Considering who they were intended to confine, the seals that Discord had placed on the sisters’ cave weren’t particularly strong. However, they didn’t need to be. Luna soon determined that they were designed to alert Discord if they were broken, which in turn meant that the draconequus would be able to confront them before they could meet up with any allies they might have. Of course, this also meant that they were completely cut off from the outside world.
The lack of food and water wasn’t really a problem. For one thing, they were alicorns, and were therefore under no obligation to leave the mortal coil until they were good and ready, equine physiology be damned. For another, both of them were sufficiently skilled mages to transform the many rocks around them into the various necessities of life. Rather, their problem was an aggravating mixture of uncertainty and boredom. Cut off from the skies they loved so much, Celestia and Luna began rearranging the crystals they found deeper inside in an effort to make it feel more like a home, but it did little to ease their worries.
They were putting the finishing touches on one such chamber when they were interrupted by a loud blast and a bright, green light as the seal over the cave’s entrance abruptly crumbled. The two alicorns rushed towards the disturbance, expecting to see Discord returning for further gloating, but instead, the sunlight (beautiful, warm sunlight!) revealed three ponies standing in the entryway, one from each of the races.
Celestia recognized the unicorn, a pale blue mare with a shaggy, multicolored mane, as Rainbow Connection, head of the Mages’ Guild, but the pegasus and earth pony were unknown to her. “We bid you welcome,” she said diplomatically, “though perhaps now is not the best time for pleasantries, for surely Discord will be aware that his seal has been broken, and shall arrive here straightaway.”
“That is unlikely,” Rainbow Connection replied, “for he is currently engaged in a struggle with the remaining members of my guild, who are using all their power to prevent a permanent solar eclipse even as we speak. They are receiving assistance from the Cloudsmiths’ Guild and the Miners’ Guild, who are doing what they can to divert his attention through their skills.”
“How did you find us?” Celestia asked. “My sister and I were under the impression that this cave’s entrance appeared as bare rock to the naked eye.”
“Indeed it does, your Majesties,” the mage answered, “and that is how we found it. The maps and charts in the Miner’s Guild’s archives indicated a large cave in the area, but when pegasi from the Cloudsmith’s Guild were sent to search for you, the entrance was nowhere to be found. The scholars of my guild theorized that it had been sealed and hidden by powerful magic, which is why I traveled with my fellow Guildmasters so that we might use our abilities to release you from your captivity.”
“This effort is most admirable,” Luna said, “and yet we can not help but wonder why your Guilds felt the need to send your most honored representatives, rather than delegate the task to more junior members. My sister and I were given to understand that we were no longer desired as Equestria’s rulers.”
The three ponies looked quite embarrassed at this. “Your Majesties, please forgive our foolishness,” the unicorn said, bowing deeply. The pegasus and earth pony followed suit. “After you left, Discord transformed from a pony into something... monstrous. He has turned all of Equestria into a madhouse, raising the sun and the moon on a whim, turning the sky green, red, and yellow, transforming the waters of our rivers into hollandaise sauce, and... and...” Rainbow Connection trailed off, clearly disturbed by whatever she had left to say.
Of course, this unfinished statement did not sate either sister’s curiosity, so Luna bade her to continue: “And?”
It was the earth pony who broke the silence. “He... he’s destroyed the Everfree Plains! It’s become a horrible, malevolent forest where plants grow of their own accord, animals care for themselves, and the weather refuses to yield to the pegasi!”
Celestia sighed as she gazed at her hooves. “I am sorry to hear of this.”
“Why would he do this?” the earth pony asked. He seemed to be begging for any sort of explanation that could make sense of what had happened.
The white alicorn pondered this conundrum for a bit. “Well, ’tis possible he wishes to bring us further sorrow by tormenting our subjects, or...”
“Or... what?”
“...or he simply finds it amusing.” The utter resignation in Celestia’s voice left the distinct impression that she believed the latter of these explanations to be true.
“Your Majesties... can you forgive us? Will you help us?” Rainbow Connection asked.
Celestia only needed the briefest moment of eye contact with her sister before answering. “We shall forgive you,” she said evenly, “and all shall be set right.”
———————————
Discord looked absolutely stunned when he heard Penumbra’s terms. “Let me get this straight. If I make you laugh, I basically get to do whatever I want?”
“That’s a rather simplistic way to put it,” Penumbra replied with a roll of her eyes, “but yes, it’s more or less the case. Is this acceptable?”
“Acceptable? This is the best thing I’ve heard in years! You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said, shaking the pegasus’ hoof enthusiastically as he cackled with glee. “I can’t believe Celestia thought you’d give me a hard time. Let me guess: professional courtesy?”
“I am no longer interested in political power,” Penumbra said. “And I think you’ll find your task more difficult than you may initially think.”
“Is that so? It seems as though your friends think differently.” Indeed, most of the Element-Bearers had panic-stricken looks on their faces, which, as it happened, quite accurately projected their collective certainty that Penumbra had just given Discord a no-strings-attached victory on a silver platter. However, had the draconequus bothered to take a closer look at their audience, he might have noticed that Pinkie Pie’s expression was not one of worry, but rather a look of dawning (if still somewhat concerned) comprehension.
For his part, Discord continued to giggle victoriously. “I think you’ll find, my dear, that I can make anypony laugh with hardly any effort. Observe,” he said confidently as he placed a finger on top of Penumbra’s head and pressed down.
The Element-Bearers looked on with nervous apprehension as Discord infused their friend with chaotic magic—with the exception of Fluttershy, who flinched and started staring at a copse of trees located in the opposite direction. Seconds passed as all waited for the grumpy pegasus to begin cracking up. Then, suddenly, just when it seemed that Discord’s magic might have failed... absolutely nothing continued to happen.
“Oh, come on, what gives?” the draconequus said with irritation grating his voice as he viciously poked the top of Penumbra’s head a half-dozen more times. “I was sure my magic was working just fine a moment ago.” Scanning the ground for something to test his malfunctioning digit on, Discord spotted a daisy near Rainbow Dash’s hooves. One finger-flick later, and the weatherpony was scrambling to fly out of the reach of a horrifically fanged daisy-beast. Discord, however, was too busy trying to figure out what had gone wrong to fully enjoy the sight. “Well, if it isn’t that, then what could it be?” When nopony elected to assist Discord in his speculation. he returned to his previous efforts to poke the giggles into Penumbra’s head.
However, the Duchess of Everfree was far less willing to tolerate such antics the second time around; her customary frown had intensified into a scowl. “Discord, do you seriously think I would have made that offer if I didn’t already have some resistance to mind control magic in the first place?”
Discord looked rather confused by this query; rather than answering it, he scratched his head and asked one of his own: “How exactly did you get the impression that I think seriously?”
Penumbra didn’t particularly feel like letting the conversation go in that direction, so she answered her original question instead. “Well, I wouldn’t have. So unless you think that you’ll get a laugh out of me by giving me noogies, I suggest you try something else.”
“Something else, eh? Hmm....” The draconequus tapped his lizard foot absently against the ground as he stroked his upper lip and pondered his options. “Let’s see... if poking you in the head didn’t work, perhaps poking you in your soft underbelly will!”
“What?” But the crafty draconequus had already slunk his way beneath Penumbra, and before she knew what was happening, he’d started poking her repeatedly in her stomach. “Hee hee ha aha ha... stop it!”
“You bet I will, now that I’ve won!” Discord said. “I made you laugh! I get to do whatever I want now! Go Discord, it’s your birthday—”
“Not so fast,” Applejack said. “Ticklin’ don’t count.”
“Says who?”
“Says me, an’ Penumbra said I’m the final judge. It’s pretty obvious to me that Penny meant that you were s’posed ta make her laugh by doin’ somethin’ funny. That’s just a physical reaction.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I know it cuz she went back to bein’ a sourpuss like normal the second you stopped.” In reality, this was merely the reason the pegasus had stopped laughing. She was being a sourpuss because Applejack had referred to her as “Penny.”
“No fair! You didn’t say that when I agreed to this!”
“You didn’t let me,” Applejack replied. “You just jumped right into your little mind control trick, which, by the way, wouldn’t’ve counted even if it had worked. Now, how ’bout ya hush up an’ listen to my rules?”
“Fine,” Discord groused, crushing the still-snarling daisy monster under an anvil.
“Ya get ta do what you wanna if you can make Penumbra laugh, but you ain’t allowed to force her to do it. You understand?”
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, lowering his voice to mutter indistinctly about somepony being “as bad as those killjoy Princesses.”
However, once he’d finished his private grumblings, Discord seemed unusually diplomatic about the situation. “Very well,” he said. “It seems as though I’ll have to put some thought into this one, so I think I’ll retire for the day. I presume that I’ll be staying with you, Ms. Penumbra?”
If the draconequus had hoped that his sudden shift back into politeness would catch the ponies off-guard, he was mistaken. “Heck no, you won’t be staying with her!” Pinkie Pie said angrily. “She lives in my head, and I don’t want you anywhere near there!”
“Why not?” Discord asked in mock astonishment.
“Because I don’t like you,” Pinkie said bluntly, which caused genuine astonishment among her friends. Sure, Discord wasn’t exactly the first person that the pink pony had disliked, but it wasn’t often that she stated that sort of thing to someone’s face.
“Oh, what a pity. No matter. I shall arrange my own lodgings, then.”
“No way,” Twilight Sparkle said, stamping a hoof onto the ground. “You need to be supervised.”
“Then it seems that you have a bit of a problem, don’t you?” Discord pointed out as he gave them his most devilish grin.
———————————
After some rather heated discussion, most of which revolved around the reasons why Penumbra couldn’t move out of Pinkie’s head and house Discord herself, Applejack eventually volunteered to put the chimeric troublemaker up in one of the spare barns at Sweet Apple Acres. This was partly because her farm was located well away from the homes of most of Ponyville’s residents, but mostly because this gave her a better chance to catch him in the act of doing something nasty so she could declare Penumbra’s ill-considered scheme null and void before Discord could cause too much havoc.
To the surprise of absolutely nopony, when the apple farmer dropped Discord off at Cloud Nineteen the next morning, she looked like a complete wreck. Her mane was disheveled, her baggy eyes seemed unable to focus, and she was extremely irritable. In short, Applejack reminded Penumbra of the stubborn, sleep-deprived memory that she’d met during her stay inside Twilight Sparkle’s mind. “Er, did he give you a lot of trouble?” the pegasus asked the earth pony in a somewhat apologetic tone. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that she ought to have asked Applejack for permission before saddling her with all this authority.
“Oh, no,” Applejack said with an uncharacteristic sneer. “That blasted son of a parasprite didn’t give me no problems all night!” Discord, for his part, stood nearby attempting to look as innocent as possible, though if anything, the angelic glow and ethereal choir that surrounded him made him seem even guiltier than usual.
“What did he do?” Penumbra asked with a sigh.
“Nuthin’! Nuthin’ at all!” the farmer said with extreme exasperation in her unusually ragged voice.
“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Applejack,” Penumbra replied.
“Oh, she isn’t being sarcastic,” Discord interjected, apparently no longer willing to withhold his observations. “You see, when I realized how paranoid she was about me, it occurred to me that I could maximize my chaos production by doing absolutely nothing. Thus, as she consumed cup after cup of coffee, I took the opportunity to catch a few Z’s—after a thousand or so years of semi-consciousness, I’d completely forgotten how enjoyable it is to fall asleep. I then awoke at dawn to the delightful sound of Applejack screaming at me to quit dawdling and start annoying her already.”
“That ain’t what I said,” Applejack grumbled. “An’ I wasn’t screamin’. I was just voicin’ my opinion a bit louder than I usually do.”
“But it is more or less what you meant, and your opinions were being voiced at the top of your lungs—loud enough for your darling little sister to hear, in fact. Oh, wasn’t it delightful when she shared her new vocabulary words with all of us at breakfast?”
Applejack’s left eye twitched ominously for a few seconds before she turned her attention back to Penumbra. “He’s all yours for the day. I’m headin’ back to Sweet Apple Acres to make sure he didn’t leave no trap doors in the ground, or some other nonsense.” With that, the farmer spun around and started trudging back to her home.
Penumbra cast a piercing stare in the draconequus’ direction, where he was adding “trap doors” onto an already-extensive list on an oversized blackboard. “You really didn’t do anything, did you?” she finally asked, letting her glare melt into a smirk.
“Nope,” Discord answered, returning his own toothy grin as the list zipped away into nothingness. “So, Duchess, what’s on the schedule for today?”
“Please, drop the title. The only reason I even accepted it at all was as a compromise with Celestia.”
“Ah,” Discord said. “She wanted to keep you from being a Princess because she’s still got that stick up her hindquarters, then.”
“Actually, she did her best to convince me to accept a coronation. Essentially, my status as an alicorn means that I’ll be treated like a Princess whether I want it or not, so as far as she was concerned, my authority might as well be de jure instead of merely de facto. But in reality.... You don’t really care, do you?”
“Two for two!” Discord said cheerfully. “Now, what are your plans?”
“Plans?” Penumbra asked. “Why would I make plans? You’re the one who has to make me laugh, remember?”
“Oh, er, right. Well, then I guess I’ll just tag along with you, and when I see the chance to do something funny, I’ll take it. How’s that sound?”
Penumbra considered this for a second or two before giving her answer. “I’d say that sounds quite reasonable,” she said, ending with a smirk as Discord’s eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn’t realized how sensible his idea was.
The draconequus stared at the cloudsmith through slitted eyes. “Alright, fess up. How did you trick me into doing that?”
“I didn’t trick you at all.”
Clearly, Discord thought that this explanation was inadequate, but Penumbra refused to elaborate with anything more than a cryptic smile. Eventually, the chimera threw his hands in the air melodramatically. “Fine! We’ll do it your way.”
“Correction,” Penumbra said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “We’re doing it your way.”
“Arrgh!”
———————————
Penumbra heaved a sigh of relief as she landed on the ground; she and Discord had miraculously made all the way across town without her guest getting involved in any incidents with innocent ponies, though the pegasus wasn’t certain if that was because the draconequus was worried about being turned to stone again, or because so many of Ponyville’s residents were huddled inside their homes for fear of coming into contact with the chaotic wackjob.
Indeed, the cloudsmith would have seriously considered spending the entire day at her forge, if she hadn’t needed to go into town to meet with a pair of potential clients. She knew that these particular ponies was especially eager to work with her, as they were the only customers who hadn’t canceled her appointment upon learning about the cloudsmith’s new “project.” Nopony else was willing to risk even the possibility that Discord might show up on their doorstep with her.
This particular doorstep, however, was part of a modest multi-story thatched roof cottage that was typical of most of Ponyville’s residences, albeit with a few touches here and there that suggested its residents were upper-middle-class rather than middle-middle-class, such as a roof made of straw with the distinctive shimmer of an anti-rot spell, or the brass door knocker hanging on the building’s entrance which had been engraved with the letters “G” and “C” surrounded by a filigree heart symbol—or at least, it had been a symbol.
“Clever though it might be for you to change the shape to that of an anatomically correct heart, I’d rather not find myself having to pay to replace this knocker. Please restore it, Discord.”
“Oh, fine,” the chimera said as he rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, undoing his chaotic magic, “but I need to stay limber for when the chance to do something funny happens.”
Penumbra, however, got the distinct impression that this demonstration was intended to be the aforementioned “something funny,” though she decided not to press the matter and knocked on the door several times. “Now, I realize that there’s little point in asking you to behave yourself,” she told Discord, “so instead I’m going to recommend that you use as much common sense as you can manage while we’re in these ponies’ house. Do you understand?”
“I assure you that I comprehend your advice in its entirety,” Discord said with a relatively straight face.
Penumbra briefly considered pointing out that he hadn’t actually said whether he had any intention of following this advice, but before she had a chance to speak again, the door swung open, revealing a pair of unicorns. The stallion was powerfully built with a white coat and brown mane and tail and rather impressive handlebar mustache on upper lip. He was wearing a black sweater with green patches sewn over the knees, and he sported a cutie mark that consisted of a trio of footballs, though they were of the oddly-shaped sort used in “Equestrian football,” rather than the round balls used in the more sensibly-named sport that was popular in Trottingham. Beside him was a slightly overweight pink mare with a purple mane that had been done up in an impressively tall beehive hairdo. Her cutie mark consisted of three cookies, one of which had a bite taken out of it, leaving some crumbs behind.
“Hello there,” the stallion said cordially. “You must be Penumbra. I’m Gridiron, and this is my wife, Courtesy. It’s nice to finally meet you face-to-face.” Of course, Penumbra had already met these two ponies before, even if she didn’t know them very well on a personal level; after all, they were Rarity’s parents, and Rarity was a reasonably close friend of hers. However, they didn’t seem too keen on making this obvious, mostly because they were worried that Discord might start pestering Sweetie Belle as a means of playing mind games with her sister. Thus, when Rarity had told them about the draconequus the previous night, they’d sent their daughter back to Penumbra to request that she behave as though she had never met them before during the meeting. Ultimately, the cloudsmith had agreed, understanding their worry, even though their proposed solution probably wasn’t going to make the initial problem go away.
Now, however, was not the time to belittle their ideas. Right now, they were potential clients, and if pretending they were strangers made them feel more comfortable around Discord, it was to be embraced wholeheartedly, no matter how little sense it made. “Greetings,” she said with a pleasant nod of her head and indulged the unicorns in one of her rare smiles. “I am indeed Penumbra Noctis, owner of Cloud Nineteen, and this is Discord, an... acquaintance of mine.” She eyed the draconequus warily. It had been nearly thirty seconds since he’d gotten into any mischief, and he was already looking antsy.
“Er, why don’t you two come in and have a seat here?” Courtesy said as she gestured towards her living room.
Penumbra should have been more worried about the way Discord’s eyes suddenly brightened up. “Why, that sounds delightful! Don’t mind if I do,” he said, slinking his way into their home. Seconds later, he’d grabbed a wooden chair from their kitchen, placed it between two slices of bread, and was happily munching away on the piece of furniture.
“Mmm!” he said contentedly in between bites. “I can’t believe I’ve never thought of having a seat for brunch before. Why, there has to be a least a full day’s worth of fiber in every bite. Is this maple, by any chance?”
Penumbra was not nearly as amused. “Discord...” she said with a glare.
“What?” the draconequus replied with his mouth full, sending splinters flying with each syllable. “She said I could have one.”
“Er, actually, that’s okay, so long as it’s just the one,” Courtesy said politely. Clearly, she didn’t want this meeting to last any longer than it had to. Discord responded with a oddly grateful-sounding belch as he swallowed the rest of his chair sandwich.
The three ponies all sat down in the living room, with Discord joining them shortly thereafter. The conversation that followed was surprisingly free of random silliness, mostly because the draconequus kept himself busy by looking around the room for something he could use to extract a chuckle from Penumbra’s throat. “So,” the cloudsmith began, “how may I serve you?”
“Well,” said Gridiron, “we’re interested in commissioning a sculpture for our youngest daughter’s cute-ceañera.”
This came a surprise to the pegasus, who was fairly certain that Rarity would have mentioned something if Sweetie Belle had finally gotten her cutie mark after all of her past efforts. “I see... so, I take it that the happy event occurred recently, then.”
“Oh, goodness, no, though it’s not from lack of trying, don’tcha know,” Courtesy replied. “But it should be happening relatively soon, so we’ve decided to start making plans now.”
“Of course,” Penumbra said with a nod. “Well, the time it takes me to make a cloud statue of a pony depends on many factors, such as size and detail, but I rarely have to spend more than two days working on it. However, I have a rather full schedule at times, so I’d recommend placing your order at least a week in advance—preferably two, actually—to ensure that I can deliver the final product by the date of the festivities.”
To Penumbra’s surprise, the two unicorns looked at each other with rather worried expressions. “Actually, that’s not going to work out with our plans,” Gridiron said as he turned back to the cloudsmith. “You see, we want our daughter’s cute-ceañera to be a surprise, you know?”
“I assure you that I can be quite discreet when I deliver the finished sculpture,” Penumbra said.
“No, you don’t understand,” Courtesy said. “We want to hold a surprise cute-ceañera on the day she gets her cutie mark. Pinkie Pie has already agreed to handle the logistics for us,” they explained, clearly proud that the royal-to-be was willing to lend her time and expertise to this effort, “and she gave the impression that this would be of little trouble to you, owing to your... unique abilities as a pegasus.”
Penumbra sighed quietly. After all, these two were hardly the first ponies to misunderstand what alicorn-level pegasus magic was capable of. “All the magical power in the world won’t allow me to give you that level of speed without sacrificing quality. I very much doubt that I can do your daughter’s likeness any justice with only a few hours’ notice, and even I could, I wouldn’t have time to infuse the resulting sculpture with the magic needed to keep it from dissipating after a few days.”
“Perhaps you could start work on it now, yah?” Gridiron proposed. “Keep it in storage until our filly gets her mark? Then you’d only need to put a few finishing touches on it, right?”
Penumbra tapped a hoof against her chin thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s possible,” she said at least, “but I don’t have infinite storage space, especially not in the levels of the atmosphere needed to preserve an unfinished cloud sculpture. I’d have to charge you for that.”
“Oh, that’s no trouble at all,” said Courtesy with a relieved smile. “We’re willing to go the extra kilotrot for Sweetie— er, sweetheart. Our little sweetheart.”
Unfortunately, the plump unicorn’s awkward attempt to conceal her daughter’s identity only served to pique the interest of a certain Spirit of Chaos. “Hang on a second,” Discord said, suddenly injecting himself into the conversation, “your filly wouldn’t happen to be a white unicorn with a lavender-and-purple mane who hangs out with a pale yellow earth pony and an orange pegasus, would she?”
“Er, yah,” Gridiron replied, nervously stroking his mustache. “And, um, how exactly do you know our daughter?”
“Oh, I’m very well acquainted with her indeed; after all, if it wasn’t for her squabbling with her two little friends in the Royal Sculpture Garden, I might never have escaped in the first place.”
“Oh? Well, that’s... nice, I suppose,” Courtesy replied with as much nervousness apparent in her voice as her husband’s.
“Yes, it was quite thoughtful of them, wasn’t it?” Discord said. “And yet it occurs to me that I have rather selfishly neglected to properly show my gratitude to your daughter.”
Gridiron seemed to be sweating a bit, which was rather odd, since if anything, it felt like a chill had swept through the room. “There’s no need to trouble yourself about that, sir. After all, we’ve tried to raise our foals to believe that doing good is its own reward.”
“Oh, isn’t that lovely?” Discord asked Penumbra rhetorically (at least, she hoped it was supposed to be rhetorical). “They want their little filly to grow up to be a doormat.” The draconequus turned his attention back to the ponies who he’d just blatantly insulted and continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted in the first place. “Anyway, I think I have the perfect solution to your little conundrum. After all, there won’t be any need to store an unfinished cloud sculpture if I just give her a cutie mark myself.”
“No!” both parents immediately cried out, which seemed to surprise Discord, though whether his astonishment came from the fact that these two were actively opposing him or because he genuinely thought they’d accept his offer wasn’t exactly clear.
“Aw, come on, it wouldn’t need to be permanent if she didn’t like it. Just a little something to brighten her day, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Discord,” Courtesy said firmly, “but cutie marks need to come in their own time, you know?” Gridiron backed up his wife’s statement with a curt nod of his head.
Penumbra, however, was starting to get concerned. What Sweetie Belle’s parents were saying to the draconequus sounded an awful lot like a rejection to her ears, and if there was one thing that she had learned from her own experiences, it was that imaginary friends did not handle rejection very well—from anypony.
Sure enough, Discord’s surprise had already disintegrated into indignation. “Oh, I assure you, my magic is perfectly harmless when I want it to be,” he said darkly as a sneer curled his upper lip.
“It’s not that,” Gridiron said quickly, apparently realizing that he and his spouse had inadvertently committed a major faux pas. “It’s just that a cutie mark should be something unique to each individual pony. It’s such a big part of everypony’s life, after all.”
“Is that so?” Discord asked, but before either unicorn could answer, he’d snapped his eagle talons, causing a blinding flash of light to fill the room. By the time the spots faded from Penumbra’s vision, her clients had been replaced by an oversized football and an equally massive snickerdoodle.
“Well, what do you know?” Discord asked gleefully. “A cutie mark really is a big part of a pony’s life after all!” He let out a joyous cackle in celebration of his own cleverness before turning to his associate to gauge her reaction. “What do you think? Hilarious, right?” he questioned eagerly.
Penumbra, on the other hoof, was not amused in the slightest. She glared at the chimera, her expression as stonefaced as ever. “Would you mind returning my clients to their normal states?” she asked him coolly after his fit of laughter began to fade away.
Discord was not exactly keen to comply with this request. “Why should I change them back when you obviously haven’t gotten the joke yet?”
“Well, for starters, if you don’t, you run the risk that the Elements of Harmony will decide you’re a lost cause and put you back in your statue,” the pegasus pointed out with a smirk.
“Arrgh!”
———————————
“I don’t see why you’re angry at me,” Discord said irritably as he and Penumbra emerged onto the streets of Ponyville. “After all, it wasn’t as though I was the only one who was misbehaving. You do realize I knew they were Rarity’s parents the whole time, right?”
Penumbra sighed before answering, “I figured as much. After all, given how knowledgeable you were about the goings-on in town when you were released, it would be surprising if you didn’t. Still, that hardly means you’re justified in having a hissy fit just because I didn’t think your actions were funny.”
“Well, it’s not like I caused any permanent damage,” Discord pointed out. “You even got your commission in the end, so you didn’t suffer from my little joke, either. No harm, no foul, as they say.”
“Just because there wasn’t any foul doesn’t mean you automatically get to score points.”
“Whatever,” Discord said as he rolled his eyes. “Where are we going next?”
“Well,” Penumbra said furtively, “I had considered using this time to get something to eat, but I’m starting to think that idea was excessively optimistic.”
“Aw, c’mon, I’ll be good.”
“By whose definition?” Penumbra asked, though she quickly held up a hoof to silence the draconequus when she realized that he wasn’t going to treat the question as rhetorical. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “My mind’s made up. I’m heading back to Cloud Nineteen.”
“And what if I don’t want to go with you?” Discord asked smugly as he floated uncomfortably close to the pegasus.
“Then you’re free to roam the streets of Ponyville, though you should keep in mind that you won’t have any chances to make me laugh, and if the Element-Bearers hear that you’ve been spreading chaos, it’s back to the Sculpture Garden.”
Discord groaned and rolled his eyes yet again, though whether it was due to the strength of Penumbra’s arguments or because he couldn’t come up with a snappy comeback was impossible to tell. “Can we at least walk back so I have a chance to find a few openings?”
“Very well,” Penumbra reluctantly agreed. After all, she had said she would give Discord a fair shot.
However, openings for humor were few and far between as the pair strolled through town, most likely due to the fact that Discord scared the everloving crap out of most ordinary ponies—and more than a few of the extraordinary ones, for that matter.
“Um, h-hello, Penumbra.”
Penumbra jumped a little when Fluttershy approached the two of them from behind and nervously greeted her friend. She hadn’t seen the yellow pegasus drawing near. “Oh, hello, Fluttershy,” she replied. “What brings you into town?”
The town’s resident animal lover immediately grew more nervous than usual and almost immediately started tripping over her words: “Oh, well, you see, I needed to come into town to keep an eye on—I mean, keep an eye out for, um, potential bargains on, er, rabbit food. Because I have a bunny rabbit named Angel. Who, um, you’ve met, right?”
“But the market is on the other side of town.”
“Oh! So it is. I, um, must have gotten turned around at some point, I guess.” Fluttershy awkwardly dragged her hoof along the ground as she avoided making eye contact with Penumbra and especially Discord.
“Fluttershy?” Penumbra asked with genuine concern in her voice. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s fine,” Discord said dismissively. “She’s probably just nervous about taking up her guard duty, that’s all.”
“Guard duty? What would she be guarding?”
The draconequus snorted. “Obviously, as a Bearer of Harmony, it is her duty to protect you from my delightful sense of whimsy. I guessing Applejack roped her into it so she could get some sleep. How close was I?” he asked the Element of Kindness, who responded by blushing furiously.
“Well, um, it’s not that we don’t think you can’t take care of yourself, Penumbra. It’s just that Discord can get the best of almost anypony if he tries hard enough, and we thought you might like some, you know, um support.”
To Fluttershy’s relief, Penumbra didn’t seem offended at all—in fact, she gave her a surprisingly warm smile. “That’s actually very sweet of you, Fluttershy.”
“No, this is sweet of her!” Discord suddenly called out. He waved his lion’s paw dramatically, sending a shower of sugary dust (or quite possibly dandruff) over Fluttershy’s mane and tail causing her hair to coagulate into a sticky, sugary, semisolid mass of pink frosting. The draconequus cocked his ear towards Penumbra, awaiting the inevitable guffaws to follow.
But once again, the laughter was annoyingly elusive. “Oh, no, not again,” Fluttershy moaned, which caused any sense of premature victory to immediately evaporate from Discord’s demeanor.
“‘Again’? What’s this ‘again’ business? How could you possibly have any experience with having your mane turned into cake frosting?”
Penumbra snorted derisively. “Actually, that’s exactly what the Allegedly Great and Powerful Trixie did to Fluttershy when she challenged Twilight to a magic duel two months ago. You may have heard something about that incident.”
“Actually, it’s not as bad this time,” Fluttershy said. “At least this isn’t that rock-hard icing that Trixie used, so I can still move my neck around.”
“Ugh, I hate it when inferior comics ruin perfectly good punchlines!” Discord said as he snapped his fingers and returned Fluttershy’s mane to normal. He tapped a claw against his chin as he pondered what to select from his toolbox of whimsicality. Suddenly, inspiration hit him: “If this Trixie has overexposed my audience to sweetness, I’ll just give ’em sour!” Another bolt of magical energy flew from his hand, summoning a large metal dumpster which hovered over Fluttershy before inverting and spilling its contents all over her.
As the timid pegasus extracted herself from the horrifically foul-smelling mess, Discord admired his handiwork. “There we go! Not only sour, but also putrid and rotten! What do you think of that, Penny?”
“Three things,” Penumbra said as she she covered her nostrils with one of her forehooves. “First, don’t call me Penny. Second, I don’t think it’s particularly funny, especially since it happened to Fluttershy. And third, Trixie used a similar tactic as well during her first duel with Twilight, only she did it on a slightly larger scale.”
Discord did not take this news well, if the increasingly violent twitch in his right eye was any indication. “What kind of nutcase would come up with ideas like that? I mean, besides me.”
Somehow, Penumbra wasn’t surprised that Discord was more bothered by having his originality called into question than by anything else she’d brought up. “Trixie, apparently,” she answered him flatly, watching with fascination as his left eye acquired a twitch of its own.
“Gah!” shouted the draconequus as he sent a flood of sudsy water flowing over Fluttershy, rendering her squeaky clean once again (but completely ruining her manestyle). “Trixie, Trixie, Trixie! Is that all you can talk about?”
Penumbra shrugged absently. “I can talk about how you’re failing to make me laugh instead, if you’d like.”
Discord, however, wasn’t listening. Instead, he scanned the area in search of something with which he could demonstrate his creative superiority. His eyes brightened as they alighted on a large marble statue of an earth pony standing on the grass some distance away from an empty stone plinth. Had he been in a better mood, the Spirit of Chaos might have taken delight in such silliness, but at the moment, he seemed more intent on restoring his reputation for the blowing of minds.
He wound up his arms as if he was about to pitch a baseball and hurled a glob of glowing mana at the sculpture, which suddenly relaxed from its stiffened position and looked around with some confusion until it spotted the unoccupied marble plinth. Smiling, the stone pony trotted up to it, assumed a dynamic, acrobatic position, and gave a thankful nod in Discord’s direction before freezing in place once again.
The draconequus looked quite proud of himself as he turned his attention back to Penumbra. “There! I bet you’ve never seen Trixie do anything like that!”
Penumbra paused for a second before nodding in agreement. “You’re right. I’ve never seen her do something like that.”
“Yes!” Discord shouted victoriously as he pumped his fist in the air.
Penumbra couldn’t resist smiling as she added a clarification: “Then again, Trixie probably wouldn’t repeat something she’d just seen Twilight Sparkle do, would she?”
Discord’s arm flopped to his side as his celebration pathetically faded away. “Twilight Sparkle already did that?”
Penumbra cocked an eyebrow and stared at the draconequus for a second. “Well, technically speaking, I suppose that’s not quite what she did.”
Discord let out a sigh of relief. “Thank chaos. I wouldn’t want to be out-entropied by that monotonous goody-four-shoes.”
The dark blue pegasus grinned evilly as she explained further. “You see, Twilight never got around to fixing Ringaling’s statue.”
“Arrgh!”
———————————
After his second failure in as many hours, Discord seemed to realize that manufacturing a giggle from Penumbra would require more forethought than he usually put into... well... anything. Thus, he spent the rest of the morning observing his would-be reformer as she went about her work at Cloud Nineteen’s forge, asking various questions about the ins and outs of her business as though he was a prospective apprentice. At the moment, she was working on a commission for Hoity Toity, a stallion who, according to Rarity, had a lot of clout in the Canterlot fashion scene.
The earth pony had ordered a rather ostentatious sculpture of himself for the grand opening celebration of the new Ponyville location of his chain of luxury retail stores—the first of many such businesses to come, no doubt, as the residence of two of Equestria’s Princesses meant that Ponyville was expected to become a de facto second capital in the years ahead. Penumbra had put quite a bit of work into the sculpture, which was roughly five times as tall as the pony it depicted. It had taken her a full day to amass the cloud needed, and a second to bring it to a shade of grey that matched the upper class pony’s coat precisely. She’d finished the main body the previous night, and was now adding white cloud to recreate Hoity Toity’s rather distinctive mane and tail.
“It looks a little bit rough, though,” Discord commented as he suddenly dissipated the balls of cloud he’d been juggling. “You’re really going to be finished today?”
“No, this is just a very basic form. The finish will be tomorrow, when I add in all of the details, like the client’s trademark sunglasses. Still, I’d like to think it’s in very good shape, considering where I am in the overall process.”
“Oh, it’s very nice indeed,” Discord agreed with the faintest wisp of a smile on his face, “but I can’t help but think it could use a little more... substance.” And so, with a flick of the wrist and a snap of his fingers, the intricate cloud sculpture suddenly transformed into a thick, white mass that fell to the ground with an audible splat.
For a few seconds, the cloudsmith seemed unwilling to let herself respond to this. Eventually, she managed to ask, “Discord... what did you just do?”
The draconequus was sniggering quietly in an effort to hold back his laughter, but he somehow managed to let the words “shaving cream” escape from his mouth.
Penumbra rolled her eyes. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!”
“Snrrkk— Nope!”
As the puffy lumps of soapy foam gradually spread across the grass, Discord let loose a series of guffaws. Clearly, he was quite satisfied with his handiwork. Penumbra, however, did not look nearly as amused. “Just out of curiosity, could you please explain why that was supposed to be humorous?”
It seemed that this was not a question that was normally posed to the draconequus, as his laughter stopped abruptly and his face took on a confused expression before he answered. “It’s shaving cream. Shaving cream used for purposes other than shaving is inherently funny.”
“And yet, I’m not even smiling. Now, why do you suppose that is?”
“Uh... because you’re a bitter shell of a pony who is no longer able to take joy in the simple pleasures of life?”
“No, it’s because I’m too angry with you for ruining three days’ worth of work!” Penumbra shouted. “This may be news to you, but it’s a lot easier to get somepony to laugh when they aren’t contemplating ripping out your spinal column and beating you to death with it!”
Discord immediately started giggling. “Hee hee hee! Beaten to death with my own vertebrae... I’ll have to remember that one.”
Needless to say, this wasn’t the effect that Penumbra had hoped to produce. The cloudsmith massaged her temples with her hooves and took several deep breaths to calm herself down before she spoke again. “You do realize that if you want to get me to laugh, eventually you’ll have to do something funny, right?”
“But that was funny! It’s nothing like what you normally come across in your boring, humdrum existence, and it was completely unexpected. That’s grade-A prank material.”
The cloudsmith, however, had a rather different appraisal of her guest’s efforts. “Unexpected? Listen, if you want to take somepony by surprise, I’d start by doing something surprising.”
Discord seemed to be genuinely offended by this piece of advice. “Surprising?! I turned your clouds into shaving cream! How could you have known I was going to do that?”
Penumbra scoffed at this: “Because you’re Discord, and these allegedly wacky antics are what you always do. There’s no need for me to figure out what you will specifically do ahead of time. The only thing you ever do is to overturn the rules of logic so you can watch the resulting chaos. In short, you’re predictably unpredictable.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Discord said huffily.
“Since when do you care about that?” the pegasus retorted.
“I’m predictably unpredictable, huh? Well, how about—”
“Are you planning on doing the exact same thing you just did five minutes ago?”
Discord ground his teeth together and slammed his cloven hoof into the ground. “Oh, come on! You must have picked up the pink one’s fortune-telling abilities. That’s got to be cheating. I’m telling Applejack on you!”
Penumbra idly glanced at some dirt on the underside of her hoof as she corrected the draconequus’ assumptions. “Pinkie Pie can’t simply grant her Pinkie Sense to other ponies, and you’ve completely misunderstood how it works, anyway. I figured that the last thing you would normally do is repeat yourself, so, logically, it’s the most unpredictable thing you might do.”
Discord looked absolutely infuriated when Penumbra used the word “logically” to describe his actions, but apparently he had enough self-control to keep his baser instincts in check. “Then how did you know I was going to do it?”
“Because after my little speech, your first instinct would be to ‘prove me wrong’ by doing something you wouldn’t normally do.”
“Arrgh!”
———————————
Although much of Pinkie Pie’s time in the past few weeks had been taken up by her plans for the coronation’s afterparty (which was to be her biggest to date, and therefore her best one ever), that was far from the only aspect of her incipient royalty that was keeping her busy. For one thing, the loft above Sugarcube Corner wasn’t really big enough for your standard Princess-y functions, which meant that she’d have to get a place of her own—and a really big one, at that. Fortunately, since Twilight Sparkle was in a similar situation at the Golden Oak Library, the two of them had decided to economize the taxpayers’ bits and build a single residence just outside of Ponyville’s city limits. Indeed, by the end of the week she and Twilight were going to begin looking through the various proposals that had been drafted by architects from across Equestria, each of whom wanted the prestige of designing a royal home, not to mention the high-profile customers who would accompany such renown.
Yet, even in the midst of all this activity, Pinkie Pie still managed to find time for a side project. She’d been unusually secretive about this one, rarely going into more detail than “I’m making something really, really super-duper-ultra-special,” even when asked by her closest friends.
Thus, it was a bit difficult to explain why the pink pony was sorting through a huge pile of rocks and pebbles when Discord trudged up to her location, scattering half of the piles as his tail lashed back and forth angrily. Pinkie Pie scrunched up her nose in annoyance and glared at the draconequus. “I spent my entire afternoon sorting those.”
Discord ignored this, waving away the earth pony’s concern with a flick of his lion’s paw (which inadvertently caused a nearby daffodil to grow to the size of a redwood). “Yeah, whatever. Look, you’re the Element of Laughter, right?”
Pinkie Pie glanced down at the necklace around her neck, which still featured a blue, balloon-shaped jewel. “Well, yeah, though I personally think there’s more to it than just doing funny stuff. You know, thanks to how words change their meaning over time. In fact, I was looking through Twilight’s unabridged dictionary the other day—”
“Don’t try to change the subject. You’re the Element of Laughter, and you’re therefore obligated to help others with their laughter-related needs.” When this line of argument produced little more than awkward silence, Discord added, “It was Celestia’s idea. I was there; you can trust me.”
“Um, no, I can’t,” Pinkie Pie replied with a miniscule tinge of worry in her voice. She’d been expecting that a conversation like this one would occur from the moment that Penumbra announced the terms of the contest, but she’d been hoping that Discord would have enough patience to give her a few days to figure out what to say. So far, it wasn’t going well. Pinkie started gathering up the scattered bits of stone, hoping that Discord would go away if she just ignored him.
Sadly, this worked about as well as Pinkie thought it would, which is to say, not at all. “Hey! I’m talking here!” Discord called out, using his chaos magic to transform the pile that Pinkie had gathered into multicolored glass marbles. “Come on,” he continued, ignoring Pinkie Pie’s glare, “Penumbra said you guys were supposed to give me a fair chance, didn’t she?” The draconequus’ eyes widened until they were as big as Big Macintosh’s hooves and began glistening with a film of teardrops.
It was a little too much for the alicorn-minus-wings-and-horn. “Okay, I’ll give you some advice,” Pinkie Pie said, “if you stop trying to do the sad puppy face. It looks really creepy when you do it.”
Discord squealed like a filly at a pop concert and pulled an oversized notepad out of thin air. “Alright, I’m ready to learn the secrets of funniness.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a secret, but the way you make ponies laugh is by doing things that they think are funny. It sounds to me like you’re doing things that you find funny, but your sense of humor is weirder than a griffon’s.”
“So... I have to do things that Penumbra thinks are funny?”
“Pretty much.”
“Oh...” Discord said, a look of comprehension dawning on his face. “I see. It’s because of that whole ‘making sense’ thing she keeps doing. I think I understand. So, er... what does she find funny?”
“Oh, no,” Pinkie Pie said with shake of her head. “You asked for advice, and I gave it to you. It’s your job to tailor your jokes to your audience, not mine.”
“But... but that sounds like work!”
“Silliness is easy,” Pinkie said with a smile. “Comedy is difficult. Now would you please give me my rocks back?”
———————————
At first, Trixie had not planned on staying in the cave any longer than it took the rainstorm to leave the Badlands. However, this desire to leave evaporated faster than morning dew as the showmare realized just how tired she was of life on the run. But there was more to this decision that mere weariness; Trixie couldn’t help but notice that the cave was awash in magical energy. For one thing, cave entrances generally didn’t hide themselves. For another, the blue unicorn couldn’t think of a non-magical reason why the considerable stockpile of food she discovered stashed away in a crevice behind a row of stalagmites would be so perfectly preserved in spite of its obvious age—at least, she assumed that the fact that she hadn’t keeled over and died since trying some was evidence that it was safe to eat.
Of course, given that the cave’s entrance resealed itself every time she opened it, Trixie also had to consider the possibility that the cave was still in use, but she doubted it. After all, the glyphs in the cave’s seal were in Old Equestrian—granted, she still wasn’t altogether certain what they said (she hadn’t really paid attention to those lectures while she was attending CSGU), but she felt quite certain that any mage still alive wouldn’t have bothered going to that sort of trouble. But even if it was still in use, Trixie felt strangely confident that the current occupant wouldn’t mind. This magic felt friendly and calming, like a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day.
Trixie soon resolved to remain in the cave, at least until she figured out what her next move would be. The next morning—and she knew it was morning, as she’d opened up the cave again to check—she set about exploring deeper into her temporary home. It wasn’t long before she found a tunnel tucked away in a corner. Using the light of her horn, she set off down the passageway, and it wasn’t long before the corridor opened up into another room.
Any questions Trixie may have been harboring about her decision to linger vanished instantly when her eyes fell upon this second chamber. Every surface she could see, whether on the floor, ceiling, or walls, was covered with crystals. Stalactites, stalagmites, columns—each one glittered in the pale blue light of the showmare’s magical aura. Most of the crystals were a translucent white, but here and there could be found sapphires, rubies and emeralds that gave the chamber a splash of color.
Ultimately, however, it was the structure of these crystals that caught Trixie’s attention more than anything else. Whereas most of the crystals Trixie had seen in pictures of cave tended to jut out in every dimension imaginable, looking like frozen explosions, these were all arranged by a sentient mind. The parallelism of the columns was too perfect to allow for any other explanation. Plus, several of the structure bore an uncanny resemblance to pieces of furniture—Trixie particularly liked the large throne made of clear selenium crystals. Granted, it wasn’t very comfortable, but sitting in it made her feel Great and Powerful, and those were easily her two favorite adjectives. Still other structures looked like they were meant as works of art, being shaped into assorted arcs and spheroids and placed at irregular intervals around the cavern’s walls in what seemed to be an attempt to provide a greater sense of variety for the eyes—though a closer inspection revealed that many of the arrangements bore a strong resemblance to the constellations of the night sky.
The overall effect was quite pleasant; however, it was on a more microscopic level that the true beauty of these crystals were found. Trixie had never seen structures so precise before: perfectly flat faces meeting at perfectly straight edges that forming perfectly angled vectors. There wasn’t a single chip or nick to be seen anywhere. the showpony couldn’t quite explain why, but there was something comforting in this exactness. Everything about the crystal was exactly as it appeared to be. It was an honest solid—a shape that could be trusted. If only those sculptures weren’t there... The more Trixie thought about it, the more convinced she became that these alleged works of “art” were obvious mistakes on the part of whoever had originally decorated the room. How could anypony settle for less than crystalline perfection? And why did they have to be curved? Crystals were not supposed to be curved. It was unnatural—nauseating, even.
Something had to be done. The Great and Powerful Trixie would not, could not tolerate such abominations in this otherwise sublime monument to faultlessness. They had to go, and Trixie would perform the honorable task of eradicating them herself. She was in the process of deciding on the best way to do this—blowing them up seemed an efficient method, but it would create far too much undesirable entropy—when she heard scuffling noises from a tunnel that lead even further into the cave. Thinking that these noises might have emitted from the cavern’s owner, Trixie set off with the intent discuss interior decorating options, with particular emphasis on the elegant simplicity inherent in straight lines.
As the unicorn walked slowly along the tunnel, the scuffling increased in volume. Furthermore, it was soon joined by the sound of voices—several voices in fact. Some were high-pitched, while others were lower, but all of them were composed of strident, staccato bursts that were noxious to Trixie’s ears. As she continued approaching, the noises began to sound vaguely like actual words—she was almost certain that one of them was the word “mine,” for example—and as she turned a corner it seemed that there was a growing flicker of firelight bouncing off the walls. The showmare had begun to go through the usual mental process of determining the most impressive way for her to make an entrance when fate decided to step in and make her decision for her, as she stepped on some loose pebbles, causing her to slip on the ground and tumble out of the passageway into another large clearing.
Of course, as the first rule of theater is to never acknowledge that something has gone wrong in front of an audience, the unicorn rose to her hooves once again, replaced her pointed hat upon her head, and declared, “I am the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
The result was considerably less impressive that she’d hoped, consisting of unintelligible murmurs. Trixie had almost concluded that her completely undeserved reputation as a laughingstock had somehow managed to find her even in the middle of nowhere when one of the voices suddenly barked out, “Pony?!”
It was only then that Trixie actually bothered took a look at her prospective audience... and saw an entire pack of Diamond Dogs looking back at her. “Um, yes, I am a pony,” she said uncertainly.
The angry growls she received in response were less than encouraging.