When Celestia awoke the next day, she immediately tried to contact her father. Her messages went unanswered. Next, she tried Athena. After waiting for what seemed like hours, she finally got a response from her teacher:
Dear Princess Celestia,
Your parents and I are very busy at the moment and I must ask that you stop sending us letters.
Your faithful tutor, Athena
P.S. Stop reading all of those old mythology books; the creature you told me about simply cannot exist.
Celestia was distraught, to say the very least. “Looks like I’ll be on my own.” Since she couldn’t just abandon her parents’ home with a monster running free in it, she began her march to the library. “Would it be awake by now? What if it’s angry? What if it’s stronger than me?” All of these questions and a hundred more flew through Celestia’s head as she began her approach on the doors.
When she finally reached the door, she slowly lowered her horn and inserted it into the doors’ lock. As she withdrew, the door gave forth a dull green glow. The large, steel lock trembled and eventually fell to the ground, leaving the massive doors wide open.
The library walls themselves were completely lined with books that covered every subject imaginable. From magic, to history, to sewing, to animal care, and even baking, the Canterlot library had it all. At the opposite end of the room, there were two large spiral staircases that led up to the second level. In the center of the first level lay a series of desks that ponies could use for their studies. It was here that Athena administered Celestia her lessons.
As she quietly snuck through the bookcases, Celestia began to grow unsteady. The creature was nowhere to be found. Finally, after a solid half-hour of scouring every last inch of the library, she heard a few books fall off of their shelves on the level above her. Cautiously, she flew up to the second level and grabbed a hold of the railing with her hooves, dangling there.
“On the count of three, I’ll pull myself up and give this monster everything I have! Nothing is going to scare Princess Celestia! One. Two. THREE!”
She pulled herself up onto the balcony, horn at the ready, only to find a few of her mother’s old textbooks strewn about on the floor. The monster was gone. Maybe it had escaped through one of the windows. Hay, it could have evaporated into thin air for all she cared. All that mattered to her was that it was at last out of her mane. This fact alone was enough to elicit a deep sigh of relief from the young princess.
No sooner did she finish her moment of relief, however, did she hear a cocky, sarcastic voice call from behind her, “Well, that was quite the close call!” She was paralyzed with fear. The voice spoke again, this time slightly more annoyed. “You can turn around, Princess.” She did as the voice said. There, lounging luxuriously on the railing was the creature.
“AHHHHHHHHH!” shrieked Celestia.
“EEEEEEEEKKKKK!” screamed the creature, trying to mock her. She continued her screams of terror until the monster laid his talon on her lips, as to shush her up. “That’s enough of that Celestia, thank you very much.”
“H-h-how do you know my name?” She asked it with a tone somewhere between confusion and unimaginable fright. The creature spun her around and directed her eyes toward the sign above her. It read “The Princess Celestia Wing,” and had an image of her cutie mark on it. Celestia blushed with embarrassment.
“What are you?” she asked, this time with a little less fear in her voice. The creature feigned shock.
“What am I? What am I?! I was expecting a pony who had her own library wing would also have a passable understanding of grammar! I am a who, not a what. My name is Discord, draconequus, and-.”
“Grammar lector too, apparently,” said Celestia. She was none too thrilled about being scolded by this bizarre thing in front of her (especially since she had hoped to avoid learning until Athena returned.)
“Hmph. Well, your incorrectness aside, I’m so glad you’re finally awake. After I finished reading, things got real boring around here.” As he said this, all of Celestia’s school books levitated up to their faces and opened up. As the tomes rotated around them, Celestia noticed that even the pages of books she hadn’t gotten to yet were wrinkled, slightly torn (as if by talons), and generally gave off a worn appearance.
“You-you read all of these in one night?!!” Celestia said in disbelief.
“I know! Such light reading. But I’m used to it, I guess. Not much to do besides read where I come from. Although I must admit this teleportation thing-.” He snapped and vanished in a flash of light. “-is really fun!” he cried from one of the desks below.
Celestia flew down to him. “So….you don’t want to eat me?”
“Eat you? Why would I ever want to do something like that when I have a fresh plate of gems right here?”
“I don’t see any-,”she bit her tongue. There, on the desk in front of them, appeared a large dish of blue sapphires.
Discord dug right in. “Fu, wan sum of dis?” he asked her with a full mouth.
She looked at the half-finished plate of azure rock. “Discord, these would cut into my mouth. A princess only eats the finest delicacies. Like roses, daisies, and tulips.”
Discord swallowed the last of his gems with a satisfied grin. “Why didn’t you just say so?” And with a snap of his fingers, the library carpet began to grow the greenest grass Celestia had ever seen, greener even than the royal gardens. From this grass, sprouted gigantic bushes of roses, daisies, tulips, daffodils, sunflowers, and any flower the princess could’ve imagined. This was far beyond anything Athena had ever taught her.
Since she hadn’t eaten for over 24 hours, Celestia hungrily devoured the bouquets, keeping in mind her royal manners, of course. “Maybe he isn’t so bad,” she thought, “Nothing that makes things like this happen could possibly be bad!”
When she finally looked up, she saw Discord levitating above her. “So, what is it that you ponies do for fun around here?”
She thought for a moment, and then it hit her. “Well, the castle is going to be empty so there won’t be much to do here. But we could go outside and spend a day in Canterlot!”
Discord smiled, bowed and directed Celestia to the door. “After you, Tia.” And with that, Celestia led the draconequus out of the library.