Love Hungry

by helmet of salvation

15. If you love somepony set them free

It was three days after the routing of the changelings before Princess Celestia resumed her royal duties. She had wanted to discharge herself earlier from the Imperial Hospital but her attending physician strongly advised against it. Celestia thought it better to show that she trusted his professional judgement, as well as Princess Luna's capacity to rule in her stead.

Among her first orders of business was to make Equestria less vulnerable to future attacks. The realisation that Luna's assistance might be needed as urgently as Celestia's meant that Spike's fiery breath required further enhancement to enable him to send instantaneous messages to Luna and Cadance as well. Shining Armor also requested Celestia's tutelage to help modify the barrier spell that he and Cadance cast over the Crystal Empire; if it could allow energy bolts to pass through from the inside, it would greatly reduce the need for ponies to battle powerful, outsized invaders while relatively unprotected. After significant writing, testing and refinement, Celestia conjured a suitable spell that she taught to the Crystal Empire's rulers. The spell required considerable power and focus, and Shining and Cadance practised diligently.

* * *

"So I warned him, in my inimitable gentle-yet-menacing voice, of what the consequences could be if he went blabbing to his dragon friends about the Crystal Empire. And Snookie Boo's standing there, holding out what's left of his jewel hoard, and he says to me, 'Brohh, I got mugged by a bunch of ponies and turned into a puppet. You think I'm breathing a word of this, you're crazier than you look'."

Discord's rasping, slack-jawed rendition of the dragon's voice elicited a round of chuckling from the ponies gathered at the Friendship Castle dining table. Twilight Sparkle finished laughing a beat after her friends, leading to a somewhat awkward silence.

"Well, you sure told him," Twilight spoke at last. "I wish I could have been there but I was a little preoccupied with getting my stomach ripped open and ... the rest." Her very slightly forced cheeriness petered out at the memory, and she turned to her side. In so doing she caught sight of her cape.

It looked identical to the abstract fractal cape that Discord had briefly clothed her in at the railway station weeks earlier. This one, however, did not disappear a few seconds after the draconequus had conjured it. It was permanent, a gift. The sight quickly prompted Twilight to perk herself up. "Oh, Discord, have I told you how grateful I am for this beautiful cape you gave me?"

"Several times, but feel free to do so again," Discord grinned, regally waving his talon.

"Certainly. It's exactly the sort of design I would have loved. You know, before ... um ... who's ready for dessert?"

Applejack, full from the four courses she had already consumed, began to convey her desire to wait a spell before consuming anything else. Yet she had barely drawled out one syllable before Twilight brightly and somewhat hastily chirped, "Great, I planned the recipe very carefully and I can't wait for you all to enjoy it."

"I'll get it." Spike hopped up from his chair.

"No, no, no," Twilight hurried, her pleasant smile broadening marginally into the realm of the unnerving. "It's fine, I've got it." She pushed her chair back noisily and simultaneously turned to leave. Her inability to co-ordinate the two actions causing her to stumble and fall flat on her muzzle. "Oof." Picking herself up with a slightly-too-hysterical laugh, Twilight cantered towards the kitchen, leaving her friends to exchange pensive looks.

* * *

"They were close to real smiles. Really close," Pinkie Pie said sorrowfully. "But there's still nothing behind them."

Twilight's horribly strained dinner party had ground to its conclusion. Her guests had said their goodbyes and were now gathered outside the castle, conducting a post-mortem.

"I got the sense she desperately needed to be with us yet at the same time, couldn't wait to get rid of us," added Rarity.

"Every time I've been with her, she's been the same." Applejack's sombre comment elicited a round of unhappy agreement from the other ponies.

Fluttershy sniffed. "Poor Twilight. She's trying so hard to act like everything's back the way it was. But I don't think it ever will be. It's been weeks now."

Rainbow Dash was determined to buck up her friends' resolve, as well as her own. "We just have to keep at it, guys. Show Twilight we'll stick by her no matter what."

"That's the spirit." Discord's voice bore a marginal overflow of cheery enthusiasm that betrayed his cynicism. "Yes, Twilight will never feel love again for the rest of her life but at least you can feel good about yourselves, knowing that you are still prepared to tolerate her presence in your lives."

"How dare you?" thundered Rarity. "If we could restore Twilight's love we'd do so in a heartbeat but there's no way we can."

"No way at all? Are you quite certain of that?"

The ponies stared intently at the draconequus. "Got somethin' in mind, Discord?" asked Applejack.

"Well, at the moment it's just a hypothesis——."

"Come on, what is it?" the ponies urged.

"It will be extremely difficult for all concerned ——."

"We don't care, tell us," they clamoured.

"And there's no guarantee it will work ——."

By now the ponies were practically falling over themselves. "Just tell us."

"Very well." Taking a few seconds to compose himself, Discord began. "If I could point to the one moment when I truly realised how much I cared about your friendship, it was when Tirek betrayed me. After I had betrayed all of you to him, just so I could go back to doing whatever I wanted. I resigned myself to never experiencing your friendship again.

"Right then, in the depths of my despair, there was not a single thing I would not have given to have you all back as my friends."

"Um, that's a beautiful story, Discord," said Fluttershy, "but I'm not sure how it helps us."

"Don't you see?" Discord broke into an eager smile. "My need for your friendship rekindled because I thought I had lost it for good. So, if we could convince Twilight that we weren't her friends anym——."

"OH-kay, gonna have to stop you there, Psych Ward." Rainbow Dash shot up to Discord's head and planted her forehoof over his fanged muzzle. "I mean, props for thinking outside the paddock and all but Twilight needs us now more than ever, so whatever nutsy break-her-heart-to-save-her scheme you're cooking up will just have to wait until never, got it?"

"Letting Twilight think we are no longer her friends certainly does seem to be an extreme measure," added Rarity. "Although I agree, nothing makes you appreciate your friends like thinking you've lost them. Remember Fashion Week in Manehattan? You worked so hard to help me out of a tight spot, and I behaved abominably towards you."

"You behaved abominably?" exclaimed Fluttershy. "What about me after my 'assertiveness' training, which turned into me just throwing my weight around and attacking everypony for no good reason, even my friends who were just looking out for me?" Bitterly, she recalled one of the slogans from the workshop she had attended. "'Don't be shy, look them in the eye.' I didn't think I'd be able to look any of you in the eye again."

"Shewt, ah was so scared to face y'all after the Canterlot rodeo, when ah thought ah'd let y'all down, ah up 'n' left Ponyville fer good. Cherry Jubilee was a nice pony to work for an' all but it just weren't the same. Ah'd a' done anything to have mah friends back." Applejack hung her head. "Anything 'cept admit the truth."

Rarity pondered for a moment. "Perhaps we do need to change our approach. After all, if there's even the slightest chance of this working ..."

"We couldn't call ourselves Twilight's friends if we didn't try whatever we could to fix her," concurred Applejack.

Fluttershy started to consider the idea seriously as well. "Discord's right, it's going to be so hard. But doing the right thing isn't always easy."

"Am I the only pony around here who hasn't completely LOST HER MIIIND!?!"

The others turned in shock to the flabbergasted Pinkie Pie.

"I know what it's like to think I've lost my friends too, you know. Remember when I invited you all to Gummy's after-birthday party and you all made excuses for not coming?"

"Hold it right there," interrupted Discord, brandishing a clutch of assorted 'Stop' and 'No Entry' road signs. "You planned an after-birthday party? As in, another party straight after a birthday party? For your pet alligator? And you didn't invite me?"

"Oh, no no no no no, this was back before we'd met you, when you were still encased in stone." Pinkie gave Discord a placatory, reassuring smile before resuming her enraged screed.

"I didn't know you'd already planned a party for me for the same day. I thought you were all shunning me because you didn't like me or my parties anymore, and I had no idea what I'd done to deserve it." She fell silent for a moment, controlling her breathing so as to prevent herself from weeping at the memory. "I hated you. There, I said it. I hated you all and I didn't care if I never saw any of you ever again. And if we pull a stunt like this on Twilight, she could wind up feeling the same way about us. Is that what you want?"

"It don't matter what we want," Applejack pointed out. "This is about what Twilight needs."

"And you think Twilight needs to feel rejected and betrayed and totally alone? To hate and resent her closest friends?"

"If the only alternative is having Twilight feel nothing at all towards us," Fluttershy thought carefully before continuing, "yes".

Pinkie's lower jaw dropped in astonishment, before she slowly drew it back up into a clenched snarl. "Fine. Go ahead. Play your sneaky little mind games. I'll have no part of it. Hmph." She turned to face away from her friends.

"Me neither." Rainbow Dash flew to the pink pony and hovered beside her, forelimbs stubbornly folded and back turned to the others. "I said I'd stick by Twilight no matter what and that's just what I'm gonna do."

"But this won't work if we aren't all in it together," protested Applejack.

Rainbow Dash did not look around. "That's your problem, quitter."

"'Quitter'?" Applejack felt her temperature rising. She prided herself on her determination to see matters through; there could be few greater slurs to her honour than to accuse her of piking out.

"Wait, did I say 'quitter'? I meant 'traitor'."

That was one such slur. "Don't make me come over there," Applejack growled quietly.

That got Rainbow's attention. She glared back over her shoulder, then planted her four hooves firmly on the ground and faced the orange earth pony unflinchingly, ears pinned back and hindquarters swaying. "You and what army?"

Before Applejack could respond, Discord snapped his lion's-paw digits. Instantly, a platoon of Applejack-lookalike ponies materialised into view, all wielding spears and wearing military helmets and body armour.

"Oh, real cute." Rainbow let loose a dismissive snort. "An army of traitors. Give me one loyal friend at my shoulder any day." She stretched across with her foreleg and drew Pinkie Pie close to her side, a second later spinning her around so that they both faced the same direction.

"Stop this at once." Rarity galloped into the middle of the confrontation. "Just because we disagree on the best way to help Twilight doesn't mean anypony is giving up on her. We all have the best of intentions."

Rainbow Dash scoffed, "You know where you can put your best intentions".

"Quite: into practice," retorted Rarity archly.

"Whatever," squawked Pinkie Pie. "Rainbow and I are not helping."

"You can say that again," sneered Discord.

Rainbow Dash rounded on him. "You should talk! This whole fight started because of your crazy idea."

"How do you know Discord's idea is crazy?" scolded Fluttershy. "You didn't even let him finish explaining it."

"Make like we aren't Twilights friends?" rasped Rainbow Dash. "I heard enough!"

And so it went. The argument quickly escalated, the participants yelling more and more insistently over the top of each other. In time, the cacophony began to reverberate and echo, becoming too deafening for them to continue. They gradually subsided, whereupon they realised why their arguing had become so loud.

They were no longer outside. They were in the Friendship Castle hallway.

So intent had they been in their heated disagreement, they had not noticed TWilight Sparkle materialising in their midst and magically transporting them back inside the castle.

Including the platoon of Applejack clones, whom Discord hurriedly dismissed from his current plane of existence with a snap of his digits.

The alicorn princess was now regarding her friends with cocked head and raised eyebrow, her expression one of calm disapproval.

"Problem?"

Comments

[Skye Mist]

The alicorn princess was now regarding her friends with cocked head and raised eyebrow, her expression one of calm disapproval.
"Problem?"

Seriously imagining that.Twi with a bemusing, pissed look on her face, staring at the scene in front of her while everyone fights.

[Viola Strum]

Discord, if this was your plan from the start, then you are one sneaky conniver. Hats off to the Author!