A pink form slowly descended from the rift in reality, morphing into the shape of a mare. She resembled Pinkie— her coat was perhaps a few shades closer to purple, and her mane was, if anything, curlier, though it was purple striped with white rather than pink. Her cutie mark was, appropriately enough, a screw next to some sort of ball that Twilight didn’t recognize.
The mare’s eyes popped open, and the assembled gasped in surprise. Her irises were swirled purple, and she had no pupils. Nevertheless, she looked around the room, apparently able to see perfectly well. “Oh,” she said, her deadpan tone a distinct contrast to her high, chirpy voice. “Hi, parent. Um... assorted others.” She then sat back in her chair, looking around the room with some discomfort.
“Well, welcome home, my dear,” Discord crowed, appearing behind the mare to wrap her in a tight embrace. “So, how was college?”
The mare— Screwball— attempted to hug Discord back and failed. “Um. Well, it was fine. I got a ton of degrees, and got a free ride for my work in the campus library.” She grinned up at them faintly. "So, y'know. Don't worry about the tuition bills, I guess."
Discord paused, expectant. “Is that all?” they asked, after a moment. “We haven’t seen each other in one thousand years, and that’s all you have to tell me? Did you cause chaos? Do well in classes? Go to any parties? Did you, you know, go on a... a date?"
Screwball shrugged laconically. “Five hundred years ago, I returned to this plane of existence and had a somewhat torrid affair with a rock farmer over spring break,” she said.
Discord’s face twitched. “I— well, I— that is—”
“Oh, and I played on the college baseball team,” she added. “Star pitcher.”
“Ah! That’s my girl!” the chimera crowed, embracing the mare tightly once more.
Dash leaned over to mutter to Fluttershy, “Did you know about this?”
The yellow pegasus shook her head. “I knew there were other draconnocci,” she whispered, “and I knew that some of them were related to Discord. But I never thought about them having children.”
Twilight, meanwhile, was less concerned about the nature of the reunion she was seeing, and more about the fact that another draconequus had appeared. “Discord!” she stormed, stalking toward the chaos god. “What is going on? Why is there another chaos goddess running loose on Gaea? No offense, Sunset!”
Sunset pursed her lips. “A little bit taken, but I’m mostly with you on this one.”
“Thank you!” Twilight turned back to Discord. “Well?”
“My dear Princess Sparkplug, I’m surprised at you,” Discord purred. “After all, you know better than to judge a book by its cover— or a zebra by her stripes.”
“What's that supposed to mean? Zecora is a good friend,” Twilight defended.
The draconequus grinned. “But she wasn’t always, was she? I seem to recall a few nasty little accusations of wickedness and witchcraft being bandied about. A little idle gossip poisoning your mind against her?”
Twilight sputtered. “I— You— How do you even know about that? You were still a statue when all that happened!”
Discord shrugged. “Sometimes I sneak into Sunbutt’s bedroom to read your old friendship letters. Hilarious stuff, by the way. And, of course, she can’t complain— I’m learning about friendship!” They smirked.
“Besides, you’re just the pot calling the kettle,” they continued, lifting off the top of Twilight’s head as though it were a lid. “You alicorns are popping up all over the place!”
They reached behind Twilight’s ear, detached as it now was from her body, and yanked out a very surprised grey alicorn, whom they then tossed over their shoulder into a bookcase. “You can hardly blame me for evening out the playing field.”
“Excuse me,” Screwball said. “But I would like to state, for your reassurance, that I’m not really as ‘into’ chaos as parent is, at least not the type you're thinking of. I left my abstract period some seven centuries ago, and quit surrealism even before that.”
Discord’s grin froze. “What.”
Screwball shrugged, looking increasingly uncomfortable being held in her parent's arms. “Sorry, par. That’s just the way things are.”
Sweetie Belle winced. “Why do I get the feeling that she shouldn’t have just said that?” she asked.
“Mysterious laughter powers,” Pinkie said solemnly from just behind the younger unicorn. “You’ll grow into them soon enough. Remember though, with great genre savvy…” She trailed off hopefully.
“When did you get over here?” Sweetie asked. “Weren’t you just at the other end of the table?”
Pinkie sighed, disappointed. “Like I said. You’ll grow into them soon enough.”
The taller chimera twisted their neck around to face their daughter, wide and confused eyes staring upside-down at her. “But Screwy,” they pled, “Don’t you remember all the fun we had when you were young? Making clocks melt? Turning the heads of ponies into apples? Dying Sunbutt’s mane Day-Glo?”
Screwball's mouth was a thin line as Discord spoke. When they had finished, she opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden clamour from against the wall interrupted her. All present turned to stare at the pile of books that Discord had spilled earlier. They shifted and slid about at random. There was something hiding underneath them. Screwball took advantage of the momentary distraction to melt into a puddle of paint and slip out of Discord's grasp, reforming in her chair.
Fluttershy approached the rustling pile of books first. “Hello?” she whispered, expecting a chirp or squeak from one of her animal friends in reply.
Instead, she heard, “Hello?”
She leapt back in shock, hovering nervously in the air. Was there another pony under there? Or was it some sort of echo, or perhaps a parrot? “Hello!” she repeated, louder this time.
“Hello,” the voice replied civilly. Not a parrot, not an echo. That was somepony trapped under a book pile.
“Hello!” Fluttershy called once more.
“Hello,” the voice repeated. Then a grey head popped out the top of the pile and looked down at the yellow pegasus. “Can we move on to a new word, now?” it asked.
Fluttershy squeaked and fluttered backwards in alarm. The newcomer frowned. “Was it something I said?” he asked, pulling himself bodily from the pile.
Everyone in the room stared as the lanky stallion pushed himself up out of the pile of books, spreading his wings majestically right before a text on the diseases of housecats slid under his hoof and he fell right on his face.
Discord was the first to look away, and instead peered suspiciously at Twilight. “How often do you clean behind your ears?” they muttered.
“Oh my!” Fluttershy gasped, recovering her equilibrium. She trotted over to help the stallion up. “Are you alright?”
“Oh, all’s well save my dignity,” he said, struggling to rise. This was rather difficult, given that his horn had pierced through the carpet and left him tangled. “Um, hello. Again. Where am I, please? This doesn't look at all like my tower.”
“Who are you?” Rumble asked, frowning at him.
“Wait a second,” Sunset said, frowning. “Don’t I recognize you…”
“Prince Mentiad!” He beamed as Fluttershy finally managed to free him from her floor. “I’m an alicorn! And you’re a…” He screwed up his face. “Drah-kun-eh-quiz?”
“Dray-kuh-nee-kwis,” Sunset corrected.
“Oh, sorry. I’ve only ever seen it written down.”
“Perfectly alright.”
Twilight's jaw flapped. "A new draconequus? And a new alicorn? In the same day?"
"Yes, yes, it's absurd, it's unlikely, you've never heard such a thing, thank you Captain Obvious," Discord sniped.
Mentiad glanced around. “Oh, are you having a party? I’m very sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. Some force just dragged me out of my ivory tower and dropped me here.”
Throughout the conversation, Screwball's eyes had been growing wider and wider as they darted between the new alicorn and the various other inhabitants of the room. At these last words, however, she glared up at her parent in indignation. Discord didn’t even blink. “Well, I’m sure we’re all sorry you can’t stay. But you can’t. Bye now!”
“Nonsense,” Twilight said, pulling a chair in from the kitchen and shoving it right between Applejack and herself. “I’m certain that we can find room for just. One. More.”
Discord opened their mouth again, but wilted under the combined stink-eye power of Screwball, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie. They grunted and turned away, and Twilight waved the new alicorn over with only a little hesitance. “So!” she said brightly. “Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Mentiad?”
“Well,” he said, taking the offered seat. “Before I came here, I was reading a book on astronomy.”
The others waited expectantly. He scratched his head. “Er, before that, I was reading a book about squirrels.”
“Did you… learn anything?” Twilight asked.
He brightened right up. “Oh, yes! For instance, did you know that despite the common belief that squirrels are herbivores, they actually eat a lot of carrion? Sometimes, they’ll even attack, kill, and eat frogs, birds, turtles… even other squirrels!”
Twilight went a little pale. “Er, no. I didn’t.”
“I did,” Fluttershy said. “Isn’t nature fascinating?”
“Oh, yes! Now, I wonder if you’ve heard this about newts…”
Twilight sat awkwardly while the new alicorn and Fluttershy fell into a sort of contest to see who could some up with the most disturbing animal fact, with Applejack occasionally chiming in with something she’d seen on the farm. Fluttershy seemed to be winning.
Meanwhile, Button Mash was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. To his right, Sunset was watching the naturalists’ discussion, a bucket of popcorn in her lap. To his left… Screwball. For a being of chaos, she didn’t really look that unusual. She was just… sitting there. Eating soup. Occasionally, she would have a sip of water. Her table manners were average — not perfect, but decent for anywhere outside of Canterlot. She too, said nothing, but every no and then she cast long, careful glances at Mentiad.
Eventually, the silence grew too stifling to bear. “So!” Button exclaimed. “You, uh, just got back from college, huh? Anywhere I’d have heard of?”
The pink mare jerked out of her reverie, then shook her head, regaining her composure. “Nah. It's in a different dimension from here, about five hours to the left anterior arm of probability, sort of in one of the grimmer corners of the multiverse. Art Institute of Miskatonic U. Nice place, I guess. The weather was lousy, but there were a bunch of nice little towns nearby. Innsmouth, Kingsport, Dunwich— port towns, you know.”
Button didn’t know, but decided to let that slide. “Good school?”
Screwball waved a hoof from side to side in the dimension-transcending gesture meaning ‘so-so’. “It was okay. It’s not really a great art school, per se, but it was cheap, and, like I said, I got a scholarship for being able to handle some of the more eldritch tomes of forbidden lore.”
“Oh, you did say you worked in the library.”
“Yeah, that was a good job.” One corner of her mouth twitched into a half-smile, but her expression quickly turned thoughtful. “Better than teaching assistant, anyway. Or lab tech. Herbie West, what a weird guy. I mean, I guess it’s too bad about what happened to him, but he was kinda asking for it.”
Button paused. “What did he do?” he asked, trepidation creeping into his tone.
Screwball shrugged. “Beats me. I was never that interested in the technical side of things. But, y’know, a guy doesn’t get carried off into the night by a horde of the living dead for nothing.”
“Uh-huh,” Button said. He wasn’t quite sure whether to be repulsed or fascinated by the story.
“And then there was that guy who lived in the old Witch House,” Screwball shook her head. “Crazy.”
“Living dead again?” Button asked.
Screwball glanced up in surprise. “Nah, nah, he had a rat infestation.”
“Oh,” Button nodded, relieved. “Right.”
“Ate him right up,” Screwball continued, nodding shortly.
Button stared in horror. “And… people just let that happen?”
“Like I said, not a great school. Good sports program, though. Go MiskU Squids! Ia, ia, throdogoth fhtagn!”
“Hey, you want the rest of my soup? I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Yeah, sure.” She took his bowl and put it on her plate. “But, y’know, I guess I had a pretty good college experience. Helps that I had some family in the area.”
“More draconocci?”
“Nah, more… distant cousins. But, uh, you probably don’t wanna see the pictures.”
Button considered this. “No, probably not.”
“Cause, you ponies really don’t do that well with, y’know, the tentacles and the screaming and the eyes inside of the eyes and the rows of teeth and--”
“I get the idea.”
Screwball glanced away. “Right. Sorry.”
Button winced. “Uh, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to--”
“It’s fine. I get it.”
She started on the soup with a vengeance, leaving Button to contemplate awkwardly his empty plate.