Fluttershy yawned as she wandered her way into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She had been waking up early the last few days, but on the plus side, she had been able to get plenty of work done at the sanctuary!
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Discord said from the kitchen counter. She smiled up at him. The last few days she had gotten up before he did, but it seemed he had beaten her this time. "Ready to make a scrumptious breakfast together?"
"Always," she said, flying towards him. As soon as she was by his side, he affectionately ruffled her mane, bending down to kiss her cheek. She smiled, and quickly pecked his nose before he could pull away.
He beamed, then began to juggle a half dozen eggs. "So, what shall it be today?" he said. "Scrambled eggs, fried eggs on toast, omelets, maybe even Prench toast?" He tossed all of the eggs high into the air, making her gasp. "Or forgo eggs completely?"
She tensed as gravity took hold of the eggs...but Discord easily caught all of them and began to juggle again. Well...almost all of them. One did splatter on the counter, but that wouldn't be too hard to clean up.
"Omelets sound good," she said, grabbing a washcloth from the sink. "Though...I'll just take a small one. There's still plenty of things to prepare at the sanctuary."
"If you say so..." he said with a sigh, greasing a pan. "What would you like in yours? I doubt we'll want the same things...I'm wondering what marshmallows and jalapenos would taste like together!"
She shook her head, trying not to imagine the taste. "Just cheese will be fine," she said, cleaning off the counter. "Though...maybe some chives would be nice, too."
He smiled, quickly summoning a handful of chives and chopping them to bits, while she cracked a couple of eggs into the pan. The two of them worked in synchrony to make two separate omelets—one that was smallish, with just chives and two different types of cheeses, and one that took up almost the entire pan, filled with everything Discord could think of, from sweet to savory.
In just a couple of minutes, they had finished cooking the omelets. Discord slid them onto two separate plates and carried them over to the table, while she smiled and took her seat.
Once she was sitting, he summoned and cracked open the lids of two glass bottles—one full of orange juice, the other with chocolate milk. She thanked him as he set the orange juice in front of her, now able to see how frosted the glass was. She gripped it in her hooves and took a slow sip. Cold and delicious.
She thanked him again, and quickly dug into her omelet. She watched as Discord made a small spectacle of each bite, using his magic to make salt and pepper shakers and ketchup bottles dance toward him, bow, and carefully season each bite. It brought a small smile to her muzzle as she took another sip of juice.
Soon, though, she had polished off her plate and drank the bottle dry, and so stood up. "That was delicious," she said. "Thank you, Discord. Have a lovely chaotic day."
"Are you sure you can't stay for tea, as well?" he said. "It's been so long since we've done any experimenting with tea leaves...and it'll be just the thing to wake you up!"
For a moment, she thought about it. She was still a little groggy...but no, there was sanctuary work to be done. "Not right now," she said with a shake of her head. "But maybe later."
He seemed disappointed, but accepted this answer. Still, he summoned a kettle for himself and began to pour it into a large cup. She blew him a kiss, which she saw him snatch out of the corner of her eye, and turned to walk into the living room.
"Before you head off to work," he said, making her pause. "I should warn you, it's quite...muggy outside."
She blinked. The weather simply being a little muggy was...quite tame, for Chaosville. And the weather report for Ponyville said today would have clear skies with little to no humidity...while she tried to puzzle out her slight confusion, Discord took a long, loud sip of tea from his...cup?
She blinked again, focusing her eyes on his too-large teacup. Now that she had gotten a good look at it, she realized it wasn't a cup, or even a mug, but a soup bowl. "Why are you...?" she started to say, before his words suddenly clicked in her mind.
"Discord...am I going to find all of our mugs and cups on the front lawn?" she said, sighing and shaking her head.
"Mmmmno," he said slowly, stretching his words like taffy. "Not all of them, I mean..." He didn't look guilty at all—if anything, the smug grin on his face was filled with nothing but amusement.
"...are there any in our cabinets?" she asked.
"Well, unless I missed one...noooo," he said. "Care for a bowl of tea? It's ginseng~."
The offer of a cup bowl of tea was still a bit tempting, but... "I really should get going," she said. "We can share a...bowl later, if you'd like."
He pouted, but took another sip. "Alright," he said. "Have fun at the sanctuary...don't overwork yourself."
"I won't, I promise," she said. With that, she headed through the living room, opened up the front door...and froze in place, taking in the sheer confusion Discord had decided to cause.
Mugs and cups of all kinds were littered on the lawn—she had been expecting that already. But what she hadn't expected was that the air itself would be saturated with the dishes.
Whatever cup wasn't lying on the ground seemed to have been enchanted to fly without wings. They bobbed lazily in the air—a few small cups circled around the house, while larger mugs simply bobbed up and down in place, almost touching the ground at some points. Looking around, she could even see one or two kettles, obscured by clouds of cups.
A loud slurp from behind made her flinch and look up. Discord was standing right behind her, still drinking from his bowl of tea. "Oh my, it's terribly muggy out here," he said, his lips twitching from his effort to keep a straight face. "Why, it's so muggy, I ought to insist you stay home!"
She stared at him for a few moments...and then laughed, shaking her head. "Oh, Cordy," she said. "Is that what you did this for?"
"That, and to get a laugh out of you," he said. "...did I succeed on both fronts?"
She thought for a few moments. "I, well...it is a bit funny," she said with a giggle. "But I really do need to head to the sanctuary...there's a lot of work I should take care of."
He looked disappointed. She quickly placed a gentle hoof on his paw. "But...after this week, I'll be done with structure inspections and training new volunteers," she said. "By the start of next week, I'll sleep in a little later, stay a little longer, and take more breaks. And I can spend the whole weekend with you..."
Her words made him perk up, with a smile that could light up the world. "That sounds excellent!" he declared, gripping her hoof and shaking it rapidly. She laughed, beaming up at him.
"I should...probably head to work," she said, using a wing to gesture away from the house. His ears drooped, but he nodded, a small smile still on his face as he released her hoof. He raised his claws and began to tear through the fabric of space in front of her. But as he opened the portal, something else caught her eye.
Another portal to the sanctuary randomly opened a couple of feet away. No animals came through this one, and normally she wouldn't have noticed what had become such a regular occurrence...but she just barely noticed a chipped teacup slowly drifting through the portal just before it closed.
"Discord," she said slowly. "Did you...turn off the random sanctuary portals after making everything muggy?"
He paused mid-portal creation and giggled for a few seconds, clearly pleased at her word choice. "Ahem. No," he said, quickly recovering. "Why does it matter?"
"I think we have fewer cups here than we did last night," she said. She gestured to a just-opening portal, and his eyes widened as he saw a patterned mug dance its way through.
"Oh...asterisks and squiggles," he grumbled. "I didn't think of that."
"...how many portals have been opening and closing since you put the cups and mugs here?"
His eyes became blank for a few moments. He could have been tapping into his magic, or thinking...or for all she knew, simply struck by how many dishes might have escaped into the sanctuary. He blinked, a net suddenly appearing over his shoulder, a pot on his head like a safari hat.
"I'll fix this mess, don't worry," he said. With a wave of his claw, any cups or mugs that were floating gently dropped to the ground, becoming still. "You have enough to do at the sanctuary without worrying about the trouble I've caused."
"You're sure?" she asked. "I could help..." He held up a paw, shaking his head. With a snap of his fingers, they were both teleported into the sanctuary.
"I'm going to go on the hunt," he said, swinging his net experimentally. "But I'll talk to you when I think I've gotten all of them."
"Alright..." she said. "But come to me if you need help grabbing any!"
He saluted her, flying off after a pair of mugs in the distance. She hesitated, watching him for a few moments, then headed to the treehouse, grabbing her list of tasks from its hook.
Fluttershy slowly but surely worked through the long list of chores she had. Not only were there animals to care for, but it was around the time of year she checked each structure and building to make sure it was stable and safe, made sure each tree in the sanctuary was healthy, checked on the stream that fed into the sanctuary ponds, and so on.
Of course, every so often she spotted a cup or mug while she was working—floating lazily in the air, or caught in the branches of a tree. Each time, she would fly up and grasp it, and it would become a normal, docile dish in her hooves. She took them back to the treehouse in between tasks, and found each time that the pile had vanished—hopefully because Discord had spotted them and sent them home.
Speaking of Discord...he wasn't exactly quiet in his "hunt". Throughout the morning, she could hear him wildly running about, crashing into branches, and shouting at the dishes that thought they could escape him. It made her laugh lightly to herself, and as long as he didn't leave any messes behind in his rampage, everything was fine.
Slowly, the sun rose higher into the sky, and her growling stomach told her that it was close to lunchtime. Just as she was thinking about finding Discord and suggesting they go to lunch, he marched towards her from the underbrush, a wide grin on his face as twigs stuck out of his mane. The pot on his head had been lost at some point, it seemed, and there were quite a few dents in his net.
As soon as he was in front of her, he stopped and deposited the contents of his bulging net at her hooves—a small pile of teacups, all of them a different color and pattern. "That should be the last of it," he declared. "At least...I don't sense any others besides these."
He snapped his fingers, sending the cups away in a flash of light. "I...didn't mean for this to get quite so out of hand," he said. "I think I've gotten all of them...well. All of them that ended up here, anyway."
She sighed, shaking her head. "You really should be more careful about your portals," she said. "Or at least...try to remember that they appear and disappear almost on a whim?"
"Yeah..." he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I thought I learned that after that incident with Pinkie, but...guess not."
She flew up to lay a hoof on his shoulder. "Well, no one got hurt, and you cleaned up the mess that happened," she said. "Besides, you did it while thinking of me, which is...sweet, in its own odd way."
He looked at her, a small smile flickering across his muzzle. "You always know what to say to make me feel a bit better," he said. "...could I help you with any of your tasks, to speed things along?"
"Well..." she thought about it. "I wouldn't mind having a helping hand this afternoon. But as for right now, I've gotten through most of the things I wanted to finish today," she said, setting the list back on its hook. "And since you've found all of the stray dishes, why don't we head back home for lunch together?"
"That sounds excellent!" he said, rubbing his hands together. "How about sandwiches? I can throw them together quickly, and you can get plenty to eat before you have to come back to work."
"Oh, that sounds good," she said, her stomach growling. "Could we have a few peanut butter and pickle ones?"
"Of course! And fried peanut butter and banana ones, and salad ones...and with it all, we can have a nice cup of...tea..." he said. After a few moments of silence, his paw smacked against his forehead.
She did her best to stifle her giggles. "Well," she suggested. "We should always have a nice bowl of tea."
He slowly pulled his hand away from his face, then nodded slowly. "Yes...yes, that'd work," he said. "I must admit, it's a little awkward to drink out of at first...but when it's delicious tea we're talking about, that seems worth it."
She smiled and nodded as he tore open a portal for the two of them, both of them discussing which type of tea to have as they headed back home.