"So, did Nightmare Eclipse ever tell you about the time I turned Tiamat into a teapot dragon?" Discord asked, sipping tea (it was his break, union rules).
"You're kidding right?" Daydrake Banneret asked, then remembered who he was talking to. "No you're not."
"No, I am not, not a all my lad." The two were in what used to be the pocket reality of the faux Ponyville that Nightmare Manacle had used to store the ponies she had been able to 'preserve' from countless time loop, one by one populating it with ponies and puppets. The puppets were all gone now, but the living ponies weren't. Now as part of their parole, they had to reconstruct it into an entire universe for their unwitting refugee.
And under DISCORD'S parol, he was expected to serve and obey them in everything and anything related to this cosmic construction project!
"There was also the time Trixie turned into Nightmare Mountebank and turned Tiamat into a dragon-teacup hybrid and sic her on me that left me drowning in a pool of earl grey."
Daydrake Banneret narrowed his eyes, "Okay, I KNOW that one is a load, Nightmare Eclipse's entire shtick was getting Nightmares to work together, no way she'd have thrown away a chance to have Trixie as her friend."
"What if she was destroyed and then Nightmare Eclipse in a fit of grief erased her from Eclipse's own and your memories and that of everyone else's?" Discord asked with a grin.
Banneret leaned in close with a frown on his face.
"... Okay that didn't happen, BUT YOU DO have to admit that it WOULD HAVE made a great story! And who doesn't like a great story?"
"... So is the thing about you turning Tiamat into a teacup dragon just a great story too?"
"Oh no, that did happen... maybe, who can say in this day and age? I mean with how clumsily and sloppy time and space is handled."
"Maybe Rota Fortuna would do a better job if she wasn't missing a wing."
"... Touche..." Discord sighed and put down his teacup. "But for this tale, on the presumption of it being true... To reiterate, in case you forgot, Nightmare Eclipse wouldn't allow me to do anything that didn't fit the evil overlord motif after ... well, a lot of cycles and watching Fluttercruel die over and over finally triggered something... And I tried to flip the script in a whole new direction... And she just copied and pasted the old stuff in its place."
"You're the one who gave her so much to work with."
"... Touche again. So, I decided this cycle, instead of ignoring the sleeping giant that was Tiamat and that spotlight allergic mate of hers... I focused ALL my forces on them. I ignored Equestria, the changelings, Queen Cadence, the rest of Equus, you name it... and when the Imperium invaded, I went after the dragons instead of changelings... If the girls hadn't been immortal they would have been dead several times over. I also went to a lot of trouble that cycle to make sure they could work as a team... making them that orderly and disciplined made me sick from my base nature alone... and geeze... Let me tell you, Bahamut hasn't stayed Tiamat's mate from being a push over... and he hasn't been able to keep her 'slash and burn' impulses in check from not being able to give as good as he gets... Let's just say the map makers would have had a lot of work ahead of them...
"But here's the thing, no matter how much rage LOOKS COOL, and you think it would just make some dragon more focused on the prize, and that rage just means they'll obliterate you faster... the real truth is that it leaves the target open FROM that same laser like focus of the object of your fury... Morning Star taught me that one... "
"Guess he didn't fill your head completely with garbage."
"Believe me, I had my hoof on the pressure button and the lid wide open for them with an engraved invitation... But ... with more power than I've ever used at once... with help from Twilight Tragedy, and Angry Pie, and all the rest, including your predecessor, and maybe some other bits and pieces here and there with favors I was able to call in that Eclipse didn't think much about at the time... I was able to turn Tiamat, into Tea-A-Mat! A giant dragon made into magically unbreakable porcelain! And my happy willing friend! All five of her heads willing and able to help! ... "
"It was all for the pun wasn't it?" Banneret said dryly.
Discord shrank away some. "... Maaaaaaaaybe?" He gathered himself. "Naturally Eclipse figured I used turn her on the girls once they inevitably rebelled against me... What she DIDN'T expect was for me to turn my new draconic kettle of sound and fury on HER! ... And with five dragon heads... Let's just say it was epic. Even with Nightmare Eclipse's power to save-state, precious Tea-A-Mat would just have a NEW WAY to blow her away! Only-Truly-Fully-Powered-Up Tirek armed-with-The-Spear and having-joined-with-the-Rainbow-of-Darkness-into-his-being ever gave her more trouble...(dang there wasn't really planet left after that Tirek fight, or a moon)... until that final cycle of course gave Eclipse the last of her troubles."
"I was there for that one."
"Oh right, sorry. But My living tea-set dragon, it dragged on, and on, Tiamat even turned into my helpful and happy kitchen set had more tricks up her sleeve can you can imagine... she hadn't stayed alive since before ponies developed sentient by being easy to kill either. She actually managed to EAT the spirits of the other Nightmares, ripped them right out of her! And her teapot insides kept them from causing trouble in there... I really thought we were gonna win that one... "
"And you'd have an incarnation of my goddess as your personal servant?"
"... For the record, she was happy... more happy than I'd seen her in any cycle... " He said wistfully.
"Because you MADE HER that way..."
"So I played god with another god to rebel against a demi-goddess who was playing god with mem I've paid my dues remember?!" Discord growled. "... She'd have given birth to an entire new species of tea-dragons... Even if it was only due to all the combine effort of my manipulations and that of my henchponies' magic that turned her into something she wasn't before ... I... I still liked her... I..."
Banneret's eyes widened... were Discord's eyes misting up.
"When I saw Eclipse shatter her to 'Rescue my friends!' ... I think I felt something in me shatter... and Nightmare Eclipse... telling me point blank... like Distortion Sphere before her... she'd never allow Tea-A-Mat to exist in any cycle ever again... I'd never see her again... " Discord put his face in his hands... literally.
"... Distortion Sphere? Who's that?"
"... She never told that one? I guess she didn't consider him important enough ... He was Fluttercruel's half brother... in the loop I brought out Pinkie Pie's kookiness... "
Daydrake Banneret, to his very own surprise said, "I'm sorry." He realized he'd placed a claw on Discord's shoulder and sat next to him.
"Hey, don't be, I deserved it remember?" Discord remarked with a small smile. "I take it back, Nightmare Eclipse wasn't playing god... gods CREATE THINGS... All she did was keep chopping the tree down to its stump every time it grew as high as an elephant's eyes."
"... And I helped her," Banneret admitted.
"You had the excuse of being crazy."
"... So did you."
"... Touche... Maybe that's what shattered..."
"Or it was your conscience breaking out of his prison."
I... I guess we'll never know... like a lot of things we'll never know how they would have turned out if they'd been allowed to keep going... been given a chance."
"... You never stop thinking about them... those you aren't getting back do you?"
"Sucks doesn't it? Don't you wish you could just forget them all? Erase the pain, erase the regret."
"want to?... Maybe... but I think the pain... I think the regret had a good lesson to it, one that would be even an worse shame to forget about... "
"Heh... true that... "
Spike was silent for a second.
"Discord... I'm still designing this world's version of the Dragon Lands... ya know... in Neighpon... I think they could use some tea-dragons... "
Discord's eyes bulged, they literally leapt out of his eyes and sprouted limbs and looked confused and them looked inside Discord's ears to make sure his hearing hadn't gone funny. "I... I... that is... thank you."
"Never mention this to anypony, got it?"
"Got it! Looks like my tea break is over... back to work." Discord put on his orange hard hat and teleported away.
~ Fin