in tune with her heavy blush. Fluttershy and Dash were able to see it all. And yet, Twilight couldn’t think of a single reason why the cyan pegasus should let her go.

“You see!” Dash yelled to her blushing friend, the one her legs weren’t currently holding with a possessive force.

“Y-Yes! Um, yeah.” Fluttershy eeped before dribbling off in agreement. “You two make a… a great match.” Twilight could feel Rainbow hold her a bit tighter, most likely in annoyance. The alicorn raised her hoof to one of the legs encircling her, hoping to remove it. But when she made contact with it, it just seemed a more appropriate action to hold it a bit closer.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight began, hoping her voice was more controlled than her boisterous, and currently attractive, friend. “Rainbow Dash is trying to demonstrate that… well… we enjoy the contact now because of Discord. Before… well we wouldn’t have done this before.” She could feel the wind whip up and down in tandem with Dash’s head beside her. Twilight savored every little flick Rainbow’s fur made against her ear.

“O-Oh,” Fluttershy stuttered, raising a hoof to her mouth. “You mean Discord convinced you two you….” For the umpteenth time, the pegasus’s coat adopted the color of the sun as her voice dropped off.

“Convinced nothing!” Dash shouted again, earning a bit of pain from Twilight’s ear. “He cast a freaking spell on us! Now all I want to do is cuddle up next to Twilight and sleep the day away.” Fluttershy’s eyes shrunk at the words.

Later, Twilight would blame the heat of her blush for the words she said next.

“Y-Yeah,” she agreed with Dash. “And… and I just want her to nibble my ear and tell me everything she loves about me!”

Fluttershy fell sideways to the ground, her body radiating heat.

“This… This is so wrong.” Dash let out with a grumble, partially wondering why she let her wing wrap over the alicorn’s side. Most of her, however simply didn’t care.

“Tell me about it.” Twilight spoke breathlessly, leaning into the embrace. Her mind was too focused on Discord’s disappearance and Fluttershy’s collapsed state to pay Dash’s closeness any mind. She enjoyed it, and that was it.

They both sighed in unison.