//------------------------------//
// Mischief To Be Made 
// Story: Discord's Very First Faithful Student 
// by Pokonic 
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In one of Ponyville's nicest parks, under one of the largest, shadiest trees, Diamond Tiara was bored.

Summer was nearly over and that meant school, and school meant schoolwork, and schoolwork meant being forced to share the same room with a bunch of idiot foals who weren't worth the time to deal with their stupidity.

She would say that she didn't even know why she was sitting the park, really; but that would actually be a lie. The reason, she knew, was that this was going to be one of the last nicer days before fall came around, and that her dad wanted her out of the house for most of the day to 'enjoy' it. It was a silly gesture, but she knew that if she didn't complain and went along with it nice things would happen later.

And so, there she was, sitting on a bench under a heavily shaded spot in the main park, trying to pass the time by thinking about what she could be doing, which was bore-ing.

"Hey DT, do you want to go to the arcade?" Silver Spoon said slowly, with a little bit of hope in her voice.

Diamond Tiara huffed exaggeratedly. "Spoon, you know that there are a bunch of weirdos and stuff who go there. Do you want to smell like a sweaty nerd for the rest of the day?"

The little dark grey filly sitting at her left looked a little taken aback, which in Tiara's mind was a good thing.

"We could go to my house. My dad got that pool installed a few day's ago, you know."

Tiara snorted. "Don't be stupid, Spoon, we just got our coats done yesterday."

The grey filly shrugged. "Well, if we are not going to do anything, it doesn't really matter if we keep clean or not, right?"

Diamond Tiara knew that Silver Spoon was right. 

This went against the natural order of things.

"Spoon, your pool isn't even that big." the pink filly pointed out after a few good moments of thought. "And your dad would tell my dad. Do you want to get me in trouble?"

"Hey, yes it is big enough for the both of us." the filly replied lamely, her voice starting to become tinged with a sort of mild despair. "And I don't think my dad would tell your dad."

Tiara scooted away from Silver just enough for her to know that she thought differently. "Well, if he doesn't, your mom will tell my mom. Or my dad. Come on, Spoon, don't be stupid. You'r smarter than that, or at least I thought you were."

It said something about their 'friendship' that Silver Spoon accepted that backhooved compliment eagerly. "Well, DT, what do you want to do?"

The pink filly looked around the park, scowling. Admittedly, she liked the park, and a visit to it was usually one part relaxation and one part free snacking. The only thing that really ruined her mood was ponies besides Silver Spoon and herself, and sometimes, even then, that didn't work out.

"Spoon, is that one of the blank-flanks?" she said, pointing off over near one of the small rolling hills a good distance away.

Silver Spoon sighed exasperatedly. "Yes, it's Sweetie Belle and her sister."

Tiara, after turning around, gave her something between a frown and a look of surprise.

"What?" the grey filly said defensively. "They have names, DT. That might have been funny last year, but it's really in bad taste now."

Diamond Tiara's left eyebrow twitched. "Spoon, what did you just say?"

Silver Spoon adjusted her glasses. "Look, I know you don't like them, but really, Diamond-"

Diamond Tiara deflated a little at her using only her first name. She never did that unless she was being really serious.

"-it's really silly you keep on calling them that. I mean, it's kind of, well, immature. You don't sound good when you say stuff like that."

Tiara had heard similar things like that come from other ponies, her father included, but never from Silver Spoon. She wasn't right, right? No, she was being silly, after all, she really didn't hate the Cutie Mark Crusaders, she disliked them for being immature. I mean, really now, they thought they needed to find their special talent, which was stupid. A cutie mark comes naturally to a pony. It's not some sort of scavenger hunt.

But she explained her reasons to Silver Spoon before, again and again and again, and that didn't stop her from telling her off now.

"...Spoon, just go." she mumbled back in response, not really up to a argument. "Just go home."

The dark grey filly blinked in surprise, expecting a more argumentative filly then she was getting. "DT, I didn't mean it like that, come on, don't be-"

"We can talk later, alright? Just go, I don't want to talk to you right now."

Silver Spoon was stunned at the pink filly before her actually looking upset. Oh, she had a temper, she knew that from simply being around her, but now she looked upset in the opposite direction, almost dejected, really. Normally, for any other pony, she would have just said some calming words and possibly hugged her, but this was Diamond Tiara, the filly who had all the emotional depth of the shallow end of a kiddie pool and the impulse control of a toddler on a sugar rush. This, literally, had never happened before.

"Okay, DT, just...I'm sorry." she said quietly even as she jumped off the bench and started to walk to her home.

Diamond Tiara looked at her only friend slowly trot away from her, looking dejected and upset at herself. Frowning, she turned around to look at the rest of the park. Sweetie Bell and Rarity was elsewhere, and it didn't seem like anypony else was in the area.

Wordlessly, she climbed on the bench and moved back under the shady spot that she was sitting in before, but this time laying down on her back. She had her head balanced on the railing and her outstretched hindquarters taking up the space where Silver Spoon was before, and kicked her legs around for a few seconds before going still.

After a few moments, her facade cracked, and she started to giggle.

Sure, she looked like a homeless filly right now, but it was more dignified than sitting on the grass and it wasn't like anypony was watching. Best of all, she got the best spot under the shadiest tree in the park out of it and didn't need to share it with anypony else. She supposed she could spend another hour or so out here, and after that she could have Silver Spoon do stuff for her. Celestia, she had that filly wrapped around her hoof, but that was for her own good, really. Without her, she would probably hang around the CMC's, and if she didn't get to know her when they first started school Silver Spoon would probably still be blank-flanked. Immature. Stupid.

Suddenly, in the middle of inner self-congratulatory pesudorant about how she was right to do what she did that probably wasn't an healthy sign  for a eight year old, let alone for somepony of any age, she felt a heavy, cold weight settle on her belly that made her gasp in shock and open her eyes.

She was glad she didn't stand straight up, because, she quickly realized, she didn't want to lose what was in front of her.

She knew she was looking at a giant ice cream sundae. It was in a big wide-rimmed glass with a equally wide bottom, and it was completely filled with what looked like vanilla ice cream with light pink and purple swirls. There was also a cherry and some caramel on the top, but Tiara was more focused on the fact that a big scoop of ice cream had somehow appeared out of nowhere.

She processed that for a moment, before sitting up and taking the spoon that was sticking out of the side of it and taking a bite. Vanilla and...plum? Plum flavored ice cream? Really? Who had ever heard of plum flavored ice cream?

Shrugging, she gave a quick look around the park, just in case she wasn't going crazy or that Silver Spoon hadn't come back. No, she was alone. Somehow, the ice cream just appeared out of nowhere. 

Really, she didn't think about why or how it appeared, or even why. Why should she have, anyway? Clearly, it was a gift or something. Maybe, if she wanted to, she could have analyzed the miraculous appearance of a giant ice cream sundae right in front of her, but she didn't have to, and there was no reason to suspect that there was something wrong going on.

After all, this might just be some sort of daydream. She never dreamed, even at night, but perhaps today would be the day. And if was a dream, it was a really nice one, because she was actually starting to like the taste of plum. Really, the sundae had the exact same duel shades of her hair, which was weird but kinda sweet, really.

It took her a few moments of reluctantly eating the tasty treat for her to notice that there was something shifting in the tree above her. After making sure she did not get anything on her coat, as the last thing she needed was some sort of stain on her face when she went home, she looked up, expecting to see a annoying squirrel or something else small and furry.

What she saw wrapped around a tree-limb, however, was not small or furry. At first, it looked like a gnarled and twisted branch, old as dirt and misshapen and odd, but then it suddenly became fleshy and turned it's unnatural face to her.

"Hello, little pony!" Discord said, sounding ecstatic that, after a long day of searching, he had finally found the perfect little pony that he thought he could help.

In response, Diamond Tiara screamed.