Twilight sighed in her still half-asleep state, turning over to avoid the breath that was tickling her neck. Normally it would have taken her a moment to remember where she was, but this morning she didn't need the reminder of Discord's warmth surrounding her to jog her memory. She knew exactly where she had fallen asleep the night before.
It was the third time in a row this month that they had fallen asleep like this, and every time Twilight groaned inwardly at the thought of leaving this cozy, dreamy cocoon of just the two of them. But she had to, there was still so much to do each day even discounting the chaos transference and lessons, and her day had to start back home at the library lest any pony get the wrong idea.
Discord's breaths were permeated with a soft, catlike purr. He only purred in his sleep, so Twilight knew he must not be faking. As her eyes fluttered open and she tried to gently extricate herself from the coils of his sleeping form, she realized that the sun was not where it usually was at this time of day. Princess Celestia must have gotten a late start to the day for some reason.
It caused her pause, but Twilight eventually reasoned that there wasn't anything she could do about it besides ask the princess the next time she saw her. What was of more immediate importance was getting back to the library without Spike knowing.
Slipping back into the hallway of the castle so she wouldn't disturb Discord, Twilight tried as quietly as she could to teleport to just outside the Ponyville Library. She knew that as hard as she tried to muffle the sound her magic made, Spike's keen ears would pick up her telltale teleporting pop. It was much simpler to pop in and then muffle the sound of the door and her hoof steps as she made her way to her room.
Spike appeared to still be in his bed, so at least there was that, and all Twilight needed to do was crawl back into her own bed and wait for Spike to rise.
The morning came a little bit later than it was supposed to, Spike noticed. At least ten minutes late by the official record. Fluttershy was the first pony at the library when Spike opened up for the day. He had had a quiet breakfast alone, not wanting to disturb Twilight after she had only gotten back in maybe half an hour before. He knew that she kept sneaking back in from Discord's castle in the early hours of the morning, and that she didn't want him to know, so he continued to pretend he knew nothing about it.
He didn't really want to wonder what they had gotten up to, but knowing Twilight it probably wasn't as bad as he at first assumed. She had probably just fallen asleep reading or something.
He greeted the yellow pegasus and stepped aside for her to enter, with Fluttershy looking around the empty room presumably for Twilight.
“So Fluttershy, what brings you by so early?” he asked as she passed him.
“Oh, I just thought that Twilight might like to go and get some breakfast with me. I thought I saw her earlier this morning when I first woke up to tuck my bats in for the day.”
“That sounds nice, but yeah, Twilight got in pretty late – like really late – soI don't know when she'll---”
As he said this, stirring came from the floor upstairs, hooves on wood and a faint moaning sound.
“Aaand that sounds like she's up,”Spike said with no surprise at all. Obviously the unicorn had been waiting strategically to make sure Spike was already about his daily duties before arising. “Do you wanna wait here until she comes down, or do you want me to go get her?”
“If you wouldn't mind, I don't want to interrupt her morning rituals or anything, I just thought it would be nice to go out for a change.”
Spike nodded and then took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, knocking twice on Twilight's door, he slowly eased it open and called for her.
“Hey Twilight, Fluttershy's downstairs and she wants to know if you wanna go get some br---”
He stopped short when he saw Twilight. Standing at her mirror, she had turned sharply towards him, the magenta aura of her magic glowing from her horn, and as she had turned her whole body seemed to flicker as if going in and out of focus. One second she looked normal, and the next... Spike wasn't sure what it was he was seeing. Her entire horn was covered in black, with odd, creepy vein-like patterns running across her forehead from it. Some had even covered one of her eyes, which was flashing blue instead of its normal violet. There were other dark patches along her neck, down her back, and even some slightly obscuring her cutie mark.
“Spike!” she shouted in surprise, the magic flickering her image again until it landed on the normal Twilight. But Spike wasn't fooled.
“Twilight, what the heck is that, what's going on?” he said, not holding back the worry in his voice.
“It's okay, Spike. It's nothing,” Twilight tried to reassure him.
“That's not nothing, that was most definitely something, and something bad.”
“Trust me Spike, it looks a lot worse than it is.”
“Oh yeah, is that why you're trying to hide it? Does this have anything to do with that chaos magic you're getting from Discord?”
Twilight's ears drooped, not answering, which was all the answer Spike needed.
Not knowing how to react to this, Spike made back for the stairs, tripping over his tail and calling down as he went; “Fluttershy!”
“No, Spike!” she called after him. “You can't tell any pony!”
Leaping down from the stairs, Spike beat Twilight down to Fluttershy, who waited in confusion as she took in Spike's worried expression.
Twilight tripped on the top of the stairs, falling horn over hooves and hitting every step on the way down, landing with a loud thunk on the floor. This had apparently been enough to jostle her hold on the magic she was using, and her visage flickered again, revealing the dark, sickly looking patches all over her body.
Fluttershy's eyes went wide as Spike went to help Twilight up, Twilight swatting him away and attempting to stand on her own.
“Oh my---” Fluttershy squeaked, already looking worried as she looked the unicorn over.
“Fluttershy, now before you say anything, trust me when I tell you that it's not as bad as it looks,” Twilight tried to sweep it under the rug yet again, but Spike was ready this time.
“It looks like it's something that the chaos magic is doing to her, and she's been trying to hide it from us. How long have you been using that spell to hide it?”
Twilight's head lowered, looking ashamed to have been caught in her lie. “Not long, just the past week or so. Ever since it started to spread and it stopped going away on its own.”
Fluttershy looked like she was about to cry as she continued to stare as Twilight, wincing every time her eyes found another dark, painful looking spot. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“There's really nothing to be done,” Twilight argued. “It's probably just some after effects of the transference and learning how to use the power. It's not inhibiting me in any way, so there is really no cause to be alarmed.”
“Then why were you trying to hide it?” Spike asked again.
“I--- I don't know,” Twilight stammered. “I just thought that since I had been doing so well with the magic that I could figure out a way to reverse it on my own. I didn't want any pony to know because I knew they'd freak out like you two are doing. It's really, really not that bad you guys, I swear.”
She sounded sincere, but Spike wasn't all that convinced yet. Fluttershy on the other hand was apparently attempting to form a plan to help her.
“But doesn't it hurt you, or make you tired to keep up that spell to hide it all the time?”
At that Twilight sighed. “Okay, I'm not going to lie, it does ache a tiny bit, but only for a little bit at a time, and usually only when I'm thinking about it. As for my spell, that doesn't bother me as much, but I could use a better, more permanent solution.”
“Maybe Zecora has a remedy for that,” Fluttershy said, a bit of hope rising up in her voice. “I can go and see her right now an---”
“No, really, please don't involve more ponies in this,” Twilight begged. “And please don't mention it to any pony, especially not Discord.”
“Fluttershy, go and find Zecora, see if she really does have something that can help,” Spike said determinately to the pegasus. And before Twilight could protest, he held his claw out to her to silence her. “No, Twi. If this is such a big deal that you're being hurt and trying to hide it, you need help from some pony.”
Twilight wilted at Spike's harsh words, head lowered and lifting a hoof as if to inspect one of the dark splotches. With a sigh, she seemed to concede.
“Fine, I admit that I do maybe need some help. But still, not a word to Discord. I still feel like if we can get this under control then there's no need to worry him.”
“You're just gonna worry everyone else, huh?” Spike joked, trying to lighten the mood but not doing a great job. “And sure, I won't tell Discord, but I feel like you should. He's probably going to find out anyway, and it'll just be worse if you try and hide it.”
Fluttershy returned swiftly with the zebra in tow, she must have already been in town. Zecora stopped in the doorway when she saw Twilight's condition, gasping with surprise and possibly a touch of fear.
“Is there anything you can do for her?” Fluttershy asked her, and once Zecora had gotten over the shock of seeing Twilight, she entered the room and began to inspect the unicorn.
“I shall see what I can do,” and then, to Twilight, “How long has this been affecting you?”
She circled her and leaned in close to each blackened patch, poking it with a hoof and looking up to see if it affected Twilight in any way.
“Not long, at first it only appeared for a few moments and then faded away, but over the last couple of weeks it's stayed like this.”
“Hmm, I think I have something in my apothecary, but I must warn you it would only be temporary.”
“That's fine, or at least it's something,” Spike said. He saw Twilight nod with a glance over at him, maybe not entirely pleased that he was taking charge about her health. But he figured that some pony ought to intervene if she wasn't going to do anything herself.
It was an awkward twenty minutes before Zecora returned with a small jar full of greenish goop. Spike watched as Zecora opened the jar and began to rub the sweet, vaguely-banana scented stuff onto Twilight's black marks.
“This will mask the physical signs, but only for a few hours at a time. I can not help with the other affects, but I sense that whatever you're doing, your body objects.”
“Objects? Do you mean – do you think - that my body is trying to reject the chaos magic?”
Zecora nodded. “You don't need to tell me all that you do, but you should listen when your body says something to you.”
Spike didn't know how Twilight was reacting, or how she would take that advice, but he hoped that she would listen. If not for herself, then for the ponies that cared about her. Ponies and dragons, really.
Even if her secret was out to some of her friends, that didn't mean that Twilight wanted it to be broadcast to every pony. She felt adamant that she could find a way to fix it on her own, but she was grateful for Zecora's temporary remedy.
The question now was, how could she tell Discord, or should she tell him at all? She knew that if he had hidden something potentially dangerous from her (which he sort of already did) she would most definitely want to know about it.
She debated it as she made her way back to his castle, and she suddenly found herself inside her new library, pulling all of her new books down from their shelves and soon the walls were bare but the floor was littered with covers of all colors, shapes, and sizes.
Which is where Discord found her, as she was busily taking all of the books down from the shelves, laying them out along the floor, and re-shelving them into her own favorite organizational system.
Not wanting to betray any of her anxiousness about what she was attempting to conceal, Twilight lept from her spot on the floor to greet him the moment he came in.
She plastered an incredibly fake smile onto her face and hoped to Celestia that he wouldn't question her re-arranging choices.
She watched Discord take in her organized chaos and – while seeming to appreciate the chaos part of it – it did not seem to faze him in the least.
“So, are you nervous about today?”
“What?” she protested uneasily, dragging out the word into three or four syllables. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
As she said this, four more books flew past between them, heading from one shelf and separating their formation to reside on three others. Going along with his assumption, she answered.
“Ugh, I knew that this was going to come eventually, but now that it's here---”
“You've been taking on a good amount of power, it seems about time that you start wielding it more intensely.”
That was true, she had been merely practicing with the creation side of her new powers, but she had not yet begun to focus on the other part of maintaining balance, reversing any anomalies.
It felt easier to let Discord believe that this was the reason behind her nervous behavior. Easier, but far more deceptive, she thought.
“But if I couldn't handle it, if it seemed like it was too much for me,then we would stop, correct?”
“That hasn't been a problem yet,” Discord said. “Unless there's something you're not telling me.”
“No no, I'm just--- anxious, I guess. I suppose I don't have the same amount of confidence in my abilities as you seem to.”
Discord sidled up beside her, and Twilight hoped that he didn't take it the wrong way that she scooched a bit away from him in order to avoid him touching her. As reassuring as the gesture would be, she couldn't risk it as the salve was still drying on her fur.
He didn't appear to notice, perhaps taking the action for another sign of nerves about what they had planned for the day.
“If you need a cheering section Ms. Sparky, I can certainly oblige.”
At that, they appeared again in the desert outside his residence there, and not too far from them now stood a grand stand of benches with several hundred Discords all applauding and cheering her on, many holding up signs or purple-horned baseball caps.
The cheers and applause from the Discord crowd made Twilight smile, and she shook her head amusedly at the Discord beside her.
“Too much?” he asked her, waving to the stand which made the other Discords cheer even louder. “It's a good looking group though,you have to admit.”
Twilight laughed, and she put her fears and worries aside for the moment. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting the cheers of the crowdof Discords fade into the background.
“I think I'm ready to give it a shot,” she said as the audience whooped.
Tapping into the chaos magic was almost too simple now, the rushing feel of the energy coursing through her so familiar, Twilight had experienced sudden waves of longing for it when she wasn't using it, almost like a craving.
When the magic was inside her – now that they were working together – it felt right somehow, as if she hadn't fully been whole until she had let this magic fill her up.
That was the feeling she experienced now every time that she opened up her mind for it. With it, she felt powerful, invincible, like she could do literally anything. And it would seem that she could.
It was hard for her more logical side to rein her in when she could feel the power filling her up.
As they had an audience of a sort- and even though Twilight was trying to block them out for the most part – every one of her attempts to solve the problems Discord assembled felt all the more dramatic.
Beings of sand and rocks forming out of the ground were dispatched as quickly as Discord could conjure them up. The great narwhals that he sent her way were transformed back into common desert birds and insects. Twilight was so consumed by her focus that she had soon forgotten all about the crowd and her nerves.
With every obstacle that Discord threw at her, she was able to fix it within seconds, he must have been having trouble continuing the stream of anomalies – running out of ideas even with his unlimited imagination – for after dispatching probably the fortieth anomaly of the day, he suddenly halted, and when Twilight looked back over to him, he was hunched over, hands on his knees, looking winded.
The crowd of other Discords all gasped in unison, and then suddenly they and the stand they were sitting on vanished, as did any residual anomalies he had been conjuring up.
Shaking herself to regain her composure, Twilight sprinted over to him, taking careful, cautious steps as she drew closer. She had only seen him be so worn out once before (not counting his time as a pony), and that was just after the first time he'd given her some of his power.
“Discord, are you alright?”she asked, holding out a foreleg for him to grasp on to if he needed. He gently eased it away, shaking his head and standing on his own, although shakily.
“Perfectly fine, Ms. Sparky. Just getting used to the power shift. That being the power shifting away from me and into you.”
He tried to smile at his own joke, but Twilight could see that there was - if not pain – a sort of weariness behind his eyes now.
She gave a tentative step away from him, feeling guilty now for feeling so good during the session. “Maybe we should stop for the day.”
“When you were doing so well?” Discord shook his head again, regaining composure. “Nonsense, we can still go a few more rounds.”
Twilight looked him over uncertainly. Although he looked like and acted as if he had fully recovered, the unicorn wasn't so sure that he was giving her the whole truth. He may have just been saying what Twilight wanted to hear.
“I'm perfectly fine with taking a break if you need to, Discord,” she said, still looking him over, gauging his response.
Discord appeared to notice her scrutinizing, and did not appreciate it one bit. “You don't need to worry about me, if you want to continue, we are absolutely good to go.”
So he was going to be stubborn about it, well that just made Twilight change tactics.
“Okay, then I would like to take a break.”
He looked like he didn't believe her – she was sure he didn't believe her - but he didn't argue. He slumped down onto the sandy ground with a much more relieved look on his face than he was probably willing to admit.
“You were doing well, you know.”
“Thanks. But I wonder, how do you handle it - handle yourself - when you're wielding the power? I'm having a difficult time not letting it fill me up, it makes me feel like I could do anything,.”
“And where is the bad in that?”
“Just because I can do anything, doesn't mean I should. And I'm just not sure I completely trust myself not to make poor choices when I'm under its influence,” Twilight paused, now feeling comfortable enough to ask the question that had been eating away at her.
“How do you keep it from consuming you, from consuming your mind, I mean?”
“I think you'll agree that for the longest time, I didn't. I just did whatever I wanted, went with the chaotic flow, and I think you know by now how that feels.”
Twilight did. It probably did feel about the same for her as it did for him, but there was still the reality that she was a being far less equipped to contain such magic. She would have to develop a much stronger coping mechanism to handle it.
Her mind then slipped back to the residual effects left behind by the magic that she was attempting to conceal, and she didn't want to admit it – she hadn't even told her friends – but lately she had felt her own magic weakening, as if her own natural power were being drained out of her to make room for this new chaos power.
“Sometimes I feel like I won't be able to hold it all together once it's all been siphoned into me,” she admitted, silently wondering how much worse her state was going to get before it got better. If it got better.
Twilight settled herself beside the now pleasantly-resting Discord, his eyes closed as his breaths grew more rhythmic.
“As I said, you were doing well. Honestly better than I thought you might by this stage, if you don't take that as an insult.”
“Not insulted at all.”
“What the--- what is this?” he asked, curious but with a note of suspicion, a note that Twilight was trying to avoid hearing. In her rush to Discord's side and then relief tha he seemed okay, Twilight had let down her guard and completely forgotten her want to avoid his touch. Now that he had casually draped his arm around her,it all came flooding back to her.
“What's what?” she said, attempting to sound nonchalant. Then, feigning recollection she said. “Oh that, oh that's nothing. Just something Zecora gave me for a... rash.”
“A rash?” he repeated, that note of suspicion growing to Twilight's discomfort.
“---yes, and it's personal so I don't really want to talk about it.”
As his wandering claws ran over her fur that was patchy with dried salve, she tried to deflect his skeptical face with a chipperness that masked her anxiety.
“Really, it's nothing to worry about,” she lied. She looked straight into his eyes and lied to him. She hoped to Celestia that her own eyes did not give her away.
Fortunately, the princess in question arrived at that very moment, swooping down to meet them with her usual grace. And for a moment Twilight wondered if she had accidentally summoned her by merely thinking her name.
But that was ridiculous, of course. Although as the princess had saved her from some very awkward revelations (ones that she knew would have to come eventually and it gave her a stomach ache to continue putting it off, but she did so anyway) she decided to embrace the interruption and leaped from her seat to greet Princess Celestia.
“I hope I'm not interrupting anything important,” the princess said with an inquisitive look from Twilight to Discord. “But I thought that Twilight might like to hear some news we have just received. It concerns our efforts with giving Cadance our order magic.”
Twilight paled at her teacher's tone, whatever it was, it didn't sound good. “But I thought things were going well, she was absorbing and acclimating to it and everything, did something happen?”
“Technically nothing has happened, it is rather that something had already happened, and we are just now learning of it.”
“What is it?” Twilight asked, fearing the worst.
“Cadance is pregnant,” Celestia answered, with much less joy than is usually heard when giving this type of news.
“But I don't understand, why don't you sound happy about it?” Her question was answered by herself the moment she opened her mouth.
A baby, a foal inside Cadance as she was absorbing some very intense magic.
“You think something might be wrong with the foal, because of the order magic?” she asked, her mind now forming too many questions to get out at once. “Are you going to be continuing with the transference? How do we know that the foal has or hasn't been affected? Do you think that the foal might be absorbing the order magic as well?”
“All very good questions, and ones we are attempting to answer back in Canterlot. I thought that you might want to accompany me back there to see her. Shining Armor has already arrived.”
Twilight wasn't sure if knowing that her brother was there as well was comforting or more cause for concern. If this was serious enough that he felt that he had to come all the way from the Crystal Empire to Canterlot to be by his wife's side, what wasn't the princess telling her?
She then turned back to Discord,who shrugged at her apparent dilemma.
“Discord, I know that we were in the middle of--- our session,” she amended her sentence, not wanting Princess Celestia to know what they had been discussing – or rather - what Twilight had been trying to avoid discussing. “But if it's alright---”
“Of course you would want to go and see your dear brother and sister-in-law,” Discord said, cutting her off with a sweep of his claw. “Perfectly fine, I'll just be back at my castle being out of the way.”
Another wave of guilt washed over her as she felt disheartened on his behalf. He hadn't been able to do much outside of their lessons in an attempt to keep every pony safe, but it couldn't have been very entertaining for him. “Wait, why aren't you coming?”
“I wasn't invited, and most likely for a very good reason.”
Celestia nodded at Discord's words. “Thank you for understanding, Discord. It would simply be too potentially dangerous for Cadance and the baby if you were to accompany Twilight.”
But I'm perfectly fine to go, Twilight thought. It bothered her a bit that the princess still didn't seem to trust him to be safe around her sister... but there was a growing, nagging thought inside her that maybe she wasn't all that safe to be around, either.
She sighed to herself, then brought Discord's face close to her own.
“I think that I'll be fine,” she whispered to him so that the princess couldn't hear. “But if something goes wrong – not that I think it will - I can send you some sort of signal or something if I start to feel like something is going to happen.”
“Why would you think something might go wrong, are you not feeling up to going?”
“I'm saying that I have some... concerns,” she replied, her mind going back to what Discord had almost discovered. “And I want you to be in the know and available just in case I need you.”
Discord seemed to think about that for a moment, and then in one swift motion, popped off his left hear and handed it to her.
“Here, now if you keep that with you I'll be able to hear everything you hear, and if you feel like you need help - which I know you don't feel you need - just call for me and I'll come.”
Twilight took it, uncertain where she should put the ear, and she settled for her saddlebag as she made to put it back on.
“And when you return, we'll be having a discussion on these concerns of yours,” he whispered to her.
Twilight more than appreciated his concern,but she still worried about causing him to worry any about her, especially when they would be apart for practically the first time in weeks.
“Thank you,” she said, hoping that Discord caught the extra meaning in it.
When Discord returned to his castle in the Everfree, he had been expecting a few hours of solitary boredom awaiting him. Perhaps he could make the rounds to his other homes and be certain that they were still the same, that there hadn't been any new accidental anomalies since he last saw them. (Sometimes doing the right thing wasn't just about doing something, evidently it was also about doing 'absolutely nothing, Discord'.)
What he hadn't anticipated was that five ponies would be inside his home, flitting about and doing something he hadn't even thought to do in forever: cleaning.
“Fluttershy, could you be a dear and get all of those cobwebs up near the ceiling?” Rarity called up to the yellow pegasus.
“Oh, alright. Just let me collect the spiders that live in them so I can move them to somewhere outside,” Fluttershy replied, flapping her wings up towards the closest cobweb.
“Oh, if you must,” said Rarity, blanching apparently at the idea of collecting spiders. “But be careful that they don't bite you.”
“They won't bite me, not if I handle them gently,” and Discord saw that she had already coaxed one of the big, hairy creatures to crawl up her leg, the pegasus not even flinching as it scurried up her body.
“And when you're done in there, Fluttershy, y'all can come get the ones in this here kitchen. I don't think this room's ever been used,” called Applejack from down the hallway.
Then suddenly, zooming in from another hallway off to the other side of the main chamber came Rainbow Dash, who evidently had not been cleaning anything, or at least not yet.
“Phew, finally made it out of there! I thought I was gonna be stuck going down the same hallway forever.”
“You guys haven't found the ball pit room, have you? It's the best!” he heard Pinkie Pie shout from the mentioned room.
“And just what do you ponies think you are doing here?”
“Oh, Discord, you've returned early, we were attempting to make this a surprise for when you and Twilight finished for the day, but, well... surprise!” Rarity said, flustered by Discord's unexpected appearance.
He then heard Pinkie zoom down the hallway and slide into the main hall, forelegs open wide and a huge smile on her face.”Surprise!”
“Surprise, indeed,” he said, looking around at the damage the mares had done so far.
From what he could see of the main room, the curtains from all of the tall windows had been pulled back, letting so much light into the room, more light than Discord could have thought possible when deep in the forest as the castle was.
Fluttershy was still busily moving the spiders from the rafters above, and then clearing away the spider's webby homes with her tail as she did so.
He could see Rarity's deep blue magic as it swept over his main hall, mending each curtain and leaving them free of dust.
“We're doing some redecorating and some cleaning as well,” Rarity said as Pinkie bounced up next to her.
“I got a little distracted, but I really wanna help you redecorate that ballroom, and all of your beds need re-making, did you know that?”
“I don't think he even knows how to make a bed,”said Rainbow in a ribbing tone. “But hey, who has time for stuff like that, right, Discord?”
“An' I guess y'all don't use the kitchen much because ya don't have ta eat,” said Applejack as she entered through another side passage..
“Not unless I feel like it, and then I could just manifest anything I wished to eat,” he replied. “That room was mostly for Twilight.”
“Which is precisely the reason we decided to come do this for you today,” Rarity said, taking a break from moving around the few furniture items in the main hall to continue to explain. “Since Twilight is going to be spending even more time here - even living here, possibly - we thought we would take the time to make your castle more to her tastes.”
“More home-y!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Like maybe putting in more furniture in this hall of yours, you know you only have two chairs and a table, right?”
“Don't you think that it's that way by design?” he asked.
“But what if we all come over to see you and Twilight? You've gotta have more chairs and couches and stuff for us to sit on.”
“It does do better for entertaining if you have more décor in your main room, Discord,” Rarity added.
“We were going to buy some and put in in here for you, but since you're here, if you wanted to create some more places to sit in your preferred style, we wouldn't object.”
While Discord didn't like the idea of feeling pressured into making more seating places if he didn't want to, he did acknowledge that this was a nice thing Twilight's friends - his friends – were doing for him, and for them.
He decided to give it some thought. What other types of furniture would he find suitable? And soon as he thought of it, he gave a wave of his claw, pieces began to grow up from the floor, ceiling, and walls as if Discord had planted them.
A floating cloud-based couch emerged from a far wall, beginning to make circles around the great space above the ponies' heads.
The table lengthened into a long u-shape that stretched along the hall lengthwise, and all along the table various chairs of differing sizes and shapes were emerging. Tall bar stools and short ottomans, carved claw-footed chairs and small folding beach chairs. Not a single sitting place matched one another, and not a one went with the rest of the castle's insides.
Tall lamps grew out of the walls, and a shiny new fish tank full of yellow and black striped tangs was suspended from close to the cloud couch. The fish did not seem to care at all that the water was being held in place by magic, or that a small portal was placed for them to swim through and emerge in the other tanks, three of which were spread about the room.
Pinkie Pie seemed delighted by the new additions, jumping and oohing at each new item. Rarity though – it seemed – was a bit more skeptical.
She tilted her head as she came close to one of the chairs before the table, gingerly tapping the arm with her hoof. She gave an appraising look around the table and the room before blinking several times and smiling. “Well, it certainly is you.”
Discord took that as a compliment.
“So, why are you back here so soon, where's Twi?” Rainbow Dash asked. “And what's up with your ear?”
Discord rolled his eyes, crossing his front limbs as he recalled.
“My ear is none of your concern, and as for Twilight.... you know, off on some important meeting or another with the princesses that I am not invited to, much like that party of yours a while back. Not that I'm bitter about it,” he said, although he was still a bit. Not about that slight of a few weeks ago, but more so that he was not permitted to accompany Twilight. Then again, there were more things to consider lately. His was the power that was having such an adverse effect on the world, and Twilight had been doing quite well at keeping her portion in-check. Perhaps given the circumstances, one chaos being in the vicinity might be enough.
“Aw, I'm sorry about that Discord,” Pinkie replied, bounding over to him after all the furniture had stopped growing. “From now on, consider yourself formally invited to every party that I throw!”
He smiled down at the pink mare. “Thank you, Pinkie.” it was a small comfort, but it was difficult not to feel grateful when she had given the invitation so earnestly.
“It does seem a bit unfair that you couldn't accompany her when you clearly wanted to,” Rarity added. “But I'm sure the princesses had their reasons.”
“But what is Discord supposed to do in the meantime? I mean, it must get pretty boring around here when he's not allowed to go anywhere else,” said Rainbow. “That doesn't seem fair.”
“Well, once we've got this here castle cleaned up, why don't we start coming 'round to visit some more, how'd you like that, Discord?” Applejack asked. “That is whenever we can get the chance.”
If Discord had been touched by their little surprise, this gesture confirmed it all the more. To hear understanding of his struggles and even a kind of sympathy on his behalf from Rainbow Dash, and now this offer from Applejack – two ponies that had been the toughest of Twilight's friends to win over – it caused his heart to glow in a way he hadn't felt very often. As he looked over the five smiling faces, he felt a sense of comradery with them, and this sense of their full acceptance of him was an even better surprise than merely cleaning up his home.
“I think that would be just fine,” he replied with a smile, but did not add anything else to underline the moment. They could all feel it, and for once Discord didn't think it needed to be overly-dramatized.
The moment passed, and the five ponies set about determinedly back to their cleaning tasks.
“Come on, Discord. You can help me make all those beds,” Pinkie said as she gestured for him to follow her as she began to skip to the doorway that lead out of the hall.
Discord was about to suggest that they could simply teleport to the room in question when he felt something strange going on with his clawed hand. It was a stiffness and a slight tingling numbness traveling up and down the appendage. He looked down at it and gave it a few practice movements, clenching and unclenching his fist. As he did this he noticed the color seemed to have drained out of it, and his eyes were finding it hard to focus on the hand, as if the whole arm itself were blurring.
He shook his hand out for a moment in an attempt to get the sensation to go away or at least subside somewhat, when Pinkie turned back to him inquisitively.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
He hid his hand behind his back. “Yes, of course. Lead the way.”
When Pinkie turned back to skip ahead, Discord looked down at his hand again. It was back to normal, the color having returned and the weird feeling dissipated. He decided not to bring it up to his friends for the moment, not before he could figure out for himself what that was.