Cause, Effect, and Consequences

by Coltsguy

A Facepalmingly Good Time

“Oh man, do I feel sore,” I complained.

“Oh come on now Seth. It hasn’t been that bad,” Twilight admonished.

“Not to you, but I’m not exactly in the best of shape if you remember.”

“Well, you were the one who volunteered,” she reminded me.

Yeah, I have no idea why I did that. Well, I did, but I’d rather not give her the added satisfaction of hearing me admit to it. You see, after we finally got moving towards an actual location it took us about ten minutes to get to Sugarcube Corner. When we arrived, I noticed two things. The first was that there was no customers there. The second and much more noticeable one was that the place was a mess that just extended from the kitchen.

Well, to this day I can’t believe I didn’t ask why the Cakes would leave the place looking like it did. Seriously, this was a place of business and yet it just looked like someone blew up the MMMM! cake halfway through the doorway to the back. It really needed to be cleaned badly.

Pinkie, however, would have none of that. Instead, the pink tornado brought me further into the mess that was the kitchen. Surprisingly, the only place that was devoid of any mess was the island countertop. Sitting on that was an assortment of different foods. All sorts of pies, tarts, fritters, cakes, and many others were just waiting there for the taste test Pinkie had created for me.

“So this stuff is for some catering job or what?” I asked jokingly.

“No silly! It’s the very first recipes I’ve ever made that I didn’t use any sugar in!”

I looked at the spread once more. Then back to Pinkie.

“How in the world did you make these without using sugar?” Twilight asked; beating me to the punch.

“It wasn’t easy, let me tell you! I had to use a whole bunch of different things to make these work!” she exclaimed by throwing her front hooves in the air.

“You know, you could probably just go with some cheese and crackers and that would be just fine with me,” I explained.

“I don’t want ‘just fine’. I want spectacular!”

“But ‘just fine’ is how I like things. I don’t need to have a party that goes off the hook. A normal, little party with people, or ponies, or whatever, I know is sometimes better. And I’m just fine with that.”

“Are you sure?” she asked carefully.

“Absolutely. I mean I hardly know any of those ponies anyway and the last party I was at was a bit intimidating to me. Even with the fun surprise we did.”

“That was pretty fun,” Pinkie said with glee. “It may even be the best surprise party I’ve ever thrown.”

“And I helped,” I said while pointing a thumb at myself.

“Yes, yes you did,” added Twilight a little oddly.

“Enough talk,” Pinkie said shrewdly. “It’s time you both got tasting.”

“Why am I helping with the taste test?” Twilight asked with much confusion.

“Because it’s still a party. If the guests don’t like the food, then I’ve failed as a hostess.”

“I don’t think that would make you a bad hostess pinkie,” Twilight stated.

“Less talking, more chewing!” Pinkie retorted.

Without any other distractions to get in our way, the two of us tried out her many new recipes. Overall, it wasn’t that bad. Like any taste testing you had your hits and misses.There wasn’t very many things I liked, but at least nothing tasted really bad like I was half expecting. In the end, I think there were some cherry tarts, an apple pie, and some kind of cookie like food that tasted sort of like grapefruit that I ended up sticking on.

I may not have been sure what exactly she put in them, but I was surprised about one thing. That thing would be that despite mixing all of those baked goods, I wasn’t feeling sick from eating them all. Even though I thought I overate too, it didn’t feel nauseating. I wanted to ask about it, but Twilight steered the conversation away.

“Now that we’re finished with that, can I ask why you left the place such a mess?”

“I felt a disturbance with my Pinkie Sense and it led me straight to you at the spa.”

“Obvious Star Wars reference question aside, I suppose you need some help cleaning up now.”

It’s funny. I don’t even know, or maybe remember why I said that. It was perhaps so obvious a statement that I just had to blurt it out. Pinkie perked up immediately upon hearing it.

“I sure do! A mess this big would take me quite a long time to clean up by myself. Thanks for offering to help.”

As I was about to mention that I hadn’t actually offered yet, there was a blur of pink and suddenly I had a mop in one hand and a rag in the other. I looked over at Twilight and she had much the same setup as I did, except her items were sitting on her back or on the floor.

“If we all work together, it will take no time at all!”

Wow, I hadn’t ever heard anyone that cheery about cleaning other than Mitoto from Tenchi Muyo. But clean we did. For 3 hours, we did nothing except clean the place from top to bottom. I really don’t like cleaning. Anything. So of course the fact that I was cleaning for hours put me in a less than pleasant mood. So imagine my surprise and irritation when I saw this weird little multicolored glass rolling around and jumping on the counter next to the sink. I was pretty sure that if it had a mouth it would be laughing and guffawing at this. However, that foul mood was instantly turned around when Pinkie approached the glass and picked it up.

“Wow is this glass dirty! I better clean it up now before it stains!”

She then shifted her stance and turned on the faucet. Just as she put the glass under the water produced another dishrag from… somewhere, there was a stifled shout from Discord getting shoved into the stream of hot water.

“Did you hear something?” Pinkie asked while still holding Discord under the water.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Twilight said.

I considered saying something, but honestly I wasn’t thinking too clearly about it. I was tired from cleaning and irritated as well. There was also the fact that I saw him most likely laughing at me, or maybe the mess, and I didn’t find it funny at all. I mean he was completely capable of snapping his claws and cleaning the place up instantly. Instead, he was just laughing his tail off at the situation. I was definitely not in the mood to bail him out of his current predicament.

“I don’t think I did,” I answered while managing to keep a straight face.

For the next five minutes, I watched as Pinkie tried to get the color out of the Discup. For the life of me I just can’t understand why Discord didn’t just transform back into his normal self. Only some strong willpower on my part kept me from cracking up on the spot. Finally, she placed the glass back on the counter with a huff.

“I guess I’ll just have to use this for something else.”

“Can I have it? I don’t have any drinking glasses at my house yet.”

“That sounds perfect, but don’t you need more than just one?” she asked while handing me the glass.

“I can get started with this one and get more later. I’m sure Discord will help,” I said with a slight smirk.

“I can’t understand why you put so much trust into Discord,” Twilight said with some unease in her voice.

“I think that Discord just does these things because he’s bored. None of the things he’s done to you were done out of malice.”

“Did you forget that he stabbed you once?” she asked pointedly.

“Well, I did say you. Still, if a human had those kind of powers they would act in the same way I think.”

“You mean those times you cause a mass panic?” she asked; cutting to the quick again.

“Okay, I think my metaphor is getting lost here. I just trust him.”

“Because he’s your friend?” she asked curiously.

“Well, maybe. I don’t really know yet. I wouldn’t mind if he was. I just don’t know if… well, if he’s fine with being my friend or not.”

“I’m fine with being your friend,” Pinkie interjected happily.

“That’s because you want to be friends with everyone. Your personality lets you be amiable enough to make that happen. Discord and I are not like that. We both have a tough time interacting with others. So did you once Twilight.”

“There’s a big difference between being socially awkward and being a menace to the entire world.”

I let out a heavy sigh. I just did not have the ability to defend him. Then again, I wasn’t sure why I was defending him in the first place. I suppose it may have been some kind of commonality we had, but I just don’t know. Maybe one last idea.

“You guys obviously don’t like Discord too much. He has reformed, though. Despite that fact of him stabbing me I’m willing to give him a shot. I guess that’s all I’m saying to you guys. Anyway, the place looks like it’s finished being cleaned. You care if I head home? It’s starting to get late.”

“It looks like we’re done cleaning up,” Pinkie stated. “Thanks a lot for the help you guys!”

“No problem Pinkie,” I said with some relief.

“We’ll see you tomorrow Pinkie Pie.”

With a wave, the two of us walked out of Sugarcube Corner and back out into the street. The sun was getting low in the sky which was good since I was a little tired of carrying that open parasoul with me. Speaking of which, I looked back to the entrance and saw that it was still sitting next to it. I walked back to the entrance and picked it up with my free hand and walked back to Twilight, who was waiting for me.

“Are you walking me back to my house?”

“I’m taking you to the outskirts of the town proper since you seem to have a bad sense of direction as I remember,” she said slyly.

“Ah, that sounds good.”

“Before we get there, I wanted to talk about getting the other’s memories back.”

“Seems like a good use of our time,” I said dryly.

“I thought so too,” she said without hearing the borderline sarcasm in my voice. “I want to try and help the other ponies regain their memories of you as soon as possible.”

“You mean your friends right? Not all of the other ponies.”

“Based on what is happening I don’t think it’s currently capable for any of us to return the memories of any of the ponies other than my friends and Spike. We can try to return their memories tomorrow.”

“We can start with Rarity then. I still have only this one set of clothes and now they’re really dirty from cleaning up at Sugarcube. Does that sound good to you?”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“And you like plans,” I added smugly.

“Yes I do,” she said happily.

We walked in silence for a few more minutes before we reached the edge of town. We had a nice goodbye with each other before we started walking away to our respective destinations. When I noticed that she was out of sight, I held the glass up in the air in my open palm.

“Alright Discord, the coast is clear.”

With a large, blinding flash, the glass disappeared and Discord took a stance a few feet away from me.

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” he commented. “Who knows what that pony would have done to me if I hadn’t gotten out of there?” he asked as he started to smack the side of his head to get the water out of his ears.

“I don’t know why you-”

My question was brought up short as, after a few shots of water came out, they were followed by a rubber duck, a life preserver, and an anchor.

“What? Have you never seen a draconequus clean out his swimmer’s ear before?”

“You know I haven’t,” I said and thought of a joke for it. “How does that stuff come out of a sink is what I’d like to know.”

Discord cackled and disappeared in a flash. He then reappeared with his lion arm around me.

“You know, you’ve really grown on me since that first time we met. And not just in size I mean.”

A fat joke. Way to endear me there Discord.

“You know, other than Fluttershy you’re the only one who’s ever stuck up for me. Even though you shouldn’t.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I’m willing to believe that your time on Earth changed you for the better. Well, that or you’re running a very deep Batman gambit. Still, I’m going to go with option A.”

“I’m so glad you think so highly of me. In more ways than one, I might add. If only the ponies would think that way.”

“If it happens, it happens,” I said with aplomb.

Discord disappeared in a flash again and reappeared in the air in front of me.

“So, I cooked last night which means that it’s your turn tonight.”

“With what?” I asked skeptically. “There’s no food in the house you know? I’m not exactly able to subsist on magic and textbooks like you. Also, would even like what I would cook in the first place?”

“Of course not! I’m going to be very critical of whatever you make and still say it’s terrible whatever the outcome.”

“Man, I have messed up taste buds and even I don’t do that,” I said dejectedly.

“Oh pish posh. You may say that, but you don’t really mean it. Tastes don’t change that easily and neither do people.”

“That’s not what I mean! I-”

“This is boring!” Discord yelled; interrupting me. “You’re boring me! I’m heading back to the house now.”

“Can you at least get some food so we don’t end up eating the lamp?”

“I’ll think about it,” he said tapping his fingers together. “Until then,” he said and disappeared by fading away, “ta ta!”

I grumbled a little and continued my walk back to my place as the sun finished setting. I didn’t keep that attitude up long, though, as I remembered that I had gotten plenty to eat thanks to Pinkie Pie’s taste test. Still, while that would most likely tide me over for today, I didn’t have a plan for tomorrow at all. My entire subsistence here was dependent on handouts that the others were willing to give me. I hadn’t earned anything on my own merit. Heck, I didn’t even have a bit to my name. Fuck, I was just pathetic. I wanted to come here to do something important. Instead, I was merely being an inconvenience to everyone.

I guess without having magic, I’m really the odd duck around these parts. Magic makes this world go round, and raugh! I’m too hung up on not having magic. I’ve got to let that go. I can’t have magic go and solve all my problems anyway. Even though that would be so nice. Oh man magic was the bomb.

I physically slapped myself in the face. I was starting to think in circles. It just wasn’t healthy for me to dwell on it. Home first, then I needed to try and figure out a way to help out around here to not just be a hinderance. Hopefully, something will come to me.

Comments

[Bookish_Devil]

Eating the lamp famous last words.

[Lucien Chance]

#WaitingForDiscordToEatTheLamp