Love you again?

by Cynthrey

Chapter 9: You Promise...?

~

“... I feel bad for Celestia. The whole business of living like the new Equestrian princess is unbearable for her.

That girl was raised in a land where, although she could not leave, she had more freedom. Earth Heaven was for her what for a lonely bird an aviary: walls that enclose a false forest where to spread her wings while outside extends an almost limited world that will not reach her whole life to understand. She was imprisoned, I do not deny it, but even in that prison she had her liberties, her pleasures, good and bad.

Now all that has been taken from him.

Their once simple and comfortable clothes are now garments decorated with stones that to see them under the sun is to look at the sun itself. The meals that she prepared herself and the satisfaction was double when tasting it have been replaced with dishes so spicy that no flavor is captured. The pleasures that could occur "must be eradicated" to allow their real being to emerge and dazzle everyone.

This life is not what Celestia would want.

It is not what I want for her...”

~

“The princess has disappeared! Where is the princess? Princess Celestia responds! Where are you?”

These and many variants of desperate screams echoed throughout the castle.

“Again?” Discord asked more frustrated than surprised.

He gave little thought to the almost agonized cries of the servants and guards who were earnestly seeking their young mistress. He let out a sigh, decided to take advantage of that madness to sneak into the kitchen and steal an apple, once he had the fruit in his possession he turned it into a red ball that later split into many more and started on a palate with all the calm of the world while leaving the room. He could barely close the door when a guard rushed at him.

“You! Chamberlain!” shouted him.

“Good heavens, sir!” he faked his surprise. “You almost make me throw my balls.”

“Do not play the funny one, boy. Where is the princess?”

“I do not know,” said the younger and tried to leave.

“You know and well, it was you brought the princess back to the castle on the last two occasions,” he said.

“Oh, dear!” he sighed in false defeat, turning to the guard. “You are right, I know where the princess is.”

“Well, take us to her!”

“No,” he answered paying more attention to his resumed juggling.

“What?”

“I think I spoke your same language, or did I speak lartsecna?”

“Listen boy:” he almost shouted making him throw the balls again. “I do not have time for your stupid little games. You know where the princess is and, if you value your life, you will take me to her, now.”

“With that attitude? Not even in dreams,” he said in the tone of a refined lady indignant.

“You miserable!...” furious, he tried to grab him by the neck but Discord slipped away like a snake.

“Oh, relax!” he spoke from behind, amused by his confusion. “I said I will not take you to Celestia, I never said I would not go looking for her. In fact, you have delayed me.”

"Bastard!" he tried to throw his hands on her again.

“Bye-Bye!”

With those words he teleported out of the castle, far away from this, his hustle and that poor guard. He was far enough away to have a beautiful view of the palace. It was comforting for Discord to remember the ancient beauty of the palace in which he had resided for some time.

The beautiful white palace erected in the once called Everfree Valley was something worthy of a fairy tale.

But no matter how much he wanted to look at that landscape until he sighed like a teenage girl in love, he had to look for Celestia before the nearby towns learned about the disappearance of her princess just a month after the coronation.

One month.

It was hard to believe that his memories would pass so quickly. He had gone from a boy living in a paradisiacal land with pseudo-divine beings to a chamberlain in the service of the new kings and princesses of a land younger than him in what for him had been only a couple of days. Things escalated fast. In a certain way.

After they reached Equestria it took Galaxus and Nebula almost two weeks to find Chrisalys' hiding place and his changelings. For some reason they did not exterminate them completely, both gave the excuse that they were simply not destined to disappear? He couldn’t remember clearly the words they used, probably because he was more concerned about an angry people because their saviors were not up to the expectations.

After that they dedicated themselves to returning peace and order to the chaotic kingdom, this made those who had lost faith in them to follow and respect them. By the time he realized, the date of the coronation had already been decided. When they learned that Celestia was ‘an adult’ according to the criteria of the time and that she wasn’t yet to turn 13 years of age, Discord could only think of the curious date when the reign of the alicorns would begin. Or thy was another member of that family or Exodo pays more attention to the alicorn than to other beings in the universe.

Sure, it hadn’t all been honey on flakes. Especially not for a certain alicorn girl.

Discord teleported to the only part in Everfree that could be considered a forest, a small area to the northeast quite dense of trees. A very good place to hide, in the shade, among a lot of foliage, far from the castle.

He walked for a while through that small forest, with a little while can also be interpreted that in a blink thanks to his lack of memories, Discord soon noticed a some yellowish dress hanging from the branch of a tree. He smiled and passing the apple from one hand to another walked whistling and comical walking to the tree from which hung the dress.

“How many times have been already?” he asked, standing against the mentioned tree but didn’t receive any response. He didn’t mind, he wiped the apple a little against his colorful suit and asked another question: "Is this branch taken?"

Celestia abandoned her ice law and with a wave of her hand invited him to sit with her before returning to her old posture: with her legs barely extended on the branch and leaning her torso on them placing her arms on her knees. He still wasn’t sure if Celestia expected him to sit next to her on the branch or do the first madness he could think of. Anyway, he opted for the second one, gave a pirouette totally lack of effort on his part and sat parallel to Celestia at the bottom of the branch.

“It is the third time this month, right? No offense but those servants are a bit innocent by simply hoping that the last time was truly the last time,” he said while examining the apple that had just polished. “Maybe I should have put some varnish on it,” he thought with his present mind before that remembrance.

“I hate this,” she said in a husky voice in an almost inaudible murmur.

Discord who was about to take a bite of the apple stopped and paid attention to his friend.

“I hate being a princess.”

“If you knew how many girls are willing to kill for being in your place,” he said while crossing the fruit with his finger from bottom to top extracting his heart.

“Poor illusions! What could be good about this?” although angry at first, her anger slightly subsided when Discord offered her the fruit she had just extracted from her heart.

“I suppose they only think about luxuries,” he put the apple kernel in her mouth to quickly spit out everything except the seeds and peel. “The lands, the exquisite meals, the fine clothes and the valuable jewelry, everything that an average woman could aspire to.”

“Mortal ambitions,” she said frustrated. “Lands that will have dried before they knew they had them, meals to feed an army if so many spices do not poison them, dresses embroidered with gold and gems that weigh more than the wearer, jewels so varied that they will need geology classes to be able to fully distinguish one from the other without fear of being wrong. It is too much! It is just too much!” she threw the fruit in her hand with fury against a tree.

Discord cringed like a kitten frightened at this reaction by the little alicorn. Who would have thought there was a time when the wise and kind princess of Equestria repudiated the idea of ​​having a kingdom to lead?

It didn’t take him long to regain a relaxed pose at the bottom of the branch. Celestia, on the other hand, heard her let herself fall hard against the trunk and let out a long sigh.

In such a situation, friends tend to give supportive advice. But Discord no. Don’t misunderstand, he cared about Celestia, he wasn’t a cynic, but the problem was that he wasn’t affected by this whole matter of royalty. The only thing he could have about this new life was the fact that he had to hide his true aspect by disguising himself by changing his form into an unicorn, but even so he was so careless that he often forgot that he was using costume. That moment was a good example.

Discord looked at himself for a second to confirm that he had forgotten to return to his true self now that he had been left alone with Celestia. He returned his body to its chaotic normality and embraced thinking: “Oh, how much have I missed you, my dear body!”, and continuing this action that his own body refused to stop he looked towards what for him was below, towards Celestia.

His body, following the logic of his master, adopted a certain awareness and wasn’t at all satisfied with the behavior of Discord: staying there knowing the causes of the problem and not doing anything to comfort his friend.

His hand slapped him hard, pulling him out of the trance. When Discord turned to see his attacker, it just pointed to the girl under him. He knew what his body wanted but didn’t know what to do or what to say, any action without foundation, no matter how well intentioned, can lead to major problems if it isn’t known with certainty what action to take. Someone can not be sure how to deal with a situation that doesn’t share, he wanted to help you but he just didn’t know how to alleviate a pain that he didn’t share.

His body didn’t take this excuse well and while the hand that slapped him dropped and shaked from left to right with disappointment, the other hit him in the head.

Soon he was fighting with himself. Maybe she waved the branch they were in during this self-fight and pulled her out of whatever thoughts she might have had or Celestia simply wanted to say something she had thought without realizing her literal combat against himself. Whatever the case, Celestia spoke again after several minutes.

“Discord, can you promise me something?” said in a sad tone.

“Of course,” his body finally restored his autonomy.

“I know that you have no interest in living in a palace and that my father will probably expel you from the castle when he considers that you are not useful in this. This could be the as in a year as in a month as in a week, but, please, promise me that you will stay by my side, at least until I adapt to this new life that they have imposed on me. Then you will be free to go where you please.”

He didn’t say anything but he smiled tenderly and sadly for his friend. He dropped, if can be said so, his hand so that Celestia noticed it and when she did he offered it to her. Celestia clung to his hand and thought he heard a sob he was sure that if he had looked at her he would have seen a grateful smile on her face.

“I do not have to obey your father, Celestia,” he said, leaning calmly against the tree. “He is not mine. I promise that even if tomorrow banishes me or if it takes you a thousand years to get used to this life, I will not turn away from you,” and squeezed her hand.

He heard her let out a melancholy sigh and felt her squeeze his hand in response to what he had done.

“I owed you, Celestia,” Discord thought sadly with his present mind and soon felt a pleasant warm feeling in his chest as he thought. “Oh, Tia, Tia, Tia! I promise to stay with you until you adapt to a move and you protect me and trust me even after a millennium. I doubt that someone has so much faith.”

In retrospect, he finally noticed his ideas and this caused him terror. Of course there was someone who had faith in him! Her name is Fluttershy, a beautiful and shy yellow pegasus that he loved. She had faith in him. Well, maybe she gave up trying to reform him when Celestia entrusted it to her and didn’t even talk to him when he allied with Tirek until he apologized to her even after she had seen him weak but still she trusted him.

Again, what he would have once given as sordid proofs of something sounded to himself as excuses. Why? Wasn’t he in love with Fluttershy? Wasn’t she the best thing that could happen to his life?

He finally came to the same conclusion as when he relived the memories of his childhood: it was all because of memories. Each time he revived a moment of his past, his mind changed with the melancholy of that memory. If the spell extended to his last memory with Fluttershy, he would probably love her even more.

After all: if Celestia had such confidence, why didn’t she try to reform it herself? Was she too busy with her royal duties that she could have entrusted to her sister for a single day? Perhaps the realm that she had so renounced when she was young was now a subject of much more appreciation and interest to her than friends and family. That would explain why he had never married, because she didn’t have time to look for a boyfriend having an immense pile of work and extremely important meetings and to which she had to pay close attention every day of her life until the end of time.

Well, maybe Discord could give her the benefit of the doubt, after all she had visited him frequently during the thousand years that he had adorned her garden.

He cut his line of thought not wanting to give himself more reasons to appreciate the princess more than the animal keeper and decided to let his memories keep returning to his head. Then he remembered a thought he had when he looked at Celestia's hand again as he held her that day.

“Oh, Tia, forgive me, but I lied to you. Now I wish you had not made that promise when we were children, because, you do not know, but one day I will fall into madness. There will be nothing that matters to me and maybe, like a monster, I will forget the promise I have made for you. I swore to protect your happiness, as you swore to protect me, but I will be glad you gave up your oath if you came to renounce mine. Please, Tia, whatever you do, do not cling to me and let me go if there is no forgiveness or cure my actions. I prefer to fall into your oblivion and even your hatred to bring you regret for preventing you from fulfilling your word...”

“... Will you do me that favor, Tia?”