Confeatheracy of Dunces

by BlueBastard

Chapter 3 - "Great Furballs of Ire"

Confeatheracy of Dunces

Chapter 3 - "Great Furballs of Ire"

Deep within the library of Castle Canterlot, Discord was creating quite a stir. Not a frequent visitor to places of order, the fact he was capable of even existing as a spirit of chaos in a location built around the Hoofy Decimal System had set everypony else on edge. For those who managed to look past that, it was even more of a shock that he wasn’t causing chaos beyond his presence being totally unusual in ways such as making books constantly change locations and render them impossible to find without searching every single title, or just changing the titles around on books so novels about castle building would instead be titled How to Protect your Filly from Bad Social Groupings and the like.

Rather, if he was causing any kind of chaos, it was ordered chaos. Several books and charts slowly floated around him, the only distinction of Discord’s magic on them being the lack of an aura around them. In front of the draconequus lay several large drafting sheets, the designs on them varied and yet similar, plans for what looked like a very complicated puzzle in the style of H.Y. Thresher. Many of the patrons of the library were concerned, not quite sure what to make of the relatively unchaotic nature of Discord’s current activities.

“I must admit, I didn’t think you’d take to something so, well, simple compared to your more notorious endeavors,” commented Celestia as she approached the chimera.

“Oh, come now,” chided Discord as he drew with his forepaw/talons on one sheet and his tail making a circle with a compass on another, “making elaborate mazes is basic elementary for one such as myself. No different than a sphinx only being as good as their riddles, or a chef when it comes to how many ways they can cook an egg, or even how many ways Pinkie Pie can throw a party. It’s a core skill of mine and a refreshing exercise such as this is tantamount to me staying on the top of my game, especially since this whole ‘reformed’ shtick you have me under isn’t really an encouragement for more…elaborate methods.”

“Uh-huh,” was all the princess said, eyeing some of his designs. “Though, while I did put you in charge of designing the new hedge maze for this upcoming Nightmare Night, I’m not quite sure that is going to be received well.” She gestured with a hoof to what looked like a Mobius loop that, if it functioned at all like what it looked like, would have ponies standing upside down at the top of a loop with nothing to stop them from falling to the ground except magically restricted physics. “Please don’t tell me you got the idea of upside-down ponies from that one book…oh, what was it called…”

Discord looked up with a bemused grin. “Yes, I admit I got the idea for that from Flames of Disaster, absolutely rubbish book but the amount of problems it had were pretty amusing, to me at least. Besides, what fun would there be if I just left it as a totally flat maze? I already did that with Twilight and her friends a few years back and given what I did then wouldn’t exactly be appropriate for little fillies and foals going through this, I think spectacle over outright scares in terms of focus will work.”

“But some ponies have some pretty bad cases of vertigo, so it would be kind of limiting if they come up to see the maze only to be scared off by the presence of being flipped over with their sense of what direction is up all wibbly-wobbly.”

“My dear Celestia, even though I am trying to make myself a better individual these days, the mere fact my name is associated with this as the designer is going to intimidate a large number of ponies. Plus, by the same token, being the go-to chaos spirit means I do have a reputation to keep up.”

Celestia shook her head and chuckled. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one who said ‘what fun is there in making sense?’ and yet here you are, doing exactly that?”

Discord shrugged. “Hey, neither of us actually figured we’d ever see as close to eye-to-eye as we are now, either.”

“Point. Anyway, the real reason I’m here is to give you this,” Celestia said as she conjured up a letter. She kept talking as Discord plucked the letter from the air, unrolled it, and then proceeded to read it while holding it upside down. “Apparently, Twilight needs your help urgently.”

Discord nodded. “Indeed, it must be disastrous if she needs to call me in. Or…” he then grinned mischievously, “…it’s somehow a matter I was already involved with in a way.”

Celestia’s brow furrowed. “Explain.”

“It was back when I went off to go pester Twilight and Cadence in the pretense of me being sick, of course all I succeeded in doing was actually getting sick, but I did unintentionally turn the local schoolteacher into a pegasus.” Celestia made to talk, but Discord quickly raised a paw to silence her. “Oh, it’s not a problem from me not having fixed it, I did so as soon as I learned what the bunny had accidently made me do. What actually is the case here is your faithful ex-student decided to try doing the same thing I did, only with certainly more chaotic style than I honestly wouldn’t have expected from the little bookicorn.”

Suddenly, Celestia realized why Twilight’s last letter had been saying that Rainbow’s condition was “being treated to the best of her abilities” while the actual wording and frantic pen strokes had suggested anything but. “I don’t think I want to know…” she groaned.

The chaos spirit laughed good naturedly, “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s not like that one time I heard about where Twilight decided to make the whole of Ponyville’s population maul each other over a toy like it was the Hearth’s Warming shopping season six months early. I’ll cover this one, truth be told I actually want to run some ideas by Pinkie Pie and maybe pick up some sweets while I’m at it. I’d get some for you, too, Princess, but since you’re on that diet thing I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I didn’t bring back as much when I return.” Before Celestia could react, Discord snapped his avian digits and instantly disappeared, leaving floating books and drawings to fall to the floor, only for a select few to suddenly rise up and vanish in a cloud of smoke.

---

“This is all kinds of wrong,” groaned Rainbow.

“Oh, come on now, you sleep on the ground all the time!” ribbed Fluttershy with a warm smile. “Did you not just spend a few nights in a cot at the hospital, anyway?”

“Yes, but that’s different and you know it!” retorted the displaced pegasus. “Hospital beds – or any kind of bed that isn’t private, come to think of it – have spells put on them so they’re equally comfortable for all pony kinds. But this…this isn’t even a cloudbed mattress!” To prove her point, Dash immediately jabbed a hoof into the cushion before her. “Oh, uh, so it is a cloudbed. I, um, didn’t know they came in futon style.”

Fluttershy just shrugged. “I had it custom made. To be perfectly honest, I only have it simply so I can sleep on it.”

“But you have a bed upstairs, don’t you? Or is this somehow supposed to mean you would give up your own bed if somepony was to stay over?”

The timid mare rocked side to side uneasily. “Well, yes, though this was back when you were helping me move to Ponyville all that time ago, before either of us had even met Pinkie, and I just thought it would be good if I had a spare bed around for whenever you needed to use mine.”

Rainbow looked at her fillyhood friend with a raised eyebrow. “And you never told me of this? Wait, no, don’t answer that, I can get a good enough idea given how long I’ve known you. Still, thanks for letting me crash here seeing as how I can’t even get to my house anymore.” With an irritated growl, Rainbow unfurled her wings and flapped them up and down to highlight how she couldn’t even make them generate any lifting force from a static position.

“Of course, what are friends for if they aren’t loyal to one another?” Fluttershy then opened her mouth wide, but only quietly yawned. “Anyway, it goes without saying that you’re free to make yourself at home, you’ve been here enough times to know where everything is anyway.”

“Yeah, I don’t need the grand tour, Fluttershy. You, though, clearly need some sleep.” As Rainbow turned to look at what would be her bed for the foreseeable future, her gut involuntarily wrenched a little as she wasn’t sure if sleep was going to come as easy as it usually did during her daytime naps.

---

If there was one good thing about Discord’s one action since his arrival, thought Twilight, it was that he’d been laughing so hard for so long it had gotten both her and Cheerilee to stop freaking out about what had happened. Now the pair just looked unamused at the contorting snake-like creature who rolled about in the air in fits of laughter.

“Oh…oh the looks on your faces!” guffawed Discord, desperately and fruitlessly trying to keep back the tears. “I must admit I knew you would try something of this nature, Twilight, but…nothing quite like this!”

“Well, we all can’t be changing pony types willy-nilly,” pointed out Twilight with a half-growl, “need I remind you of what you did to me and my friends back when we first met face-to-face?”

“Hey, I thought that was all water under the bridge at this point, no? Besides, all I did back then was simply ‘remove’ your horns and their wings, I didn’t go so far as to change your biology. And I certainly didn’t accidently turn part of any of your into a changeling!”

At that remark, Cheerilee shrank back a little, hiding her deformity. Where a purple feathered wing should have been, there was instead something quite different; a blueish-green insectoid appendage instead appeared to have been grafted into her midsection, where on the opposite side an actual wing had sprouted on a regrown extended scapula – the term given to the appendage bone linking the wing to the rest of a pony’s skeletal system.

Twilight noticed the chimera’d pony’s discomfort and nickered out of stress. “Look, can you fix this? I’d do it myself, but…I’m afraid I would only make it worse.”

Discord finally stopped moving around in his airborne spot, a raised eyebrow facing the diminutive alicorn. “Did my ears deceive me? Did the great and powerful Twilight Sparkle, princess of friendship, admit she was bad at something with magic?”

The princess sighed. “Yes, I’m asking for your help to deal with my mistake, I may take pride in my magic abilities but I’m not too prideful to admit when I screwed up.”

Discord laughed. “And here I was thinking you were never going to say that to my face!” He then snapped his fingers and Cheerilee was momentarily engulfed in a pure white light. When the light faded, two purple wings proudly fanned out from the teacher. “I won’t lie, the news about Rainbow’s little problem did trickle down to my ears when news reached Canterlot, and I would expect Fluttershy would insist that I do what I can to help out her fillyhood friend. And while I myself know a thing or two about flying,” Discord then changed into his familiar, well-dressed unicorn disguise only with pony-sized versions of his normal wings tacked on with what looked like scotch tape, “it would appear that fate has conspired to make that task fall to you, dear Cheerilee.”

“Uh, thanks?” Was all that the properly-winged pseudo-pegasus could manage. Cheerilee couldn’t tell if Discord was commending her or what, it was impossible to tell what he was really feeling, emotion wise, at any given time in general. Unless Fluttershy was involved, for she was the only one who had managed to crack Discord’s shell. To her, the chaos entity couldn’t pose any defense against for some reason.

“Ciao, bella!" the draconequus said, symbolically kissing Twilight on the sides of her muzzles, while suddenly sporting a green beret with a red puffball on it. Twilight broke away, shocked at his actions...only to find candy chocolate kisses stuck to each cheek. Grinning - and where did that wire thin mustache come from? - he got into a gondola and bowing, said "But I really must be going, as I do have a maze to plan and since I'm here in Ponyville, I might as well run some ideas by Pinkie. Arrivederci!" With that, he suddenly stepped into a gondola - which, inexplicably was somehow in the original gondola he’d stepped in already - and somehow managed to pole himself away, the small boat sailing off into the distance while organ grinder music lilted in the air.

“That’s…probably the most helpful Discord’s ever been, frankly,” stated Twilight, “in terms of direct help, anyway.”

“Where…where did he go?” asked Cheerilee, trying to understand what just happened. “He just sailed out of here…but not out the door…how…?”

Twilight opened her mouth to explain, but thought better of it. “I’ll be perfectly honest: you don’t want to understand how he did…that. Truth be told? Your brain is probably going to start reeling in about half an hour and you’ll collapse from confusion. Plus, you’ll most likely want to wake up early tomorrow to get reacquainted with your wings and the material you’ll be teaching Rainbow. Class starts tomorrow, no?”

“Y-yeah, you’re probably right,” agreed Cheerilee, who already was starting to feel lightheaded. She barely remembered walking home and managing to get to her bed. The fact she’d forgotten to change out her mattress, let alone ask Pinkie Pie to loan her that spare cloud mattress like last time, didn’t register in mind or body as the exhaustion of trying to explain how Discord had left Golden Oaks in the manner he had done. She’d briefly looked at mass-folding theory during college, before changing her major from physical science theory to education, and just as it had back then, the whole idea of whatever that stuff had been led to her effectively having her brain shut down from trying to comprehend it all. Flying was going to be a breeze in comparison.

---

“So, this is the big day, huh?” chirped Dusty, who was looking around the small interior of the Ponyville Elementary schoolhouse. “It’s been years since I’ve been in an elementary schoolroom, but I’ve forgotten how bright and cheerful things are at the start of a young pony’s education!”

“The way you make it sound, your own classroom is about as colorful as the grave,” remarked Cheerilee, who was seated at her usual desk and reviewing her notes from the impromptu class her mother had given her the day before.

“Oh, believe me, when I say my students are the brightest thing in my classroom aside from myself, I’m not talking about their intelligence. Though at the same time, I’m not like my husband who virtually blinds himself by staring into bright lights all day like a dentist.”

“Just because dentists are also called doctors doesn’t mean I’m a dentist, honey,” snarked Dr. Silver as he entered the tiny institution. “Plus, when I stare into the bright lights, I save lives, not just teeth!” He then turned to Cheerilee. “And how the heck can you stand working here when the bathrooms are in a separate building? I mean, they’re nicer than outhouses by far, but is making young ponies hike outside to do their business really a good idea? Especially during the winter months?”

The teacher not married to Silver looked up with a small smile of amusement. “We’re covered in fur, brother, dear; we don’t wear heavy winter clothing like other species. Besides, while I would be fired on the spot for saying this to any students or their parents, there is some logic in the idea that the colder weather would mean the kids have more incentive to…you know…”

“Ok, first thing I’m going to do when we get back to Manehattan,” suddenly declared Dusty, “I’m gonna write a request for Manehattan U. to implement outdoor bathrooms during the winter months.”

“That’s cruel and unusual punishment, Dusty.”

“No, it’s called payback for the cruel and unusual punishment of having to try and teach kids who don’t give a damn about the history of their country!”

“Now, Dusty, I’m sure there’s more…legal ways of getting revenge without forcing them to freeze their crotches off when they-“ ribbed Cheerilee, before the yelling of the dubious “guest of honor” started to come into earshot.

---

“Look, I appreciate the sentiment, girls,” loudly argued Rainbow, hovering in the air in front of Twilight and Fluttershy, “but I don’t need lessons to learn how to fly again!”

“Be reasonable, Rainbow,” chided Fluttershy. “Even you weren’t born flying out of your mother’s womb, so for all your skill you had to learn it.”

“So? Nopony’s born with their cutie mark, or know what their special talent or whatever it is our butt brands are connected to. But you’ve known me since Camp Youngflier and I was already outdoing the instructors when I was five!”

“Are you forgetting how pegasi need more than just bumblebee physics to fly?” countered Twilight. “It’s your inherent magic that keeps you up, but how it channels through yourself is key. And right now, you need to relearn how to do that.”

Agitated, the blue pegasus rolled about in the air without really moving from the same general spot in front of the princess. “But…but…they didn’t say anything about doing unicorn type stuff back at camp! We’re ponies with wings, but not wings that shoot lasers or whatnot!”

“Says the one pony that influenced the cutie marks of six ponies, including her own, because she had to just go faster?”

Rainbow, disarmed, merely grumbled and folded her forelegs over her barrel, resigned to merely float in her wine-hued magic prison, held within Twilight’s mental grasp.

Victorious, the princess grinned. “Besides, you know you need help relearning to fly, and your insurance covers physical therapy so you aren’t being forced to pay for what’s necessary for you to get back to your job, unless you want me to throw some of my royal clout around and make it so I’m the one who’s going to get you back in the air.”

After the frustrations Rainbow had been subjected to courtesy of Twilight the last time the alicorn had tried to teach her – in that instance, the history of the Wonderbolts via flash cards – and the fact Rainbow herself had helped instruct the then fledgling princess on how to utilize her new pair of limbs, the pegasus was none too eager to relive that humiliation. “Uh, no, no, what’s you’re doing right now is good.”

“Besides,” added Fluttershy, “if you really are as much of a natural at flying as you seemed to be, you shouldn’t be flightless for more than a week, tops, since you just have to reacquaint yourself with the basics, right?”

“Yeah,” shrugged Rainbow, “I guess you’re right. Hey…hold on, why are we going to Ponyville Elementary?”

“Oh, that’s where your therapy is going to take place.”

“But it’s a schoolhouse. A small schoolhouse. How in Equestria am I going to get therapy inside a building where the ceiling is shorter than most of the homes in Ponyville proper?”

Twilight bit her lip before replying, “Well…it’s going to be a very unorthodox style of therapy, honestly.”

As the magic around her began to dissipate, Rainbow waited until she was fully on the ground before taking a deep sigh. “Please don’t tell me it’s Bulk Biceps inside this building. I’m not sure I can handle hearing ‘YEAH!’ shouted at the top of his lungs every five minutes for potentially a whole week at the least! Sure, I get the idea it’s supposed to be him being motivational and all, but you know what they say about too much of a good thing, right?”

“Uh-huh,” the princess answered as she walked past Rainbow to the schoolhouse door. “Because even Rainbow Dash thinks there can be too much Rainbow Dash, is that what you’re saying?”

The flightless pony nickered, though she knew it was just a playful jab at her ego. “Hey, I’m the exception, not the rule, your majesty.”

“Suuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrreeeee…”

Rainbow then followed Twilight into the schoolhouse, intent on getting the last word in on Twilight’s good-natured assault on the disabled pony’s pride. But when she saw the three other ponies already waiting inside, she stopped dead in her tracks.

On the far side of the wall were two of the three ponies. The one on the right was an earth pony mare, her red-and-rose mane styled into medium-length lengths running down from her cowlick and complimenting her ecru coat (or at least “ecru” was what Rainbow could recall Twilight saying that particular shade of off-white, almost tan coloration was normally called), from which her bright emerald eyes stood out along with her cutie mark; a typical image of a schoolroom blackboard with a stick of chalk having drawn most of a heart shape. Rainbow immediately got the impression she was a teacher, especially from her cutie mark, but Rainbow hadn’t ever seen her around town. She wondered if she’d been called in for some reason relating to this “therapy” that supposedly was going to take place.

Rainbow then put that line of thought on hold as she looked to the stallion next to the chalkboard pony. He was a unicorn, slightly taller than the norm and slightly resembled the famous travelog writer Trenderhoof. It was the glasses that gave that impression, mainly, though the similarities went further, what with this stallion’s beige coat and the yellow-brown mane coloration. Unlike the travel writer, however, the style of the mane and tail were somewhat curlier, bearing slightly more than a passing resemblance to how Cheerilee’s typical mane style appeared, and his eyes were a brilliant icy blue. He was also wearing what looked like a white doctor’s coat, which coupled with his cutie mark of a stethoscope – which had the tubes leading up to the earpieces positioned such that the vague shape of a heart could be made out in the negative space – obviously implied he was a doctor of some sort.

And then Rainbow looked to the third pony, the one sitting anxiously at her desk, and Rainbow’s entire world was turned on its head. The pony looked like Cheerilee, had the same colors as Cheerilee, the same mane style (which a quick glance at the doctor pony almost immediately confirmed they were related based on the hair alone), and presumably the same trio of smiling flowers as a cutie mark. The only problem was it couldn’t be Cheerilee, because the schoolteacher wasn’t a pegasus. Unless…

“Hi, Rainbow,” greeted Cheerilee with a smile that wasn’t entirely natural and not-forced out of anxiety, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions as to what is going on here, and we’ll explain it shortly, but essentially…I’m going to be the one teaching you to fly again.”

Rainbow blinked, and then slowly looked at each pony in the schoolhouse in turn, including Fluttershy who as usual had been so quiet in entering that nopony had noticed she was there at all. The nervous smiles copied on all their muzzles confirmed the worst.

“Twilight…please tell me this is your attempt at a prank at my expense…” she said, her voice weighed down with trepidation as she could feel it in her gut that this was actually happening.

“I’m afraid not, Dash,” answered the princess. “The truth is that there wasn’t a single personal trainer who could be brought in to help you learn to fly, so because of that and some rash action on part of Ponyville’s committee, we’ve had to…improvise.”

Cheerilee sighed before she picked up where Twilight left off. “Apparently, I’m the only teacher in town who was both available and had a Physical Education degree, so combined with how everypony knows about my previous stint with wings, I’m legally the only one remotely qualified to get you airborne again for those reasons.”

“Um…ok…” was all Rainbow said, before looking at the still unnamed ponies in the room. “But why are they here?”

“They happen to be my brother and sister-in-law,” replied the teacher, a little annoyed at Rainbow’s attitude to her family. “Dr. Silver Suture, T.H. M.D. is, obviously, skilled in medical aid and also is a qualified nutritionist, so essentially he’s going to be filling the role of a personal trainer who does everything except actually instruct you do to things.”

“Hello,” said Silver, doing his best to be courteous in an awkward situation.

“And next to him is his wife, Dusty Chalkboard, who is here for…moral support, basically.”

“A pleasure,” piped up Dusty, who was already thinking about treating Dash as she would one of the more rowdy and “troublesome” students from her classes.

“And of course Fluttershy and I, along with Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack, will try to help best we can,” added Twilight.

At the mention of Rarity’s name, Rainbow turned pale. “Oh no…don’t tell me she’s handling my job of weather management while I’m out!”

“Actually, Ponyville General and every other medical center in town have politely requested her to be banned from ever handling weather again. Evidently, frostbitten sunburns on most of the town’s population is preferably something to be avoided at all costs, or so I hear.”

“Oh, I actually forgot all about that. I was just worried she was going to try dressing up the entire team in matching outfits and try to stage some kind of choreographed pegasus ballet.”

Cheerilee then laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Rainbow, you and I are probably going to be flailing around all over the sky before this is over with. Sticking Bulk Biceps in a tutu isn’t even necessary in light of the performance we’re going to end up giving the town whether we like it or not.”

Comments

[DracoUnis]

Your snarkey Cheerilee makes me very happy. Sometimes you can just tell she's holding back when we see her in the show.

[Flynt Coal]

I can't help but wonder: is Discord donning Italian attire for making his exit a reference to John De Lancie's role as evil time-traveling Leonardo DaVinci in NTSF:SD:SUV? Probably not, but the coincidence is amusing

[jszellmer]

How to Protect your Filly from Bad Social Groupings

If that isn't a real book, it should be.