//------------------------------// // Unarmed in a Battle of Wits // Story: Painted Mirror // by Lord of Turtles //------------------------------// Raj made it all the way onto the castle grounds before his stamina gave out. He collapsed onto a lake-side bench. His body felt spent. The combination of the potion, the long ride, and whatever force Celestia had crushed him under left him exhausted. A handful of ponies noticed his presence and shot odd looks his way. A few whispered to each other. Raj ignored them and leaned on his knees, breathing hard and trying to compose himself. Celestia, the immortal, ancient Alicorn demigod of Equestria, had essentially threatened to kill him. What in the actual hell was he supposed to do with that? He could tell Luna about it, but he had no idea what that would do. She'd be mad, but Celestia and Luna have known each other for millennia, there was no way she'd side with him over her beloved sister. Even if she did, it would accomplish nothing. She wasn't even strong enough to fight her sister, if their last fight was anything to go by, but doubted it would ever really come to that. Somewhat idly, Raj realized that for the first time he didn't have the option of conflict. It was more disarming than he thought it would be. He sat there for a while, head in his hands, choking down cold air as he tried to make sense of what he'd been struck with. He rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. “Excuse me sir, are you alright?” came a rather cheerful voice from his side. Raj let out a sigh and looked up. “Yeah, I'm fine, thank y-” He cut off when he saw who was speaking to him. Floating next to him was some sort of bizarrely hodgepodge serpent, like someone had decided to make something out of a grab bag of parts. Or maybe an attention deficient child's scribbling had been brought to life. He stared at the thing for a good minute before it smiled and opened a lion's arm wide, giving an exaggerated bow from his hovering position. “Silly me, where are my manners? I am Discord, the undisputed Master of Chaos.” “Pleasure. Rajrishi, Captain of the Lunar Guard.” Raj extended a hand to shake and Discord looped an arm around himself to match it. Ignoring that, he continued, “I think I've heard about you before. You're close friends with Fluttershy, right?” “That I am. Best friends actually. It says so on these.” He snapped the fingers of his raptor hand and a small, crocheted badge popped into existence that read 'FS + D: BFF'. “Funny thing, she never mentioned you though.” “Fluttershy's not much of a chatterbox.” He stretched his legs, the feeling coming back in full now. “So what brings you over here anyway? You inquire with every tired alien that comes running out of the castle?” Discord put a paw to his chin, “Well, you're the first, so I suppose I do. And I'm not certain I’d call you an alien, exactly.” he disappeared in a flash of light and a round, microwave sized UFO landed on the bench next to Raj. The door opened up and a miniature Discord with a fishbowl on his head stepped out. When he spoke, his voice was distorted and tinny from the helmet. “You're more like the mother of all missing persons, so lost even you don't know where you are.” Raj picked up the small spacecraft. “That is both accurate and depressing.” The spaceship flashed and Raj was holding Discord's head, the rest of his serpentine body slithering back out of it. “No, I came over because I simply have to speak with any being that is capable of getting ol' Sunbutt so rankled.” Raj leaned back, “You saw that?” “Of course I did, very little happens in this castle that I am not privy to. I have ears,” He reached up and yanked one of his off, “everywhere.” he casually tossed the detached piece of himself into a nearby bush. “And let me tell you, I haven't seen Celly that mad ever since I turned the walls of her old castle into bees.” “Bees you say?” “Yes bees. The joke was that the best offense is a good-” “Bee fence, right. It's a pun, of course it's a pun. This whole damn planet is infested with puns.” Raj groused. Discord chuckled to himself. “See, you get it. Celestia most certainly did not.” Raj leaned his head into his hand. “So you were listening to my meeting with the Princess. I get the feeling I should be concerned about that.” “Understandable. I imagine that suffering under the oldest Titanspawn's pure expression of power is quite draining to a mortal. Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't squash you flat. Celly-belly must be getting lax in her old age, or she took it easy on you.” “I hope it was the former. Goddammit.” Raj swore as he flexed a muscle in his neck and felt a shoot of pain. “What was that spell anyway? It felt like I had an ocean on top of me, I've never heard of magic like that.” “You're closer than you think Rajy-boy. All she did was unleash her power in an unstructured form, just raw force. If you think of spells as words and sentences, what she did was more like screaming incoherently. Very unsubtle, very much unlike her.” “If it's so much unlike her, then why would she do it?” he asked. Discord shrugged. “If I had to guess you caught her off guard, you refused the request and she panicked a bit, needed to let you know she meant business. Or she thought she could provoke you into doing something stupid by threatening you. Hard to say with her, Celestia is always spinning a few plates.” He held up a finger, a lone dessert dish spinning on his claw. “Like what? React with violence?” he asked. Discord cocked an eyebrow and shook his head. He flicked the spinning plate towards Raj and it landed on his lap. The ceramic drawing of the draconequus' face spoke, “No dear boy, I don't think that anyone is that dumb. No, likely she was hoping that you would tell Twilight what happened and it would drive the two of you apart.” “How would that drive us apart?” Plate-Discord rolled his eyes so hard they literally fell out of his head. Raj watched them roll towards the pond, picking up snow as they went along. As he watched, one of the rolling snow/eyeballs hopped up on other other and melted into a reasonable facsimile of his own face. The snow-mouth moved and a bad impersonation of his voice came out saying “Hey, look at me, I'm the human Rajrishi! I'm supposed to be a smart engineer or something but when something happens that doesn't involve punching, I can't string two thoughts together into a decent idea. Cause my brain is just a lump of frozen water!” Raj chose not to comment on that and flicked the plate at the snowman, slicing the rude sculpture's head off with a cry of alarm from both. As asinine as he'd been in pointing it out, Discord was right. He wasn't thinking about this right. He sat, pondering for a minute, trying to wrap his tired brain around the logic. After a bit, he started to hesitantly say “Unless, Twilight knows Celestia better than me. She knows that she would never do something like that, so Twilight wouldn't believe me. She'd think I was lying to her, Twilight would construct a reason for the lie and Celestia would back it up. That would get us apart.” Discord tipped a straw hat and stretched out a wooden showman's cane. “Give the man a prize!” He snapped a claw and a dozen or so stuffed Discord toys fell out of nowhere and bounced off of Rajrishi's head and shoulders. He ignored those as best he could and leaned onto his knees. “So I can't tell Twilight what happened, which means I can't tell anyone what happened. I would be doing exactly what she wants.” “Quite. I find when dealing with Alicorns it's best to throw out your first, second, and third options. Odds are they've anticipated them and somehow orchestrated it to work to their advantage.” “So what do I do here? Do I have a move?” Discord shrugged again. “Tartarus if I know old boy. If I knew how to beat Celestia I would have done it ages ago.” A beat. “Except that now we're close, personal friends of course, ” “Right.” Raj looked the draconequus up and down for a moment. “Why are you helping me anyway? I've heard plenty about you from a bunch of ponies. Helpful wasn't a common adjective.” At that, Discord surprised Raj. He paused and floated down to the ground, standing on all fours. His yellow eyes lost some light and his face took on a serious set. “Believe it or not Rajrishi, I can empathize with being trapped, alone, on a planet of tiny horses with nobody you claim to love.” He stared at Raj seriously for all of five second before breaking back into his ongoing joviality. “Or perhaps I just like to give the pot a good, strong stir every once in a while!” He jabbed a claw towards the bench and the whole thing popped like a balloon. Raj flopped onto the ground and Discord giggled madly before flashing away. Rajrishi let out a curse and rolled, a pulse of pain flaring from his tailbone. He writhed in the snow for a minute before deciding that lying near the frozen lake was as good a sitting, so he went still and stared up at the dusty snow drifting down at him. And he thought. He thought about what he was supposed to do next. *** Raj was standing outside the train station a few hours later with a visibly pleased Prince Blueblood. The royal unicorn gave a crisp salute and said sternly “Sir.” “You're not my lieutenant yet Blueblood, you don't have to call me sir. At ease.” he visibly relaxed but maintained a rigid posture. “I'll send the dossier on your official duties once I get back, expect it with tomorrow's post. After that I'll commission your uniform and credentials, they should follow rather shortly.” He nodded. “Understood sir. Have a safe trip back.” “Thank you Lieutenant.” Blueblood positively bristled with satisfaction at the use of his new title. Raj gave him a quick salute and stepped onto the train. Offering an officer's commission to Blueblood made sense on paper. He was related to the Princesses and he had a decent service record, so it wouldn't strike anyone as an odd choice. Raj knew the unicorn could fight and wasn't a total ass at least. Luna had been hinting that he should start expanding the Lunar Guard anyway. It was a natural choice. There was also the benefit of having a pair of eyes in the capital he could rely on. And if something happened to him it would reflect badly on Blueblood as well, a factor that might stay Celestia's wrath if she cared for the unicorn at all. It wasn't a winning move, but it might insulate him a bit, which would hopefully be enough. At the least, he couldn't see any significant downside to the decision. It was far from perfect though. He'd had to lie and tell the prince that he'd been toying with the idea for weeks, instead of coming up with it when he happened to see the unicorn walking towards the castle. Now he was in the position of having to throw together a charter and duties for him as soon as he got back, as well as having to convince Rarity to make a uniform for her least favorite unicorn. He was hoping the Lunar Guard's sizable expense account would be able to handle that. The train lurched to life beneath him and he silently cursed the Solar Princess again. He didn't like having to switch gears like this, suddenly having to worry about political maneuvering and so forth. Not for the first time, he wondered if he could just deck her in the face as hard as he could. He did that with Luna, and now they get along just fine. He brushed that thought aside and pressed his forehead against the cold window, Gate Maker occupying the seat next to him. He was hurt, and tired, and still warped from the memory potion. He closed his eyes as the train curved into a tunnel and was fast asleep before they had come out the other side.