Keep Calm and....Wait a Minute

by Bookpony579

Chapter 3

"Okay lesson one: being polite." Sunset stated, before she noticed that Discord wasn't paying the slightest attention to her.

"Are you...eating paper?" Fluttershy asked in confusion.

Swallowing a page, Discord replied. "Am I? How odd." With that he stuck his fork in and chewed up another page.

Sunset glared at him. "First rule: pay attention when someone is trying to talk to you."

"I'm sorry. Did you say something?" Discord was about to take a bite when he felt himself sprayed with what.

"What the-!?"

"It's part of the learning process." Fluttershy explained, holding the squirt bottle. "It comes in handy whenever I'm training a new animal."

"And since your part horse....goat...dragon?...we thought it would work." Sunset continued.

"Hmph!" Discord crossed his arms. "I, for one, find that highly offensive and-ah!" He jumped when Fluttershy sprayed him again.

"It's just temporary until we make some progress."

Discord rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine."

"Now," Sunset continued with the lesson. "When you want to ask someone for a favor, what do you say?"

"Do it or I'll turn your house into cheese?" He received another spray, causing him to hiss like a cat.

"The correct word is 'please'. Now, when a person does something nice for you, what do you do?"

"I turn them into a sock monkey?" Another spray. Another hiss.

"The correct response is to say 'thank you'." Sunset was starting to get fed up with his antics. "Okay, your in a contest, and you lose to someone else. What do you do?"

"I turn them and all the other competitors into mice, the judges into cats, the grab the prize while laughing at them."

As he received the spray, he finally had enough and snatched the bottle in his teeth and began chewing on it ferociously.

"...I think we need a new approach." Sunset concluded as she and Fluttershy backed away slowly.

---

"Another key trait of being a good person is to have kindness." Fluttershy said. "Which is why we've brought two volunteers to help with this!" She smiled as she opened a holed box and took out Angel bunny, and a small yellow leopard gecko. "Angel and Ray were more than happy to help us out."

This statement caused Angel to glare up at his owner, whose smile turned into a nervous grin. "...Mostly."

"What's the point of this again?" Discord asked.

"Being kind to animals is arguably easier than being kind to people." Sunset explained. "If you can learn to be kind to animals, it'll make it easier for you to be kind to others."

Discord railed an eyebrow, clearly needing more info.

"Just pet them." Fluttershy encouraged. "And be gentle!"

Discord slowly approached the two familiars.

The two animals just blinked up at the creature before them.

Looking up, he saw the two teens smiling and nodding encouragingly.

Slowly, he lowest his eagle claw, and began to pet Ray, who hummed with content.

Discord looked back at the two teens, who were both giving him two thumbs up and nodding enthusiastically.

He decided to try his luck with the other pet, and moved his claw closer to Angel....

*SMACK!*

...only to him to smack the claw away with a glare.

Returning the glare, Discord snapped his fingers, and suddenly Angel was wearing par of tap shoes.

That wouldn't stop dancing.

At all.

Angel was danced around the room despite his protests while Discord snickered. At least, before he noticed the disapproving frowns the girls were giving him.

"Okay..." Fluttershy sighed. "New tactic."

---

"Okay.." Sunset paced in front of an easel. "We're just going to run through some hypothetical scenarios. A sort of 'what would you do' in these kinds of situations. Ready?"

Discord, lying on the couch, gave claws up. "Whenever you are Sunshine."

"Sunset."

"Whatever."

"Alright..."She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Let's just start." She nodded to Fluttershy, who lifted back the paper, revealing a drawing of a distressed cat in a tree above a crying little girl.

"There's a little girl whose cat is stuck in a tree. What do you do?"

"oh! Oh! Oh! Me! Me! Me!" Discord waved his claw around eagerly.

"Yes Discord?" Sunset said with a hopeful smile.

"You turn the tree branches into a bunch of snakes!" He answered with energy. "There's no way the cat will want to stay up there after that!"

Sunset and Fluttershy just stared at him.

"...okay moving on." Sunset nodded to Fluttershy again, revealing a picture of a building on fire. "There's a house on fire and there are people trapped inside. What do you do?"

"Easy! Just freeze the house instead!" He snapped his fingers, and the picture turned into a house trapped into a giant ice cube.

Sunset facepalmed. "Moving on..." The next picture was of a kid in a pool with a panicked expression and waving his arms. "A kid is drowning in a swimming pool. What do you do?"

"Too obvious!" Discord waved his claw. "Just turn the water into jello! Nobody drowns in jello!"

......

The sound of a head banging against the wall could be heard for miles.

---

After a few more trial and error tests, Sunset and Fluttershy figured they had made some progress.

Not a lot, but some.

Which was enough for them to show their friends what he learned. And what better way than that but a dinner party?

Fluttershy and Sunset decided to head out to get supplies, leaving Discord alone.

"Okay, we'll be back n a little while."Fluttershy instructed. "Make yourself at home and just call us if you need anything."

Discord, now donning fluffy robe and slippers and holding a steaming mug, bid the girls farewell.

"I promise you, I'll be completely fine! Bye now!"

Once they were gone from sight however, Discord turned to the two familiars, a sinister smirk on his face.

"You like carrots?" He asked, pulling one out of his ear and smacking them with it. "I'm playing your owners for fools." His face the appeared on the carrot in Angel's arms. "How do ya like them carrots!?"

While Angel gave a very girly scream and ran off, Ray just stood there, his calm smile ever on his face.

"...You really are a buzzkill on the whole 'I'm still a bad guy reveal' aren't you?"

Ray just continued on smiling.

Author's Note:

Friendship is spraying someone with a water bottle when you know they're acting up.

Comments

[Comickook]

Excellent work on the latest chapter. The "trial and error" scenes were just the right mixture of humorous and emotional and I LOVED the little implication that Ray is trying to act as Discord's conscience . Overall, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are all well done in all the right places.

I will, most definitely be looking forward to more of this.