• Published 14th Mar 2012
  • 26,839 Views, 1,295 Comments

Learning ABCs - Adorable, Bothersome, Chaotic - Isopod



Twilight unwillingly starts seeing something more that just chaos in a certain Draconequus.

  • ...
39
 1,295
 26,839

21) Lesson Honesty

Twilight Sparkle was sitting contently in the middle of Ponyville park, on her favorite bench, reading a book. The day was calm, the chill pleasant, air fresh. A perfect day for relaxation, and a perfect setting for certain somepony to ruin the serenity of such a day. Which is why Twilight had decided to take her reading elsewhere. That and, she had been partying way too much for the last three days.

Ever since she finished her working spree she decided to have her time occupied by her friends, all of whom she hadn't properly seen in a while. More than anything, however, she missed coming back to some of her older readings. So there she was, sitting in a park in the late afternoon, her scarf keeping her warm and an anthology of stories keeping her company, with a simple daisy sandwich for her dinner backed in a small paper bag.

Nothing was going to ruin her small vacation. Not until she would get home, at least, where a letter of great importance waited for her. A letter that would start an unfortunate chain of events but also seal the deal on Discord's education on Harmony.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Hey. How was your day?" Spike asked once the mare came home, her smile wide and eyes relaxed. Discord was nearby, floating upside down and observing a small spider that was descending on its thin thread from one of the bookshelves. He had bunches of fun trying to make it dance in the mid air and it was hard to decide whether the spider had just as much fun or was simply trying to run for its life.

"It was great! I finally got to read the Seeds of Kindness. For a collection of stories done by ponies who aren't into professional writing, it is incredibly good."

"I'm just glad you finally had some time to relax, the last week was pretty hectic." Spike said. "We got some mail, by the way. I left it on the library desk." Interested, Twilight went through the pile of letters. A few bills, a pamphlet or two, an incorrectly placed letter that was seemingly for Daisy (Ditzy Doo must've had her hooves in this) and to her sudden joy, a letter from the Canterlot Science Research Facility. It is there where all of Twilight's various researches went and it was from there that came the letters that usually contained something exciting. Knowing how much she's been working lately, she quickly grew optimistic with some sort of a thank you letter, or an evaluation chart with good results on her job.

Discord seemed to have noticed her excitement as he finally left the small spider to practice its waltzing on its own and descended to the floor.

"Good news?" He asked.

"I should hope so!" She said. "I figure since I've sent in so much during the last week, they probably want to send a thank you letter for my work." She beamed as she got the letter out and started reading.

"'Dear Miss Sparkle'" Twilight started giddily, "'thank you for your contribution during the course of the last week. It is greatly appreciated.'" Twilight allowed herself to let out a proud giggle before she continued. Discord rolled her eyes.

"'We greatly appreciate any sort of assistance in our ongoing researches, no matter the topic or importance and as such we greatly enjoyed studying your works. However, we regret to inform you that approximately thirty eight percent of your reports are in one way or another... flawed'?" She exclaimed, suddenly confused.

"'We're not sure if you mixed up your papers but wrong paragraphs seem to be written in the wrong reports. For example, your research titles "the Mating Habits of Parasprites" has several paragraphs on various other agendas, such as the body anatomy of griffins, development of dragons, alchemy traits of poison joke, etc.'"

"Slacking off, were we?" Discord added in an attempt to be entertaining but it did nothing to improve her downcast mood. She continued:

"Thus, we can not accept those reports until you've rightfully edited and fixed them. We're well aware of your magical prowess and can thus assure you your magical skills are developed enough for you to be able to make sense of it; you won't need more than a day or two of work. Once fixed, we'll gladly accept your reports. Sincerely, the, the members of..." She trailed off. Though clearly not nearly as relaxed as before, it went completely unnoticed by the Spirit, who seemed to have greatly enjoyed her predicament.

"Oh my, you have been working on these for days! This has to be the most evil, most devious thing I've ever seen! Oh, who would've thought so much cruelty can hide in the wonders of research! How I love it!"

Not taking much of his behaviour, Twilight picked herself up and slowly trotted up the stairs. It was lucky for Discord, who remained confused and still in a fit of giggles next to the desk, when library came back from the basement, carrying a large crateful of books.

"What's so funny?" He asked, wiping his hands of dust.

"Read this!" Was all Discord said, so giddily one might've thought the won a lottery of some sort.

The dragon's face changed from that of curiosity into that of concern. "Ouch. Is Twilight alright?

"Why wouldn't she be?" Discord questioned, a smile beaming at him. Spike looked back at the letter worriedly.

"She isn't the kind of pony to take something like this easily. I better check on her."

"Oh! Allow me! You seem to be busy, anyway."

"Oh - right, sure. Right." He paused, eyes narrowing. "Are you sure?"

"What do you mean?"

Spike opened and closed his mouth. He had better things to do than making them understand each other. "You know what, never mind. Go nuts." I'm definitely not getting into their little strife again.

After a little bit of searching, he found her on her small balcony, her telescope beside her, pretending to look at the first stars of the evening but otherwise just looking angry.

"Twilight Sparkle, my dear, just where did you disappear so suddenly?"

"Just some fresh air." She answered a bit impatiently. He rolled his eyes, annoyed and flew over next to her. Pretending absolutely nothing is wrong, he began to talk.

"As you can probably imagine, I have been told many times that what I do is wrong in the course of history - and my life, coincidentally - but I decided the best way to make amends with oneself is to own up to it. It's what make me such a Master of Chaos, after all. Perhaps you should embrace your little mistakes as well."

Though she believe she was angry enough with herself to not say a word, such a weird statement made her speak without thinking.

"That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"It can't be more ridiculous than the mistakes you sent their way."

"You're so kind today, you know that?" She bitterly said.

"Hey, don't blame me, it's all Fluttershy's work. Perhaps bad work but again, work nonetheless. I'm sure she'd embrace the mistake I turned out to be."

She didn't know what to make of that attempt at humour.

"Come now, you know you're not as bad as you think."

"I guess. It's just..." She sighed. "I overworked myself so much for stupid reasons and I lost sight of what's important - and that's the quality of my work, not quantity. I can't believe I allowed myself to act like such an irresponsible student." She sighed again. "Well, this wore me out for the day."

"I am not surprised - you did such a splendid job of relaxing these last few days, anyone would get tired."

Twilight finally offered a a more sincere laugh at his joke. "That's the spirit! Now, let's get you to bed then - you have plenty more resting to do during your vacation!"

At the sight of a now more genuine smile, Discord was pretty sure he could consider the conversation a success.

"Thank you. It was nice of you to keep me company." With a nod and a silent good night, Twilight descended down into her bedroom. Discord happily flew down in front of a fireplace and curled up on a fuzzy warm blanket, glad he had resolved the issue.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the next morning it had become clear they were far from resolving the issue.

Twilight Sparkle, for whatever unfortunate reason, decided to try and fix a dusty old gramophone Spike found in the basement the day before. It was all going fine until she got a bit too into it, not realizing the gramophones old's technology didn't mix well with experimental spells. It exploded into many temporarily decorative pieces along the walls of the library, and she had to spend the rest of the morning pulling out it's pieces out of the wooden walls.

After that, she decided to fix a dress she had accidentally ripped herself, instead of taking it to Rarity's, which she normally would do. She ended up re-sizing the dress to so it might've fit Scootaloo if she sucked in her tummy but was otherwise, but was otherwise unwearable.

With the failures piling up and Twilight's rage meter growing along with it, the Spirit cunningly figured he needed some rest himself, so he kindly invited himself over to Fluttershy's for tea, finding amusement in helping some of the tone deaf birds with singing. The effort went surprisingly well and was awarded with cookies. Discord decided it was going to be a good day all the way until he came back to the library, suddenly face to face with a scene of smoke coming out of it and several firefighter stallions speaking to Twilight. One of them had just come out with a hose. Spike did his best not to smile emphatically at her.

"What happened?" Discord asked him once he approached them. With a mixture of some amusement and what was mostly compassion, Spike replied quietly:

"You know Twilight has been trying to do things around here today?"

"I tried not to." Discord snorted, the sight of ruined dress still lurking in his mind, entertaining him.

"She kind of tried to, eh, prepare the lunch."

"That doesn't sound bad."

"As in, cook it."

"Oh, that is bad."

Discord headed inside - the damage wasn't serious nor big but the stove and a cupboard have definitely been ruined once and for all and they mess brought back some nostalgic memories to the Spirit, fondly remembering the days when he was the one causing such and similar mess.

Once Twilight bid the firefighters farewell, promising not to ever cook again without supervision, she sighed heavily.

"Well, what did we learn today?" Spike asked her patronizingly.

Frowning, Twilight replied: "Never cook without the presence of somepony responsible who can watch you."

"And?"

"... Oil heats up much faster than I thought."

"Good. Now go upstairs and think about what you had done."

Twilight oddly obeyed the small dragon. Discord gave him a weird look, and Spike explained:

"Hey, she knows what she did both today and in the past." He established and went to the kitchen, mumbling to himself and bidding farewell to his faithful metallic cooking assistant.

Discord floated up and peeked through the railing. Twilight was on the bed reading a book. As he studied the book she was reading, he concluded she was probably just hiding behind it.

"That must be one interesting reading read you got there, if you can read it upside down." Twilight lowered the book. She was positively fuming by now. "Do tell, what in the world is wrong? You've taken on some quite interesting tasks today,
none of which turned out well, if I might add."

"Funny as frickin' always, Discord."

"Why, look, I didn't spend the entirety of ten minutes yesterday comforting you for you to be acting this way! I wish to know what's going on in your head but,"he continued as he shrank to the size small enough to be able to point a magnifying glass into her ear, "I unfortunately can't read minds unless I take over one."

Twilight fumed. It soon became obvious by the smoke coming out of her ears so he made a quick retreat so as to give her some space.

"I'm useless! There! I said it!" She suddenly groaned, in style of a bitter criminal admitting a heinous crime then suddenly going into a rambled spiel of the ways she's useless, which started with her undeserved position of Celestia's student and ranged over every single thing that ever managed to go wrong in her life, including the time where she forgot a line of the poem she was to recite in her class as a filly.

Once she was finally that, Spirit wasn't so much amused as weirded out.

"Now hold on for one Chaotic minute!" He started. "Where did this all came from?!"

"What do you mean, where did it come from?! Have you not seen that letter I got?!"

"Oh, who cares about the letter; anypony can make a mistake!"

"Exactly! How could I allow that! I was always striving for great results at least! This is not something I should have allowed myself to do!

He sighed, pinching his brow. "You, my dear, are sometimes so confusingly blind."

"What in Tartarus does that mean?!" She said a bit too angrily and had to force herself to calm at the sight of him taking a step back.

After making sure he won't yet again be kicked in the flank, he started speaking. "Well, now," Discord managed, having little choice than to say something but already regretting every single word he was about to say, "if you really must know, I have to say I never met, or saw a more hardworking and smarter mare than you are - and yet, here you are, grieving over one small mistake you did."

"It wasn't a small--"

"Everypony makes mistakes, both big and small. I can tell you that from a very experienced record I had with ponies, that spans over thousands of years." He deadpanned, finally getting silence in return. "Fine, there, you screwed up. But have you ever wondered what ponies you sent these reports to thought upon seeing them?" Twilight blinked and lowered her head.

"That it was dumb and stupid." She replied numbly, not truly believing her own words, he realized.

"Do you really think that all of a sudden they would find you stupid? No, much like I am wondering, they probably asked themselves, what in the world happened to you that you managed to perform such an odd and unusual mistake - you who check every single thing at least three times!"

Her eyes finally properly met his.

"Now listen," the Spirit began once more, suddenly inspired by his own comforting speech, "if I hear one more word about you being useless or stupid or anything silly like that, I'll honestly have to turn your home into a big piece of jello. Do you not realize that your schedule is filled with constant work? Do the memories of all the things your friendship reports hold simply vanish into the thin air? By Celestia, how have you not yet- Do you remember what I keep telling you every day?" There were suddenly puffs of clouds with echos of memories in them all around them, all portraying the same thing - countless of Discord's 'I'm bored!' proclamations. "Have you realized already," Discord was nearly out of breath, "that most of my boredom comes from you not having the free time to spend it with me?!"

By the time he would realize what he had said, it would be too late and Twilight Sparkle realized what she was witnessing:

Friendship.

He was reminding her. Everything she had achieved, everything she ever acquired, not by pure luck but by hard solid work. He was reminding her of her own pride and her own vision of her greatness she used to have, he...

He was being honest.

"Thank you."

He simply stood there, shocked by his own confession - shocked because he himself didn't realize it by now.

"You were being sincere with me." She simply had to add.

"... I'm just being realistic."

Twilight smiled to herself. Discord hated his existence at the moment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For reasons undisclosed, Spike decided himself to invite everyone on a picnic. The God of Chaos, the six that were once his enemies and the faithful, draconic servant of Equestria were thus in the park, enjoying one of the last warm days of the season and indulging in sandwiches. Twilight had entertained them all with the story of her attempts to make lunch, much to Pinkie Pie and Applejacks' amusement.

"And then the firefighters came so everything was under control. But we'll need to get a new stove." Twilight finished, a bit sheepishly. "But I learned a valuable lesson today. Oh, Spike, that's right," Twilight turned towards the small dragon, who was just in the middle of a gem sandwich, "I'm really sorry for everything I've done yesterday; I am such a troublemaker sometimes. Forgive me?"

Spike was stunned with her words for a moment but then just grinned. "Aww, it's all right, Twilight. You don't have to worry about it, really."

"So, how are you two getting along? I heard from Discord you've been having a pretty good time." Fluttershy asked, glancing at Twilight and Discord, who was busy playing with bugs in the grass - or, to be honest, he was more scaring them by burning the small pieces of grass around them. The Pegasus winced.

When he realized they were all looking at him, Discord abandoned his little game and spoke: "We're getting along remarkably, thank you for asking. Here are your invitations to our wedding as well."

Applejack spit out her juice in surprise when Discord gave her the fake cards decorated with two white Pegasi drawings and a golden trim. Pinkie Pie, who had yet to find her common sense, nearly lost her head as the party ideas popped into her head and getting excited my the millisecond at the prospects of the twp pursuing a romantic relationship.

"For a fake, it certainly is well done." Fluttershy commented softly. Twilight merely rolled her eyes, feeling slightly embarrassed that Discord would compare their ever growing friendship with a wedding.

Still, it was worth to her more than anything in the world.

Author's Note:

Thanks to my beloved best friend, Clouded Guardian - this chapter exists thanks to her. Thank you, Cloud.

Once again, thanks to his editing Highness, The Skittles. I love you, man.

Enjoy the chapter, and thank you all for reading. It means a world to me.