Discord's First Hearth's Warming

by ZeroMonkey

Convincing Discord

It was a beautiful winter morning in Ponyville, a scant few days before Hearth’s Warming, and Fluttershy’s cottage was unusually quiet. It was not in and of itself unusual for her home to be quiet during the winter, as many of her animal friends had left to hibernate until spring. Today, however, even her year-round residents were nowhere to be seen, for one simple reason: today was the day of her weekly tea time with Discord. Now, this wasn’t out of any animosity on their part. The simple fact was that animals were even greater creatures of habit than ponies and that Discord was rather the opposite. Things were never routine around him and so the animals found somewhere else to be whenever they knew he would be around.

Tea time with Discord had become as routine as was possible when a millennia-old spirit of chaos was involved. It started with Fluttershy trying her best to exchange pleasantries and Discord endeavoring to never answer the same way twice, even if it meant that his answers didn’t make sense half of the time and barely made sense the other half of the time.

Today, however, instead of delving into the myriad of strange topics it normally took to keep Discord entertained for an hour, Fluttershy decided to broach an entirely new topic.

“Discord, it would mean a lot to me if you would take part in Ponyville’s Hearth’s Warming pageant this year.”

Discord raised an eyebrow, “That’s one of those sappy pony holidays, right?” His eyebrow kept rising, escaping from the confines of his forehead. “It’s about how great friendship is or something along those lines, isn’t it?” The eyebrow raised higher and higher; it was almost to the ceiling now. “Don’t answer that. All your holidays are about how great friendship is.” His eyebrow slipped through a crack in the ceiling and disappeared from sight.

“For Hearth’s Warming, we put on a play about Equestria’s history. Have you ever tried acting before? I think you might like it.”

Discord stroked his chin dramatically. “I met a playwright once. He was a poet too. I think turned him into an orange. He didn’t do much rhyming after that. I don’t really see the point in acting. What’s the point in playing pretend when you can change reality on a whim?”

“Well, I talked with my other friends and we thought you might enjoy being the narrator. As long as you stick to the story, you can add whatever special effects you like. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“Really, I think I’ll pass,” Discord intoned with disinterest as he threw a buckball across the room to himself, “It sounds like a boring waste of time to me. I’m sure all those other ponies would rather I not be there anyways.”

“Have you ever been to a Hearth’s Warming celebration before?”

“What?” Discord looked actually thoughtful this time, “No, I don’t think so. When I was in charge of Equestria ponies only had important holidays, like Chaos Day, Anarchy Day, Disorder Day, and of course, Discord Day. Those were the days.”

“Well, if you’ve never tried it, how do you know you won’t like it? Please will you just give it a chance?” Fluttershy accompanied this heartfelt request with the largest, most powerful puppy dog eyes she could muster.
Discord held up his paw to try and shield his eyes, before relenting. “Fine. Please just stop that before you give me a heart attack.”

Fluttershy gave him a gentle smile, “Thank you. Now, I’ve got a copy of the script here...”