Luster Dawn, the prodigy of High Princess Twilight Sparkle, was at the library. She was working alone at a desk in a corner of the building, the early afternoon sun pouring in through a nearby window and illuminating the notes she had in front of her. No other creatures were in the library, for most decided to spent time outside and enjoy the warm, cloudless weather.
Not Luster Dawn, though. For she was in Ponyville to learn about friendship, and she never started a project such as this without the proper research! Which was why she had surrounded herself with books such as the Journal of Friendship, and old newspapers describing the adventures of the current Council of Friendship.
None of that was helping her figure out the question she had, though. With a sigh, she grabbed the glass of water beside her with her magic and took a sip from it.
"Buy me dinner first," the cup said with a huff. Luster Dawn's eyes widened.
The cup was furry and brown, with a grey rim. Two yellow-and-red eyes were glaring at her. With a scream, she threw it across the room, grabbing a heavy textbook from beside her and holding it up to shield herself.
The cup grunted as it hit the wall, rolling back into a standing position and shaking itself. "Goodness, what a throw," he said. "That almost hurt as much as the time Rainbow threw me."
"What are you!?" she yelled. And how do you know one of the princesses?
A flash of light covered the cup, and in its place stood a tall, mismatched being. He grinned. "'Who' would be a much better word, but I'll take any chance to introduce myself!" He bent low at the waist. "I am Discord, Lord of Chaos, Spirit of Disharmony, and Prince of Kindness. A pleasure to meet you, Luster Dawn."
She shifted further back in her seat. "H-how do you know my name?"
"Oh, don't you remember? I'm on the Council of Friendship! Twilight's told us all about you!" He flipped through one of the yearbooks of the School for Gifted Unicorns, showing her the pages she was on. "You do remember me, right?"
Now that she had a chance to think clearly, she did. Discord was listed as a member of the Council of Friendship in all the reports she read, and she remembered seeing him a few times before High Princess Twilight sent her to Ponyville to learn about the magic of friendship. "Yes, I...I remember you." He beamed at this. "But why are you here? Don't you have more important things to do than talk with me?"
He floated closer to her, and she slowly put her book down. "Oh, I'm not doing anything at the moment. See, the thing is...I need help with something," he said, popping his back, making a sound like a squeaky dog toy. "And since you're Twilight Version 5.5, I figured you'd be all about helping a friend in need."
She sighed, glancing down at her papers. "First of all, I'm too busy to help anyone right now. And the expression is 'Version 2.0'."
"No, there's been a Twilight 2.0," he said, flipping through a small pink book. "And a 3.0. And a 4.0. And then there was another Twilight, but it was literally just another version of her, so I guess that's a 4.5. Then you came along!" Cheers from an invisible crowd erupted around them, confetti showering down on Luster Dawn.
With a quick burst of magic, she covered her work with a dome so that the confetti wouldn't get on it. "That's nice," she said. "But I'm still too busy. Researching friendship has been taking up all of my time."
He floated into her line of vision, holding the book a little closer to her. "Even Sparklepants takes breaks from her research, 4.5. C'mon, live a little and have an adventure with me!"
She shook her head, jotting a fact down in her notes. "I do take breaks," she said, pointing to a pile of fictional books at a different table, with a glass of water and a single cupcake beside it. "But I'm not going to take one until I figure out what made friendship so appealing to all of High Princess Twilight's adversaries."
Discord stared at her break corner. "...That is a sad, sad type of break," he sighed, shaking his head and lowering the book he was holding over her notes. "And if only there was something that could explain one villain's thoughts as they experienced friendship!"
Luster Dawn glared up at him. "Look, insulting my habits won't make me want to help you! And it'd be nice if something like that existed, but I haven't found it yet in this library! So why don't you just—!"
He smacked her in the head with the spine of his book. "What was that—!" He smacked her again, tapping at the cover of the book. She used her magic to wrench it out of his grip, glaring down at the cover. "Letters Between Fluttershy and Discord?" she read. After a few seconds, her eyes widened. "Wait...!"
She turned to face him. "You're a reformed villain!" She began pulling out new quills and notepads, smiling brightly. "You can tell me everything! How did you react when you were offered friendship? How do you think your experience was different from others'? On a scale of Trixie to Grogar, how evil of a villain were you?"
He pulled the small book out of her grip and waved it at her. "Most of your questions will be answered by this little book," he said, a smug grin on his face. She reached forward to grab it, but he held it up above his head, wagging a finger at her. "But! I'm not the type to just give things away for free. Quid pro quo."
She sighed, looking down at her stacks of textbooks and notes. None of it had been able to solve her problem, and now there was a chance to get what could be the final puzzle piece. "What do you need help with?" she said with a heavy sigh.
His eyes glinted. "I thought you'd never ask." He snapped his fingers, and a puppet stage appeared in front of them. The curtains opened to reveal a backdrop that resembled Sweet Feathers Animal Sanctuary, with a wooden puppet of Princess Fluttershy dancing with small cardboard cutouts of animals.
"You see," Discord narrated. "I want to visit my sweet Fluttershy, to lighten up her day while she's at work." A sock puppet of Discord walked on stage. "And I want to give her a gift, but...!" The sock puppet dug through its pockets but came back empty-handed. It shrugged hopelessly at the Fluttershy puppet, who shook her head, but still walked forward to lean against him.
"I do have an idea of what to get her," Discord continued. A cardboard thought bubble dropped from above, covered with drawings of...bugs. Luster Dawn shuddered. "She likes all creatures, especially tiny ones. But whenever I try to make one, something goes wrong." A giant tarantula plush dropped from above, causing the Fluttershy puppet to 'faint'.
"So," said Luster Dawn. "You want me to get you a...bug."
"Not just a bug!" Discord said. "An amazing bug, worthy of Fluttershy. And you don't have to do it alone...I just need another pair of hooves to help out so I can find something faster."
"Does it have to be a bug, though?" she asked.
"Well, do I give you the full book, or just a few pages?" he said in response, waving the letters collection at her.
She groaned quietly. "...Fine, I'll help you catch a bug."
Discord smiled widely and snapped his fingers.
The two of them appeared in a field of tall grass, each carrying a net over their shoulder and wearing a large, floppy hat on their head. "Let's find some bugs!" Discord cheered, swishing his net through the grass in front of him.
Luster Dawn lifted the net with her magic and began to walk through the grass, looking around for any sort of insect. The sun felt hot after a day spent studying, and she was very glad for the hat that shielded her eyes. Already, she wished was back at the cool library, with a book and glass of water always on hoof.
Thinking of the library made her think of all the reading she could be doing, or the interviews she could be conducting. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she yelped and reared back when a grasshopper landed on her muzzle.
At her swift movement, it immediately hopped away into the tall grass. She watched it go, panting, and wiping quickly at her muzzle. "You need to be faster than the bugs, partner!" Discord said, offering her a hand to help her off of the ground. "It's fine, though. That was only a common grasshopper, and certainly not worthy of Fluttershy."
She accepted his help and dusted herself off once she was back on her hooves. "Thank you," she said. He nodded, and after a few more seconds of pushing through the grasses, she spoke up again. "Sir? Can I ask you a few questions about friendship?"
He chuckled. "No need to call me 'sir'. And if you can search and talk at the same time, fire away. But if I see you note-taking instead of bug-hunting, I'll eat your quill."
She gulped, canceling the spell she had been preparing to summon a notepad. "Okay. First of all, are bugs a normal gift to give to friends?"
He shrugged. "I don't know much about normal...but I don't think so. Most ponies aren't big fans of bugs. But as I said before, my Fluttershy loves all creatures, and I like to spice things up by giving her something that isn't another little furball."
Luster Dawn nodded. Don't consider bugs normal. Got it. "Do friends use terms of endearment like you do?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking at some ants with a magnifying glass.
"Well, you keep calling her 'your' Fluttershy. Is that something that friends do?"
"Uuuuuuh," he said, looking up at her and dropping the magnifying glass away from the ants. "That's more of a romance thing. You do know I'm actually married to her, right?"
Her eyes widened, and she spluttered. "M-married? None of the reports I read mentioned you two were married!"
"Oh, if you were just looking into the Council of Friendship reports, it wouldn't have been there. You would have had to look at newspapers from this date." He wrote on a Post-it note, showed it to her for a second, and dropped it into a small portal that showed her research desk on the other side. "Seriously, though, why did you think I had the title 'Prince of Kindness'? I didn't exactly earn it alone."
She swallowed. "So...why would your book help me? I'm trying to learn about friendship, not romance!" She dropped her net and started to walk to the edge of the field.
Discord appeared in front of her, holding up a stop sign and blowing a whistle. "Time out!" he yelled. "What made you think the book of letters won't help you learn about friendship?"
She tilted her head. "Well...you're married to each other." Discord tilted his head. "Doesn't that mean those letters are going to be about romantic feelings, instead of platonic?"
His mouth twisted into a curvy line, his eyes scrunching up. She was worried she had upset him for a second...and then he burst out laughing, sinking down to the ground as he howled with laughter.
"Ahahahaha! You think that I...you think we...hahaha!" he laughed. After a few minutes of this, he finally stopped and got back onto his feet, swiping a tear out of the corner of his eye.
"Heh. You know that we didn't have romantic feelings when we first started writing these letters, right?" he said, holding up the book. "We started officially dating loooong after Twilight first became a princess...just before her coronation as High Princess, actually. We were writing letters to each other before she even got her wings, and stopped a little while after we started dating."
"Oh," she said, rubbing at the back of her head. "So...it's all platonic?"
"Well, sort of," he said. "Even if we weren't dating, there was a point where we started to have romantic feelings for each other, and that might have seeped through."
She groaned, rubbing a hoof against her forehead. "So you were friends the whole time you wrote those, but there's still romance? That doesn't make sense!"
He smiled. "Want some extra confusion?" She shook her head, but he continued anyway. "I still consider her my best friend, even though we're married."
Luster Dawn sat down, holding her hooves in front of her as though she could put the pieces of this puzzle together. Discord ran around her, yelling at the dragonfly he was trying to catch. "It doesn't make any sense," she said. "You started as friends, then got married...but you're still friends? How does that work?"
He huffed as the dragonfly escaped him, and began digging in the ground, revealing beetles and worms. "Well, I'm not much of an expert...but the way I see it, once you're friends, you're friends forever." A butterfly landed on his muzzle, which he paused to stare at before continuing, "Unless one hurts the other, or changes too much of themselves...there'll always be something to keep you together."
Luster swung her net at the butterfly as it flew off, but just barely missed it. "But wouldn't your relationship becoming romantic replace your friendship?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "Of course not. My relationship with dear Fluttershy is irreplaceable, both as my wife and my friend. I'd do anything for her: that's as a friend and as a husband."
Luster sighed. He leaned over and patted her head, smearing mud into her mane. "It's not something you need to understand. The connection between Fluttershy and I has always been very...unique." He grabbed his net and resumed his search, while she used her magic to expel the grime off of her.
Luster followed him, carrying the net over her shoulder. After a few minutes of walking and searching the grass, during which he made a few jokes to make her laugh, Luster saw a beetle with a sparkling green chassis. "Would this work?" she asked.
He gasped. "An iridescent emerald beetle! Yes, that is a bug worthy of my dear Fluttershy!" He held up his net...and saw there was a large tear in it. The beetle opened its wings and flew away with a loud buzz.
"Quick! Catch it, before it gets away!" Discord shouted. Luster nodded and ran after it, swinging her net blindly back and forth. After a long chase, she finally managed to catch the beetle inside the net, smacking it to the ground. The beetle buzzed angrily at her, struggling in the net.
Discord teleported next to her, holding a rectangular plastic container. "Here, put it in this!" After a few seconds of shuffling, they managed to get it inside the container and seal it shut. The beetle tapped at the side of the glass, and Luster could swear it was glaring at both of them.
"It's perfect," Discord said. "Now, off to see Fluttershy!"
"Wait, what about my—" he snapped his fingers before she could finish.
"—book?" she finished as they appeared in Sweet Feathers Animal Sanctuary in a flash of bright light. Just a few feet ahead was Fluttershy, who was watering a patch of flowers, humming a soft song. Discord grinned and silently floated up to her.
He suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her. "Miss me?" he asked, a wide grin on his face. Fluttershy yelped and dropped her watering can.
"Discord!" she cried. "Don't startle me like that!"
He chuckled. "Sorry, my dear. I'm just so happy to see you, I can't contain it!" He kissed her cheek, and her expression softened into a smile. She laid her head into the crook of his neck, nuzzling him. He blushed, and with a cough, said, "I brought you something."
He pulled the container with the beetle out from behind his back. Fluttershy gasped and gently took it in her hooves. "An iridescent emerald beetle!" She nuzzled his neck again. "Thank you so much, sweetie."
He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well, I didn't catch it alone." He pointed to Luster Dawn, who waved nervously at Fluttershy.
Fluttershy smiled. "Thank you, Luster Dawn." She looked up at Discord. "I hate to be a bother, but...one of the volunteers dropped a textbook in the pond again. Could you go fish it out, please?"
He saluted, suddenly wearing a snorkel, goggles, and a pair of swimming fins. "No problem, captain," he said. He glanced at Luster Dawn and tossed something in her direction, which she quickly caught with her magic. It was the book of letters. "The book, as promised. Thanks again for your help!" With that, he ran over to the pond and dived in with a large splash.
Fluttershy giggled and approached Luster Dawn. "Do you want to help me find a home for this little one?"
Luster Dawn looked up from her book. "What? Oh! Yeah, alright. If it doesn't take too long."
Fluttershy began to guide her through the sanctuary. "How have you been? I haven't seen you since Twilight sent you here."
"Oh, I've been fine. My research into friendship has hit a few snags, but the library here is very extensive." She held up the small book. "And now, I have a new primary source to work with!"
Fluttershy's smiled faltered. "Have you only been using books to learn about friendship?"
"Well, no," Luster said. "I've also used some newspapers and Council of Friendship reports, not to mention observing friendship in action in Ponyville."
Fluttershy sighed. "That's not..." After a few seconds of silence, she asked, "How many friends have you made here, Luster?"
Luster thought. "Um...a few? On my first day here. But then when I thought about it, I realized that I didn't have enough information about friendship, and I know from experience that the best way to start a project is with thorough research into the subject matter!"
Fluttershy sighed. "Luster, I'm sure Twilight didn't want you to think of this as a project. She wants you to relax and make friends. There's so much to learn about friendship, and the only way to learn all of it is to spend time with your friends. Not through books and research."
Luster tilted her head. "But without research, how am I supposed to know where to start?"
"A conversation is a good way. Find out what you have in common," Fluttershy said. "And I know from experience that knowledge isn't going to improve your confidence in anything as much actually doing something will."
"The best way to make friends is to go out and talk with creatures. Spend time with them." She smiled, shaking her head. "I'm sure that's the real reason Discord decided to drag you any from your research."
"What makes you say that?" Luster asked.
Fluttershy rounded the corner, showing her a tree covered in soft, spongy moss. It was covered in beetles...including several more iridescent emerald beetles.
Fluttershy carefully guided the beetle out of the container onto the tree. Luster stared silently, her eyes slowly narrowing into a glare. "So Discord dragged me away from my work to catch a bug...for no good reason!?"
Fluttershy shook her head. "He had his reasons. I'm sure he just wanted you to realize that that friendship isn't just about research. Besides, he did give you a book to help you."
Luster scowled, glaring at the book. "It would have just been easier for him to tell me all of this!"
"Discord has always had a...unique way of helping creatures," Fluttershy said, smiling. "But I'm sure he meant well."
Luster sighed. "Thank you for telling me this. I think I'll go back to the library now."
Fluttershy nodded and led her to the edge of the sanctuary. "Sometimes, students from the School of Friendship volunteer here," she said. "It's a great way to meet new creatures if you give it a chance."
Luster looked around. The sanctuary was just as peaceful as it had been one the day she'd first come to Ponyville, with all sorts of animals scurrying around, jumping through the portals that would pop into existence. But looking closer, there were signs that groups of ponies and other creatures had been there—a trail of hoofprints and clawprints here, a forgotten notebook there. "I'll...I'll think about it," she said, making Fluttershy smile.
She turned to leave as Discord crawled out of the pond with a book in his mouth, shaking himself off like a dog. As she continued towards Ponyville, she skimmed through the first few letters, mentally noting important parts for when she got back to the library.
"Luster! Luster Dawn!" someone called. She lifted her nose out of the book, looking around. At a nearby cafe, a tan-coated Kirin with a bluish mane and red horn was waving at her. Next to her were a dark-feather griffon wearing a red scarf, a yak with a strawberry blonde mane tied in braids, and a pale yellow earth pony stallion—the creatures she had met when she first came to Ponyville.
She slowly approached them, noticing they all had large shakes in front of them. "H-hi, everycreature," she said. "W-what's up?"
The Kirin—Summer Wood, Luster remembered—smiled. "Oh, just a quick snack break, before we get back to doing some homework together," she said. "What about you? Homework must have been keeping you pretty busy—I haven't seen you since your first day!"
Luster flinched, scuffing at the ground with a hoof. "Well...sort of. I've also been doing some research on the side," she said, not quite looking any of them in the eye.
The stallion patted the empty seat next to him. "Well...do you want to join us? The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and these shakes are delicious!"
Luster glanced in the direction of the library, then at the table of smiling friends. With a quiet sigh, she slowly approached and sat down, setting her new book down at her side. As she was dragged into a conversation the others had been having about homework and study groups, she felt her smile becoming more relaxed and genuine and found herself conversing without evening thinking about the research into conversation topics she had conducted. She started laughing and speaking more and more easily.
None of the group noticed the dranconequus watching them, perched in a nearby tree branch.
Discord lifted up his sunglasses, leaning forward to get a closer look at what was going on. Luster Dawn was spending time outdoors, on her own...without using her research as a crutch. He nodded to himself and pulled a handheld mirror out of thin air.
"Mission accomplished, Your Majesty," he said with a salute. "Luster Dawn is socializing with friends." He turned the mirror towards the small group.
The image of Twilight that the mirror showed sighed, and her shoulders and wings relaxed. "Thank you, Discord," she said. "I didn't want to step in and make her feel forced to do anything, but I couldn't just stand by and do nothing. And you're the perfect creature to annoy others enough into doing things on their own."
Discord chuckled. "Careful, princess. That was almost a compliment." He glanced back at the laughing group of friends. "Hopefully they can take it from here. I doubt Luster will go along with another one of my impromptu lessons."
Twilight chuckled. "Probably not. Thank you again for your help. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to prepare some paperwork for the next Council meeting."
Discord gagged. "Ugh, work. Well, I'm going to go do something fun. Later, book princess." He snapped his fingers, transforming the mirror into a large purple-and-pink lollipop. He tossed it into his mouth and teleported to the sanctuary with a flash of light.
Fluttershy stood up as soon as she saw him. "Did it work?" she asked.
He nodded, chomping at his lollipop. "Like a charm," he said. "Though it was probably thanks to you telling her she needed to get her head out of the books and get a life."
"Well, I didn't say it quite like that," she said.
"Which is exactly why you were the pony to say it!" he said, clapping his hands. "I would have mucked it up. I did not, however, mess up the timing of her running into that study group's shake break!" He frowned. "I hated having to learn their—ugh—schedule." His entire body shivered.
Fluttershy smiled and flew up to him. "Well, it's done now. Do you want to have some shakes of our own to celebrate?"
He snapped his fingers, creating a giant chocolate shake with two curly straws. "I would love nothing more," he said, placing the shake on a large toadstool between them.
As they started on their shake, Discord's left eye became foggy as he cast one last glance at Luster Dawn. She was walking to the library...with the rest of her friends, who she was still happily chatting with.
He smiled and blinked the image away, turning his attention back to Fluttershy and their milkshake.