The next morning, I woke up a little groggy. I’d gotten back at my normal time, but I was shattered even before I had dinner. Call it mental exhaustion or whatever you like. The moment my head hit the pillow I was out like a light. Despite that though, and in spite of getting my required eight hours of sleep, I still wasn’t that well rested when I awoke the next morning.
Still, I needed to get up. I had to catch the milk train in an hour or so. Pulling myself out of bed, I shuffled downstairs in my dressing gown and slippers. I’d have a decent breakfast and then get dressed, grab my things, and start walking to the train station. After saying goodbye to my still sleeping wife, of course.
The first few rays on sunshine were pouring through the kitchen window when I got downstairs. It’s usually quite pretty in the morning, and quiet too since I was alone.
Or at least, usually I’m alone.
On this particular Friday morning though, I had a guest. Sitting in one of the chairs at the table, with his mismatched feet propped up on its surface, and apparently having helped himself to a jar of jam, was Discord.
A little off to the side was Charlie. He’d got out of his basket and was standing his ground against Discord, growling angrily at him and bearing his teeth. The Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony however, wasn’t particularly concerned and seemed entirely oblivious to the angry canine.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I exclaimed as I walked in, pulling my dressing gown close out of instinct. “And don’t eat the jam from the jar!” I quickly walked over and took the tea spoon and jam jar off him. The draconequus seemed unphased.
“What? Can’t friends just drop by to say hello?” he asked with his usual slightly unhinged tone of voice.
“Not at six in the morning, Discord.” I replied. I patted Charlie on the head and got him to stop growling. Evidently satisfied that I was aware of the intruder, the changeling turned dog contentedly went back to his basket and curled up to go to sleep.
“What do you want anyway?” At this, Discord shifted a little, having the common courtesy to take his feet off my breakfast table.
“How come I didn’t get to hear the story of how my best friend is a terrorist?” My eyes went wide at that and I froze in place for a moment.
“Jesus, old man! You want to say that any louder?” Discord merely grinned.
“Sure.” Snapping his talons, he produced a bullhorn. “I SAID!” I cupped my ears at the loud noise.
“Christ, shut it will you?!” I shouted back. Luckily, he did. And, by equal amounts of luck, it seemed that we hadn’t inadvertently woken Margaret. I took a moment to calm myself before I spoke again. Grabbing the back of the opposite chair, I sat down.
“You know, in some cultures, this gross invasion of another person’s privacy would be considered almost…rude,” I said sarcastically.
“Not this one though, right?” Discord countered, gesturing to the ground with a talon.
“Why do you even want to know about that? More importantly how do you know? I told Shining to keep in secret.” Discord grinned.
“Yeah, about that. If you’re going to hold ‘legally privileged’ conversations in that office, you might want to invest in a fly swatter or some bug spray. You didn’t notice me for three hours.”
Snapping his talons, Discord seemed to disappear. However, I quickly spotted him, buzzing around my kitchen in the form of a fly. I put my head in my hands and slammed it down on the table.
“You’ve been spying on me?” I asked, sounding a little muffled. I heard Discord’s magic kick in as he presumably returned to his usual form. He lifted my head back up and looked me in the eye, a cocky grin on his face.
“Oh, spying is such an ugly word, dear boy. I prefer to call it checking in on you,” he replied. I frowned.
“Well, whatever you call, you really shouldn’t, Discord. How would you like it if I was snooping around in your personal life?”
“As I recall you did. The whole talking me out of slowly torturing Tirek thing, ring any bells?” he replied, a little testily.
“I didn’t spy on you to do it. In fact, as I recall, you brought that up. I sure as hell didn’t follow you without your knowledge to learn your secrets. I did this thing that ponies do called ‘talking’. You should try it sometime!” Discord was unphased by my ranting.
“I was just worried about you,” he replied sulkily, folding his arms and pouting like a child. I sighed to myself.
This is the problem with Discord. He has no understanding of social graces. Or if he does he doesn’t bother to follow them. His spying on me was actually him being concerned about me. The more he knew about me, the more he could understand me and, by his logic, be a closer friend. There was no real malice behind his actions; it was just the way he acted. Despite his age being in the four figure ballpark, he still has a lot to learn on the whole friendship front.
The problem at hand though, was that as a result, a lot of his behaviours could appear malicious when they were actually benign. Okay, don’t get me wrong, at times, he is just a plain old jerk and acts a bit like his old self to prove a point. But in many instances, such as the Grand Galloping Gala, he acts the way he does, simply because it makes the most sense to him.
I realised that I was perhaps therefore, being a little hard on him. Don’t get me wrong, I was still mad at him for essentially stalking me, but his intentions were honest, like a child listening in on a conversation between his parents. I sound like I’m defending a badly behaved kid don’t I? In a way, that is what Discord is, at times at least. Sometimes the draconequus can be as wise as Celestia herself.
A little while later, the two of us came to something of an understanding, and I did repeat a watered down version of what I had told Shining; just the facts, not what had happened at Doyle’s place. It sated his curiosity in any case. And not long after that little talk, he took his leave, vanishing and leaving behind a literal pile of autumn leaves.
Very funny, you daft bugger.
Discord’s surprise visit threw off my normal morning routine. I was certainly glad that it was a Friday today. I needed this weekend to recuperate. After quickly calling upstairs to my wife to say goodbye, I headed out the door. I had enough time to cross town to get to the train station to catch my early train up the mountain. Charlie quickly got up and followed me out the door. This is something of a routine for him. He follows me to the station after I feed him, and then he watches me go, and then returns home. Today, the little fellow had to quietly feed on the go.
As I made my way through town with the dog following behind, I came across Twilight and Spike, both heavily weighted down with books. Twilight was carrying the better part of a ton or so in her pink magic. Spike meanwhile was pulling a cart of books behind him. The baby dragon was probably coming close to moving his own bodyweight in books. Charlie yapped excitedly at seeing his two friends and quickly bounded over to Spike, almost knocking him over before I called him off.
“What’s all this, you two?” I asked as I walked up, grabbing Charlie’s collar to pull him off. “Taking the catalogue for a walk or something?” Sorry, Dad jokes, comes with the territory. I should have warned Shining about those. Luckily, while Spike groaned at my deeply unfunny remark, Twilight was unphased.
“Oh, I’m so excited,” she exclaimed, almost bouncing on her hooves. “Spike and I are going to be spending the whole weekend reorganising the castle’s library. These just arrived at the post office from Canterlot.” Her unsettlingly wide grin and manic expression told me all I needed to know. Twilight was having one of her episodes. Best bet is to back away slowly, make no sudden moves, and not make eye contact. I cast a pitying expression at Spike; the things that poor drake has to go through.
Leaving the egghead and her caretaker to go on their merry way, I made for the train station, with Charlie trotting alongside. Most of Ponyville was just beginning to wake up. There were a few ponies milling about the market, setting up stalls and so on. I spotted Big Macintosh at the Apple’s stand and waved to him. I haven’t been able to look at him the same way since that whole Sisterhooves Social fiasco, but he’s still an okay guy in my book.
As I continued on, I picked out a couple more familiar faces up in the sky. We were due for some rain next week, so the pegasi of Ponyville’s Weather Patrol were starting to bring the storm together. I always find it fascinating, watching the ponies physically create clouds, putting them together like Legos. I quickly picked out the prismatic mane of Rainbow Dash shooting around the sky, but I also picked out another. It was a pegasus mare with a dark blue coat and a flowing brown mane, with a cutie mark of a winged music note.
“Lizzie! Dash!” I called out, catching the pair’s attention. Talking to Rainbow for a minute, Lizzie floated down to talk to me.
“Hi, Dad,” she greeted, hovering just a little above me. “What’s up?”
“Just about to head off to work,” I replied. “I’m taking Charlie for a quick walk too. Hey, have you seen Twilight this morning?” Lizzie giggled a bit behind a hoof.
“Yeah, she’s been acting crazy…well, crazier. Dash and I spotted her about an hour ago. She okay?” I nodded.
“Something about reorganising the library in her new castle. You know what she’s like when it comes to books.” At this point, Dash called down from her work.
“The princesses should have made that egghead the Princess of Books if you ask me,” she yelled from her position atop a medium sized cloud. She then turned to Lizzie. “C’mon, kid, we’ve gotta get this built up into a rain storm before lunch. Mayor Mare is gonna have my head if we ruin her weekend again.”
“Okay, Dash,” Lizzie called back. “Sorry, Dad, gotta go. See you when you get back though.” She slowly began to climb back into the sky.
“Okay, I’ll see you this evening,” I said. “Bye, Rainbow Dash!” Charlie yapped a farewell too.
Leaving the two pegasi to their work, I continued my journey toward the station. Normally, I had the train pretty much to myself. Canterlot, despite being fairly close to Ponyville, was not a place most normally visited. Ponyville was a small town, but it had everything you needed. It wasn’t like back on Earth, when I’d go with my wife travel down to Shrewsbury for some retail therapy. Canterlot was a place of government and rich buggers. Unless you had business with one of them, there wasn’t too much of a reason to visit.
The station was almost completely empty at this time of the morning. Heading the ticket office, I showed my pass (since I’m employed by the crown, Celestia pays for my ticket to and from work) and got myself the usual day return up to Canterlot. Heading out onto the platform, I sat myself down on one of the benches. Charlie hopped up and lay down next to me, whimpering a little.
“What’s the matter, Charlie?” I asked him. Unlike an actual dog, Charlie understands everything I say, he just can’t talk back. He opened his mouth and then gestured to his stomach. Ah, I hadn’t fed him yet.
In my rush to get here on time, I’d forgotten to let the poor changeling have his breakfast. He doesn’t take that much from me; just enough to keep him going for the day. I’ve been happily married for over twenty years, so I have love to spare anyway.
Looking around, I checked to make sure there was nopony else about. While Charlie is completely harmless and perfectly friendly, I doubt ponies would be that accepting of him, at least right now. Like Strong Shield, his true nature is kept secret from everypony but a select few. To most, he’s just my faithful pet dog. Since it was all quiet, I decided that it would be fine to risk it. The poor lad needed his breakfast after all.
“Alright, boy. Go on then,” I said, Charlie smiled, lolled out his tongue and wagged his tail. He’s really gotten good at imitating dogs, even Winona, the Apple’s collie hasn’t got wise to him.
Opening his mouth, Charlie drew out the unusual green mist from me. That is apparently what condensed emotion looks like, or whatever it is he’s eating. The changeling inhaled the vapour for a few moments, and I felt myself grow a little light headed. However, as he’s just one drone, Charlie doesn’t eat much, and almost as soon as it had started, he was done.
It seemed to have a visible effect on him too, his coat looked to be in better condition, his eyes seemed to sparkle more, and he seemed to be more energised and excitable. I fished a tennis ball out of my bag for him to play with. He happily bounded up and down the platform, though he was smart enough to stay off the tracks, bringing it back no matter how many times I threw it.
Eventually though, the small electric bell on the platform rang out, signalling the approaching train. I got to my feet and called Charlie back to me.
“Alright, chap. Get on back home now. I’ll see you when I get back, alright?” Charlie yapped once and then set off. It really is like having my own version of Lassie at times. I certainly trusted him to get home on his own.
I quickly picked up the sound of the approaching train reverberating through the tracks. A minute or so later the gaudy train pulled in. I still can’t believe you can fit so many hearts and so much pink paint onto a railway locomotive. Nopony got off; anypony who was on board would be heading for Canterlot and certainly wouldn’t be inclined to get off in a two bit town like Ponyville.
Climbing into one of the carriages, I greeted the guard and showed him my ticket, along with my rail pass. With that done, I headed for a seat and settled down for the comparatively short journey. After a minute waiting for any stragglers, the guard gave the driver the right away and we were off.
My main job today was head back down into Tartarus. With Starlight’s recent escapades, Celestia wanted to see if I could coax anymore information out of Sombra. I highly doubted it, and told Celestia as much, but she insisted that I try, even if it meant letting Sombra know that we were getting desperate. As soon as Day Court was opened, Celestia came with me to my office and opened up the portal for me.
Heading down along the all too familiar path, I soon found myself approaching Sombra’s cell. The room was the same study I had become accustomed to, as opposed to the throne room which he sometimes created for himself in an effort to relive the glory days of his reign. He was, as always, waiting for me when I entered, having either heard my approaching footsteps, or possibly picked me out with what little remains of his magic.
“Back again already, my friend?” he enquired as I walked in. “Finally growing tired of Discord’s company perhaps, or have you come to seek yet more of my wisdom?” I bit my tongue to stop myself rising to the bait. I took the nearby seat before I spoke to him.
“Starlight Glimmer broke into the archives,” I stated. “We think she’s taken Starswirl’s time travel spell.” Sombra smiled a little to himself and went off to examine of few volumes in his collection.
“Ah yes, dear old Starswirl. A more cowardly and closed minded stallion the world never knew.” Sombra chuckled to himself. “Still, every now and again the old fool could come up with something interesting. Time travel you say?”
“According to the princess, the physical copy of the spell can be charged…” Sombra cut in.
“With a unicorn’s own magic to activate the spell without the higher level skills.” He smiled at me. “Yes, my friend, I studied magic as well. Although I wasn’t allowed to pass on the fruits of my labour.”
“With good reason,” I countered.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Sombra replied, waving a hoof dismissively. “We must protect all the stupid ponies from any kind of knowledge that might encourage them to rise up against their benevolent dictators.” The psychopath seemed to be in an unusually good mood today for some reason, or he was giving me an easy opening.
“That’s a bit hypocritical isn’t it? Coming from a tyrannical dictator such as yourself.”
“There’s not that much difference really, is there? Not even between your own friends and Starlight. They both wish to make the world a better place, do they not?” Like an idiot, I took the lure.
“You know what she’s planning?” Sombra smirked a little.
“Given your little update, I have an idea. Just remember what I told you about her motivations, and I think you’ll do fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was about to have dinner, such as it is.”
I took that as my cue to leave. Getting up from my seat, I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the exit. However, just before I was out of sight, Sombra called me back.
“Say, Roger. Do you play chess that much?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Once in a while I suppose,” I replied. “I was never that good at it though.” Sombra’s gaze now became colder, and the familiar aura of darkness once again surrounded him.
“Then let me leave you with a little hint. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. But even she may be used as a sacrifice.” With that, he took to his shadow form, and headed back towards his throne.
The rest of the day, and the ensuing weekend passed by pretty much uneventfully. The only unusual thing that happened back in Ponyville was that Discord stopped by. He does that every now and again. I know for a fact that he regularly takes time to visit Fluttershy. He also occasionally stops by to bother one or both of my children, mainly Bones, since he can be quite easy to rile up.
However, on this occasion, he chose to ‘crash’ at my place. He has his own personal pocket dimension, which Celestia even lets him keep as a tax haven. It has pretty much everything a physical embodiment of chaos might want or need. And yet, I came home on the Friday, to find him lounging on my sofa.
I suppose this is his way of showing friendship, in his usual twisted way. Discord may be my best friend, but dear God is he annoying when you’re stuck under the same roof as him. Still, I tolerate him; it’s much harder to get him to leave than to put up with him. Plus, if I did try to kick him out, it would just make him dig his heels in more. And I’ve at least managed to get him to clean up after himself. Or at least, my wife has.
He split his time over the weekend between sitting on my sofa watching films, and visiting Twilight’s friends. He went out and spent most of Saturday at Sweet Apple Acres. By the sounds of things, all of Twilight’s friends got together there spontaneously. And judging by their suddenly improved relationships, they’d all gotten on well with Discord. Perhaps he really was turning a corner, or he’d just used his magic to mess with their heads, either was a decent possibility, though since none of them had become monochrome, I doubted the latter.
The only pony I didn’t see all weekend was Twilight, along with Spike. True to her word, she’d holed herself up in her library and spent the entire weekend re-shelving and reorganising the place. Bones actually got a little concerned, worried that she might be slipping back into some old bad habits of putting books before ponies. Still, come Monday, she emerged at last, none the worse for wear and stepped back out into the sunlight.
That was when things first started to go off the rails. Naturally, Twilight had missed out on a fair bit, being absent for most of the weekend. I think she felt a bit left out, or felt out of the loop. It was a perfectly understandable reaction, but not one that she felt was becoming of the Princess of Friendship.
She tried to simply catch up with her friends, but sometimes it is a case of ‘you had to be there’. And I think the incident with that snake, as humorous as it was, qualified as such. So, she started to have one of her funny turns; princess or not, she is still Twilight Sparkle.
I happened to be passing by the café where Twilight and the others, along with Discord, had met up. I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just happened to overhear the conversation. Twilight was trying, like a good little scientist, to recreate the previous weekend in an effort to overcome her feelings of being left out. Now, I would have expected Discord to merely find such antics amusing. Instead though, he seemed to be slipping back into old habits.
I know before I said that Discord is chaotic, not evil. But the way he was acting toward Twilight was downright vindictive. In a cruel reversal of her recreation, he pointed out that the one different variable was Twilight’s own presence. That got the poor mare to up and leave. I’d never seen her look so down.
Well, in addition to being Discord’s best friend, I guess at times I have to play his conscience. As the ponies all departed, I called out to him.
“Discord!” My serpentine friend turned around and quickly spotted me. Smiling he began to walk over to me.
“Well, hello there, my friend,” he replied. “And how are you this…” I abruptly cut him off and started to give him a proper telling off.
“You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?” I asked sternly, gesturing toward the group of departing ponies, and the solitary mare heading back to her castle. “Seriously, Discord, that’s not on.”
Discord turned and looked over to the still crestfallen Twilight. He may be crazy, but Discord is able to feel remorse. Not today though, as it turned out.
“Oh don’t worry, she’ll be fine,” he replied, waving a paw.
“Discord, you do know what you just did, right? You verbally eviscerated the poor girl. What was that for anyway?” Now, Discord folded his arms.
“Oh, don’t be such drama queen,” he said dismissively. “I was just trying to stop her from being so clingy. You know she was actually trying to recreate the whole of the weekend. The poor filly goes from so self-absorbed that she has no friends to desperately needed to be with them twenty four seven. It’s ridiculous.”
“And your solution to this was to continue to isolate her from her friends?” Discord may no longer be looking to take over Equestria, but he still loves his little social experiments it seems. “What, are you going to see how long until she snaps?”
“If by ‘snap’ you mean, until she learns her lesson, yes.” I clenched my fists, my anger starting to boil. I can normally tolerate Discord’s antics, but this was going over the line.
“Discord!” I snapped irritably. “In the time I’ve known you, you’ve been an ass, an idiot, and a manipulative sonofabitch. But you’ve also been my friend, and I’ve never known you to be cruel. So tell me, what the hell is this?”
The draconequus seemed to go into deep thought for a moment, weighing his options. Like Celestia, he can think twenty moves ahead when the mood takes him. Eventually, he seemed to reach a decision and his demeanour softened. Snapping his fingers, an odd translucent bubble surrounded us. The world suddenly became quiet. I guess it was some sort of sound proof bubble. Evidently he wanted this conversation to be just between us.
“You asked me to help find that Starlight pony,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied, nodding. “What about her?”
“Well, I have a good idea of what she’s planning. And it involves that little purple book smart.”
“And you were going to tell Celestia, right?” I enquired. Discord frowned.
“I was, until I was told to stop.” That threw me. Discord barely listens to Celestia or me, with only Fluttershy really having much influence over him. Who on earth could stop him in his tracks like that.
“Who told you to do that?” I asked, now genuinely curious. Suddenly, Discord was unable to meet my gaze.
“The Tree of Harmony,” he replied. I’m fairly certain that raised an eyebrow. I had often wondered whether or not Discord was sane.
“A tree…told you to psychologically torture a pony?” Discord sighed, pinching the bridge of his snout.
“No. She just needs to learn this lesson, for her showdown with Starlight.”
“What? What lesson?” I half shouted, now getting quite alarmed.
“I’m putting her in that crazy mare’s horseshoes. She feels like she’s losing her friends right now. Don’t worry, she’s not going to. But she needs to know what it feels like if she’s going to help Starlight.”
“And that helps how?” I asked. “We don’t even know what she’s planning. We can’t predict what she might or might not do. We don’t even know her motivations. How can you doing this possibly help?” snapping his fingers a moment, Discord summoned himself a chair and sat down.
“Tell me, Roger. Do you know much about temporal mechanics?” I shook my head.
“No, aside from a bit gleamed from the odd Star Trek episode.”
“Well, let me give you a little bit of background. Time is fixed. Events in the future have happened, will happen, are going to happen, and are happening right now. With work you can alter the past, but it takes a lot of work to have even a slight effect on the future. And even then, there’s the whole problem with paradoxes.
“The Tree knows what is going to happen, because it has already seen it happen. Due to this, and its own interference, a lot of events require its input. Sitting back and doing nothing can affect the past just as much as actions can. In short, everypony has to stick to their scripts. And right now, my part is to do this little act of unkindness, and get my just desserts, in order to prepare Twilight.”
Well, that was…a lot to take in. Issues of free will aside, it sure hurt my head to just think about it. It did make sense though. At least, as much as Discord can ever make sense. I think even by his standards this was a bit taxing. Still, it explained his odd behaviour.
“So, what happens now?” I asked. Discord shrugged.
“I don’t know that, dear boy. I may know we’re following a natural progression of events, but I don’t have a list here in front of me.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“Look, just don’t be any more unkind to Twilight than you have to be,” I implored. At that moment, I saw the lavender alicorn herself marching over. “That’s it, old man. I’m out of here.”
With that, I left him to continue in the name of preserving the universe as we know it.
I saw Discord a little later that day, as he left Twilight’s castle. Unsurprisingly, his little stunt had driven Twilight almost around the bend. She’d come to the, somewhat logical conclusion, that her friends were being manipulated somehow by Discord’s chaos magic. She’d then gone charging off into the Everfree Forest to see Zecora. The zebra has been working on a few potions here and there that could benefit us all in the near future. In addition to perfecting an anti-hypnotic, which she gave to Twilight, she’s also part way developed a salve which can disrupt changeling disguises.
Anyway, Twilight had her friends drink Zecora’s non-Royal Medical Society of Equestria approved potion, and it seemed to have no effect.
Luckily, that was when Twilight began to come to her senses. The group, minus Discord, began to laugh and joke about what had happened. In hindsight, Twilight’s near meltdown was quite funny. This had the effect of both putting my best friend in his place, and also, as he predicted, helping Twilight learn a valuable lesson about friendship.
I was waiting for Discord when he came out.
“You,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “Had that coming.” Discord rolled his eyes.
“True,” he replied. “I must say, it takes a lot of effort to be that evil. Even in my glory days I don’t think I was ever quite that…vindictive. Mean perhaps, cruel, twisted, and of course, deeply artistic and talented.” I cut him off before he could really get started.
“Alright, I think you’ve stroked your own ego enough. Is that the end of it? Are you done being an ass?” I paused to reflect on that question before adding. “To Twilight?” Discord stretched and yawned a little.
“Yes, that’s it. I’m done. For now anyway.” With that, he disappeared, hopefully to somewhere other than my couch.
I, meanwhile, headed into Twilight’s castle. The girls had all gone a little further in than the throne room, probably the great hall. This left me alone with the map; the strange contraption that seemed to monitor Equestria like a hawk. It seemed intelligent in some capacity; it made its own decisions and acted accordingly. Did that make it a sort of magic AI, or a construct, like the Tantabus? I lay my hand on the map table.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”