Golden Brightnose Boffo Smile, or simply Golden as she was styling herself these days, tried desperately to skulk through the castle hallways like all the other maids did. But it was doomed to failure from the start, even as she peered leeringly through the hallways, reminding herself to squint her eyes suspiciously and leer into the darkness after every turn of the empty cavernous halls of Canterlot castle like she was up to no good, it was no use, she still was not getting the hang of it. Besides how was she supposed to skulk when she gave herself away with every step.
She was a serial hopper by nature and skipped through life despite her best efforts not to. Her heels gave the slightest squeak like a rubber chicken being squeezed every time she landed, much to her chagrin.
Still, she was determined to do her best, sticking to the shadows as she hopped, skipped and jumped through the gentle moonlight illuminating the castle halls. Thankfully the only ponies awake at the moment were Luna's Royal guard who were currently several floors up and just hanging around, as bats often did.
When finally she was satisfied that she was alone, she trotted up to one of the many uniformed doorways of the castle and lifted her hoof to knock. Before she could even bring hoof to wood the door swung suddenly open without any warning right towards her face. Golden, who had suspected something like this might happen, jumped backwards, but in this regard, she should also have known better.
Her rear hoof landed on a banana peel that had not been there before and she skidded. Both hooves fought to stay upright, but due to metaphysical causality, the floor had suddenly lost any grip, despite the fact that the royal polishers were not due for another week. She skidded backwards as one disaster prone pony is supposed to do in this sort of situation, whereupon she righted herself for a well timed second. Then, because the universe had deemed it so, and because the laws of causality demanded it, she was stuck by a charging terrier and fell face-first into a tray of custard pies.
The universe righted itself again, and a small group of onlookers nodded their approval and went back to work. No one laughed, but inherently it was not meant to be amusing, but it would have been far worse if it didn’t happen, laws of reality are rather for lack of a better term, funny about that. Such was Golden Smile’s life, from a young age she had been cursed with a tragic bout of comedic timing.
Despite the doctor's best efforts, it was incurable.
“There you are Smil- eh I mean Golden, I’ve been waiting for you,” a voice from above said as Golden wiped away the cream from her eyes with practised hooves. Darn it all, she had just had her maid uniform washed as well, there went this week's wages. Her laundry bill was already larger than some small countries' economies.
“Hey uncle Silver.” she said in a defeated tone, tried to anyway, unfortunately her voice came out as squeaky and bubbly as ever, another side effect of her genetic condition.
“Are you alright?” he asked, knowing better than to ask why there was a small array of comedic items around her. Everypony in the castle was well aware of her plight, after all, that’s what happens when your mother ran off with a stallion with a long and proud ancestry of clowns and mimes.
It would not have been so bad for Golden if she had followed in her family’s custard-filled hoof steps. It was a respectable trade for all of those who didn’t mind orbital blows to the skull with anvils falling from the sky or being slapped in the face with fish, so long as it was sufficiently humorously named and comically big enough that is. Clowns had standards after all.
But that was not what she had wanted, she had no interest in humour at all, much to her family's horror, when they had caught her reading War and Peace instead of Tibbins thousand and one punny jokes, a sacred text in their household. Worse still was when she had sat them down at eighteen and tearfully confessed that she was dating a librarian, who famously where to comedy what a nail was to a balloon animal.
“I’m fine uncle,” she droned dourly, getting back upright and shaking the remains of the pie away much like a dog would rainwater, “don’t worry it didn’t hurt.” One blessing at least, clowns were practically impervious to blows, explosions and other disastrous events that would have otherwise left a normal pony scared and paralyzed for life.
“Oh good, um Golden you have something on your um.” he motioned to her lips. Golden held up one of the silver pie trays and sighed, her makeup had smeared again. Large red smiling lips beamed back at her.
“Let’s get you inside shall we.” Silver Tongue said, motioning with his hoof, careful not to touch the remains of the cream on her uniform. She followed him into his study, it was only then that she noticed a strange smell. Usually, coffee and food permeated the room at all hours, her uncle was nothing but a fiend for both. But some other scent was there and she couldn't explain what it was, but it had the unmistakable scent of…
Baby powder?
Golden followed her uncle inside the room, which was uncharacteristically messy for stallion that didn’t leave his bathroom until every bit of fur on his body had been brushed twice, “What did you need me to do Uncle, did you want me to carry your plates out, or did you want me to clean your windows?” She asked hopefully as they walked.
Her uncle winced, “best not, we all know what happened last time you cleaned the windows.” he said softly. Golden nodded sadly, she was still trying to work out where the chicken had come into all that, or when the fire had started. “No Golden, I've invited you here because I need you to do something much more important than that, something vital to this country and you are the only one I know I can trust to do it with absolute discretion.” He said gesturing to a throw cushion.
Golden sat, to which the sound of an artificial farting noise permitted around the room from an unexplained Whoopie cushion, both pretended to ignore it, “Wait, you want me to help you with something… important?” she asked, eyes widening, hope in her voice.
“This is a very vital task and must be kept in the uttermost secrecy, no pony is to know about this, not the guards or the other maids, I’m trusting you with this Golden, as family.” He said, meeting her eyes.
Golden blinked, a small tear slid down her cheek, at the same time the flower in her lapel squirted water. She had always wanted to be thought of as important; To help her uncle in a meaningful way. He had, after all, helped her live her dream of trying to be a normal pony. Of doing normal maid work. True she had only been relegated to doing tasks in empty rooms at night and even then another maid had to go in and fix the roof and smashed glass. But it was a small step towards being useful. She sniffled, pulling out a multi-coloured handkerchief that she always seemed to have on hand and blew her nose into it.
It dripped.
“Really?” she asked, “I’ll do anything uncle, just say the word and I’ll run to Griffonstone and back with my hooves tied together if you ask.” she said, tapping her hooves together happily.
Her uncle winced at that for some reason. “There's… no cause for that,” he said, pausing to glance at something on the other side of his room. “In fact, Griffonstone is closer than you think my little filly.” he motioned towards a small basket, it looked like something ponies picnicked with, complete with the red tartan pattern blanket and everything.
She looked at it, then worriedly back at Silver Tongue “You’re not… stealing picnic baskets again are you?”
“I told everypony I don’t do that anymore, I’m clean now,” he said, jowls rippling with indignation, then he seemed to collect himself, “no, I want you to deliver this to princess Celestia, she’s to give an important speech at the crack of dawn and this will be the focal point of it. I need you to be there to deliver it before she finishes, and I need you to do it quietly and above all with complete discretion.”
She glanced back at the ordinary looking basket, “I’m very grateful uncle, really I am, but can’t you do it, it’s just a basket right?”
“Not exactly,” he said looking down at the basket then down at himself and frowned. The effect was like a turtle going back into its shell, “Besides, the problem is, that I, well, I’m not exactly built for sneaking, as you might have gathered.” he said, tapping solemnly at his stomach, it vibrated for several seconds, “you on the other hand have the unique talent of being noticeably unnoticeable.”
Golden muttered that a few times then cocked her head to the side, “I don’t follow?”
“You are so noticeable that no pony would ever believe that you were sneaking around, you’re practically invisible in that regard.” he said and depressingly her uncle was right, she was as stealthy as a bowling ball through a window, and about as messy. “Why does the Princess want me to sneak her food on stage, I thought she was still on her diet?”
Her uncle sagged into himself, “If only, no, I could tell you, but it would be easier to show you.” He moved over towards the basket. Golden followed, closely watching the floor for any puddles of water or small marbles, when finally she got to the basket, she stared blankly at it, until under the tartan covers over it started to move on its own.
“Keep very quiet Golden, trust me you don’t want to startle it, it has a tendency to answer claws first.”
Silver Tongue pulled back the covers and Golden's heart skipped several beats. She couldn’t help it, she screamed. Talons answered.
Above the castle roof, the seagulls were having a very strange problem, for one thing, they used to be crows, for another there perch, a strange combination of scales, fur and antlers were moving and sighing more than they would have liked.
There was a snapping noise, a cracking of light and one of the crows moo'd, another snapping noise and the moo turned into a bleating.
Discord sighed again, he was bored.
He stared up into the monotonous sky, watching the dull moon and the boring stars going about their tedious business. A spark of envy panged through him for just a moment as he caught sight of a comet barrelling through the sky to no doubt ruin someone's day on an unsuspecting planet, oh how he wished that was him.
He leaned his draconic body back against the tiles of the steeple tower he was wrapped around and lamented his place in the world. He was a god of mischief, a prince of deceit, a lord of change. Yet here he was doing none of those things. How long had it been since he last laughed, well about three minutes actually, but that was practically a lifetime to someone like him!
He thought about changing that, thought about maybe causing some chaos, but then he remembered that ridiculous oath he had promised to Fluttershy and sighed. A god of chaos’s oath was binding after all. No idea why, if any god was able to break an oath it should have been him. But that was cosmic irony for you, it was just one of those things.
But still, every contract had loopholes, he was a master at those. In fact, strangely since his oath, he had begun to enjoy the idea of working under rules, which were much more pliable than he had previously thought possible. Rules were more like rubber than steel he’d learned recently.
It was weirdly much more entertaining to work with subverting expectations rather than simply breaking things altogether. It was strange, but the problem with that was that it required slightly more effort than it previously had before. It required something that Discord had once thought was the most disgusting of words a person could utter.
Restraint.
He shivered as the word slithered through his mind, it always made him feel a little sick to even think it.
He just had to find something or someone up to no good, had to find something that was planning to ruin someone else's day, or at least give mayhem and chaos the gentle prod to the buttocks that it needed, and play the fairy godmother to the disaster. But that rarely happened at four am on a Sunday morning. Ponies were often doing stupidly pointless things like sleeping at this time, what a waste.
Blast it all, there had to be something he could do about this boredom right now. He stood up, scanning the horison for something, anything that he recognised as chaos prone. Fortunately for him, if not for everyone else involved, he did not have to look far. Because at that moment right underneath his feet, he heard a mare scream.
“It's so fluffy!”
Not a half second later this was followed by a table cashing, a noise not dissimilar to a squawk and oddly enough the sound of a rubber chicken being squeezed, right below his feet. Discord blinked for just a moment, then a manic grin formed across his face.
Finally the buttocks had been prodded.
Silver Tongue sighed, as he walked over towards his niece and gently removed the bundle of claws and feathers that had latched onto her face.
“I did tell you to keep quiet, Golden,” he said admonishingly, as he picked up the somehow still sleeping infant by the nape of its neck and gently placed it back into the basket.
“But he’s so cute, I couldn’t help it.” She said, a genuine smile on her face, he could tell because it didn’t comically stretch to her ears. “What’s he doing here uncle?”
“He, is in fact a she…I think?” he said rubbing one of his chins. That was what the matron at the orphanage had told him anyway, he had to take her at face value, he wasn’t good with griffon children, or pony ones for that matter. He had no need for children in his life, they didn’t cause scandals, as far as he could tell. At least not unless they came into this world via other means, which usually meant not through the clients legal spouse. “And the reason she’s here is well… she is a member of the royal family,” he stopped to check his pocket watch, “in about two hours or so that is.”
Golden Smiles eyes widened to the size of a dinner plate you could have served a family of ten on. “What did you just say?”
“Quite down,” he whispered hoarsely, “I just managed to get her to sleep for ponies sake.” He had spent the better part of six hours trying to get the little devil to quiet down, he was not sure how he was going to get the scratch marks out of the wood, or his back for that matter.
“Wait, does that mean, did that mean,” her smile took on a suggestive manner that Silver didn’t altogether care for. “If that’s the princess' daughter, does that mean?” She moved her eyebrows up and down suggestively and smirked again, it was worse than the first one.
“Good fields above no,” he said a blush creeping across his face as realisation dawned, “how would that work anyway, did you see any male griffons around the palace?” The blush had stretched to his ears, Silver shuddered, the idea of intimacy and all those germs mixing made his skin crawl. He saw sex as an unfortunate necessity of life, one that happened as far away from him as possible if he had anything to say about it, “besides she has brown fur, not white.”
They both stared down at what amounted to a brown cloud of feathers and fur with a beak stuck on it. Considering how big griffons got it surprised Silver she could be so small, she barely came to his knee. He watched her little chest rise and fall, snoozing happily inside the basket. Purple downy feathers surrounded her closed black beady eyes, a tuft of white feathers on the tip of her head, marked out the uniformed brown ones. She yawned and turned over pulling her blanket which she clutched tightly with yellow needle-like claws. Hind paws kicking aimlessly in her sleep.
She was cute there was no doubt about that, although her cuteness belied a frankly frightening strength, especially for her size and age. Not to mention how fast she was for a foal… hatching, or whatever they called it. But that would all have been fine, if not for her tendency to maul the faces of anything that scared, surprised, or even made her happy. Actually she seemed to do it whatever the occasion.
“So,” Golden said, clearly having some trouble tearing her concentration away from the little griffon, “If she’s not one of the princesses, then what happened to her parents?”
“Emm, died in some border scuffle with the zebra tribes from what I was told?” Silver said, tapping his chin with an idle hoof and racking his tired brain for what the mistress of the Celestial Royal Orphanage had told him. It had all happened so fast he had not been able to get the full picture. Normally these things would have taken months. But one had a slight fastrack when they were backed by the pony who’s name was on the building and also had the deed for the land it was on, oh and while they were at it the country it was sitting in, thank you very much.
Scouring half the orphanages of Equestria in three days was only half the reason he was so stressed. The other half was rather obvious. He was about to bet everything, a potential war with very disgruntled griffons, a princess's (somewhat) good name and most importantly of all his job on this tiny ball of terror. “They were both famous warriors or something, she comes from a long line of them, the Novabane Pride or some such, an ancient Pride I think? Though she might be the last of them, this is all second hoof into formation though, it’s hard to say really. fields only knows how she ended up here in an Equestria orphanage?” He shrugged again then caught sight of his niece and sighed, “oh don’t cry Golden.”
Golden sniffed. “But it’s just so sad though, she doesn’t have a mummy or a daddy.” She produced another handkerchief and Silver winced as she blew into it and made it unusable forever.
“A father? No. But she will have a mother, an aunt, and about five hundred servants, plus an entire country. Not to mention more money than we could ever spend in our collective lifetimes. I shouldn’t feel too bad about her Golden, she’s about to be made royalty after all.” Though he had to admit, that came with its own trappings, he mused as he gazed thoughtfully down on the soon to be princess.
“I guess that’s almost as good as a loving family.” Golden said in what he presumed was sarcasm, Though for a mare whose voice was at times so high pitched that only dogs could hear it, that feat was quite impossible to pull off. “I suppose there's worse things than having Celestia as your step mommy.” She reluctantly conceded.
“Hmm?” Silver Tongue turned from the little griffon back towards his niece and gave a soft chuckle, “oh no she’s not going to be Celestia's adopted daughter, she’s going to be Luna's.”
Golden turned to him, the cogs of her brain scraping together, “but then… Why am I bringing her to Princess Celestia? Actually, why am I doing this in secret at all, shouldn’t Princess Luna be the one to tell everypony?” She said, as her hooves worked half a sausage dog balloon, presumably for the little chick to wake up to.
“Oh Lunas never going to be more than fifty hooves from the poor lioness,” Silver said absentmindedly, moving over towards a brewing coffee pot by his desk, “this is all for show,” he chuckled again at the ridiculousness of that idea. “Fields above no, there's no way in Tartarus I’m letting Luna near her own daughter, with the attitude she has for griffons, could you imagine?” His laughter stopped dead when he heard the sounds of a balloon popping with a vengeance.
Silver nearly dropped the coffee pot as his niece materialised in front of his face, her face had taken on a small pout as she stared at him, he had never seen her so irate before.
“What was that!” She roared, “did you just admit to foalnapping the Princess’s baby!”
Silver blinked, “W-what, no-“
“Depriving a foal from her mother? Who are you and what have you done with my uncle!” She yelled, poking her hoof into his chest, it sank several inches before stopping.
Silver opened his mouth several times, realising that he had only told his niece a fraction of the story. Before he could say anything to his defence, there was a murmuring from behind them as the chick began to mew and then began to cry.
Golden pulled her hoof from his flab with some difficulty, flicked her eyes towards the chick still narrowed and swatted Silver with her tail. She moved towards the little Princess-to-be and plucked her gently up from the basket, just narrowly ducking her claws in the process.
“It’s not what you think Golden, this is for Luna’s sake, I’m trying to save the reputation of the royal family here. I’m not a monster.” He said, whilst some tiny part in the back of his mind wondered if that was just a thing a monster would say.
Golden ignored him as she focused on the chick in her hooves, despite her anger, Golden's features morphed into a sunny smile, as she began to softly coo towards the chick. What followed then was a frankly astonishing fast string of ‘peak boos’ , ‘who’s got your beak?’ and ‘this little piggy went to market.’ So quick, the little griffon was momentarily stunned by sheer sensory overload and instead stared up at Golden in startled interest. Then slowly the corners of her beak turned upwards and she began to giggle.
Silver watched this in his own stunned silence. It had taken him six hours to do what she had done in almost sixteen seconds. Six hours of rocking backwards and forwards, making frankly embarrassing noises and basically crying himself, as he pleaded with an infant to stop its incessant crying and go to sleep. All the while the little demon treated him like a glorified scratching post.
There were times it seemed to Silver if not to Golden, when being the daughter of a clown actually paid off.
Silver winced as the little lioness reached up and pulled on Golden's rosy cheeks, stretching them out to beyond the limits of any normal pony face. If Golden even noticed she didn’t comment, instead she let out an “aww.” as her cheeks snapped back into place.
Once the hatchling was placated, her eyelids began to droop and moments later, her little chest rose and fell rhythmically as she drifted back to sleep, her paint-brush tail swaying back and forth beside her. Goldens smile dropped like an anchor as her narrowed eyes once more slid back towards Silver, “you better start explaining yourself uncle, foalnapping is a serious crime.”
“Golden you’ve got it all wrong,” He moved towards them but she backed up hooves wrapping protectively around the hatchling, “Golden please give her back.”
“No,” she said shaking her head, “what you’re doing is mean uncle, it’s down right evil, how could you deprive a foal of-,” she glanced down at the feathery infant for a moment with a furrowed brow, “-a baby griffon, of her mother, I mean what’s all this for, your not making any sense?”
“Because she’s unfit to be her mother, now Golden, for the love of the sun and moon sit down and I will explain it to you!” He snapped, the sudden anger shocked him, he never snapped at his niece before and it showed on her face. She stood there mouth open, a slightly hurt expression on her face.
Damn it all he really needed some sleep.
There was another artificial farting sound as her flank hit the cushion, but she still held onto the chick with a protective grip. Silver sagged down, “I’m sorry Golden it’s, it’s been a hard few days.” he straightened up and looked her straight in the eyes. “Let me tell you a little story about my time at the capital, maybe after all this you’ll understand the situation.” he said slowly, pulling out his little notebook from his jacket pocket.
Somewhere outside of the window a figure was upside down and smiling, what was worse was that the face and the head were not the right way up. Discord could not believe his luck, he had heard the saying that pati-, patien-, sigh, the P-word, was its own reward and he had promptly laughed in that ponies face for nearly a whole hour.
Twilight had not been happy about it as well.
But now he was starting to see that maybe there was something to it. After all he had waited for a full six minutes while these ponies below him prattled on about their plan and every second he let them talk the reward seemed to be piling up.
This was everything he could have asked for, better than anything he could have planned even. All he had to do was tip the dominos over and the house of cards would come crumbling down… or however that saying went. He could just sit back with a bag of popcorn, watch and laugh. Oh this was even better than waking up one morning and finding a natural disaster in your Christmas stocking!
Moments like this were why he stayed, he wondered to himself sometimes why he put up with all this nonsense, and then something like this would come by and make it all worthwhile. He lifted himself back upright and sat back on a reclining chair which hovered several hundreds of feet above the castle.
He had to be smart about this, had to be, what was the word? Ah yes, Subtle, he winced at that word, so many vile words in one day, but if he wanted the maximum chaos with the shortest amount of effort involved on his part, well he supposed he would have to deal with a little bit of discomfort, as long as it meant a lot more for everyone else.
One hour later, several diagrams and a lot of note taking, Golden finally left her uncles quarters more confused than she had when she entered it.
“Scuse me, coming through, make way.” Golden yelled, racing through the corridors of the castle, as fast as a mare with a time bomb in the form of a cranky hatchling waking up from a nap could.
It had taken a long time to explain how this was actually going to work, because even her uncle seemed confused on the details. To see him second guessing himself made her uneasy, he was the type of stallion who planned everything meticulously, even down to what type of scroll he was going to use to draw up his plans.
She glanced at the sun rising through the windows racing past her, Celestia’s speech would be starting soon, which meant that Golden had to be at the bottom of Canterlot castle in twenty minutes.
Already she could hear the rumblings of the crowd outside. From one of the many windows she could see a stage had been hastily erected, guards were keeping back the sea of ponies. Her uncle had only announced the speech last night in the press, but even if he didn’t, a crowd would have formed regardless. Everypony knew that Canterlot crowds were a different breed of crowd. They could smell gossip on the wind. Canterlot crowds could sniff out entertainment wherever it was brewing and judging by the size already, whatever happened today was going to be big.
She glanced back at the basket on her back, feeling a touch of guilt. Didn’t seem very fair on the little lioness. Being thrown into all of this. Golden was happy she was getting a new family and she was sure that she would be loved no matter what happened.
But the fact that her new mommy wasn’t going to like her, or even be near her. That didn’t seem fair at all. For either of them. But she understood that if Silver had even been half right, it would be a whole lot worse if they were ever together.
But that just made her want to know, why did the princess hate griffons? What happened in princess Luna's life to make her hate a whole species. How could she hate this cutey, it just sounded like madness to her.
Golden had met many griffins in her life, some of them butchers (*a slang term they used for soldiers), some bakers (*ambassadors), even candlestick maker once, (*a confusing profession, but it usually involves walking up and down streets and asking others if they were looking for a good time.) Other than a different language they were just like her. Well besides the bird part, and the lion part, which kind of made up all of them, but deep down in there innards they were the same right?
She had met some that she didn’t like, but just in the same way she had met some ponies that were not nice. But to hate all of them, that was just weird. It didn’t make any sense.
She frowned as she turned back, then gasped as she thudded into something hard. Like in all cases with her kind, she did not quite obey the laws of physics as instead of falling backwards or simply over, she spun in a somersault through the air, completing at least four or five spins before collapsing perfectly onto her face.
“Ouch,” she muttered, feeling the need to say it even if she didn’t feel it. As she scraped herself up off the floor. She counted herself lucky that at least she didn’t land on anything comically messy.
“Are you alright, that was a nasty fall?” She turned and spotted a stallion in the same frilly maid suit that she was in. Which was strange because the stallion maids didn’t usually wear the frilly style outfits, well most of them didn’t, but Lock Box wasn’t in on Fridays.
“Who are you?” She asked looking up at the smiling stallion, a smile that seemed too big to be real.
The stallion blinked, his eyes were different colours she noticed, “oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there, I think you dropped this by the way.” He said handing her the basket with a wink.
Golden gasped, then snatched it back from the stallion, and immediately went to open it to check on the hatchling. She stopped halfway, the words secret and show no pony, rang in her ears from her uncle's words.
“Don’t worry I caught it before she fell.” He winked again “wouldn’t want to spoil the show before hand aye?” Something about what he said snapped a membrane in the back of her mind kicking it into gear, but unfortunately she was still disorientated by the fall. She watched as he picked up another basket, identical to hers in every way and set it on his back. “Anyway, would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of Princess Luna's chambers?”
“Umm, that way.” Golden said, stepping aside. “When did you start working here mister, I really don’t recognise you at all?”
“Oh I’m a transfer and foreign exchange student, and it’s my first day, I’m covering for someone and also I’m fresh off the plane.” He listed off rapidly with a smirk, Goldens brow furrowed, she hadn’t heard of any new apprentices, also what heck was a plan-
“-didn’t you need to be somewhere you looked in a hurry?” The stallion asked with a raised brow.
Golden blinked, “oh sugar plums!” She yelled, throwing the basket back onto her back as she turned and flew back through the corridors.
The mysterious stallion watched Golden as she skidded across the marble floor nearly colliding into two stallions carrying a windowpane, then when she was out of sight, he flicked the blanket off the basket and stared down into the contents with a smile that would have rivalled a crocodiles.
“Hello there little one,” he purred softly to the sleeping hatchling below, “I think it’s high time you met your new mother, don’t you think?”