//------------------------------// // Discord // Story: Mealtime For Ponies // by Aetherlord_Ignus //------------------------------// There are a number of reasons you love your job. Good pay, and the smiling faces of foals and getting to travel all over Equestria, to name a few. There are also a few things that make your job intensely stressful job. Dealing with troublemakers is one of them, and Discord is the king of causing trouble. “Discord, this isn’t funny,” you call as he floats away from you. You eventually corner him at the end of the hallway, where the closet is. Discord looks beaten for a second, until he snaps his fingers, opens the closet door from the hinged side, and runs through. You think that was a stupid move on his part at first, until you open the door. Before you is a vast landscape, filled with hills of purple checkerboard, winged clouds, and toy sailboats growing from pine-needle covered palm trees. A black and white double rainbow completes the setting. Discord’s equivalent of utopia. You wonder how such a small draconequus pulled this off; you did not think that he would have so much power as a baby. You then realize you’re trying to apply logic to Discord and forget the whole thing. “Discord!!” You call as you walk down a road made of soap. You continue to call some more until the clouds above you form the words “Behind You”. You look behind yourself to see a giant theme park that obviously was not there before. The theme park contained a Ferris wheel spinning sideways, a spinning teacups ride with real tea, and a perfectly normal arcade except for a place to cash prizes in for tickets. Overpriced as always. You spot discord riding a bumper car on a roller coaster; he goes over a jump and heads toward you. You try to run away, but the car, which turns to bubbles on contact, hits you. Discord lands in your arms, laughing madly. “Okay, you’ve had your fun, Now will you be a good boy and eat your lunch?” You say in your most soothing voice. In response, Discord’s small antler momentarily turns into a set of fingers, and snaps. A door appears in front of you and opens; revealing the hallway you had chased him down. Showing him Star-Trek: The Next Generation was a bad idea. You walk to the kitchen. For some reason, Discord turned you upside down only once. Usually, he does it at least four times. You sit him down in his highchair and put a bib on him. You don’t know why he has not done anything yet. You guess he is planning for something. Almost instantly, your question is answered when a bowl full of strange green goo appears on Discord’s tray. Wondering what it is, you dip a spoon into the mush. This stuff seems familiar; you know that you have seen it somewhere. Then it hits you. “Gak? Seriously,” you ask the draconequus. He laughs in response. “Whatever,” you say, “now let’s get rid of this and get you some real food.” You move the bowl of Gak from his plate. It vanishes in your hands and reappears on Discord’s tray. He grabs his spoon and points to it, he then points to the spoon, and the Gak, and finally, to his open mouth. He really wants to eat it. With a sigh, you give in and dip your spoon into the goo and feed it to Discord. You are grossed out at the sight, but he seems to enjoy it immensely. It takes you about six minutes for Discord to finish the Gak, because he refilled his bowl twice. You now begin with the normal food. You put a bowl of alfalfa on Discord’s tray-table. He immediately turns to sand and falls to the floor. He then turns back to normal and flies off. “Fine then,” you say, “Guess I’m gonna’ have to drink all this chocolate milk by myself.” Even Pinkie could not move as fast as Discord just did. You knew he could not resist chocolate milk. It was a good thing he was too excited to remember that he could make his own from a cotton candy cloud. You decide that if you don’t want anymore horseplay from Discord, you are going to have to appeal to him, so once he is back in his chair, you do the most chaotic thing you can think of. You dump the chocolate milk into the alfalfa bowl. Discord laughs at the sight, but he then decides he wants more. With a snap, he conjures op a pink cloud that begins to rain, filling the alfalfa bowl with even more chocolate milk. “Ok Discord, normally I’d object to that much chocolate, but from what I’ve seen, you probably can eat anything without any drawbacks” you say, “just please try not to overflow that bowl.” Discord continues to pour the chocolate rain into his mouth, when it starts to overflow, the milk stays still and forms the shape of a pyramid. When the pyramid is complete, Discord vacuums the cloud into his mouth. After that is over with, you start up again with the feeding process; you take good care not to spill the alfalfa chocolate soup. Discord seems to really enjoy your concoction, which pleases you. You don’t want any more monkey business from him. Because you had to be more precise than usual with your spoon, you finish feeding discord after about four minutes. You had planned on giving Discord some oatmeal, but you worry that he would probably turn it into a pile of feathers or something; he also ate Gak so he is already full. You were also going to give him some chocolate milk, but you think he has had enough already. Having nothing more to do, you remove Discord’s bib and lift him out of his highchair. Discord slides like butter out of your hands; he does not immediately run off though, “Okay,” you say cunningly, “Now that were done with your lunch, you’re going to have to take some medicine, okay?” Discord’s eyes grow wide with terror; he conjures a large clamshell around himself and seals it shut. Just the reaction you were expecting. You start to chuckle, but that chuckle soon turns into an all-out laugh. Discord emerges from his clamshell after a couple minutes to see that the medicine was just a lie. He starts to laugh with you. You are glad that you finally found something that made both of you happy at the same time. You think that Discord is finally… Wait a second, where is your watch?