“My, my, my, why isn’t Sunny’s smile right-side-up today?” Discord said as the pop of Chaosville’s portal ebbed into nothing around him. It sealed as if it had never existed as soon as Discord finished wriggling his noodly body from the blue-light edged tear.
“Gracious ponyfeathers!” Celestia gasped, bringing a forehoof to her chest in mortification. “Discord, why didn’t you write beforehoof?”
“Now, now, that’s just no fun,” huffed the draconequus. He slithered about and arranged himself so that he was perched right upon the sky-scraping pillar among the tallest spires of Canterlot’s skyline. “Oooh, what are we doing up here all alone, hrm? Pulling a Luna?”
“I’m just thinking,” Celestia said quietly, exhaling softly. Her eyes were warm, but the focus of her demure gaze was on the horizon. The great golden sun was being delicately lowered, dropping down the horizon with precision so boring and timely it might as well have been pin-straight.
Resistance was key, otherwise, Discord would have tossed the modest amount of control he was clutching onto and plunge the sun below the skyline. Then, of course, the temptation to whirl it around in a few planetary laps would rise, and maybe a few figure-eights for good measure… it was hard, certainly, since the sun submitted only to the terrifyingly powerful Alicorns meant to move it, but Discord would not be Discord if he thought expending magic on shows like that was a waste.
“Sooo, why pull a Luna tonight?”
“That’s not what this is called,” Celestia chimed, her words drained of any emotion beyond that of a teacher wanting to correct. When Discord brushed a paw fondly along her withers and pulled her next to him, all she did was let him.
Yes, his marefriend was certainly relaxed enough to go along with his motions, but nowhere near as reactive as she ought to be. Draconequui had few laws known to their kind. The first was that the first rule of things was always too significant and dull, so draconequui had no significant first laws of their kind. Somewhere around law five was that the lover of a draconequus was required by unlaw to swoon accordingly when showered with attention by their weirdly beloved.
“Is somepony worried~?” he teased, giving Celestia a goofy smile.
“No more than normal.” She didn’t look away, even as Discord levitated her crown right onto his head and began to prim and pose in the tacky piece. That, somehow, made the gaudy thing even more of a pretentious ornament than it appeared atop the ex-king of misrule.
Oh, could she make it even more obvious?
“So, you aaaare worried?” drawled Discord, unable to shake the ever-gossipy, attention-demanding pout to his tone.
Celestia frowned, though the imperfection was slight. Still, it was that much more than any of her subjects would glimpse of anything resembling displeasure from her. “Oh Dissy, what is life without somepony to worry about?”
She was earnest, horribly, terribly confused, and sincere in what she said. If he asked her to delve into the bottomless bit that was her feelings — forever unexplored and carefully contained — she would have that confusion to fall back on. It was easier than saying she was scared.
Discord wanted to say something, and wanted to say it quickly. But alas, for once there was a shred of an obvious impulse to Celestia, though not in the context where he would have wanted it.
She spoke quicker, and scattered all the thoughts he had of a reply. “You’ve told me not to worry about Luna before, but me not bothering to worry about her at all…” She couldn’t finish the thought, at least not softly. “Discord, the world nearly ended because I never worried enough. Yes, the very idea that somepony, or any creature, could ever worry too little… oooh, it’s absolute balderdash!”
“Ahem,” Discord said, tapping a single claw to his throat, “are you aiming to make sailors blush?” It was better than asking what was up with her and Luna (again) right off the bat.
In a rare moment of fluidity, Celestia gave a long, tired exhale. “I… I know you’re teasing, but I really am so peeved.”
With a snap, a bubble pipe found its way to Discord’s lip. Each iridescent, fragile thing glistened as they bobbed in the air of dusk. “Oooh, a guessing game? I’ll pick ‘What Has Celly Peeved’ for three-hundred.”
Tutting, Princess Celestia wrapped one large wing around Discord. She pulled him into a warm, downy embrace carefully, as though he were covered in something as fragile as eggshell and had to be inched in any direction. “I’m not even sure I can put a hoof on what it is either, Dissy.”
“The weather?” Discord moved to pop a bubble with a single prick of his lion’s claw. He went on to repeat the gesture with each of his guesses. “Oooh, is it one of those court-pests?”
“Ah, if only! I feel my problems would be so much simpler if they could just stay in politics.” Celestia looked down, watching her shadow grow and letting her horn dim as she lowered the sun. “I would understand them so much better if they did…”
The sound of a second snap rang out, and, right after, Discord reached behind Celestia’s ear. Before Celestia was able to have a proper, mildly astonished reaction, he pulled away with a paper gripped between his digits.
“Well, well, well!” He unfolded it, chortling loftily as he read. “It says right here that you have a noggin problem, Celly!”
Narrowing her eyes slightly, Celestia gave the parchment quite the look, the kind that told Discord she would very much like to see what was on the other side.
“I see,” Celestia murmured, trying too hard for an exaggerated, woefully inexperienced imitation of a detective. She relieved him of his bubble pipe, trying to blow a few successful bubbles between the occasional soapy cough. “I — ack — suppose — hic — we’ll just need to get — blegh — to the bottom — ick — of this.”
Now it was Discord’s turn to squint at Celestia. “Actually, we need to get to the top of things, Celly-dear. That’s how noggins work.”
Her horn had dimmed entirely now that the sun had sunk properly below the horizon, going out with the expected curtain or orange-and-purple light, without a single encore or loop-de-loop. So, yes, Celestia’s traditional pretty and proper display. Maybe one day she would use his input — though, he might have to refrain from giving suggestions on All Foal’s Day.
With a single careful motion, he whipped the bubble pipe from Celestia while she was mid-hiccup. He turned it around, flung it about, and put a zipper upon it just so he could unzip the silly thing and dump the contents right into his claw. Then, he flung it over his shoulder — and he didn’t hear it hit the ground, so that was definitely a good thing — and let it soar off the spire of Canterlot Castle and tumble to the fountain’s river so many stories below. He did take care to snap his little slip of paper away properly, though. Throwing that on the ground was littering. Everyone knew that as long as you weren’t littering or making too much of a ruckus and your taxes were paid with their weight in shoelaces, paperclips, and gummy worms, you were doing a-okay!
(After all, Fluttershy had taught Discord that sharing was caring, and that made ponies less of killjoys. What better way to lighten the day of killjoys like the Equestrian Tax Services than to give them a share of such delectable snacks?)
(Occasionally, he was generous enough — as per Rarity’s indirect-but-definitely-encouraging instruction — to thrown in some especially delectable found-under-couch-cushion vintage treats and gently used pistachio shells. Yum!)
While Celestia was still visibly processing the gesture in her cute, ever-polite, flummoxed way, he put a bit of soap in each finger. In no time at all, he had two bubble-sheen spectacles to prop over his eyes and squint through.
“Hrm, yes. I think I’m seeing the issue here. Do you know what it is?”
“Oh!” gasped Celestia, bringing a forehoof to hide the ‘o’ shape of her mouth daintily. How was it that she always made small ‘o’ mouths of surprise instead of big ones? “I don’t have enough to worry about, so I should find something to worry about properly? Well, I don’t think that would be so hard, since Twilight is probably mourning her library. I should write to her and ask if—”
“Ah, ah, ah! There it is!” Discord popped the faux lenses of his glasses, darting forward while Celestia had to muffle a sudden squeak. From between two of her feathers, Discord had plucked another slip of paper! “Look, Celly-belly! It says right here: a certain little sun goddess is suffering from burnout!”
“Noooo!” Celestia insisted, eyes pleading. Two forehooves flew to her cheeks in a plain, unhidden show of fear. “That can’t be! Winners don’t do drugs!”
“That’s, erm, not the kind of burnout I was talking about,” Discord said, clearing his throat awkwardly. He waved the second little slip of parchment around.
While it moved, Celestia was able to catch a glimpse of what was written there. That, of course, was absolutely nothing especially helpful at all. Drawn upon it in irregular, chunky crayon-and-macaroni lines was an especially rotund attempt at Celestia’s appearance — she shot Discord a gaze clearly saying they would discuss his artistic liberties later — and a wiggly rendition of Discord. The claw-writing of the draconequus immediately below labeled their nondescript, vaguely epileptic floating and half-melting state as being the chicken dance.
“Should I ask how you managed to glue those together so fast?”
“Only if you want to ruin the fun.” Discord wagged one claw at her, the gesture bearing his usual trickiness. One look at Celestia made it clear that she was going to question no more — but not without trying to puzzle out if the draconequus was serious or not.
“Ah well,” Celestia sighed, her ears flicking to the side. It certainly seemed like they were longing for the weight of her crown. “If we’re going to be worrying about worrying over whether I’m worrying enough, may I at least have my best thinking cap back, please?”
Giving an exaggerated, crabby scowl, Discord huffed and relented. He had to pretend not to look at her out of the corner of his eye, or how Celestia hummed as prettily she replaced it.
Once her crown was back in place, Celestia chuckled.
Discord’s ear swiveled in a full circle — he knew that Celestia’s laugh was too tired for so soon in the evening. “What has your cap revealed to you, Tia?”
“Oh… well, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps I ought to think about it some more—”
“Nope!” Discord snapped a beautiful, distracting bouquet into existence. A rainbow of daisies bobbed in front of the glum princess. “No more worrying! None! Zip! Zilch! Zero! You’ll get wrinkles!”
Unconvinced, Celestia brought a forehoof up to touch her slack expression, running the cold gold along her cheek. “My dear, I do believe that if I could age still, I would have done so by now. That simply won’t be happening for, well, the rest of eternity.”
One of Discord’s bushy eyebrows rose, but didn’t threaten to fly away — at least not this time. “Now, that’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Gotcha,” whispered Celestia, smiling softly.
Somewhere else in Canterlot, Luna was gradually bringing forth the night. Discord could see the stars starting to shine upon Equestria, each a pale and distant light. While Discord was content to look at the stellar arrangement unfolding above, Celestia contented herself by focusing on the flowers he clutched in his claws. Though he was the king of all fools, Discord was not foolish enough to think that Celestia was only concerned with the flowers, as delicious as they were.
“I don’t see why anypony has to worry about anything,” Discord said, shrugging. He drummed his claws distractedly along the castle pillar, scooting closer into Celestia’s wing as the wind blew by. “All it does is keep the chaos in your head — and that, my dear, is very boring business.”
“I’ve never had that luxury,” Celestia whispered, resting her head on Discord’s shoulder. “If I don’t worry about things, nothing good ever happens.”
“Have you had to worry about something lately?”
“Nothing more than usual,” Celestia said, her voice suddenly too cheerful to fool him like it could her ponies.
“This is about Luna, isn’t it?” he asked, sprinkling a small shower of petals over her muzzle.
“No, why would you — AAAAAHchiiii!” sneezed Celestia, pawing at her muzzle with her forehooves. She brought one wing to shield her face from the eyes of non-existent spectators.
Discord sniggered relentlessly. “There’s a sneeze of denial if I’ve ever heard one! Oh, you should have seen the look on your face! Your muzzle wrinkled up in a way that put raisins to shame—”
“And what about the look on my face now, hm?” replied Celestia, her tone chilly in contrast to the sizzling glare she was giving.
“I meant that in the absolutely-very-best-most-extra-sweetest way, of course!” Discord gave a wide, snaggle-toothed grin that was a tangled mess of attempted innocence and oh-so-apparent deviousness.
“Mhm-hmm.” Celestia gave her head a small shake, righting her crown with careful motions of her hoof. There was a faint tsking somewhere in her tone too, a typical subtlety to it she could rarely shake — even around him.
“Why Loony-Moon? Has she been up to anything lately?” Discord popped a claw full of petals into his mouth. He offered his next share of them to Celestia, who picked them up in the palest grasp of her magic, individually levitating them into her mouth.
“Oh, let me guess, Tia. She’s off writing some silly poetry, or going off about how she wants a Nightmare Night sequel again. What moping has she been up to?”
A striped bag of popcorn was already floating in the wild, multicolored grip of Discord’s aura.
Instead of joining in, Celestia only sighed. “No… she’s been… Luna’s been saying she’s too cooped up in the castle. When she’s not off on her own, she’s always chasing dragons and trying to make her royal duties into some adventure.” Frowning, Celestia’s gaze fell. “She knows how I feel about adventures. This is just…”
“Just…?” Discord trailed off, waving the remaining petals away with his magic and flailing his forelimbs about wildly.
“I don’t know how much more I can worry about her if she’s going to be this… lively. Good heavens, I have to worry about somepony, and she’s the biggest puzzle in my life. I haven’t seen Luna remotely free of suffering since she was a filly... I… I don’t really know the only family I have that matters to me. Dissy. I don’t want her to be… but if I were going to do that, I’d have to tell her… that I don’t understand her… that Luna is a stranger in the place I want her to feel at home. I can’t do that. I just can’t.”
“Celly…” Discord winced, tentatively letting his paw hover over Celestia’s back, debating whether or not he should touch her.
“She keeps to herself, certainly, but she knows how to keep going in ways I can’t. You said I’m suffering from burnout? Well, you’re right. I’m so burned out because I know that my closest kin is like that cursed minotaur trinket — the Pandora’s box of relatives — and to get to know her at all, I have to tell her I have no idea who she is. I want to know what’s best for her and make the best choices for, but she doesn’t want that, even though I love her just as much as I love my little ponies… I…” Celestia swallowed, dipping her head so that Discord couldn’t see her expression. “I… worry about her instead because it’s easier and I… I have to know who to worry about.”
Withdrawing his paw, Discord shifted his posture. His physique made it hard to appear anything other than loony or intimidating, but he sat as straight as he could, twirling his digits distractedly. “Why must you?”
“Twilight lives in Ponyville now,” Celestia whispered, expression foggy and unclear to Discord. “Cadance is now beyond my… I mean, she is married Shining Armor and is ruling my colony, and sometimes I'm not sure if that's... fair, I think that's the word I'm looking for. My staff is a symphony of loyalty, as always… and I have nothing pulled out from under my hooves, especially now that Tirek is gone for good."
Discord watched as Celestia turned to him, her eyes holding a distant, dull expectancy in them. A strange, cold feeling poked at his stomach — that she was looking past him, just this once. “I… I just need to know what to worry about next. I need to see it done, or the world might as well fall from my withers.”
A genius Discord was not, but he was aware that he was a creature who occupied a unique perspective, one afforded only to other divine beings, and not petite horsie subjects, Faithful Students, or presumably-faithful nieces. Celestia would never bear the world alone, for no one god bore it at all; they only contributed it and pulled it as they pleased. But not all the mules in the universe could equal even a single sandillion of what Celestia’s ornery nature was.
Most of the time, that part of her was fun. That she was the mare who could not budge from where she planted herself as well as bearing an infinite array of faces for him to come to know. In her predictability, she became unpredictable, and Discord could wish for no other puzzle of a partner.
The very edges of her mane and tail were bearing a silvery touch — not of the mortal aging Celestia could never reflect, but from the steam starting to curl from the waving forms. The stress was absolutely suffocated in her, and Discord knew immediately what to do. A swish of chaos magic and a snap later, and Princess Celestia was sitting before him, more startled than he had seen her in ages.
Her eyes were pinpricks in a wide sea of rose, and dripping from her coat, face, and mane was a torrent of ice-cold water. Discord whistled innocently as he tossed the bucket into empty air, where it vanished.
“Doesn’t anypony ever worry about you, Celly-belly?”
Water dribbled down to their shared marble seat as Celestia tilted her head. The gesture was nearly mechanical. “I… I’m not sure what you mean. That would be…. Bizarre, I think. Is there a word for that?”
“Ahem-ahem,” began Discord, beginning to count off on his fingers, “mushy, kindness, gushy, worryworting—”
“I don’t think that one is a word.”
“Shush! If I wanted grammar corrections, I’d be talking to a different princess.”
Celestia only hummed a noncommittal response, one that was frustratingly ambiguous. Yet, that was just another challenge for Discord.
“Well,” huffed Discord as an early night wind stirred his scrappy feathers, “I guess I’m just going to have to worry about you.”
“B-but that’s unfair! I don’t need to be worried about! That’s pish-posh, I say! Absolute pish-posh! Hogwash, pish-posh, and utter gosh-darned stale biscuits, I tell you!”
“Oopsie!” Discord grinned. “I’m unfair! I, the god of chaos, have turned the tables and peeved the fairest mare in all the land! What will happen now?”
“I… Oh, just you wait!” Celestia said, her cheeks colored slightly as she tried to smother her itty-bitty equivalent to a flustered outburst. “You can’t be like that! How am I to know where my hooves must be to write my future?”
Ah, there she was. Ever-convinced that she was the scribe of a Destiny no other god believed in.
“You don’t!” Discord grinned more broadly than he had all night, letting the beginning rays of moonlight glint from his claws and teeth. “It’s all a senseless vortex and all patterns are illusions!”
Right before Celestia could properly delve into a bout of hyperventilating, Discord leaned over to give her a familiar peck on the cheek. “Enough about Luna, Little Miss Goody Four-Hooves, and Princess Pinks. We’re never going to get oodles of nothing done by sitting around and trying to do something! Eugh, so dreadful, wouldn’t you agree?”
At last, some embers of Celestia’s veil of contentment had started to shine in her eyes once again. She knew this dance between them, of Discord who wanted to let the present vanish into an explosion of unplanned possibilities, running nowhere at all. Be it somewhere as close as ending up at her favorite high-end Canterlot restaurant or somewhere beyond the usual roulette of anticipation. He was entropy, certainly, but she was an orbit. He wanted her to provide that commanding air, even if it meant that he would simply have something to err from.
All it took was one look at seeing the start of a smile crossing Celestia’s faintly creased muzzle to know that their familiar stage had been set once again. He would deviate, and she would catch him once more, for she was the center flew around, even when nopony else could see so.