Discord felt a small weight on his head and started to awake while he tipped to the right. Opening his bright yellow eyes revealed to him a small white rabbit as it clung to a carrot on his antler. Wait, why is there a carrot on my antler? He sucked in and let out a small tornado to fling the annoyance into its normal pet bed. He would have done worse, but then Fluttershy might have yelled at him.
However, the jingle of bells stopped him from simply staying on the couch but instead to sit up as he glanced around the room. The pink pony, What was her name? He snapped as his memory caught up and a glass of water came to him. She was bouncing about surprisingly quiet, especially while dodging decorations that seemed to have magically appeared. “What did I sleep through?”
Soft hooves echoed on the wood quietly as Fluttershy walked in while humming softly to herself. She glanced over at him and that heart melt– sickening gaze of only one eye met his own. “I’m sorry Discord, but Pinkie was going to help me decorate for the season and I didn’t want to wake you. I know you don’t like this holiday very much, but I did invite you to celebrate with me so...” She never finished the sentence as she rubbed the floor with a hoof.
He scowled and plucked the carrot from his head. A quick spell and it would disappear in a puff of smoke when Angel attempted to eat it next. He continued to examine the vegetable as he claimed, “I do not hate this season. Well, I suppose I do. Every pony being nice to each other and bleh.”
“You could try it. It’s really fun. besides, don’t you want a gift from you know who?” Pinkie received a glare for her mock whisper, but luckily for the draconequus, Fluttershy was dense as a brick when it came to such things, especially since such thoughts did not exist and therefore Discord denied them rather vigorously. It was still supposed to be his midday nap though so he decided to let it slide.
“I will admit I do quite enjoy the chaos of the house right now.”
Fluttershy bent her hooves a little. “Thank you Discord. I asked Pinkie to bring as much as she could to make sure there was so much that you would still feel at home while you stayed.”
A scowl attempted to pass his lips to try to say her attempt had failed, but it hadn’t. Her house normally had animals all about to add to the chaos and these decorations were doing well to replace that while the critters hibernated. “I suppose I must thank you then.”
Pinkie sat on her rump and let out a small sigh. “I still wish you would let me get you the coup de gra Flutters. A Hearthswarming tree would be perfect in this mess.”
He furrowed his brow and leaned over to Pinkie as Fluttershy simply shook her head and continued to work. “What is a Hearthswarming tree?”
She bent back towards him and in an actually low voice answered. “It is a great big Evergreen that sits in a corner and usually ponies set presents underneath it after decorating it with all sorts of things. You know Fluttershy though. She wouldn’t kill a tree for such a small purpose. At least I have plenty of other things to work with.” Pinkie tossed some tinsel in his face as she made her retreat.
Once the annoying silver strands were gone, Discord glanced back at the room. He could easily imagine a giant pine tree filling up the whole room and causing the two of them so much misery and discomfort as they snuggled deep in a cuddly embrace. He blinked for a few moments and then viciously shook his head. However, it still felt like an interesting idea to him. He slipped out of one of the near windows and set out on his mission to use stupid pony tradition against them.
However, while in route to the largest tree he could find, he couldn’t help but remember what Fluttershy had told him when he first came for these two weeks. She had suggested that he give gifts to everypony, which already was ridiculous, but then to make them by claw and paw instead of magic. He still thought it was one of the weirdest notions he’d heard ponies have.
“I mean, watch what I can do with one snap of my fingers.”
Snap.
The ring of trees surrounding the clearing he was in disappeared momentarily before reappearing a hundred feet in the air. Discord smiled and laid back and started to have them drift down one at a time as he inspected them closely. He spun one especially hard and it spun a branch right across his face. A small growl and Discord slipped off his pink scarf as the offending tree burned in the background. “Hmf. See, this is exactly why one should do it by magic. So much easier.”
‘But what about heart or care that hoof made gifts have?’
Discord spun around and stared at the woods that surrounded him. Nothing. No annoyingly cute yellow pony trying to make him better or tell him how to do things. He took in a deep breath as he tried to calm himself. A glance back at the trees as they hung in midair brought a small turning down of his lips. “So… easy.” Snow slowly drifted onto his shoulders as he stood there contemplating.
“You know what, I’ve never been the type for easy.” With a grand flourish he lifted the trees higher and then brought them crashing back down. In a massive earthquake created from the impact, Discord looked up. A wall of green thorns crashed into him as the trees shed their loads. Popping his head out he heard a snicker and glared at his clone who held a piece of parchment.
“So me, what shall the rules of this game be?”
“Simple. We cannot kill the tree as Pinkie mentioned Fluttershy resisting because of that, and I cannot use magic while in this forest and retrieving the largest tree in here.”
“Give me about twelve hours to make this needlessly long, tired, and complicated, and we shall begin.”
Discord watched as his clone walked away. He couldn’t help but grin as he realized that he had just left himself buried in pine needles. “Well, I guess I have some time to get out of these, ow, damned things.”
Twilight glanced up from her book as the ground started to shake. Stampede? Regular? She stopped and let her jaw hang slack as a giant bulldozer went past her. “Discord!”
The draconequus looked out the window and tilted his hard hat to her. “Hello Princess. Is there something you need?”
She flew up next to the machine as it made its slow progress through the forest. “Yes, and that is to know what you’re up to. You normally don’t try to destroy a forest!”
Discord baked up from the loud pony and then smiled at her. “I am sorry Ms. Sparkle, but I have made a deal with myself to get a Hearthswarming tree and that is what I am doing. See, you can look in this.” He summoned the contract, a document rolled tight but still the size of a pony and tossed it to Twilight who promptly disappeared with a thump.
“Well, that should take care of that.” He pushed down on the lever and the engine growled to life. Minutes ticked by as he thought of what ornaments might look best on the tree. Maybe a little angel with buck teeth and big ears? He blinked a few times and then shook his head. “I really should do something to that stupid little bunny. It’s starting to get to me.” He raised his mug of coffee as he sipped it as thoughts of rabbit stew danced in his mind.
“You’re breaking your own contract.” Twilight fell back down to the ground while Discord spat his coffee into her face.
“Will you not do that!”
“Will you not read fifty-thousand page documents in about thirty seconds?”
“No.”
“Well fine, but I won’t stop batting you down then.”
Twilight dodged Discord’s claw as it sparkled and saw the falling sparkle explode midair. She glared at him and stated, “You can’t do this. Your contract forbids it.”
Discord raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
She crossed her arms. “Yes. You aren’t allowed to use magic. This was made by magic I’m guessing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course it is, but I summoned it outside of the forest which is allowed.”
She smirked as her point was won. “Yes, but you also can’t kill the trees, and those look pretty dead to me.”
Discord glanced back and groaned. “Are you going to punish me now? Get to do all you have ever wanted to do to me before?”
Twilight deadpanned at him and stated, “Your target tree is behind you, isn’t it? I’m not going to kill your tree for you. Now fix those trees, get rid of this bulldozer, and talk to me.”
He frowned and raised an eyebrow all the way to the sky. “Why would you want to talk?”
“Because you aren’t an idiot and this is about as stupid as mistaken loopholes go.”
Discord smiled wider. “I am honored that you think so highly of me princess.” He stopped for a moment and then shook his head. “I would rather not. This is somewhat… embarrassing as it is.”
“Is it because of the mistake, or because I now know you’re giving Flutters a gift?”
He paled at the comment, but only for a moment. Discord put a claw to his head and moaned, “I need time to recover, heal, get over my terminal case of stupidity.” He opened a single eye and saw Twilight just sitting there still. “Please?”
Twilight shook her head. “Fine, but don’t go destroying Equestria just for a tree. I will punish you then.”
Discord crossed his chest with a small x and stated, “I promise, despite how tempting your offer is.”
Twilight sighed. “I’ll ignore the fact that you probably have a pair of crossed fingers behind each tree here and leave you be. If you need something though, just come find me.”
The draconequus watched as she flew away and sighed. Maybe I should– “No! Bad Spirit of Chaos! You have a tree to get.” He sat down back at the edge of the forest and summoned a drawing board to start all over with again.
Pinkie quickly freed the balloon from its nozzle and twisted it off. How? Discord still didn’t know but at this point knew not to question something that possibly had as much power as himself. Instead he simply strapped the next balloon on and continued the process. A small glance up made him smile as the sun was turned orange. “Do you think we’re almost done?”
“I would guess another ten minutes and we’ll be just about ready.”
“Good.” Discord popped off the next balloon and handed it to Pinkie. “And when people ask about this?”
“I say you forced me to do this or else you were going to eat all the frosting.”
“Very good.” He smiled to himself as he knew that he still planned to eat that frosting. It simply sounded too good.
Snap.
Pishhht.
Discord and Pinkie fell into the simple rhythm that they had been going at for almost an hour now. With each balloon the cloud above them continued to grow further and further. They’d have been stopped long ago if not for Pinkie’s quick thinking. Discord of course loathed the pony for it as he had to admit something as shameful as doing a silly task for Celestia. Even if I listened to her again after all of her previous grand mistakes of plans, I would never do something this silly for another person. A pegasus crashing into a tree due to being blinded though caused him to reconsider how silly the balloons were.
“Sooo, about Fluttershy…”
“You don’t want to lose your mouth after this, do you?”
Pinkie scrunched her face up as she took the next balloon. “I’m serious. You act different around her. Usually for the worse, but you always listen to her in the end. Why?”
Discord stopped for a moment as he took off the next balloon. He opened his mouth for a moment before promptly slamming it shut and bending low. A small flame erupted out of the sides of his mouth as he growled at Pinkie. She responded by widening her eyes, taking a step back to steady herself, and booped him on the shnoz. “Alright, I can leave it be. Besides, we’re ready for lift off!”
He shut his eyes and pinched between his eyes while silently muttering, “Finally.” However, he then found twine being wrapped around his torso. “Pink–”
“Fire!”
Pinkie bucked the air canister to cause it to explode in a mighty white cloud of snow and helium. The two of them were sent flying as momentarily the balloons had seemingly no weight grounding them. Once gravity took back over the two started to drift back down over Ponyville. Discord turned back to his now annoying companion and hissed, “The tree was supposed to fly, not us.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes before offhandedly stating, “You know as well as anypony that it would take way too many balloons to do that.” She glanced back over to him and stuck her tongue out. “Silly.”
“I loathe you.”
She reached into her messy hair as she simply said, “No you don’t.” From the poofy disaster came a blue megaphone that she promptly shouted into. “Discord asked me to help to make a tree fly.” She turned off the megaphone and smiled wide. “Now you do.”
He huffed and decided to let the pony have her fun. It isn’t like the sight from here isn’t beautiful. Besides… He extended one claw and enlarged it since they weren’t in the forest anymore.
Pop.
Pinkie glanced up and paled as she saw the balloon fall. “Now Mr. Meanypants, you wouldn’t do something like–”
Pow!
Discord smiled smugly while the screaming pony fell towards a rather large pillow on the ground. “Now, back to the drawing board.”
The stallions grunted as the strain on their backs grew with each effort. The tree still refused to budge, though most simply thought a smaller tree would fix that problem. Discord of course had his heart set on this one, and none other would do. However, he was currently scratching his chin as he continued to call cadence.
This simply won’t do, will it? He had already thought this several times throughout the day. First he had started with the nearest stallions. Then he of course grabbed Big Mac as one would have to be an idiot not to call him, even if he had scowled at the offer. Discord was thankful that he hadn’t had to explain himself by using the excuse of Hearthswarming spirit. I only have two days left though and spirit isn’t going to cut it.
A quick glance over to the workers and he scowled further. His search had evolved from Ponyville about fifteen minutes ago and he had already exhausted the Wonderbolts and some swamp town a few hours away. The pies were good though.
He sighed as he accepted the inevitable and started walking back towards the edge of the forest. Thunder Lane’s voice broke out though in descent of the action. “Where are you going oh mighty lord of chaos?”
Discord glared back. “I’m going to get more help because all of you can’t seem to be able to cut it.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Fuck off!”
“How about I shove my hoof right up your–”
“Shh.” The stallions stopped yelling when Discord had moved at top speeds to cover the stallion’s mouth and now held him in the air. All eyes were on him and for a brief moment he considered doing something really nasty to cause them to panic and keep quiet. However, the image of Fluttershy caused him to grit his teeth as his mind turned away from more chaotic actions. He let go of the stallion and floated back. “Nah. Not worth harming some useless stallion who got so easily roped into such a stupid task.”
All of the stallions fumed as Discord had planned and a small voice chimed in his head, One two three, pull. Right on cue the stallions surged forward. There was a definite cracking as they strained against their harnesses. He took a step back as the tree started to tip further and further until it finally broke free of its dirt prison.
First the stallions hit him. That hurt.
Then the tree fell on all of them. That definitely hurt.
As the debris cleared he heard the various ponies calling to each other for help and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw two things. The first was that all of the stallions were still alive so no necromancy would be needed that day, and two was that the dirt had come up with the tree which meant it might be alive still. A good day in my opinion. He turned around and almost cried.
Just behind him, barely in the tree’s way, was a crushed sapling that had broken midway. A snap of his fingers sent the stallions home and fixed the clearing as he simply started hitting his head against a tree.
Discord huffed, he puffed, he even went so far as to personally try to pull the tree out himself. However, as evening came to Hearthswarming Eve, the tree stood tall. He looked up the trunk at the high branches that were would stay there. He wasn’t used to not having magic and yet his stubborn self would not simply give up on the challenge and cheat. “It wouldn’t matter then.”
It won’t matter if you fail Fluttershy anyways.
He closed his paw and scowled. “One more time.” He firmly bear hugged the tree and pulled. His arms burned from hours of this rough treatment. A hopeful attempt to be a super pony had his legs wanting to buckle from beneath him. The figure still stood though as the rest of him protested, his will undying. Only upon the sound of something popping did he leave the tree and crash to the ground.
However, the tree still stood. It had not mattered how hard he pulled, the tree was simply too big. Discord tried to lift his lion’s paw and immediately winced in pain. “Well at least something came out of its place.” He tried to chuckle against the cold and snow, but the pain stopped him. The lone figure slipped his tail around himself so as to try to keep warm as his act of staying up for four days finally seemed to catch up. Just some rest. That is all I need. Then I’ll get it out.
The spirit’s eyes closed as the sun fell and the snow covered his small form.
Discord slowly opened his eyes as a nice soothing heat warmed his face. He yawned as his stiff muscles groaned in protest. For a moment he considered going back to sleep, but just like before something was off. He tapped the soft wood beneath him in thought as he tried to figure it out only to then look at the floor. He whipped himself up onto his feet as his mind spun with questions of where he could be. However, his body said no.
Fluttershy burst into the room after having heard a loud crash and saw Discord had moved but now had some of the ornaments on him even though she had tried so hard to keep them off. “Discord, you really shouldn’t be moving. I was lucky that Twilight told me where you probably were, but you were covered in snow. Now please, lay down.”
He looked up at her and felt a shiver run down his spine even though he wasn’t cold. Her soft hooves helped him back into his curl and she placed an ear against his chest for a moment before nodding. She stepped away and Discord craned his neck to watch her go. In his peripheral he saw something he had not expected. A Hearthswarming tree modestly decorated that sat in the corner.
“Where did that come from?”
She walked back in with a bowl of chicken noodle soup and set it in front of him before looking at the tree with him. “Oh. Twilight wouldn’t tell me why, but she did say you were trying to get a tree. After I had seen how hard you had worked at it, I decided it was the right thing to do and asked Applejack to cut me down one. I’m sad that it had to die, but you’re at least happy, right?”
Discord looked down at the soft, turquoise eyes and felt another shiver run through him. For a moment he almost said yes, but choked it down at the last second. The trickster glanced at the tree one more time and stated rather solidly, “I suppose so, though I was really hoping to get it myself. I guess there is one stupid custom you can fulfil that might get me smiling again.”
She glanced up as his tail came around with a small piece of mistletoe hanging on it. Or above them now. She turned from soft yellow to bright red in a mere few milliseconds and stammered out, “Di, Di, Discord?”
“Oh come now, you don’t think this will mean anything to me, right?” He felt a stab of pain in his chest at the words but couldn’t place why. “I just want to see that flustered face near mine.”
She took a deep breath and slowly trotted over. Discord found himself hesitating too but quickly remedied that by sarting forward and locking their lips to each other. For a single moment Discord felt calm, clear, like he didn’t need chaos as long as he possibly had this. The very thought horrified him. They broke free from each other and Fluttershy glanced down. “Anything else you need?”
He bit into his cheek for a moment before lying down. “You invited me over for the holidays right? Why don’t we just stay here then and cuddle like good ponies.” He pat the spot in front of him and smiled as she trotted over.
“Thank you. Honestly, this was all I really wanted to do, so I’m happy you came. Even if you missed most of this week.”
Discord glanced down as the small mare curled up and smiled softly while closing her eyes. He didn’t know what to do. Do what you can then. He summoned up a nice large Hearthswarming quilt and threw it over the two of them. Just as he was snuggling in for a friendly snuggle with Fluttershy he gave a soft sneeze and a single pink butterfly flew out. He stared at it for a moment and then back down at Fluttershy. As reality crashed upon him he knew he should hate this. Knew that he couldn’t possibly believe in something as silly as this. However, a look at the mare who lay there and trusted him, cared for him, told him all he needed to know. He sighed and laid down for a joyous sleep with the one he reluctantly loved.
