Head Full of Cotton Candy

by TheManWithTwoNames

Chapter Fourteen

I do not own any of the characters contained in the following work. “My Little Pony” and all subsequent properties belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust.

I know I’m trying to make it sound really optimistic and happy-go-lucky and hahaha but seriously this is still a kidnapping why won’t any of you send for help?

        The tension in the air was palpable. Neither the pony, the draconequus, nor the dragon dared to make the first move that would spark their battle. They remained motionless as they silently analyzed their opponents and planned their attack. Screwball kept her muscles tense as her eyes darted to look at every inch of the scaly behemoth’s body, trying to anticipate what it would try first. She had to be ready to move out of the way at a second’s notice if the creature struck first. While she had the utmost confidence in Discord’s ability to handle the dragon on his own, she was less confident in her own ability to survive a duel against one of Equestria’s most powerful beasts, and the idea of being struck by two tons of solid muscle was an unappealing one.

        Discord folded his arms folded across his chest and tapped his talon against his forearm. It had been a long time since anyone besides Celestia and Luna challenged him directly, and he was aching to try a few tricks he was saving for a special occasion. And fighting a dragon certainly qualified as a special occasion. He was helpless to stop his lips from curling into a smirk, internally laughing at the excitement of it all.

        If he couldn’t feel the heat coming from its nostrils stinging his eyes, Discord might have mistaken the dragon for a very lifelike statue. The lizard stood firmly on all four claws, its legs locked in place with not so much as a talon twitching. Its wings were half unfurled and ready to lift it into the sky in a matter of seconds. Discord had to turn up to look the dragon in the eyes as the beast kept its head lifted high to best look down on them.

        The dragon opened its mouth and Screwball tumbled out of the way.

        “Aren’t you going to say hello?” The dragon tilted its head at the confused and embarrassed pony splayed out on the grass. “That was certainly spontaneous.”

        “Hello...?” Screwball said uncertainly as she pulled herself up to her hooves and walked back to Discord’s side.

        “Hello. How are you?” the dragon returned. Its voice was deep and authoritative as any dragon’s voice ought to be. But its tone was completely devoid of any anger or ferocity, which made Screwball unsure if she felt mildly comforted or even more worried because of it.

        “I’m... well. Traveling around with... with Discord.”

        “Ah, traveling. That sounds like it must be very fun. Where are you headed?”

        “You know... Just around...” She couldn’t take any more. She spun her head toward Discord, who had been silently watching the scene with some interest and some popcorn. “Discord, what’s happening right now?”

        “If I had to guess,” he said through a mouthful of popcorn, “I would say you are having a pleasant conversation with a dragon.”

        “I think we have different definitions of the word ‘pleasant,’ but yes, I agree,” the dragon chimed in.

        “Alright. That’s what I thought, too.” She spent a few moments looking from the enormous dragon who was trying to hold a conversation to her, to the patchwork draconequus made from half a dozen different animals who controlled the entire world, to the squirrels wearing tiny red capes and flying through the pink and yellow tie-dyed sky above her. “Ohh, I get it. I’m actually crazy. I went insane twenty years ago and this is all in my mind. This makes sense now.”

        “You really don’t recognize me?” the dragon questioned, sounding more amused than insulted.

“Were you a pony I changed into a dragon one time?” Discord asked as he scratched between his horns. Screwball’s eyes bulged.

“You changed ponies into dragons?”

“I changed a lot of things,” Discord answered with a careless shrug, “It’s sort of my gimmick.”

        The two covered their ears to protect themselves from an unholy squeal that threatened to shatter their teeth and liquefy their brains on the spot. Screwball was certain that if a hundred manticores raked their claws across a hundred chalkboards which had all learned to scream in pain when clawed by a manticore, it still wouldn’t have compared. Just as she was certain she could take no more, it came to an immediate stop. She uneasily set lowered her hooves one at a time, unwilling to let them get too far away should the assault resume. She could not find any clue of the calamity’s source, though the dragon looked as though he hadn’t heard a thing.

        “By all that is turbid!” Discord cried, “What was that?! It sounded like the gates of Tatarus screeching open!”

“Sorry. I yawned,” the dragon explained, smacking its lips a few times to chase the last of bored sigh out of its throat. “But if we’re going to wait for you two to guess, it’s going to take all day—however long that lasts. So let’s speed this up. I’m Patsy. We only met a few times and it’s been a few decades, so if you can’t remember there’s no hard feelings.”

“I remember you!” Discord vanished in a flash and began pecking at the top of Patsy’s head with his talon. “You were the leprechaun with the cotton candy salespony, right?”

“That’s one way to put it, I guess.”

“You certainly grew up. I don’t imagine you’d pass for a leprechaun now.” Discord crossed the length of Patsy’s body, sliding down his neck and down to his tail. Once he reached the end, Patsy swung his tail up to catapult the draconequus off of him.

“Enough!” he barked, sounding a bit like a real dragon before restraining himself. “I’m a dragon, not a playground. But this a real stroke of luck. I was hoping I would run into you two again. At first I thought I’d try following the jabberwocky’s scent—wood roasted teriyaki coconut, if you’re curious—but I gave that up pretty quickly. As it happens, I was just out stretching my wings when I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye and I got a whiff of you.”

“I’m feeling very proud in myself,” Discord said as he puffed out his chest and took a whiff of his musk.

        “Yeah, I’m not having you get that smell on me,” Patsy said flatly. He turned to the right and unfurled his wing toward Screwball with an inviting nod of his head. “Come on, I won’t wait all day.”

        “Excuse me?”
        
“Do I have to really spell out everything I say around you?”

        “Pretty much,” Discord butted in, ignoring the dirty glares directed his way. “Sometimes twice.”

        Choosing not to dignify the two’s mockery with a response, Screwball lifted her nose in the air with a snort and strutted indignantly onto the dragon’s wing. She did her best to mimic the gait that she had seen countless times from Canterlot noblemares after she made a jest about them at a party. The thought of acting like them was enough to bring her head right back down. Heavens forbid she ever let herself get so snobby. She toppled forward when Patsy lifted his wing, and smacked into the spines on his back. Shaking herself off, she let her curiosity overtake her and prodded at the hard scales with a hoof. It was unbelievable how hard they were. It was like touching a boulder with scales on it.

        “Yes, I can feel that,” Patsy called over his shoulder. Screwball gave a guilty laugh and gripped onto a spine as the dragon began to beat his wings and take off into the air. She held on for dear life as she was tossed up and down by the undulating of Patsy’s spine as he fought against gravity. After nearly a minute of violent flight, Patsy kept his wings still at his side and began to glide along the hot air currents.

        “You still back there?” the dragon teased. Screwball moved her mane out of her face and let her glare be her only answer. Unfortunately, the whizzing of the propeller beanie just above the star softened the effect. “Yeah, it’s not a smooth ride for the first bit. But would you have rather flown with him?”

        Screwball and Patsy turned to see Discord floating merrily along the clouds in a canoe, using an oversized spatula to paddle himself along.

        “Are you going to keep that up the whole way?” Screwball asked.

        “Only until I get bored or hit an iceberg. Don’t look at me like that, you’d never believe how common they are up here. But when I’m done with this, I’ve got my spare flying umbrella and my magic feather on hand.”

        “Alright, you have a point there,” Screwball conceded to the dragon. “So how long until we get to... wherever it is we’re going?”

        “It’s only another hour or so.” Screwball leaned against Patsy’s spines and did her best to be comfortable for the ride, which was easier said than done. She could have done with a little less banking around clouds and the dipping up and down really wasn’t necessary. And the scales were still a bit too tough for her liking. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to her if she ended the ride with a knot in her spine.

        She sighed and ran a hoof through her mane, bringing a few white strands of her mane into the corner of her view. When did she get so old? She hadn’t aged a day since that night at the inn. She never felt exhausted after a long day like most ponies her age would. For all appearances, she was still a twenty-one year old mare. Never running out of energy would have been a wonderful gift if she wasn’t always too worried about every little thing to ever enjoy it. She supposed she never had that sort of courage even twenty years ago. As a jester she had to put on that disguise and play the part of a hellion, but she never had the nerve to cut loose as herself. Maybe she had been an old mare all along.

        She took her mind off of herself and turned her attention to the draconequus still happily paddling along in his canoe. Her mouth spread in a soft smile when she thought of how enthusiastic Discord had always been in any situation he found himself in. He wasn’t the wide-eyed dreamer he was twenty years ago, but he still showed that same spark of life in everything he did. She prayed that he would never lose it. Perhaps that confidence and courage was just part of who he was, because he certainly never learned it from her.

“I didn’t know dragons got this big in just twenty years,” Screwball said, not wanting to let her mind linger on unhappy thoughts for any longer.

“Twenty years?” Patsy laughed in his throat. “I got this big overnight. I took a nap outside one day and I woke up big enough to be a star attraction at the circus. Not that I’m complaining about it.”

“You’re still at the circus?”

“No, we packed up and left a long time ago. Three Ring was sorry to see us go. We’re set up in Manehattan now.”

“What’s Masky’s new scheme there?”

        “You’d never believe me if I told you.” The mischievous grin made it clear that he wanted to keep it a surprise. “Enough about me, what have you two been up to?”

        “Oh... Well...” Screwball faltered for a moment, unsure of what to say. She knew that the dragon wasn’t really inquiring about Discord; someone would have to be deaf and blind to not know what he spent the last twenty years doing. And she had no interest in recounting her last few decades of loneliness. She doubted it would have made for any sort of pleasant conversation. But as always, her rescuer appeared just in time.

“Do I have some stories I could tell you!” Discord exclaimed as his canoe hit an iceberg. He jumped from the sinking ship and landed on Patsy’s spines, balancing perfectly on the point with one paw. “You’ve heard of the Bermarda Triangle, right? I had been wondering what would happen if somepony flew straight into it, so...”

        Screwball had thought that Manehattan was a hectic and crazy place the last time she had come to the city. But however bad it had been, it was nothing compared to the madhouse she was flying over now.

        The buildings that weren’t giving each other makeovers were caught in a city-wide conga line. A few of the black paved streets curved and flowed like ocean waves, sweeping ponies away in the current. In other places, the roads moved like enormous treadmills that would reverse direction every few minutes. A ratbird settled down on a candy-striped street light for a few seconds before the pole curved back and launched the squeaking creature through the air. An enormous chunk of the city had been completely overgrown by a thick jungle, which explained where the building-scaling gorilla had come from. (The jury was still out on the origin of the small, buzzing objects that were flying in circles and dive bombing the animal.) Some sort of giant ten-legged cat creature would bus around the city before stopping at a random location on the side of the street. It would then open its mouth wide, and a number of ponies took turns exiting and entering the creature before it started running off again. Rising from the center of an otherwise ordinary park was a towering, black volcano capped off with some kind of silver dome. Eruptions must not have been a concern as ponies were still scattered around the grassy field, but Screwball still didn’t like the look of the giant telescope extending from the dome which seemed to be staring right at her. In another corner of the city, an enormous dragon and equally gargantuan metal creature were locked in a heated game of Twenty Questions. Giant hot dogs sold pretzels to ponies at street corners. Nothing could walk down one particular avenue without breaking into song and dance. Some roads were impossible to walk through because of the barricades of yellow gnome-like creatures all standing behind one another and shouting “Beep beep!” as loud as they could.

        And through it all, the Manehattanites continued to go about their lives as though everything was just business as usual. Not a single soul so much as batted an eye when a parade of self-playing instruments marched past them. Because nothing, not even a world gone completely insane, could ever hope to prevail over the unshakable, indomitable, unwavering, thick-headed stubbornness of a Manehattan citizen.

        Discord, Screwball, and Patsy each looked down at the city with different eyes. Discord viewed his handiwork the same way a painter viewed his own artwork, looking at it from every direction to find some new way it could be improved. Screwball was twisting her head around in an attempt to just try to process what she was looking at. Pasty paid no mind to the lunacy and simply focused on scanning the buildings below him to locate his target in the ever-changing city.

        “Where is it today...?” he mused. His eyes lit up and he lifted his wings above him, making himself dive down toward the ground. “There you are! Oh, and you should hold onto something.”

“Now you tell me!” Screwball shrieked over the rushing wind as she clutched against Patsy’s spines with all of her strength. She finally lost her grip when they landed with a solid thud, the force knocking her completely off the dragon’s back. Discord wrapped his tail around her stomach before she hit the ground, holding her in place for a few seconds to let her catch her breath before he set her down on the street.

        The building Patsy had brought them to wasn’t particularly special-looking. There were no noticeable features that made it stand out among the other buildings all around it. In fact, it was completely featureless. It had no door or windows. The walls were devoid of any sort of texture or irregularities in color. It was nothing more than a tall, unassuming, red block sitting peacefully against a backdrop of anarchy.

        “I like the color,” Discord said.

        “You’ll like the inside even better,” Patsy said mystically.

        “How do we even get in?” Screwball asked. Patsy invited her to touch the wall, and she was surprised when her hoof sunk through the moment she touched it. She quickly retracted her leg and cradled it gently, half-expecting it to have come out backwards. Discord was entertaining himself by poking the wall in odd spots, making it ripple in patterns like raindrops on the water.

        “I like this building already.”

        “Just hold your breath when you step in,” Patsy instructed, “otherwise you’ll never be able to get the taste of ketchup out of your mouth.”

“You’re not coming in, are you?” Screwball asked.

        “I’m certainly not going to be waiting outside when it’s so close to dinner time.”

        “But you’re nearly half the building’s size.”

“Don’t worry,” Patsy said with a devilish smirk, “I’m sure you can find some room if you squeeze in.” Without another word, he lumbered forward. The walls bent and curved as he pushed through it, his enormous body disappearing into the small building like a magic trick. Once the tip of his tail had been pulled through, the wall bounced around a bit and went still, leaving no sign that a dragon had just plowed into it.

        “This is going to be fantastic, I just know it,” Discord said as he rubbed his palms together in anticipation. He took a step in and was delighted by the feeling of the wall morphing and wiggling around him. It was like stepping inside a giant bubble that refused to pop. He was halfway through the wall when he felt something trying without success to push through next to him. Discord reached out with his paw and took Screwball’s hoof. Once he had made it, he gave her leg a strong pull and the pony came tumbling out.

        “Piece of cake, right?” Patsy said with a wink as Screwball picked herself up and looked around the inside of the building. “Home sweet home.”

        The inside of the house was impossibly spacious, but it was still every bit as chaotic as the city outside. Stripes, spots, and polka dots of all colors and sizes were scattered all along the walls in a predictably random arrangement. Windows would occasionally flutter from their position, using their drapes as wings to fly to a new place to nest. A staircase leading up slid from side to side along the wall. Screwball turned her head up and suddenly felt very small when the building appeared to stretch upwards forever.

        “This is terrific,” Discord said proudly as he appraised the madhouse.

        The sound of light hoofsteps brought Discord’s and Screwball’s attention to a lime green colt curiously staring up at them.

        “Wait, is that...?” Screwball let her question go unfinished, thinking it too crazy a thought to even vocalize. He was a child now, not even old enough for his cutie mark, and somewhere along the way he had traded a unicorn for their horn. Even if he wasn’t wearing the mask, she still recognized that face. She almost wanted to laugh. Patsy grew up into a real dragon, and Masky had turned into a foal.

        “Alright, Patsy, you got me,” she said without taking her eyes off of the transformed stallion. “This really is a surprise.”

        “This isn’t the surprise.”

        “Dad! Daaad!” The colt shouted at the top of his lungs as he galloped toward a door on the opposite wall. He threw it open and slammed it behind him before another word could be said. Discord and Screwball raised an ear when the stomping and shouting continued on the floor just above them. “Dad, Uncle Patsy’s back! And he brought two weird looking ponies with him!”

“Champo, watch your mouth!” an older voice shouted over the sound of doors opening and closing. “It’s rude to say somepony looks weird.” The door Champo had escaped through opened again, but this time the colt had brought someone with him.

        A mile-wide grin split Masky’s face when he saw his guests. “Even if they do look weird.”

Without his mask on, Masky was a mirror-image of his son. He still wore his old cap, which was showing its age with stray threads, faded colors, and what looked like some ameteur patchwork. Time had not left the stallion unaffected, either. Years of carrying that enormous mouth around had left him with heavy smile lines running from his nose to the corners of his mouth. The small bit of added weight hidden under his purple shirt hinted that he had given up his active lifestyle of thieving years ago, but he was still far from fat. If anything, it made him look sturdier.

“Now, Champo, I want you to introduce yourself and be on your best behavior,” he ordered as he gave his son a gentle shove toward the pair. When the introductions were finished, Champo bustled over to where Patsy was laying down against a wall. He laughed as the dragon rolled him along the top of his claws by bending his knuckles, leaving his father to greet his old friends.

“Criminey, you two haven’t aged a day,” Masky whistled. “Can’t say I’m not jealous.”

“Alright, stop right there. What? You have a...?!” Screwball sputtered exasperatedly, glancing with her eyes over to the colt playing with a dragon.

“I have two,” Masky corrected, his chest swelling with pride. “Champo’s got a baby sister, she’s just thirteen months old. Her name’s Caprice.”

“I’ve always thought that was a lovely name,” Discord said.

“You should see her. Beautiful li’l ball of sunshine, she’s got eyes like her mother. And she’s smart, too! She’s already started talking. O’course, both the kids are smart eggs, they get it from me, naturally...”

        Discord was about to put an end to the stallion’s gushing with a well-placed pie until the opportunity was stolen away from him by the clumsy arrival of a sand-brown pegasus. The mare swooped low to the ground and stopped just at the last moment, skidding her hooves against the floor and flapping her wings to steer her away from crashing into Masky.

        “It’s okay! I’ve got this one! I can do it! Hello! Welcome to the Grifter Inn! Your reprieve from all the chaos of... Oh my.” The pegasus became very quiet and her brown eyes became very large as she stared at the unimpressed draconequus standing over her.  

        Discord folded his arms and snorted. He wondered what it would be this time. Whenever a pony met him face to face for the first time, they always gave one of a small selection of reactions. Screaming was almost always a certainty, and judging by the look of the pegasus, his guess was it would be of the terrified variety. It was always a toss up if there would be some crying or running away after. Usually the pegasi thought to use their wings, but judging by this one’s talent for flying it was hard to tell if she’d trust herself enough to try it. She definitely looked like a runner, though. That was the problem with these ponies, he sighed to himself, they were all so dreadfully predictable.

“It’syou it’syou it’syou it’syou!” the pegasus squealed with glee as she threw herself at Discord, knocking them both to the floor in a rib-crushing hug.

“Ican’tbelieveit’sreallyyouIthoughtI’dneverseeyouagainohwowthisisthesecondbestdayofmylife!”

        “Kid! Kid!” Masky shouted as he tried to pry the mare away before she suffocated her prisoner. After failing, he resorted to the arsenal of dirty tricks he acquired during his golden years. “Coochie coochie coo.”

        The pegasus yelped in fright and rocketed into the air. She gave Masky an ugly look as she kept her hooves protectively clamped over her arm pits.

“You jerk! You know I hate that!”

“You made me a very desperate stallion.”

        “I think you crushed something I didn’t even know I had,” Discord wheezed as he helped himself up. Screwball tried without success to disguise her laughter with a cough.

        “I’m so sorry! But I was just so excited to see you again I had to just... Eee!” Discord narrowly avoided another death grip by pulling Screwball in the line of fire at the last moment. The pegasus either didn’t notice or didn’t care as she poured affection onto the pony in her grasp. Screwball felt her cheeks turning red but didn’t make much effort to resist.

“Tickle tickle.”

        “Sto-hop that!”

        “Stop trying to kill my pals! I’ve got to look out for my fellow carnies!”

        “Dad, Aunt Mite, Mom said you aren’t allowed to fight,” Champo called while in the middle of performing a backwards somersault on Patsy’s knuckles.

        “Listen to the kid, you two.”

        “You clean off that smirk right now, you overgrown handbag, or I’ll do it myself!”

“Look out, the old man’s gonna get you, Patsy~”

        “You’re next!”

        “Um,” Screwball spoke quietly, “should we leave?”

        “Not a chance,” Discord said with an eager grin. “This is getting good! I want to see who... Wait, what did you say her name was?”

        The pegasus touched down gently on the ground and folded her wings. She approached Discord and, after fighting the initial urge to squeeze him again, gave a courteous bow.

        “My name is Mite. And I don’t know if you remember me, King Discord, but when I was only a filly you saved my life.”

        “You were the house plant,” Discord gasped. Mite looked confused for a moment before Screwball cut in.

        “He has a very patchwork memory. But if you’re ‘Aunt’ Mite, then that means...”

        “That’s right! Big sis Reverie got stuck with this big mouth. And we’ve been using the house you gave us to help ponies in Manehattan, just like you wanted to do! For some reason, none of that stuff that goes on outside ever comes in here, so ponies come here to spend a few days after something happens to their house or if they just want a break from everything. We have tons of rooms, so we let them stay in them for a few days like a free hotel! And if somepony causes trouble, well, nopony ever causes trouble, but if they did we have Patsy to talk some sense into them!”

        “Forgive me for asking, but weren’t you an earth pony before?” Screwball interrupted, transfixed by Mite’s wings that flapped and shook with almost every word. The pegasus had plenty of energy to spare. But she supposed if she was given a real chance at life after years of being thought good as dead, she would be making the most of life, too.

        “Huh? Oh yeah. I was trying to deliver some food to Ms. Belle since she’s too old to take care of herself anymore, and then one of those crazy rainbow clouds came out of nowhere and then there was a big flash and I had these!” She demonstrated by taking off in the air and flying a few circles in the air. Screwball noticed a white envelope cutie mark on her flank. “Dad wasn’t happy at first, but I think they’re great! I can make deliveries way faster now! Plus, flying is so much fun! And I’m getting really goo-oof!”

        A pie appeared out of nowhere and landed directly on Mite’s head and blocking her vision. She hit one of the doors on the second level and dropped back down into Patsy’s outstretched palm.

        “Discord...” Screwball growled angrily.

        “I see how it is. Just because a pie falls from the sky, it’s obviously my fault.”

        The unmistakable sound of babies crying pealed through the air. Masky, Mite, Patsy, and Champo all tried to hide themselves by ducking their heads under their shoulders, but it was too late for them. The crying was then joined by a frustrated huffing and muttering as a door opened and closed. The ground floor door opened, and an irritated unicorn strutted through the doorway with two crying fillies on her back.

        “Congratulations, you woke up the babies. Uncle Patsy, I’m so very sorry to ask but could you...? Thank you,” Reverie said as the dragon gingerly took the two in his claws. He rolled onto his back, placed them on his underbelly, and began to purr. The babies immediately stopped crying and began to happily babble to each other.

        “It’s a common misconception that mothers take care of dragon hatchlings,” Patsy lectured in response to Screwball’s incredulous expression. “The males actually do most of the work in raising them while the females hoard the treasure. They’re getting away.”

Masky and Mite swore as Patsy ratted them out in the middle of their escape. A magical glow surrounded both of their ears and they were dragged kicking and whining in front of Reverie, who swiftly knocked their heads together.

“I’ve been taking care of the girls all night, day, night, day, and night. I don’t need you two making it any harder by—”

“Sweets, look who it is!” Masky pointed to Discord and Screwball. To his relief, his wife’s expression instantly brightened before she bonked his head against his sister-in-law’s a second time and released them. At least he knew that would be the end of it.

“I’ll be... It’s wonderful to see you both again,” Reverie said politely as she pecked both Discord and Screwball on the cheek. “I wondered if we’d ever see you again. I can never tell you just how much you helped all of us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“Why does that baby have a cutie mark?” Discord asked bluntly, ignoring whatever boring thing the unicorn was saying.

        “That would be our Granny Granular. She passed away a year and a half ago.”

Discord gave himself a pat on the back.

“You two should both stay for dinner!” Reverie said cheerfully. “I know that Mom and Dad would be thrilled to see you both again. And we could all catch up with each other.”

“That sounds delightful. We’d love to. Wouldn’t we, Screwy?”

        To celebrate their royal visit, the family prepared a veritable feast. A buffet of apples, oranges, pears, green beans, tomatoes, carrots, bread, potatoes, gravy, soup, and just about everything Screwball could imagine was spread on the table, with a roasted goose just for Discord and a few dozen turkeys for Patsy. The banquet should have rightfully taken hours to complete, but Reverie and her mother happily explained that it was all thanks to one of Discord’s gifts. The refrigerator was always full of perfectly prepared food, no matter what someone was looking for. It was how they were able to provide care packages for down-on-their-luck ponies and feed the guests who stayed at the house.

        “We truly owe you everything, Your Highness,” Arenose said, her wrinkled face curving to match her warm smile.

        “Don’t worry about it,” Discord said before swallowing a potato in a single bite.

        Reverie and Masky took turns lying to the infants, telling them their spoons were actually griffons who needed to land in their mouths. Even when it came to infants, the green stallion was a convincing liar. An empty chair reserved for Dusty was placed at the head of the table opposite Discord.

        “Grandpa Dusty is old now. That’s why he takes so long to move around,” Champo explained wisely to Screwball, who reacted with a fascinated “Aah” before turning to the younger couple.

        “I never asked, how did you two meet?”

        “It was fifteen years ago,” Reverie began nostalgically. “I heard that a traveling circus was coming to Manehattan. The circus wanted to show ponies that they shouldn’t ever be too afraid to enjoy life, no matter what may be happening in the world.”

        Screwball shifted uncomfortably in her seat from the comment. It was happening too many times now to be just an accident or a coincidence anymore. The family would be making small talk and slip in a comment about how a pony had moved in on the third floor after he was kicked out of his house, by his house; or mention the time a salt rain had tainted the city’s water supply; or explain that a delivery got delayed because a confused Goliathan had wandered out of the bay and start making a mess before it could be guided back to the sea. After they would give Discord a glance as if they were about to ask him for something before changing their minds. Screwball had noticed it happening even before dinner. There was no way Discord could have not have picked up on it, right? Whether he did or not, he never reacted to the comments.

        “I was walking around the fairgrounds, and I heard a voice calling me over. So I walked over to the stallion selling cotton candy and he asked me what my name was.”

        “You stayed at the circus for five years after we left?” Screwball asked, genuinely surprised. “I never thought of you two as the kind to stay with one routine for long.”

        “Well it was twenty years ago,” Masky said quickly. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew that if he let the purple mare keep on yakking, he would be getting flak about it from the missus later. “Ponies change, you know. And the circus was a hard gig to walk away from. We finally had food, a roof over our heads at night, and a whole load of ponies who would look out for us. Once we finally had something good going for us, it was hard to leave it. Except for something better, Rev! I was just about to say that!”

        “Of course, sweetie. And when it was time for the circus to leave, Masky and Patsy stayed with us. We dated for a few years, and then one thing led to another...” she finished lovingly.

        Out of the corner of her eye, Screwball thought she saw Patsy mouth ‘Wedlock’ and motion toward Dusty.

“Oh, Dad, there you are!” Mite greeted warmly as she helped her father to his chair. “We were wondering when you’d be coming down.”

“I still don’t get these blasted doors,” he said bitterly, never taking his eyes off his plate. The room was silent, save for the fillies’ babbling and Discord’s loud chewing. After a few seconds, he lifted his head up and stared blankly at the two guests sitting at the opposite end of the table.

        “I didn’t know we were expecting guests.”

        “It was a surprise visit,” Arenose said as she delicately placed her hoof over her husband’s and tried to look him in the eye. Dusty never looked away from Discord as the draconequus juggled a few tomatoes in the air before swallowing all three in one gulp. The family shared some worried looks with one another but remained silent.

        It was times like this when Screwball really wished her special talent wasn’t cheering up ponies and brightening the mood of a tense situation.

“It was lucky that the house was big enough for Patsy once he hit his growth spurt.”

“Oh yeah,” Masky said, trying to force the enthusiasm back in his voice, “but even if we didn’t have the funhouse here, we’d think of something to suit him.”

“I don’t want to sound rude, but I thought that dragons were supposed to have instincts to migrate and build dens in caves to live by themselves. It really says something that Patsy would want to stay with you more than following his nature.”

“Heh! The big iguana couldn’t leave us if he tried.” Masky leaned in to give Caprice another spoonful of baby food before pulling his head back and pinching his nose. “Criminey! Augh, that is rotten! She gets that from you, you know.”

“Pasy! Made poody!” Caprice announced. Patsy continued to gnaw on his turkey for a few seconds before he felt the eyes of everyone in the room on him. Groaning, he swallowed the bird and plucked the filly out of her seat.

“Fine, but your father’s taking care of you tonight this time,” Patsy said as he carried the filly out of the room to change her diaper.

        “And now I’ve seen everything,” Screwball said, half-laughing. She nearly fell out of her chair when Dusty slammed his hoof down on the tabletop, his old eyes filled with fire.

        “It isn’t right!” he shouted as he pushed himself up with both hooves. “It isn’t right! None of it!”

        “Dad, please—”

“No! You all won’t say it, so I will! Discord, you have to fix this!” the stallion demanded. Discord slowly raised one eyebrow and calmly folded his hands together in front of him on the table.

“I am listening.”

“The world has gone crazy! Ponies are too afraid to leave their homes now because they don’t know if they’ll fall twenty feet if they step out their doors! No one sleeps because of the damn sun and moon playing leapfrog at all hours! There’s no rain! Real rain! Ponies can’t find any natural food to eat! They have to take whatever comes down from the sky or what charity they get from us, and some are too afraid of you to even accept it! Animals are roaming out of control! The natural order of life has been destroyed! I had to change my own mother’s diapers! My daughter isn’t even who she used to be! Earth ponies are sprouting wings and horns and heavens knows what else, and it’s hard to know what shape you’ll even wake up as in the morning!

“You saved my daughter’s life and gave us everything we needed to survive, and for that I can never thank you enough. But please, this world is wrong!” Dusty’s frail legs began to tremble underneath him and he lowered himself down to his seat. He kept his head lowered in silence briefly before he began to choke.

“This is not the world a stallion should have to see his grandchildren grow up in.” He shivered under his wife’s touch but still complied as Arenose walked him out of the room, remaining silent as she tried to console him with sweet whispers.

It felt like years before Mite broke the silence. “I’m... so sorry about Dad. His mind is getting old and sometimes he doesn’t—

“It’s fine,” Discord interrupted, looking completely unphased from the emotional outpour. “I have had the pleasure of listening to my fair share of dissidents. This was actually the nicest yet. Usually ponies keep the shouting as brief as possible so they can cut to the part where they start throwing things.”

The family gave a round of polite laughter that satisfied Discord enough to allow him to resume eating. But Screwball was not so quick to forget the outburst. She spied on the family as they sat in silence and idly stirred their food on their plates, their appetites having left them. The smiles and conversations they had hidden themselves behind had been torn away and the truth was laid bare. Even these ponies, who had benefitted more than any others from Discord’s reign, could not endure for much longer. The chaos needed to end.

        “Masky, don’t forget to get your suit ready for tomorrow,” Reverie spoke quietly.

        “I’ll take care of it after dinner.”

        “A suit?” Discord leaned forward, a dopey grin plastered on his face. “What’s the occasion? A wedding? Birthday Party? Is it for a sheep? I can do Baaah Mitzvahs.”

“It’s, ah...  for a funeral.” The last happy face left the table. Discord leaned back into his seat.

“What do you mean?”

“A falling house landed on a friend of ours last week. Her husband is holding a memorial service,” Masky said as he gave Discord a brief look. Whether he was trying to convey something more or just show some respect was unclear. But whatever his meaning, it was lost on Discord as he remained wooden and silent for the rest of the evening.

“So, Champo,” Screwball said with all the forced cheer she could muster, “where do you go to school?”

        Discord and Screwball said their goodbyes to the family shortly after dinner, promising to come by more often as they stepped out through the wall and into the street. The sun was swinging back in forth on the breeze against a quilted sky.

“I’m glad we got to see them again,” Screwball said weakly. Her words bounced off Discord as he focused his attention on watching a pink garbage can hopping along the sidewalk with a frightened pony stuck inside.

“Let’s go somewhere else.” It was not open to discussion. Discord bathed them both in a burst of magic and they were gone.

        Screwball stumbled a few steps forward as her equilibrium returned to her. Perhaps it was just part of being an earth pony, but magic had always been out of her comfort area. Once she was steady, she gave a sneeze. She surmised that she had kicked some dust in the air. Wherever Discord had taken them now looked like it had been forgotten by all civilization ages ago. Every inch of the checkerboard tile floor in the massive room was filthy with dust, down to the moth-bitten carpet splitting it down the center. The handles on the sole door at one end the room were browned with rust and corrosion from the sugary rain that must have come down from the holes in the ceiling. Thick cobwebs were tucked away in the corners of the room and on the candles lining the wall, but even the spiders had abandoned the site.

        The only clean thing to be seen were the heavy curtains that were appearing over the stained glass windows and strangling the light from the room. Once the last of the windows was covered, Discord sluggishly made his way down the length of the carpet, tearing the fabric with his talons as he dragged his feet. He climbed a few steps and unceremoniously dropped himself in his throne, throwing up a cloud of dust around him.

“I don’t think we’ll find anything productive to do in Canterlot,” Screwball said half-jokingly. Her worry deepened when Discord turned away from her to look at the nearest curtain. “Discord, please tell me what’s bothering you. I want to help.”

        “Nothing is bothering me. I just want to take a little break from looking outside for a while.”

        “I know you’re upset, but maybe Dusty had a point. And I’m sure that if you undid—”

        Every speck of dust in the room exploded into the air as the floor rattled and quaked. Screwball dove in the air and raced toward Discord as the ceiling fell to pieces around them. They flew out of the throne room and were horrified to see that whatever cataclysm had struck was not limited to the castle alone. Towers fell like trees. Boulders thundered down the side of the trembling mountain and into the city below. The sun slipped out from whatever force had held it in the air and plummeted out of sight below the horizon, bathing Equestria in a grim twilight.

        Cries of terror from miles around echoed on the winds, with ponies and animals alike panicking in every corner of the land. Anything with wings took to the air to escape the raging ground below, scrambling in any direction and colliding with other fearful creatures in their terror. Rivers and streams became violent rapids, dragging away plants, animals, and ponies in the deadly currents.

        “Discord! Wh-what’s happening?!”

        “I don’t know! I’m not doing anything! I don’t know... oh, no.” Discord’s eyes shrunk back in his head as an acrid stench filled the air that stung his throat with the pestilent taste of rotting corpses and scorched earth. His eyes darted around the country beneath him, praying that his fears would be proven wrong.

“No...”

        For miles and miles in every direction, decay began to eat away at the vibrant world below. Anything caught in the way of the infection withered and died in an instant, staining the earth black with death. The blight traced around the entire length of the globe like a rotting equator and finally completed itself not far from the ruined capital.

        The foul taste grew stronger as a phantom creature began to materialize and coil along the path of devastation. Transparent rows of scales as large as skyscrapers and dark as the night sky formed over the creature, wider than any valley and its neck stretched higher than any mountain.

        Death spread wide his black wings, and bellowed for every living creature to hear.

“CREATURES OF EQUESTRIA! YOUR END HAS COME!”