Discord & Discourse

by Brass Polish

1 Self-Defence

Ponyville was founded by earth ponies, but the population of earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns had been roughly equal since its establishment. And each type of pony in Ponyville had expressed interest in a series of lectures on self-defence; one for unicorns led by Twilight, one for earth ponies led by Applejack, and one for pegasi led by Rainbow Dash. The idea was simple. Twilight wanted to make sure that their home was safe from any threats and so she decided that the citizens should be well prepared for a crisis.

On the night before these lectures were to take place, Twilight was dreaming that she and Rarity were having a magic duel. She definitely had the upper hoof because the best Rarity could do was find jewels in the ground. In no time, Twilight had Rarity dangling from a tree branch by her tail, which was in a double knot.

“Now what is all this about?” came a voice.

Twilight looked around. Rarity was surprised, too. Then, right between them appeared Princess Luna.

“Excuse me for interrupting your…” she looked at Rarity, “extraordinary dream, Princess Twilight.”

“Oh, not at all, Princess Luna,” said Twilight. “To be honest, I don’t really know what we were fighting about.”

“Well in that case,” said Rarity in a raised voice, “could you get me down from here?!”

Twilight obliged.

“I have a message for you, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Luna announced. “It’s Discord. He wants your help.”

“Discord?!” exclaimed Twilight and Rarity.

“Yes,” said Luna. “Don’t worry. He’s not causing trouble. In fact, he’s trying to clean up a mess he left behind back when my sister and I defeated him over a thousand years ago.”

“What mess is this?”

“Some sort of prison enclosure on the outskirts of Canterlot. It seems he left some things in there and he wants you, Applejack and Rainbow Dash to help him deal with them. I shall be visiting their dreams as well to let them know.”

“Oh, but I have to give a self-defence lecture tomorrow morning,” said Twilight. “Rarity, could you possibly take my place?”

“Me?” asked Rarity in surprise. “But I’m no good at duelling.”

“But you are a unicorn,” said Twilight. “I know it’s last minute, but I’m sure you could…”

“Um, Twilight,” interrupted Luna, “That’s not really Rarity. She’s just part of your dream.”

“Oh, right.”

And with that, Princess Luna exited Twilight’s dream.

Early the next morning, the real Rarity’s response was no different from dream Rarity’s.

“You may not know as many spells as I do,” said Twilight, “but everypony knows you control one of the Elements of Harmony and that you were given a royal appointment. I’m sure they won’t mind taking self-defence lessons from you.”

Applejack was also sure the other earth pony in the group would make a good substitute.

“I can’t applebuck or lasso anything like you can,” said Pinkie Pie as if Applejack was trying to fool her. “Remember when our cutie marks got all mixed up? I almost bankrupt Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Come on, Pinkie Pie,” pleaded Applejack. “You’ll be just fine and dandy. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, if it’ll make you happy,” Pinkie decided.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t so keen on asking Fluttershy to take her place.

“Couldn’t I ask somepony more athletic?” she asked Twilight. “Like Bulk Biceps?”

“Bulk Biceps ain’t a taskforce member,” Applejack interjected. “These lectures were approved by Princess Celestia as long as one of us six led them.”

Fluttershy was as doubtful as Rainbow Dash, but she promised to do her best.

“Princess Luna told me to tell you that the trains to and from Canterlot aren’t running,” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight. “There’s a lockdown.”

“This must be real serious,” said Applejack, eyes wide.

“Alright, we’ll rent a rickshaw and you and I will fly to Canterlot with Applejack in it,” said Twilight.

“Do we have to rent it?” asked Rainbow Dash. “You’re a princess. We could just commandeer it.”

“I’m not going to abuse my power unless it’s absolutely necessary,” said Twilight firmly. “And I better not hear from anypony that you have.”

At the unicorn self-defence lecture, there were no enthusiastic faces as Rarity took the podium. The ones who attended were expecting to learn how to teleport, but Rarity didn’t know how. Twilight did try to teach her a few times, but she hadn’t gotten the hang of it. But since Twilight was able to learn to copy Rarity’s gem finding spell and that was the only unique spell she knew, she decided to teach it to her class.

Vinyl Scratch was not impressed. “This is so stupid. Finding jewels in the ground for self-defence? That’ll only work if we’re attacked by an ugly outfit.”

Rarity growled as the other unicorns chuckled.

“Oh, yes?” she snapped. “And how do you solve all you’re problems? With wubs?! Well, we are not moving on until you learn my spell.”

“What?!”

“That will teach you to cheek a member of the Royal Taskforce.”

“Where’s Applejack?” asked Bon Bon when Pinkie Pie addressed the earth ponies.

“Sorry, but she had to go to Canterlot on royal business,” said Pinkie Pie.

She didn’t know where to begin, so she decided to buy some time by asking the attendees to warm up by jumping around the room.

“Could we possibly begin now?” asked Octavia after ten circuits.

But Pinkie asked for ten more laps. She still couldn’t think of an adequate first lesson.

Fluttershy did have a vague idea of where to begin. She’d been trying to recall what she’d done when faced with danger in the past. But with dozens of eyes watching her, it took forever for her to work up the courage to start addressing them. Public speaking wasn’t her thing.

Derpy tried to be helpful. “Why don’t you tell me what you want to say and I’ll tell everypony else?” she asked.

“Um, OK,” said Fluttershy, beckoning Derpy to the front of the group.

But Derpy did not feel like repeating what Fluttershy whispered to her.

“Are you saying you can only do your best when your friends are in serious trouble?”

Fluttershy faltered. “Maybe I didn’t say it right. But I’m not saying that’s the only way you can face danger. What I mean is… if you can imagine…”

“Imagine your friends in peril?” asked Derpy, feeling rather disturbed. “Listen, I think I’m gonna sit back down.”

Fluttershy buried her face as Derpy made her way back to her spot, stepping on Bulk Biceps’ hoof in the process.

“Oops. Sorry,” she said. “You OK?”

“YYEEEEAAAAHH!” replied Bulk Biceps.

Meanwhile, Twilight and Rainbow Dash were nearing Canterlot with Applejack in tow.

“Did Princess Luna say exactly where to meet Discord?” asked Twilight.

“All she told me was it was somewhere on the outskirts,” replied Rainbow Dash.

“What about you, Applejack?” asked Twilight.

There was no reply.

“Applejack?”

They looked back at the rickshaw. Applejack wasn’t in it. Rainbow Dash looked down.

“Oh, no! She fell out!”

Applejack was plummeting into the gorge beneath the rail bridge. But before Twilight and Rainbow Dash could fly down after her, their wings suddenly vanished. The rickshaw hit the bridge and the harnesses broke. Twilight and Rainbow Dash would have been screaming, but no sound came from them, nor Applejack. The bottom came nearer and nearer. The three flightless ponies shut their eyes and then… they stopped in midair. When they opened their eyes, there was Discord.

Twilight tried to ask what in the world Discord was up to, but she was still mute. Discord himself was facing the other way looking down at the ground. Suddenly, the back of his head sprouted another face. In his lion paw, he held some sort of dial, which he started to spin.

“Discord?” The faintest sound came from Twilight when she spoke. “Why are you toying with us?”

“You ain’t changed at all, have you?!” Applejack yelled quietly.

“Careful, AJ,” purred Discord’s second face. “You might get a noise complaint.”

The Draconequus pointed to where his first face was looking. The ponies looked and saw a sinkhole sitting in the middle of the gorge.

“Is that your prison?” asked Twilight.

“Yep. I made that when I suspected somepony was trying to overthrow me,” Discord explained. “But I never got to throw anypony in there. Celestia and Luna beat my various hides before I could send my guards out.”

Rainbow Dash could hardly concentrate. She hated floating in midair with no wings.

“Hey Discord, could you set us down now?”

“What’s wrong, Rainbow? I thought you liked being airborne.”

“I like it when I can fly!”

“If you’re gonna keep shouting, I’ll just put you back on mute.”

Discord brandished his dial.

“Don’t, please. Just tell us why we gotta keep quiet,” Twilight insisted.

“My three guards are down there,” said Discord. “I made them out of paper. There’s a paper crane which I named Overflap, a paper ninja star called Crimper, and a paper airplane called Ink Jet.”

“You were gonna stop the Royal Sisters from overthrowing you with origami?” snorted Applejack.

“Uh, huh,” said Discord with a slight sneer. “I bewitched them to fly around and seek out ponies who wanted me outta the picture. Once it touches you, you get sucked into the sinkhole from wherever you are. And once you’re in there, you can’t get out unless I personally go in there and free you. And guess what. Everyone in that prison would end up exactly like you, Applejack.”

“You mean if they have wings or horns, they disappear?” asked Twilight.

“That’s why you’re here, Twi,” said Discord. “You’re the smartest pony I know. So I need your to help me figure out how to get the guards outta there.”

“Here’s the thing,” he continued after more complaints from Rainbow Dash. “I went in there last night to get rid of the guards. What you gotta do is catch them off guard and unfold them. Once they’re flat, they lose all their power. But it turns out even I can’t use magic in that sinkhole.”

“Wow. Didn’t think that through, did ya?” smirked Applejack.

Discord turned the dial all the way down.

“As I was saying,” he went on sourly, “I could still get myself out of there. But the guards got all excited when they saw me back after so long. They bombarded me with questions about why I was gone for centuries and if there was anypony I wanted thrown away.”

Twilight tried to ask Discord what he told them, but no one heard a peep from her.

But Discord picked it up. “I told them I’d been imprisoned and that I had a trainload of prisoners for them to take down. I told them to wait there until I came back, and I’ve been sitting here for hours making sure they don’t jump the gun.”

He turned the dial up again.

“So Twilight, any ideas?”

Back in Ponyville, all three of the lectures were cut short as everypony who attended felt that their teachers were very inadequate. Vinyl Scratch met up with Octavia at the train station.

“I hope your self-defence lesson went better than mine,” Octavia frowned. “I couldn’t stand to hear Pinkie Pie say ‘ten more laps’ one more time.”

Vinyl blew a raspberry. “Well, I don’t know about self-defence, but if you ever need a shiny gemstone, I’m your mare.”

Octavia sighed as she finished rubbing her blistered hooves. “Oh, well. I suppose the two of us would have left early anyway.”

Octavia had a gig (Vinyl got her into the habit of calling it that) in Canterlot, so the two roommates had planned to leave their respective lectures early and catch the midmorning train… which was now idling in the station full of steam.

Derpy had left Fluttershy’s lecture in a huff.

Who would want to imagine all their friends in mortal danger? she thought to herself. I’ve got a good imagination, but there’s no way I could ever make myself picture…

“Hey Derpy, did you forget something?!”

Derpy looked back. Cloud Kicker was carrying her saddlebag.

“Oh, thanks Cloud Kicker,” said Derpy.

“Were you doing a mail run before the lecture?” asked Cloud Kicker.

“Yep,” said Derpy as she took her bag back.

As Cloud Kicker passed the bag to Derpy, a scroll fell out. The strap came undone and it rolled open.

“Oops. I missed a letter,” groaned Derpy.

“Hey, that looks important,” said Cloud Kicker. “Look at the seal. It’s got the Canterlot Castle crest on it.”

Derpy glanced at the message and gasped.

“The train to Canterlot!” she cried. “It’s not supposed to run!”

She dashed away towards the station, but the train had left before she reached it. She quickly told the station staff about the Canterlot embargo and took off after the train to deliver the message to the crew. She had a hard time trying to catch it, but she didn’t need to imagine anyone in danger to give her a boost.

Author's Note:

Inspired by Children of the Night and an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh; Cleanliness is Next To Impossible.