//------------------------------//
// Restaurant Wars 
// Story: Domestic Drabbles of Discord's Dimension 
// by GeekCat 
//------------------------------//

Discord and Fluttershy appeared in Canterlot with a flash of light. The two of them were well-dressed—Fluttershy wearing a simple blue dress and pink lip gloss, Discord wearing a fancy white dress shirt with iridescent sequins.

He unfolded a map, looking between it and the building they had appeared in front of. Miglior Cibo, a sign above its glass doors said. The outer walls were painted a tan color, with accents of red on the door and window frames.

"This is the place," Discord said, scrunching the map into a paper ball. "A little plainer on the outside than I had hoped for, but I suppose they're a bit new."

"But..." She tilted her head. "How would anyone know this is a Neightalian place? There's nothing here that says so..."

"Well, the extremely boastful name of their restaurant is in Neightalian," he said. "Not that that's much of a hint, since I don't know how many ponies in Canterlot actually speak that."

He adjusted his sleeves, showing off his one gold and one silver cufflink. "But we can talk about poor advertisement all night," he said. "So we don't we go in and talk about it over some plates of food?"

"Right," she said with a smile. She headed towards the glass doors, with Discord close behind her.

The inside of the restaurant was much fancier than the outside...though still not obviously Neightalian. The walls were gold, and the entire place was well-lit, with gleaming chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Tables covered in fancy white tablecloths were carefully arranged through the room, ponies sitting and eating at them—mostly in pairs of two.

Someone cleared their throat. She turned her attention back in front of her, and saw a lavender unicorn with a black mustache watching them from behind a podium. "Do you have a reservation?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Discord smirked. "Table for two, for Chaos, at six-thirty," he said, his voice slipping into a 'posh' accent. The stallion raised an eyebrow and checked his book...and then looked up at them with a smile.

"Ah, right this way, sir and madam!" he said, grabbing two menus with his magic. "We have one of the finest tables in the restaurant reserved for you both!" They followed him towards the back of the restaurant, where he led them to a balcony area, still inside, but higher than the rest of the restaurant.

"Oh, swanky," Discord said as they were escorted to a table close to a window. "Rarity didn't just mess around when she was making this reservation for us!"

"It is a nice anniversary gift," she said with a smile. "I don't know if we could've gotten in otherwise..."

"Oh, we're always happy to serve a Prince and Princess of Equestria!" the stallion boasted...conveniently loud enough for other patrons to hear. "I'll leave you two to look over your menus. Your waiter will arrive shortly."

He left, heading back for the podium. Discord's eyes quickly scanned over the menu options. "Ugh," he said. "Can you believe that the only drink besides water that they offer is wine? They could have had a cherry soda or something, at least..."

"Well, water is good for you," she said. "Are there any food options you like?"

"Maybe, maybe..." he mumbled, scanning the menu. She read through her own menu, eventually narrowing her choice down to a few different options that sounded good.

A minute or so later, a unicorn with a thin mustache approached. "Good evening, sir and madam," he said. "Could I interest you in a bottle of our house wine?"

"No, thank you," Fluttershy said. "Just water for both of us, please."

"Very well," he said. With a pop of magic, two water glasses filled with ice appeared in his aura's grip, and he set them in front of both of them. Another flash of magic, and he set a basket filled with slices of garlic bread in the center of the table.

"Please enjoy our complimentary, specialty garlic bread," he said. "Is there anything on our menu that grabs your attention? I recommend starting with our famous antipasto...or perhaps going right to our delicious pasta."

"Antipasta, huh?" Discord said as he eyed the menu.

"Antipasto, sir," the waiter corrected. "It's a traditional first course—a salad with olives, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, various cheeses..."

"I'll take two," Discord decided. The waiter rose an eyebrow and quickly jotted it down. "And...I'll take angel hair alfredo, and spaghetti with tomato sauce."

"And you, madam?" the waiter asked.

"Well...the three cheese penne sounds good," Fluttershy said. "Bruchetta is tomatoes, right?"

"Diced and with basil," the waiter said. "Would you still like it on your penne?" She nodded, and he made a note. "Excellent. I'll be back with both of your orders in a minute."

He left the table, and the couple was left alone to talk. "...this is a fancy place," Fluttershy said, glancing at the decor around them.

"Indeed," Discord said, munching on a piece of garlic toast. "A little too fancy for my tastes...I mean, they could have overdone things! Make spaghetti-themed chandeliers, a rug the color and pattern of sauce...or even just noodle decorations on the wall!"

She smiled. "I'm not sure the customers here would really like that kind of decor," she said, glancing at some of the posh upper-class ponies at the other tables.

"Their loss," he said with a shrug, grabbing another piece of garlic bread.

"Are you sure you want to eat so much of that?" she asked as he squirted a little bit of cheesy sauce onto it. "I mean, you did order a lot of food..."

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "I won't waste food...trust me." There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye, one that made her raise an eyebrow.

As he munched on the bread, he asked, "So, how's everything been with the sanctuary? Any more troublesome volunteers?"

She smiled, and took the opportunity to talk about how well things at the sanctuary were going, and which animals she was currently taking care of. Discord listened, leaning his chin against his fist as he focused all of his attention on her.





After a short amount of time had passed, the waiter returned, carrying several plates in his magic. "Three cheese penne for you, ma'am," he said, setting it carefully in front of her. "...and two antipasto salads, spaghetti, and angel hair alfredo for you, sir."

"Thank you," Discord said. The waiter refilled both of their glasses, and then left. Fluttershy picked up her fork and took a bite of her penne.

"Mmm," she said. "This is pretty good. What do you think, Cordy?" She took a bite of bruschetta and looked up...but to her surprise, he was arranging his plates on the table instead of eating.

She watched as he shifted the antipasto to one side and the pasta to another, with only a bit of space between them. There was a mischievous grin on his face—he was plotting something. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing that will hurt anypony, but something that will be very entertaining," he said, arranging toothpicks and utensils around the plates. "For me, at least."

Discord snapped his fingers. The antipasto ingredients suddenly sprouted tiny arms and legs, then jumped to their feet. "Death to pasta!" they cried in squeaky voices. With some difficulty, they all worked together to lift a fork, pointing it towards the spaghetti.

They charged forward, a few stray members arming themselves with toothpicks. They started to stab the noodles with the fork, pulling them out of the dish and onto the table...but before they could do much, the noodles suddenly shifted, rising up and twisting into the form of a tentacle.

It grabbed a knife and swatted the fork away. "Begone, antipasto scum," it said in a voice that could be called 'goopy'...though it did have an overdone Neightalian accent.

It raised the knife, and with a swipe, knocked away an olive. The vegetable was sent flying, hitting a far wall. The other antipasto cried out, and began to tear at the pasta with their hands and toothpicks.

Discord giggled merrily as he watched the food fight in front of him. "I do love dinner and a show," he said, popping a handful of bruschetta into his mouth and munching on it as though it were popcorn...complete with crunching sounds.

Fluttershy warily watched the warring foods, taking a slow bite of her penne. Thankfully, it didn't decide to rise up and protest. "...I don't know about this," she said. "It seems wrong to eat them after you've brought them to life."

"They're more like puppets, if it helps," he said. "Puppets under the influence of chaos. Once the magic's gone, they'll just be normal plates of food once again."

"Ah," she said. "But...if you eat them, aren't they going to act...scared about it?"

"Maybe," he said with a shrug. "I wasn't planning on eating them while they were 'alive', though." The angel hair had scooped up a few antipasto pieces and shook them until they stopped moving. Discord held his open mouth to the pasta, and it plopped its victims into his mouth.

"Hmm," he said as he chewed. "Not great, but not terrible. You said you liked yours?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "The bruschetta isn't as good as I had hoped, but the pasta is good."

"Ooh, mind if I try?" he said. She shifted the plate towards him, and a pink plastic spoon appeared in his claws. He scooped up a few pieces of bruschetta and ate them. "Hmm. Kind of bland," he said. "Here, try this."

With a snap of his fingers, a small bowl filled with bruschetta appeared next to her plate. She took a small bite...and smiled. "That's much better," she said.

"Isn't it?" he said, helping himself to a piece of her pasta. "They make a good cheesy pasta, though." He dropped the spoon onto the waiting antipasto army, and they immediately began using it to try and pull their pasta enemies apart.

They ate and chatted for a while, Fluttershy slowly working through her pasta, Discord being fed "sacrifices" by his food puppets. Just as he was regaling her with a tale of how he fought a giant spaghetti monster with a spork, the host came back to the balcony, escorting two white unicorns.

"It's always a pleasure to have you, Mr. and Mrs. Goldsmith," he said, leading them to a table. "If we had known you were coming, we would have reserved the whole balcony for you."

"Hmm," the stallion said, his eyes flicking towards her and Discord. Both he and his partner were wearing ornate fancy clothes. "We'll remember that in the future."

The two of them sat down, and a waiter quickly came and poured then two glasses of wine. "Ugh," Discord whispered. "I smell special treatment."

"Didn't we get special treatment?" she said quietly back.

"Yes, but theirs was even more special," he said. "And they're the snobbish type of upper-crust ponies, too." His ear curled around to point at them, and she glanced over to see that the two of them seemed to regard everything around them with disdain.

"I...maybe," she said. "But let's not worry about them." She reached forward to grab his paw. "This night is supposed to be for you and me."

He smiled, and the fingers of his paw slowly wrapped around her hoof. "I love you," he said. He picked up his fork, using it to catch one of the fallen antipasto soldiers. "Wanna try some?"

She smiled and eagerly ate the offered piece of food. "Hmm," she said, chewing slowly. "The way he talked it up, I thought it would be more...flavorful."

"Same," he said, nibbling on an artichoke heart. "It doesn't taste bad, but...I dunno.  I was expecting better, myself."

A forkful of noodles was suddenly tossed high into the air by an ambitious antipasto soldier. Discord watched as it soared up...and then slowly fell back towards the table. Once it had reached the level of his muzzle, he quickly bit onto the end and slurped it up.

He ate it so quickly that flecks of sauce sprayed across the table. A few of the noodles even widely flipped up to smack his face, painting lines of red sauce across his muzzle and cheeks. Fluttershy giggled, and he gave a chagrined smile as he polished off the noodles.

As he dabbed his face clean with a wet cloth, Fluttershy heard a loud, disdainful sniff from the table near them. She glanced over and saw the mare giving Discord a look—one that was just shy of a glare, really.

"I can't believe they let him in," she said snidely. "He completely ruins the atmosphere of this place."

Fluttershy froze, her eyes flicking towards Discord. It had been years, maybe even decades since anyone had actually badmouthed him in public... He seemed a bit stunned, one of his ears swiveled towards this nearest couple, but his expression didn't fall.

"Indeed," the stallion said, sipping from his wine glass. "You'd think he'd at least behave himself, to not be so...attention-drawing." Discord snorted, though it seemed to be more of a noise of amusement. "Why doesn't she do anything about him?"

"She must have horrible taste, I suppose," the lady said as their food arrived. "Or no spine at all. I don't know why the High Princess would have made her nobility, instead of somepony who actually knows how nobleponies are meant to behave."

Fluttershy's ears flattened against her head. She hated being talked about like this...why would a couple start saying bad things about another couple they didn't even know?

Discord growled, showing off his fangs. His pupils narrowed to slits. "Oh, someone's crossed a line..." he said in a singsong voice.

Before she could ask what he was thinking or doing, the warring food on his table suddenly froze. The leader antipasto shook hands with a single noodle strand of the spaghetti. Then...the spaghetti grabbed one of the artichoke hearts and pulled it inside of itself.

A moment later, the spaghetti "spat" it back out, handing it over to the alfredo. The cheesy pasta placed the artichoke heart on a spoon, garnished it with a bit of parmesan cheese...and then flung it towards the noblemare.

Fluttershy gasped. The sauce-covered artichoke heart smacked right against the mare's shoulder, staining her dress and bouncing off. The mare glanced down at herself...and shrieked.

"This dress cost hundreds of bits!" she yelled. "It was custom-made by Princess Rarity...who's going to pay for the cleaning?" Her glaring eyes roamed, making the stallion who was with her cower...and finally, her glare landed on Discord.

"You," she hissed, marching over to him.

"Me?" Discord said innocently, leaning back in his chair and sipping chocolate milk from a wine glass.

"You did this, didn't you?" the mare snapped, pointing at the stain on her dress. "Why don't you make your obnoxious magic useful for once and actually fix one of your mistakes?"

"Don't talk to Discord like that," Fluttershy said with a scowl. She gripped her fork tightly as it shook in her grip.

The mare turned her glare on her. "And you! Where was that...meek little confidence a few minutes ago, when he was playing with his food, being obnoxious, and staining innocent ponies' dresses?" Discord snorted in laughter.

"He wasn't hurting anyone," Fluttershy said, frowning. "He was just having a little fun...and wasn't even affecting anypony else until you started saying nasty things about him."

"Correction," Discord said, twirling his pasta around his fork. "I only got them involved when they starting talking smack about you, dear Fluttershy." He loudly slurped his noodles, sauce smearing his muzzle.

"Still!" the mare exclaimed. "Have you learned nothing about what nobility should act like? If you were a true gentlecolt, you would fix your mistakes." She gestured towards the stain.

"Hmm," he said, stroking his goatee. "A fair point, I suppose..." He sipped his chocolate milk and snapped his fingers. The mare smugly looked down at her stain...which grew twice as large before her eyes.

"I meant for the impact and stain to be bigger," he said as he poured grape juice into his milk, while she made angry, unintelligible sputtering sounds. "And now, I've fixed that mistake!" He sighed and looked lovingly at Fluttershy. "You were so right, darling...doing the right thing does feel good."

The mare's face turned bright red...and with an angry shriek,  she turned and stormed away. She made a beeline for the nearest poor waiter, who she began angrily ranting at, pointing at the two of them.

"Heh," Discord said smugly. "...I'm going to get in trouble for that," he said calmly, sipping his concoction. "But that was worth it."

"Oh, dear..." Fluttershy said, frowning as the poor waiter scurried off to find a manager. "She was a bit rude, but do you think you went a little far...?"

"Of course not," he said. "If someone was so rude, I'm sure Rarity herself would take the dress she made from them! Reduce it to the fabric and stitching it started as." He grinned, and his tail pointed to the other table.

She glanced over and saw that the antipasto and pasta dishes were now fighting on their table, too...though the war was much messier, sauce and oil splattering across the table cloth. The stallion didn't seem to have noticed, yet, his attention on his partner, who was tearing into the manager.

"Besides, fabric can be cleaned...even if it does take a little bit of magic," he said. "So really, I've just caused an inconvenience. Perhaps I overreacted...but not as much as she just did." He chuckled to himself, eating more of his now-docile pasta.

Fluttershy nodded, and slowly ate more of her own pasta, occasionally glancing over at the manager. Just when she was about halfway done with her bowl, he gave a weary sigh, pinched the bridge of his nose, and headed towards the two of them.

"I've heard that you, sir, have caused quite some trouble for one of our other guests," he said, addressing Discord. "Do you deny it?"

"Applejack always says to be honest," Discord said, dipping a few pieces of antipasto into a glass of apple cider. "And I can honestly say: she totally deserved it."

The manager sighed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "I understand that you're royalty," he said slowly. "But we have to request that you leave...and not visit our establishment again."

"What?" Discord said with a gasp. "You're kicking us out, but not the ponies who were loudly saying rude things about all the other customers?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Goldsmith are regular customers, and ponies who invested in us as we first started," the manager explained. "We will ask them politely to cease their behavior...but you two must leave."

"Ah..." Fluttershy's ears lowered.

"...fine," Discord said, standing up and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulders. "Their noodles are way too bland, anyway. If you're going to put all the flavor in the sauce, put more sauce on the noodles!"

He flicked a suddenly-appearing cape over his shoulder. "Oh, and your complimentary garlic bread was either burnt or underdone," he said. "Might wanna fix that." With his paw still on Fluttershy's back, he strutted towards the front doors, head held high.

Fluttershy noticed that as they went past, a few customers who hadn't been served yet—and even a few who had—started to get up and walk out behind them. Most customers stayed, though.

They walked out of the doors, and Discord stretched as he took a breath of cold night air. The other ponies who had left wandered away, muttering things about unfair treatment.

"Not exactly what I had planned," Discord said. "I was kind of hoping the spreading anti-pasta war and their rude behavior would get them kicked out, not us."

He gently patted her head. "Sorry I ended up getting us banned."

"...it's okay," she said. "The food was alright, but I don't think I would want to go back to a place that has...mean ponies like that for customers."

"Ah, true," he said. "...and I think others agree!" He gestured towards the small group of ponies that had left. "That's probably going to make a dent in their customer base...maybe even take a few bites out of their profits."

"Not everyone left, though," she pointed out. "Because we weren't...exactly blameless."

"That's no guarantee they'll come back again, though," he said. "And trust me, word of mouth can either help or hurt a business."

She nodded in understanding. "...I hope Rarity won't be hurt when we tell her about this," she said.

"...shoot," Discord muttered. "It was a gift from her. But...I doubt she'd be angry when she hears the experience we had."

"I suppose..." Her stomach suddenly growled, and she looked away with a blush. "I guess I didn't eat enough penne to be full..."

"Well...despite the fact I somewhat ruined our date at this restaurant...would you continue this dinner date with me?" he asked, dropping to one knee and holding out a black velvet box with...a small pile of spaghetti inside.

She giggled. "You didn't ruin our date here," she said. "At least...it wasn't completely your fault. And I'd love to continue this date with you."

"Wonderful!" he declared, snapping the box shut and standing up. He placed his paw on her head and began scratching behind her ear. "I've heard there's a more homey Neightalian place around here...one that's less posh, with better-tasting food than that."

She smiled as her stomach gurgled again. "Let's go," she said. He smiled and led the way, telling her stories of some of his own adventures in Neightaly as they went.