"Oh, how long have I been up here?" wondered Twilight aloud, her hooves wrapped around the tip of the pointy roof of the tower. "I wonder if anypony is looking for me! I bet they won't even notice that I'm gone! And I'm cold, and I have a stomach ache, and I'm lonely..."
"Did somepony say... lonely?"
"Agh!" shrieked Twilight, now suddenly finding herself in between the coils of Discord's long body.
"Discord, you scared me! I could have fell! What are you doing, anyway?" she cried. "Ever heard of personal space?"
"Oh, but Twilight," said Discord, not moving. "I thought you just said you were lonely. And as your good friend, I just wanted to ensure that you aren't feeling alone in your time of need."
"I am not comfortable with you hugging me like this!"
"But you are not alone anymore!"
"You're right! I'm not feeling alone anymore, I'm feeling annoyed!"
"Well, it's an improvement."
"Discord, get off of me!"
"Oh, come now," said Discord. "At the very least, you are suffering from this winter night temperature no longer, right?"
Twilight paused to consider.
"I suppose not..." she admitted slowly. "But I didn't ask for this!"
"But Twilight!" exclaimed Discord in mock surprise. "You should know that a good friend should be ready to lend a helpful paw!"
"Well, I suppose I was a little cold. So... Thank you?"
"What are friends for!" declared Discord happily.
"But do you think you could instead help me by getting me down from here?"
"It's not that simple, Twilight. I can't just make this all right with the snap of a claw. Well, actually, to be perfectly honest, I could, but I'm not going to."
"But why?" cried Twilight. "Is this about 'not interfering with the experiment'? I'm miserable up here! If you really are my friend, you wouldn't just leave me here!"
"But I'm not leaving you here. I'm right here at your side."
"Literally," remarked Twilight, rolling her eyes. "Can you at least tell me if the others know that I'm gone yet?"
"Of course they know that you are gone. They saw you leave!"
"That's not what I meant! Have they realized that I have been missing for so long? Oh, what if they forget all about me?"
"They are out there looking for you, Twilight."
"Oh, thank goodness..."
"Unfortunately for you, Ponyville is a fairly large place, and the Ponyville tower is on the opposite side of the town, and those foals aren't exactly organized in their search. You might be stuck here for a while. Unless..."
"Unless?" asked Twilight hopefully.
"Well, you could simply leave the same way you came up."
"But that's just it!" cried Twilight. "I don't remember how I got up here!"
"Don't you?" asked Discord in surprise. "How interesting. Then what do you remember?"
"I remember being really excited when the others asked me to handle Thesaurus. Actually, I didn't even consider that I wouldn't be able to do it. Except... I did do it. It's right here," motioned Twilight, pointing at the inanimate book laying beside her.
"Continue..." urged Discord.
"Well, I don't actually remember much of what happened after that," said Twilight. "I guess I was just started running as fast as I could without even thinking about where I was going. I was far too excited to pay attention to where I was going or what I was doing. Perhaps my subconscious took over for me. All I know is that when I finally was able to think straight, I found myself up here, and I don't know how I got up here because I wasn't paying attention when whatever happened to put me up here actually happened!"
"Why were you so excited in the first place?"
"Well, part of the reason is because I ate about half a dozen of Pinkie Pie's sugar loaded cup cakes. They were good, but now I have a stomach ache... And the other reason is that... Well, I got to share the happiest moment of my life with some of the others. I... kind of let myself get carried away?"
"Most interesting," said Discord.
"But why are you asking me all of this?" asked Twilight. "You somehow know what we're up to all the time! You must have seen what happened. Please tell me what happened!"
"Oh, but it's simple! You simply jumped!"
"Jumped! But how?"
"That's the real question, isn't it?" said Discord in delight. "Perhaps you are capable of feats that you thought you were not!"
"But the only way I could have reached this place is with magic!"
"Let me tell you a little something, Twilight. I've been thinking, I know now that friendship is magic, but is magic friendship?"
"Huh?"
"Let me finish. Clearly, not all magic is friendship; dark magic is a clear example of that. Dark magic is fueled by hatred, so it cannot possibly be associated with friendship."
"I don't understand."
"I suppose you wouldn't. I don't understand it myself, actually. But it would appear to me that there is some kind of relationship between certain kinds of magic and one's emotions! And, as you will surely agree, your friend Pinkie Pie has a very special kind of magic, and it's not the sort you would expect from an earth pony, is it? And Pinkie Pie is in fact the happiest, most excitable pony in all of Equestria. And I don't think that that is a coincidence."
"Well... I suppose you do have a point. But as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not in the mood for this right now. I just want to get down from here."
Discord's face turned concerned for the first time that Twilight had seen him. Discord seemed to notice Twilight watching him however, because his expression quickly turned neutral.
"You know that you brought this on yourself," he said, as though trying to shift the blame away from himself.
"Yes, I know," said Twilight. "If I had not been so curious about your magic, I wouldn't have tried studying poison joke. And even though you are the one that gave the poison joke plant, I'm the one that actually used it, and it's my fault that my Thesaurus came to life and caused such problems, and I wouldn't have eaten those cupcakes and trapped myself on this tower if I had not been trying to do my part to fix it."
"I don't suppose you've considered just teleporting down, have you?"
"Discord, I don't know how to perform such a complex spell!"
"Oh, don't you? Well, I'm afraid rules are still rules. I can't help you down."
"What? But you can't just leave-"
"What I mean is, I can't help you directly."
"What do you mean?"
"My dear Twilight, instead of focusing on what you can't do, focus on what you can do!"
Twilight shot Discord an annoyed look. "I'm trapped up here. There is nothing that I can do!"
"Perhaps you should try looking around."
Twilight gave Discord a suspicious glance. "Well, okay, but first you need to get off of me."
Discord snapped his claw and disappeared.
Twilight let out a sigh and carefully climbed down the slope of the roof and approached the edge of the tower.
Let's see, she thought to herself, looking down. There's lots and lots of snow, some houses, snow, a couple of abandoned carts, more snow, Discord waving at me from a lounger in midair, and snow.
Only one of these things might be helpful.
She magically levitated a wooden cart.
"Argh!" cried Twilight in frustration as her makeshift ramp made out of planks salvaged from the cart collapsed. Of course, she had known that there was no way it could possibly work. After all, it was way too long to be able to support it's own weight.
This was a stupid idea, Twilight thought. It doesn't help that Discord is watching everything I do. All I'm doing is making a fool of myself for his entertainment...
Suddenly, a way to improve the design occurred to Twilight. But, just maybe, I'll be the one to have the last laugh.
This is so much better! thought Twilight, looking down at her work. It had been tricky and time consuming, but she had managed to attach the planks of wood to the side of the tower in a spiral pattern, which meant that the ramp would be supported all the way up.
There is just one problem, realized Twilight. There's no way I'm actually going to set hoof on that thing! What if I didn't do a good enough job? What if it collapses under me?
She looked over toward Discord again, who gave her a thumbs up.
I'm making myself look like a fool again, and now I've defaced this tower without actually making any progress at all! It probably looks ridiculous from where he's sitting! It probably looks like a giant screw-
Wait.
... Would that even work?
Uncertainly, Twilight lit up her horn and magically gripped the entire tower.
And began to twist with all her might.
There was a grinding noise, and then the entire tower began to slowly sink.
Despite the enormous effort she was outputting, Twilight allowed herself to smile.
Eventually the edge of the rooftop became level with the ground. With Thesaurus in hoof, Twilight carefully climbed off of the pointed rooftop and jumped to the ground.
"Bravo!" cried Discord, who began to clap. His lounger suddenly zoomed through the air and halted in front of Twilight. "Even I didn't think of that! But then again, you don't think quite the same way I do, do you?"
"Actually, it was kind of an accident..." admitted Twilight.
"Your point? Most everything that I do is unplanned. And I'm sooo glad that you figured out your own solution!"
"What would you have done?" asked Twilight.
"In your position? I would have rung the bell."
"What bell?"
"Well, I was trying to give you a clue about it when I told you to 'look around', but you never did notice. This tower here is a bell tower."
Discord snapped his fingers and there was a very loud and resounding 'DONG' sound from inside the tower, now embedded deep into the ground. The whole town would probably be able to hear it.
"Are you kidding me?!" cried Twilight.
"I expect your fellow foals will be here any minute!" shouted Discord over the sound of the enormous bell. "I'll just be leaving you to it!"
He snapped and disappeared.
"Twilight!" cried Spike's voice. Twilight looked up to see Spike riding on Rainbow Dash's back. He hopped off and ran toward her and threw his arms around her neck.
"Thank goodness we've found you!" he cried. "We've been up all night looking for you! Everypony was getting really worried!"
"Especially Spike here," added Rainbow Dash. "He kinda freaked out just a teeny little bit. But, um... Twilight? I just gotta ask. What the hay happened here?" She pointed to the rooftop sticking out of a mound of displaced dirt.
"How about I tell you over breakfast?" suggested Twilight. "I'm starving."
I'm obviously not able to update this like I was before Christmas. The biggest reason is that I originally had the entire story planned out in my head from beginning to end, and I still more or less do, but in the two months that I stopped writing, I forgot what I was going to do here and I had to come up with a new way to make it work. I'm just happy that I'm actually writing at all.
I could have easily used a different title for this chapter, but the story is rated for everyone.
Can you possibly add some Discord and Fluttershy interactions? I mean, there's plenty of Twilight and Discord, but I think it'd be cute to see a Discord with a younger version of his first and best friend.
6954038 I think I've been subconsciously avoiding that since I feel like Discord would feel awkward talking to a Fluttershy that doesn't have any memory of being his friend. Now that you've brought it to my attention though, I might do it. It won't be in the next couple of chapters though. I'm intentionally keeping Discord absent from most of the chapters because the story does not ultimately focus on him, it focuses on the kids. Thank you for the suggestion!
What the heck? Why is this in the feature box? It's never been in the feature box before, I'm almost certain! And I only got one like so far today! What gives? Not that this isn't awesome, but it's so unexpected! Thank you people!
Edit: Well it was there for a few minutes anyway. Long enough that there were at least a dozen people reading chapter one when I looked. It still makes me happy.
6954059
Your welcome! I didn't want to seem pushy or anything with my suggestions, and I know that the story is supposed to focus on the kids more than Discord, but I thought my suggestion/idea would make a nice and sweet little chapter. Thank you again for the awesome fanfic!
^.^
6954016 Just a note for the future - you might try writing down your outlines? I learned to do that after several similar incidents...
But on what did come up in this chapter!
6954083
I'm pretty sure I've seen it in the feature box before. While I'm not sure, I think that getting there once makes it easier for the story to keep getting featured.
Looking forward to more of this...
I really want to see the foals attempts to foalnap Pinkie...
And some more thesaurified books...
6956359 While Twilight now knows better than to create more animated books, the more peaceful books from the library haven't worn themselves out yet and are still flapping around...
6956396 True.
And I thought it would be funny if, say, a book they really needed, like a cookbook or survival guide, got thesaurified and the had to decode it.
And one of the other foals might accidentally touch or use the Poison Joke.
6956416 Oh, THATS what you meant! I was wondering what "thesaurified" was supposed to mean, now I see that you mean the way that Thesaurus magically alters the texts in the books. Yeah, it definitely caused some problems in town that they haven't talked about yet while it was on a rampage...
6956463 True. I really liked the thesaurified 'Mare in the Moon', and a book they need being thesaurified would be cool to read, especially if the foals 'translated' it wrong.
I've had this in my read later shelf for weeks now. Glad I finally found the time to read it. It's great! I'm just sad that I caught up. When can we expect the next chapter?
7028501 I don't honestly know when I'll get around to it. I need to wait for that moment of inspiration to strike while not having anything serious going on irl. I'm sure I will get around to it pretty soon though. Glad you enjoy it!
discord/fluttershy
- she would be very weirded out by how unconsciously protective he is of her, but it would be rude to say something.
how filly applejack could be adorable
- more fritters?
- making deadpan observations of crazy occurrences
- getting bored with sitting still
- woeful lack of education
filly rarity
- insecurity over her abilities
- making her sister feel uncomfortable / trying to turn Sweetie into a protector
- getting squealing excited over pretty, sparkly things
- not being as sophisticated as she thinks she is
7115412 Those are all fantastic ideas. In fact, they just might make the difference when it comes to actually making more chapters quickly. Thankfully my real life diversions have finally ended and I have some free time again, so I should update this in a couple of days. There, now that I've said it I'll HAVE to make myself do it. And thank you for the spelling fixes too.