An Unprecedented Advancement

by GravelordNito

Chapter 2 - Alone Time

At first Twilight could not believe her eyes; what business did Discord have at her home in the dead of night? As this thought crossed her mind, Discord spouted in an overenthusiastic tone,

"Why, good evening, Miss Sparkle! In need of some wonderfully entertaining chaos this evening? Well, no need for you to answer that one. Judging by the your dishevelled mane and the bags under your eyes, you have been bored out of your mind working on an assignment for Princess Sunbutt, I presume?"

Upon hearing her mentor's most distasteful nickname, Twilight shot a furious and impatient glare straight into the eyes of the Lord of Chaos before her and demanded,

"What on Earth do you want from me at this late an hour Discord? Or is that a stupid question to ask? Because knowing you, you are here for no particular reason at all, and unfortunately for the rest of us, it's in your nature to do so."

Discord was rather disappointed that Twilight had chosen not to comment on his mock checklist, and thus rolled it away without further comment, and instead chose to keep the chaos to a minimum. At least, until she let him inside...

"Oh Twilight, my dear, what do you take me for, some sort of nuisance?" Discord chuckled, "Now wouldn't that be just ridiculous?" Upon meeting Twilight's deadpan expression, he knew he was heading in the wrong direction if it was his wish to be invited into her home, and so decided to hold up on antagonising her further.

Discord suddenly had what he considered to be a brilliant idea, which would be the means by which he would achieve his goal of being invited into the abode of Twilight Sparkle. And so, he snapped his fingers as subtly as he could and caused it to begin to rain heavily. He was almost certain that Twilight knew he had caused this abrupt downpour, but that was not what mattered, because without proof Discord could simply deny any accusations if Twilight decided to pursue her suspicions.

Discord wrapped his arms around his torso and shivered intensely, whilst looking at Twilight in a pleading manner of an exaggerated nature. This caused Twilight to roll her eyes and sarcastically say,

"Would you like to come inside?"

"Oh yes I would Twilight, yes I would," said Discord, in a deep tone which made Twilight's skin crawl for a reason she could not quite put her hoof on, "I would like nothing more than to spend some quality time with a close friend of mine."

And so Twilight begrudgingly stepped aside to allow the now soaked Discord into her home. Discord could taste the scent of initial success on the tip of his tongue, and decided that now was a good time to resume his previous antics in order to pursue his cause further. Twilight walked past him and noticed something rather peculiar about her floor, it looked a little more glossed than usual. However, she thought little of it and proceeded back to her study, choosing not to offer Discord any pleasantries.

The sooner he was out of her hair the better, and in order to achieve this, her best bet was to ignore his antics as best she possibly could. After all, she felt sure that Discord's only aim was to rile her up as usual and provoke reactions from her. And Discord would feel more tempted to linger the more he saw that he was getting under her skin.

"Twilight, I couldn't help but notice the absence of a certain baby dragon; is he away?" asked Discord.

"Yes, he is for now. Why do you ask?" Twilight explained.

"Oh, I was simply curious, you know how well little Spike and I get along and all," remarked Discord.

Perfect, thought Discord. He would have little interference in his efforts tonight, he may even be successful after just this one night. However, it was still too soon for him to get his hopes up.

After Twilight had picked up a book, notepad and quill, and resumed her reading and taking notes, Discord decided to mess with her a little bit and thus regain her attention. After a brief period of thought and awkward silence, at least on his side, Discord said,

"Well, Twilight, you are clearly having a much more fun time reading those books than you would be indulging in pro- I mean, recreational activities with a rather dashing draconequus, who happens to be sat right behind you," commented Discord, "however I cannot help but point out that you are not going to get very far with your notes if you continue to scrawl along the paper with your heavily overused toothbrush."

"I'm not using a toothbrush, I'm using one of my qui-" she glanced at the two items held within her magical grasp, "Discord! No funny business or you are out of here! I'm only letting you stay until this rainstorm is over, despite the fact you could probably just teleport home at any time if you wanted to,"

"Wasn't me, you must have picked it up by mistake," he said with a small grin as he held up his hands in front of him in order to emphasise his supposed innocence.

With an irritated grunt of dismay upon realising that she just gave Discord exactly the kind of response he probably wanted, she lay the toothbrush down and picked up another quill. However upon glancing back a few seconds later, she found that another quill had appeared in place of the toothbrush.

Keeping her cool, she resumed her work, surprised at how mild this prank was for Discord, he would usually turn her limbs to silly string, or mould her horn into an ice sculpture or something like that.

Discord noticed that he had to step it up a notch, if he was to get her to react how he wanted her to. So, Discord turned all of her chairs into beds of flowers and disappeared from sight for a while, intentionally not speaking to her at all, and leaving her alone on her freshly transformed bed of flowers. Twilight didn't think much of it as she absentmindedly sank into the flowers, feeling her drowsiness slowly overcome her as she dropped what she was holding and drifted off. Discord, who was watching from a mirror in Twilight's room, pumped his fist into the air as he succeeded in his aim yet again.

With twilight asleep for the time being, Discord began to make some changes to the castle which were sure to give her a surprise when she woke up. Whether or not it would be a positive surprise for her or not was not yet certain in Discord's mind, however he could only hope for the best.

Author's Note:

The story is now much less descriptive than the first chapter, and much more focused on story progression, as my main objective with the first chapter was to set the scene. The story is going to take off from this chapter onwards!

Comments

[Bluegrass Brooke]

"I saw this hanging in someone's library and just couldn't resist it!"

Okay, I'm done with movie references now.

Good to have another Twicord story on the site! Curious to see what Discord's got planned now. *smirks*

This was pretty good for a first fic! I found the first chapter to be cumbersome to read. The sentences themselves just felt . . . awkward to me. I had to read them like 3 or 4 times before I figured out what you meant. I think you need to separate the sentences into several sentences and read them out loud to find the rough bits. That would help capture the readers' attention.

I'll admit, I was disturbed by your author's note on the second chapter.

The story is now much less descriptive than the first chapter, and much more focused on story progression, as my main objective with the first chapter was to set the scene.

Pardon? This is soooo wrong. XDD I can't even . . . NO. Don't think like this! Bad. VERY bad.

Writing should never be quardened off into description, setting the scene, and story progression. It's a common mistake I see with novice or inexperienced writers. If you want to write a story, write it as a tapestry. Every aspect of the story, be it description or "plot" needs to be woven together. Thinking in chunks like that will lead to a gosh awful, choppy mess. The best stories know how to make every chapter important and not just because of plot.

Setting the scene? Well, that should be taking place in EVERY chapter and every scene. Ditto for description. It doesn't have to be super detailed, but it needs to be there throughout. Shoving the majority in the first chapter to "clear the way" is not going to make for an easy read. Plot? Well, plot goes on regardless. Don't be so hasty to "get to the good stuff."

Characterization is every bit as important as plot. So, to say that the story will "really get going" after chapter two is beyond ridiculous to me. The story should have been "going" from the first sentence! Stories aren't just plot. They're characters too. Every chapter, every scene is important because it is an opportunity for characterization and character growth. Rather than viewing the plot chapters as paramount, you should view every chapter as equally important. If you're too focused on plot, you're missing out on a lot that could really help your story stand out and become the best it can be.

Okay, off my soapbox. Characterization is sort of a HUGE deal to me.

Still, it's a good story so far. I'm looking forward to see where this goes.

[Nerfyy]

youre first story? o.0
wooow this was really good so far
im impressed
and also im excited to see hwhere this goes ^^
#DiscorlightOTP

[MLP Fangirl]

Not bad, considering this is your first fanfic. Though, I have to agree with Bluegrasse.
6348293
Your sentences tend to be a bit cumbersome. It's not always a bad thing, mind you. But, to improve the readability, try adding semicolons and/or commas. It will improve the quality of your sentences and would make things easier to read and understand.

[GravelordNito]

6348293 You have no idea how much I appreciate long replies which are not afraid to criticize my work, thanks a bunch! As you could probably tell, the first chapter was over the top with description/cryptic writing, and thus did not take the story very far, so my comment on story taking off is another way of saying that I am not going to be as cryptic in future. The ironic thing about this is that I put it in a cryptic way . I would sort of call it a test of my boundaries, and I have definitely gone overboard with it. Also, description is going to continue throughout, what I meant was that it is not going to be as ridiculously drawn out as it was in the first chapter, sort of yet again another cryptic poorly written reiteration.

Yes, I have always had a problem with my sentence structure. I am studying history and philosophy at AS level, and every essay I ever write tends to be filled with sentences which stretch to ridiculous lengths and lack proper punctuation, thus making the actual point and meaning behind each sentence hard to work out, and making them seem cryptic/outright poorly written.

I was dubious in writing this story to begin with, this is because I knew I was going to struggle to express Discord's character, since he has certain airs about him which are difficult to express through writing. And on top of this I doubt I am imaginative enough to come up with antics reminiscent of those he performs on the show. However I decided to go forward with it because I like the Twicord ship (I actually like 3 different Discord ships, I know, crazy right?) and took getting Discord's character down as a challenge rather than letting it deter me from writing it.

What said, "good stuff", is going to be I am not yet sure of, I have a problem when it comes to thinking of what is going to happen next. I know what I have planned as the general plot, and I can imagine this story taking a while to complete, but I honestly am not entirely sure yet how this night alone is going to turn out.

Once again thanks so much for the time you spent on analysing my amateur story, and I would love to hear from you again,

Lots of Love, Lord Nito

[GravelordNito]

6349546 As I said to Bluegrass, I have always had a problem with making my sentences awkward to read and take WAY too long to get to my actual point, the sooner I remedy this the better.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read my story and comment thus far,

Love, Lord Nito

[GravelordNito]

6349250 Yes, well the thing with her being a bit overwhelmed by her new living environment I have based off of Season 5 Episode 3: "Castle Sweet Castle", where she claims to not be comfortable in her new home. It doesn't contribute too much to the story, however I think she may eventually come to enjoy Discord's company in the castle, if you know what I mean

I can't thank you guys enough for your time,

Love, Lord Nito

[GravelordNito]

6349361 Haha thanks a lot, praise is nice to receive as well as criticism, I'm so glad you have enjoyed it so far, and I hope I can write it well enough for you to continue to enjoy the rest of it. I understand that my first story is going to be far from a masterpiece, and there are going to be a good few people who dislike what I have written. However, my aim is to improve my skills as a writer for the site and hopefully make my future stories better than this one, especially that first chapter.

Thanks so much for your time and praise,

Love, Lord Nito

[Twilight Sparkle 04]

"Well, Twilight, you are clearly having a much more fun time reading those books than you would be indulging in pro-

What was he going to say

[GravelordNito]

7042751
Heh, 'tis left intentionally vague, but I'll tell you just in case there is a general desire to know: he was going to say procreation, but realised it was inappropriate.