//------------------------------//
// Control [General] 
// Story: Half-Hour Horses 
// by HoofAndQuill 
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(The Prompt: Leverage.)





(Didn't do too well with this one, it just wouldn't work in my head, and I'm out of time.  Oh well, there's always tomorrow.)



"Ugh!  There's nothing in here about recovering the Elements!"

Twilight Sparkle slammed the book shut, and the immediately opened it again to make sure that her rash action hadn't damaged the binding.  With a relieved sigh, she set the book down in the 'useless' pile.  While none of her friends, even Spike, had agreed to return to the ancient castle with her, the allure of so much forgotten and lost knowledge was too much to resist.  Unfortunately, despite several interesting tomes she intended to peruse more fully at home, the answer she'd come looking for still eluded her.

"How am I supposed to stop Discord without the Elements?"  Twilight mused to herself, loudly.  It mostly served as a way to organize her thoughts, though it did also help to make the very quiet and dark castle a little less lonely.

A deep, male voice echoed around the room, in a voice immediately familiar to the princess.  "To be bluntly honest, you can't."

Twilight jumped at the sound of the voice, and then sunk down on the cushion she was sitting on, unable to help the annoyed expression on her face.  Trying to get him to leave would be a bit like trying to push back the tide.  "Discord, why are you here?"

Discord appeared next to her in a flash, sitting on another cusion, and leaned against her as though he was her closest friend.  "Oh, Princess Twilight Sparkle, I'm just coming to visit one of my good friends?  Is that so wrong?"

"We aren't friends, Discord!  I'm still mad at you over the plunder vines."  Twilight spoke dismissively and plucked the next book from the pile, hoping to ignore him until he left.

He twisted himself around her in an entirely inappropriately close manner.  "Oh come now, do you really think that it's healthy to pluck the Elements of Harmony from the Tree again?  You saw how it looked before you put them back."

Twilight frowned but didn't respond, flicking from page to page, skimming over the text.

"Besides, Princess, I was never really afraid of the Elements."

Twilight sat upright again, and looked toward Discord.  She tried to ignore that his face was only an inch or two from hers.  "But that's how we were controlling you!  If you misbehaved, you'd be sent back to stone!"

Discord rolled his eyes and unwrapped himself from Twilight.  "Oh please.  I could have taken them from you without effort.  For all her warm, solar goodness, Princess Celestia does seem to have a rather short memory of her failings.  The spells she cast can't stop me, Princess Twilight.  They never could.  Do you remember?  Only moments before you heard my exquisitely melodious voice for the first time."

There was a flash, and the ancient castle was gone, replaced by a vision of all her friends, herself included, standing with Celestia in Canterlot Castle.  The box previously used for the Elements was laying on the floor, and Celestia was pacing and visibly distraught.  "That chamber is protected by a powerful spell that only I can break!  This doesn't make sense!"

A moment later, Canterlot disappeared, and they were back in the ancient castle of the royal sisters again.  Discord tapped the top of Twilight's head, where her crown would normally rest.  "That little spell she cast would never have worked, Princess.  I was just playing along for fun."

Twilight felt her body tense, but she tried to sound confident.  "But you're friends with Fluttershy.  She'll be upset if you do anything to me!"

Discord put on an offended face.  "You wound me, Twilight Sparkle!  Using my swordpoint reformation and friendship with a mare I've seen all of four times against me!  How terrible of you."

Twilight sighed in frustration.  "What do you want, Discord?"

His voice dropped a bit, and the normal joking lilt left it.  "I'm only here to make you stop wasting your time looking for useless trinkets.  And, to let you know what Celestia has known all this time.  You don't have any power over me, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and you never will.  I hold all the cards, and if you want me to keep being nice, you'd better find something more interesting than empty threats and squeaky, yellow ponies."

Discord tapped her nose, and smiled again.  "I'm only behaving because fighting grows so terribly boring.  Keep me entertained, and there won't be any problem."

With that, he disappeared, and Twilight was left alone.  She looked at the pile of books around her, and then out into the dark, empty confines of the castle.  It was hot and stuffy from the midsummer sun outside, but Princess Twilight Sparkle only shivered.