//------------------------------//
// Do You Mind? 
// Story: Mind and Matter 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
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It was a sleepy Saturday morning in the Castle of Friendship, that long and weary hour that is too late for breakfast and not late enough for lunch. Three of the castle's four full-time inhabitants, Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, and Sombra, had congregated in the library for some light reading, while the fourth, Trixie, had gone out to do the shopping. Each of the three were sitting at a different table, absorbed in their books while also taking some small pleasure from being in the company of friends.
Well, Twilight and Sunset were, anyway. Sombra had been trying to read about Tenochtitlan trade wars in the fourth through seventh centuries of the Celestial Era, and had fallen asleep with it splayed open next to him.
From outside, there came what sounded like three metric tons of whipped cream exploding, followed by cries of terror and loud maniacal laughter.
Sombra shifted in his sleep, a little rivulet of drool running down his cheek.
After a moment, Twilight looked up from her book, blinking blearily as she tried to focus on the world around her. “Did you hear something?”
Sunset waved a hoof. “Not now, Twilight. Miss Mareple is about to reveal who killed Mr. Bun the baker.”
“Sombra?”
The large stallion’s only response was a faint snore. Twilight sighed and shrugged. Probably it was nothing. She levitated over a bookmark and closed Sombra's abandoned tome before returning to her own book, a set of poems by Light Lyric.
There came from outside the sound of a flute concerto interspersed with chanting and the slowly rising tones of some kind of drum. She dropped her book. “I definitely heard something that time!”
Sunset sighed and set down her book as well. “You aren’t gonna relax until we find out what it was.” It wasn’t a question.
Twilight flew up to near the ceiling and peered out the window. “I don’t see anything,” she said, worried. “I’m sure it came from this side of the castle…”
Trixie stuck her head into the room. Her hat and cloak appeared to have been turned into Swiss cheese. “So, Discord just turned the bowling alley into a giant cake. Should we do something about that? Because that Letrotski guy is very unhappy.”
Twilight shut her eyes. “Right. Sunset, you go corral your fellow chaos god, and Trixie, you go get the other— the new element bearers. Sheesh, that’s gonna take some getting used to.”
“Trixie agrees. Perhaps if we called them the Crusaders of Harmony?”
“Can this discussion wait until we’ve stopped Discord from turning the entire town into their personal larder?” Sunset asked.
“Oh! Yes, sorry. Let’s go!” The trio took off. Behind them, Sombra rolled onto his other side and continued to snore.




Twilight hoofed it up the beaten path to Fluttershy’s cottage. This was made somewhat difficult by the fact that the ground had apparently been turned into thousands and thousands of roasted marshmallows, under which was hidden a mountain of melting chocolate. She started flying as soon as she realized what was happening, but the gooey gunk would take weeks to wash out of her fur. With one very sticky hoof, she hammered on the door, silently cursing the self-proclaimed King of Chaos in her head. “Coming!” Fluttershy called. “Oh, dear, please hold on for a minute.”
Twilight balanced precariously atop Fluttershy’s front stoop, which had been transformed into an oversized graham cracker. The door opened, and the yellow pegasus poked her head out. She held a hoof to her mouth as soon as she saw her friend in a vain attempt to hide a giggle. “Yes, yes, it’s hilarious,” Twilight grumbled. “Come on, Discord’s wreaking havoc on the town and we need you to talk them down.”
“Oh, dear. Has the party gone too far?”
“Party?” Twilight asked. 
“Yepperoonie!” a familiar voice came from inside the cottage. Pinkie Pie poked her head out of the kitchen and waved. “It’s a Welcome Home party! Discord won’t tell us who we’re welcoming, but they seem really excited!”
“...Which brings me back to the problem at hoof,” Twilight said.
“The marshmallows?” Fluttershy asked. “I can give you a tub to soak them in…”
“No,” Twilight said, “Well. Yes, partly the marshmallows, partly… everything else. Can you just get him to tone it down a little?”
“Oh, of course!” Fluttershy agreed. “You just wait inside and have a shower to get that goo off.”
“Thanks,” Twilight said with a sigh as Fluttershy flew off toward the town proper. With a shake of her head, she trotted inside. What sort of being, she wondered, would cause Discord to react this way? It didn’t bear thinking about. 
Well. Yes it did, it carried with it rather a great deal to think about, but Twilight was very much Not In the Mood to consider whatever made the draconequus tick. It would be like figuring out Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense all over again.




Once in the shower, her mood improved somewhat. Someone (presumably Discord) had replaced the usual pegasus shower model, which consisted of a glass box with a warmed raincloud at the top, with… something else. Twilight wasn’t quite sure how to describe the polyhedral structure, but it had hot water, and that was enough for her. She hummed vaguely to herself as she scrubbed at the sticky, sweet goop that encased her hooves and fetlocks. It came out more easily than expected. The alicorn examined the shampoo bottle she had used. “Scrub-ee Dub Fur Cleanser,” she read aloud. “For the worst kind of messes. Now with— Now with added turpentine?”
She stared at the bottle in mild horror. Just at that moment, the water cut out. Twilight looked up to see a bulge clunking steadily through the pipe leading to the showerhead. A brown ooze began to drip down, interspersed heavily with blue and orange, as well as a plethora of other hues. Rather than continuing down the drain, however, the gunk steadily piled up, up, up into a trio of forms. Discord smirked down at a bewildered Trixie and an unamused Sunset Shimmer, clutched in their arms. “What did I tell you? No fuss, no muss, and thank you for travelling by Discord Rail. Oh, hello, Twilight.”
The alicorn stared in horror at the newcomers. “I was in the shower!” she hissed.
“Yes, and now so are we,” Sunset agreed.
Twilight stared. “I’m naked!”
Trixie frowned. “Aren’t you always?”
Twilight’s mouth snapped open and closed a few times, before she finally snarled, “Out. Out! I am going to finish my shower in peace!”
Discord sighed theatrically. “Oh, very well. Just make sure you’re finished before our guest of honor arrives.”
Twilight frowned. “Guest of honor?” But the draconequus was already gone.
She turned to the other two. “Guest of honor?” she repeated.
Trixie shook her head. “All they’ll say is that we’ll be ‘crazy’ about her.”
“Then they laugh like a maniac, and you get the classic hammy lightning striking in the background,” Sunset added.
Twilight sighed, banging her head against the faucet. “So it’s gonna be one of those days,” she sighed. The showerhead rattled for a moment, then fell on her head. A moment later, the entire structure of the shower collapsed around the hapless alicorn, and something that appeared to be lime pudding sprayed out of the pipes. Twilight pursed her lips. “Towel?” she asked calmly. 
“Um, Trixie does not see any,” the unicorn said.
Twilight nodded. “Definitely one of those days,” she concluded.




Twilight, having managed to clean most of the gunk off herself in the sink, trotted downstairs, where several others already sat around a table. Twilight was awed at the sight of it. The table was… neat. And orderly. An elaborate lace tablecloth lay squarely atop a beautiful mahogany table. Candelabrum were placed at even intervals. The plates were fine china, and the glasses delicate crystal. Discord glanced up from a conversation they had been holding with Sweetie Belle as she walked in, and they… smiled. Not a smirk, not a leer, not even a grin, but the honest to goodness smile of utter contentment with the world. “My dear Princess Sparkle, how good of you to join us. Please, take a seat.”
Twilight, though somewhat suspicious of the chaos spirit’s sudden bout of goodwill, pulled out a chair between Trixie and Applejack. Leaning over to the latter, she whispered, “Do you know what’s going on?”
The farmer shook her head. “Ah ain’t even sure how Ah got here,” she admitted. “One second, Ah’m bucking out in the southern orchard, ‘n’ the next, Ah’m sittin’ at this here fancy-pants supper.”
“I don’t trust this,” Twilight grumbled. “And why are there two more empty chairs? I thought we were only expecting the guest of honor. Who else is missing?”
As if on cue, the doors at the other end of the hall swung open. A shadowy figure stood in the portal, mane swirling and bobbing in a wind that nopony could feel. She stepped forward into the light. “Blessings,” Tree Hugger said, a faint grin on her face. 
“Ah, Tree Hugger. Glad you could make it on such short notice,” Discord said, spinning to face her. “If you wouldn’t mind terribly sitting at the far end of the table, next to Pinkie Pie, I’d be terribly obliged.”
“That's chill with me, dude,” Tree Hugger nodded. Trotting over to the far end of the table, she nodded at the pink pony. “Did you know your aura looks like confetti?” she asked. “So colorful and ever-changing. ‘S like a rainbow in a tornado.”
Pinkie smiled. “Thanks! I really like your mane!”
Tree Hugger smiled back vaguely. “Aw, yeah, thanks, man. My fiancé styles it for me.”
“Right, now that our other spiritual conduit is here, we can begin,” Discord said. “If everypony would join hooves— or claws, paws, hands, and so forth.”
Twilight slowly took first Applejack’s hoof, then Trixie’s, carefully watching her host all the while. The draconequus’s smile became more mischievous as they glanced about the room. “Now, let’s get this party started, shall we?” they said. A pulse of energy shot through his talon, transferring along the line of guests. Before any could react, the energy pulse had flowed through all present and back into the chaos god’s paw, jumping through the empty chair, from Button's hoof to Rarity's, and on through the circuit.
It took Twilight a moment to recover herself. “Discord!” she demanded. “What have you done?”
The draconequus merely nodded at the empty chair. As Twilight turned to look, she saw that a swirling blue vortex had appeared directly above it. “My friends,” Discord said with a grin. “You have been gathered here today to see the triumphant return of one who is very dear to me, the closest -- and, well, only -- member of my family.”
He paused for a moment. Was that a tear in their eye? Twilight wondered, incredulous. If it was, it vanished in a twinkling. “It gives me great pleasure,” they said, subdued, “to introduce all of you, my friends— and Twilight, too— to my own dear daughter, Screwball.”