Pony Stories: Season 5

by lunabrony

5.3 - The Room - Comedy; No Spoilers

Most castles in Equestria were fairly standard procedure. Although the exteriors differed by locale, with Crystal Empire castles being shinier for instance, and even the Castle of the Two Sisters had once been designed to cater to a night and day atmosphere. The insides, however, were more or less the same. Lavish balconies, hundreds of windows, high ceilings, and long hallways with more rooms than any one pony could count by herself.

It was this last feature that perplexed Twilight Sparkle. Her previous library had been small enough for her to know where every single item in every single room was located, and she had been able to find whatever she wanted at a moments notice. This new castle, however, had not yet even been fully explored, let alone decorated, and she was constantly finding new rooms that she hadn't even known existed.

Only days after returning from... where was it they had confronted Starlight Glimmer at again? The name of the village always escaped her, even after looking it up on several detailed maps. In any case, that had been less than three days ago. Twilight was exploring one of the second floor hallways in the castle when she stumbled upon something rather discouraging. A door, set into the side of the hallway much like all the others. Similar to what one might see at a hotel, a long hallway with dozens of identical doors leading down the corridor, this one was different in several ways. First of all, it had no knob or handle of any kind. There was absolutely no visible way of opening the door at all.

Secondly, and this was what truly annoyed her, there was a picture of Discord taped to the oak panel, a crude crayon drawing that one would expect to see on a primary school child's refrigerator, not in the second floor hallway of the castle of Princess Twilight Sparkle. Next to the drawing was a nail which had been pounded partway into the door, and from the nail, on a string, hung a piece of chalk approximately four inches in length.

Twilight fumed. The puzzling lack of entry was enough to tell her who was behind such a conundrum, but if that hadn't been enough, the drawing would have confirmed it.

"DISCORD!" she yelled. Although there was nopony visibly around to hear her, she knew better than to believe that she was alone.

With a magical flourish of sparkling light, the crayon drawing of Discord burst into life, stretched, and gazed at her with its comically misshapen eyes. "You rang?" He asked.

"What is this?" Twilight demanded.

Discord disappeared from the drawing, leaving only a blank piece of parchment, and appeared, full sized, next to her in the hallway. He leaned forward, peering from behind a gentlemanly monocle, and appeared deep in thought. "My conclusion is that this is, in fact, a door," he said finally. "Results are pending."

"You know very well that's not what I meant," Twilight said. "Why does it have your shenanigans written all over it?"

"Does it?" Discord asked. "I don't see it." He snapped his claws, a large can appearing in his claws. He shook it with a rattling sound, sprayed the word SHENANIGANS on the oak paneling in bright red paint, and the can disappeared again. "There it is!"

Twilight narrowed her eyes. She was tired and cranky from a long ride on the train back from the village, and was in no mood for this. "Put the handle back," she said. "There's no way to get in. And it destroys the continuity of all the other doors with identical handles!"

"There very much is a way to get in," Discord said. "And since it's my room, I can do whatever I want with it."

This made Twilight blink. "Your room?" She repeated. "Since when?"

"Since I summoned the most powerful magic known to pony kind," he said simply. "A great, fantastic power, passed down through lines of kings and respected by peasants on the streets. A great force able to be harnessed by earth pony, unicorn, and pegasus alike! A power that would have made Starswirl himself pale in comparison!" His eyes were wide, making grand, sweeping gestures with his hands.

Twilight's eyes grew bigger and bigger with each word, her coat losing its bright and healthy color. He was lying! He had to be! She had never heard of such an unstoppable force, why hadn't she heard of it? Did Princess Celestia know about it?

"Y-you're lying," she stammered at last. "A force stronger than Starswirl that can be used by anypony? That... that's not possible."

"Oh, but it is, and I used its mystical enchantment to claim this door as my own," Discord said darkly. "And there's not a thing you can do about it."

"What power is that?" Twilight whispered, her voice cracking with fear and awe.

Discord leaned in close to her, so close that she could hear his heart beating and feel his rancid breath on her forehead. He looked left, then right, then left again, as if about to impart some great, forbidden secret.

"The power... of dibs," he whispered, and booped her nose with his claw.

Twilight's eyes grew wide with fearful confusion, and she left Discord standing in the hallway to race to the small library which composed only a portion of the castle. She lit up her horn with a literary spell, casting its glow upon the entire room. The spell itself would light up any book which contained the word 'dibs', though she doubted any would. If any spellbook had contained such power, she would have known about it!

To her astonishment, one tome did float back to her, brightly glowing green, pages flapping to the section that she commanded it to find. With no small amount of nervousness, she looked down at the page. To her confusion, it was not a spellbook, but a dictionary.

DIBS (dibz): Slang; Noun. A legitimate or supposed right to demand something as one's rightful due, where one declares a first claim to something to which no one else has a clearly recognized right.

Twilight felt her eye begin to twitch, and she slammed the book down on a reading table. That wasn't powerful magic at all, it was childrens tomfoolery! Fuming, she returned to Discord, still patiently waiting for her.

"That's invalid!" She protested. "You don't understand magic!"

Discord laughed. "You don't understand dibs."

Twilight twitched again. "What makes you think you can just claim this room?"

Discord groaned, and tugged at his own antlers with annoyance. "You are tearing me apart, Twilight." He paused a moment after this, and turned to look directly into some invisible camera that only he could see, and addressed the readers engaged in this very story at this very moment. "Surely you knew THAT was coming," he said dryly. "You read the title."

Twilight blinked. "Who are you talking to?"

"Oh, nobody," he said, and turned his attention back to her. "My dear Twilight, without my key you would have never gotten this castle in the first place, and seeing as though the fates of destiny have so scorned me by not giving me a throne, nor recognizing my involvement with even so much as a thank you card, I feel I have a right to at least one room. Surely not even you, Twilight, can make use of every single one of these rooms?"

Twilight thought a moment. "No, I suppose not," she said slowly.

"You won't even know I'm here," Discord said. "But, if you so insist on casting me out into the streets like a homeless vagrant, I shall make you a deal. If you can revoke the power of dibs and enter the room without my help, I will leave."

Twilight felt sort of bad about this situation now, she realized that she wasn't sure if Discord even had a place to stay. He had roomed with Fluttershy for a short while, but her cottage was small, and he had been in the way, even as hard as he had tried to stay out of it. Despite this, she turned her attention to the door, and attempted to create a handle out of nothing that she could use to open it. The handle itself appeared for a moment, then dissolved into sparks of energy.

She attempted to teleport straight through the door to the other side, a distance of less then five feet. She had never had trouble teleporting before, and was promptly stopped by the door, slamming into its wooden surface instead before rebounding and being thrown against the opposite wall with a crash as if she'd attempted to bounce off a sideways trampoline.

Discord broke into wild laughter. "You can't defy dibs, Twilight!"

Panting and rising up off her crumpled position on the floor, she was just in time to see Fluttershy scamper around the corner, squeaking quietly. "I heard a crash!" The pegasus said. "Is everypony alright?" She looked between Twilight and Discord with concern.

"Of course," Discord said merrily. "Twilight is merely attempting to break the sacred law of dibs on my room."

"Did you find the room first?" Fluttershy asked.

"Yes."

"And you called it?"

"Of course."

Fluttershy frowned. "There's nothing you can do, Twilight. If he called it, it's fair game, and he did help us with the key, the least we can do is let him have it, it's only a room and you have so many..."

Discord smiled widely. "Thank you, Fluttershy. Kindness incarnate."

"Alright!" Twilight exclaimed. "Just show me how to get in! It's driving me crazy!"

"Of course," Discord said, and bowed. He gestured to the piece of chalk hanging from the string on the door. "The handle was right in front of you the whole time."

"...That?" Twilight asked, perplexed. "Chalk?"

"It's really quite simple," Discord said, and took the chalk from the string. With an audible crack, he snapped it in half. "You break the piece in half," he said. "One piece becomes two halves, then you put the halves together." He took a piece of the chalk in each claw, and pushed them together, refitting them. The chalk glowed faintly, and the paneling on the door melted away, leaving only the frame.

"You put the two halves together. Two halves make a hole," he said. "Walk through the hole to enter the room. A child could figure it out."

Twilight was babbling. "But that's not how that works! That's now how any of that works!"

Discord started laughing again, and stepped into the room. Twilight and Fluttershy followed.

The room inside was mostly identical to all of the other rooms in the hallway. A small door in the wall led to a bathroom, and the main room held only a wooden dresser and a bed with a thick mattress on it. Sitting on the mattress, on top of blankets, was an enormous, life size stuffed plushie of Fluttershy.

Both mares stared at him.

"...It helps me sleep," Discord said defensively. "I like to cuddle with it."

Fluttershy looked down shyly, and scuffed at the floor with her hoof. "You know, if you wanted the real thing, you could just ask," she said quietly. "That is, if that's okay."

Discord stared at her, his face red, and tugged at his neck as if pulling an invisible collar. His face quite literally turned tomato red, and cartoon steam gushed out of his neck.

"Uh..." He stammered.

Before Twilight knew what was happening, she was being pushed out of the room, and the wooden oak door slammed in her face.

Comments

[Tatsurou]

That ending!

[Neko Majin C]

Discord groaned, and tugged at his own antlers with annoyance. "You are tearing me apart, Twilight."

Shenanigans? Tomfoolery? Did I step backwards in time to the 1950's? Why do we not go ape and play backseat bingo? We will be on cloud nine, hepcat. And if some square tries to get fresh with my chick, I will tell him to get bent or he will get a knuckle sandwich.

~KBO.

[lunabrony]

5853364 Keep that up and I WILL bring in Megan for the Courage story and then blame it on you :p

[Neko Majin C]

5853369 I will be good.

[lunabrony]

5853374