Well, thankfully my day didn’t get any worse. After that little incident where the ugly suit disappeared, I was given a shade divider to hide behind while I put my new clothes on. They were a perfect fit, of course, and felt quite nice to the touch. Sure, Rarity had put sleeves on the shirt like she wanted, but they were short like I asked for and it had a wide collar so I didn’t feel so encompassed while wearing it. The pants were the same type as the ones I came in only they didn’t have the stripe down the side. The socks were very comfortable as well. Unfortunately, she didn’t make me any underwear so I was forced to go commando. The shirt was an off white color while the pants were a royal blue. I was given five pairs of each of them including the set of clothes I was wearing.
I thanked Rarity for the new wardrobe and proceeded to leave. That is, until I realized that Twilight was still stuck in shock. Both Rarity and I helped snap her out of that stupor quickly and we left shortly afterwards with another apology from myself.
With that little mess sorted out, the two of us headed back to my place. After the day I had, I didn’t want to do anything else except maybe something to get back at Discord with. Fate had other plans for me. In my case, fate was a pink pony named Pinkie Pie. She showed up not too long after I left Rarity’s place with a look on her face that said ‘follow me or else’. Seeing as I’m not that dense just yet, I followed her with Twilight in tow.
Eventually, the three of us arrived at Sugarcube Corner. The place was a little busier than when I showed up yesterday, but only slightly. For those of you with a not so good memory that meant that there was a single customer in there during the second visit. That time was also different since I saw Mrs. Cake there. When she noticed me, I smiled and gave her a wave of my hand. She smiled nervously and waved back at me. I know she was trying to be friendly and I appreciated the gesture. I figured she wouldn’t want me scaring off any more business so I followed Pinkie to the kitchen.
When we walked in, I noticed that the kitchen was substantially less messy than before. There were several dishes in the sink and some more on the counter next to it. The island countertop, however, was covered with treats of all kinds. Well, all the ones I had liked yesterday.
After asking Pinkie what was going on, she told me that my party was happening today. I was surprised since I didn’t get an invitation this time. Apparently, she took the comment we had said about seeing her tomorrow to mean that I would expect her to throw my party the next day. Therefore, she had gotten the food ready and was waiting for me to decide a location before she started decorating. After some thought, I decided to hold the party at my house. It gave me the option of how many guests I could house that way.
After deciding on the location, we gathered up the party food and headed out that way. Surprisingly, Mrs. Cake grabbed some of the food and helped us to the party. I managed to get the opportunity to apologize for the mess that Pinkie had made on my behalf. All was forgiven since she considered the fact that she got some new recipes out of it for customers in the future who had issues like mine. She was also grateful that I helped clean up afterwards since usually she and her husband had to help do it. Hopefully, I came across nice enough that she wouldn't be so nervous around me. At least by the time we arrived at my house that seemed to be the case.
For the record, at that time I was actually glad that there wasn't any lock on the door so we could get in easily. Twilight's magic let her open the door, but she wouldn't in good conscious unlock any door that wasn't hers. That did make me think about the fact that unicorns could probably unlock anything that wasn't magically sealed. That led me to think about how that kind of magic could be abused if not careful. And that led me to realize just how honest they must all be if there wasn't any real crime rate for them at all. Well, at least there wasn't enough that there were any locks other than in the palace. Of course, I may have just been misremembering things.
Luckily for all of us, Discord wasn't there to mess with the preparations. It didn't take too long with the four of us and a fully functional party cannon. I made sure to let Pinkie know that I only wanted a few guests since I’m not a party animal or anything close. I let her know to only invite a few ponies other than the ones who comprised the Elements of Harmony. She wasn’t too happy about it, but I managed to convince her after a while.
I did invite Mrs. Cake to stay if she wanted to, but she declined saying that she didn’t want to be anywhere near the place where Discord lived. I suppose I didn’t really blame her for that. Though it did finally give me some clarity about a few things. It hadn’t been circulated much, but many of the ponies in town had learned that I was sharing a house with Discord. From there the rumors had dissolved into all kinds of things like I was his pet or a personal servant or a plaything to keep the town from being personal playpen. The one I learned about that I hated the most was how I was believed to be Discord’s ‘coltfriend’. That certainly gave me some mental anguish.
I let her know that I was just here for a short time and that he was here to keep an eye on me along with Twilight and her friends. I did have to backpedal quickly once I think she got the wrong idea that Discord himself had to help with keeping an eye on me. I gave her a quick rundown that stated that Discord brought me here with a complicated spell and as such was responsible for my well-being in the loosest sense of the word. In the end, I think she understood what I was saying and as such I had sort of become a pity case. I didn’t want to be a pity case, but I felt I couldn’t get any other reaction so I just left it at that.
As it started to get dark out, the first guests began to show up. A small group of three ponies. I didn’t recognize them, but I was a cheery host none the less. Well, cheery may be a bit much, but since I lived there I was the co-host of the party and I was going to be a gracious host as much as my slight anxiety towards meeting new ponies would allow me to be. I thanked them for showing up and, thanks to Twilight still sticking around, the three of them didn’t run off in a panic.
The next pony to show up was Rainbow Dash. I held out my fist to see if she would give me a fist bump, or hoof bump for ponies. Whatever. She reciprocated, but to my surprise it hurt a little bit. I bit down the minor pain and had a quick chat with her. Mostly I had a talk with her about getting back at Discord. She was actually hesitant at first, but I finally got her on board.
After her, there were a couple more random ponies followed by, of all ponies, Fluttershy. It took some work but she said that the reason she showed up in the end was because she didn’t want to disappoint Pinkie Pie by not showing up to a small party she was throwing. I did offer to let her skip this party, saying that I wouldn’t feel bad about her not staying. She, being the kind one, declined and ended up coming inside and immediately gravitated towards Rainbow Dash. That was her comfort zone and I did not feel like messing with it.
Applejack and Rarity showed up together with a few other ponies including Big Macintosh. I gave them all a nice greeting, especially Rarity since I thought she would appreciate the formality of it. They all seemed to be quite friendly at that point. My guess is that the two of them had calmed down the rest of the group so that they didn’t feel nervous around me. I decided not to do anything that might antagonize them from leaving and just decided to remain friendly. It seemed to work well enough and they all went inside.
Finally, Pinkie arrived and with a pony I finally recognized. I take that back. She came with a dragon I recognized. She bounced her way over to my house with Spike in tow. He didn’t look as though he was too excited to be coming here. Oh well, I have no idea why he’s being like that unless Pinkie woke him up from a nap. Actually, that’s probably what happened seeing as he stifled a yawn soon after I thought that. As soon as they made it to the door, I greeted them both and let Pinkie know that there were plenty of guests already here. Upon hearing that, she zipped inside to serve as co-host of the party. I gave Spike a handshake and showed him inside.
The atmosphere inside wasn’t too great. Well, it made sense considering that it felt more like a meet and greet than a party with just me being in charge. Thankfully, with Pinkie there she managed to lighten the mood with a little music. It was just some generic music that I think I actually recognized as the background music from the CMC in season one. You know, that one in the background when they go crusading? Screw it, I sound like an idiot. At least the guests were digging the music.
After some mingling, well I really shouldn’t call it that but I still will, the final guest arrived. Discord made a grand entrance by literally emerging from the wall. The reaction he got was priceless.
Because he didn’t get any reaction at all.
He was certainly confused by the lack of reaction from his dramatic entrance. He pouted for a moment before heading over to Twilight and grabbed her in close. I couldn’t tell what he said over the music, but he seemed surprised that Twilight do anything except start talking to another pony that had come in with Rarity. Seeing this reaction made him get very confused.
Knowing that I shouldn’t keep looking at him or else I’d draw his attention, I headed over to the music setup that Pinkie had provided. She seemed to notice me without even having to look at me and handed me a microphone as the song ended. I tapped on it a few times to get everyone’s attention before I spoke.
“Thank you all for showing up. I know you didn’t have to considering that you don’t really know me. My name’s Seth. I’m a human on vacation here in Ponyville. Yes, it’s a vacation since I’ll be heading back home in a few weeks.”
I heard an aww come from who I think was Pinkie Pie.
“Still, I bet you’re wondering why here since there are so many places I could visit in Equestria.”
I heard a bit of a murmur before continuing.
“Well, the reason for that is I wanted to visit a few friends of mine like Pinkie here,” I stated as I motioned towards Pinkie, “and Twilight over there,” I motioned towards her while Discord seemed to have disappeared.
As I was about to continue speaking, I noticed that the microphone was now in the shape of Discord’s head. I ignored it and continued onwards.
“I don’t really know Equestria that well and I decided that I’d rather see my friends than just head out and try to find things to see that I may not even like. I personally don’t have many friends at all so it just seemed to be the sensible choice.”
I put some emphasis on the word sensible because I knew he didn’t like that. That was the point. This was my payback. You see, the thing about Discord is that he really does a great deal of the things he does because he’s basically an attention whore. He craves it. If you deny him that, then he will either break off, or he’ll escalate. However, he can’t escalate or else he’ll be stuck in the doghouse. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but I had confidence in it’s success.
“I have some other friends here, but I’ll cut that short.”
I saw Twilight facehoof out of the corner of my eye. I briefly wondered what that was about before continuing.
“Now, uh, I’m not the most sociable being out there, but I hope that this party that Pinkie is holding at my place will help put you at ease over what is most likely the only human you’ve ever seen. I’d also like to thank Discord for letting me host this here since he hasn’t expressed any interest in anything remotely chaotic like a party.”
I heard some giggles and watched the microphone turn back to normal. A second later and Discord appeared at the music table with a bemused look on his face.
“Alright, I see what you all are doing now. I guess I’ll just have to up my game then.”
He went to snap his fingers, but a quick glare from Fluttershy made him hesitate. I was going to pull one more prank on him, but I doubted that I could make it work then so I stepped in there.
“Alright Discord, you know what’s up. Now, I set this up because I was not happy about getting dressed up in that hideous costume and paraded from here to Phillydelphia and back. Now while I don’t mind a harmless prank and yes there wasn’t really much harm in this one either, but I’m not going to be your little punching bag when you get bored. I’ve been defending you to all these ponies the whole time and then you pulled this on me. I know the point of this was to make me look like a fool and congratulations you pulled that off. However, you’re not going to win over any other ponies if you keep pulling off these little stunts on a daily basis. That’s what got you put in stone in the first place. I don’t want to see you get stuck in there again for something you could easily avoid. As much as I know this won’t be popular, you are also my friend. The really annoying friend that really grows on you no matter what you do. So please, for the sake of our friendship, can you please not pull these pranks so constantly?”
“You really do consider me your friend don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes I do, but if I go back to Earth I will feign ignorance on the matter if anyone asks,” I said jokingly.
“Oh alright, I suppose I can be civil and not prank ponies all the time. After all, I did say that I would be good for Fluttershy too.”
I looked at Fluttershy who had a pleasant grin on her face.
“Great! Now that that’s settled, can you play a track on here that these ponies can party to? You know the one I’m thinking of.”
“I sure do!”
With a snap of his claws, the music station came to life with a new song.
"When it's time to party we will party hard!"
As the music started up, I pulled Discord in to me.
“I’m glad we settled this before things got out of hand,” I said just loud enough for him to hear me over the music.
“I am too. I was about to summon a horde of rampaging animals to run rampant in here.”
“And I was about to have Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie tar and feather you if you didn’t see things my way.”
The two of us laughed together as the party raged on.