> When We Were Young
>  by FlimFlamBros.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Memories
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Her eyes shot open as a chill ran down her spine.

Princess Celestia was in a cold sweat as she lay in the silk covers of her bed. Her sheets were damp, making them rather uncomfortable to lie in. What had awoken her from her sleep? A dream no doubt, but like many dreams it had evaporated like water upon waking up, lost to her. It hurt her head just thinking about it. Trying to remember one’s dream was a dire struggle against a mountain, or a futile war with the sea. The sun princess could spend all night trying to recollect her thoughts and make no progress doing so, but she knew the one pony that could.

She kicked the blankets off of her and slowly crawled out of bed. The large golden clock on her wall said  that it was only two in the morning. Celestia would have to raise the sun in roughly four hours. Part of her wanted to just get it over with right now, but that would throw off the balance, and she’d rather not risk doing that again.

Her favourite pink housecoat was cast in the seat of her makeup chair, neatly folded by one of the maids earlier that night. The princess quickly threw it on, slid her hooves through the sleeves, and tied up the belt using telekinesis. With the coldness of night staved off she slipped on her royal slippers and walked out of her room.

The castle was quiet but not inactive. Guards patrolled the hallways in silence, making sure no nightly intruders or unwanted guest walked the premises. They would nod silently or give a quick “Your Majesty,” when passing by the princess, who in return would nod back or respond “As you were,” or something like that. It was too early to be awake, much less proper formalities.

Sometimes, she felt like the hallways of the castle were like one giant maze. It was impossible to find where you needed to go, especially at night. But she eventually found the room she was looking for, the dark blue doors at the end of the west hall, the room of her sister Luna.

Celestia approached the imposing night-shaded doors. There was strange and muffled music coming from inside, her sister’s soundproofing trying to keep the metal music from awaking the whole kingdom. With a heart of caution, she opened the door.

“Luna, can I talk to you for a moment?”

Her sister didn’t respond. The night princess was captivated in one of her movies,  the heavy background music blasting from her speakers. Her eyes were glued to the large television screen as it presented a flurry of colours and sounds. She threw a few pieces of popcorn into her mouth as she sank deeper into her beanbag chair.

“Luna,” repeated Celestia.

“Shh!” hushed the night mare. “This is my favorite part.”

“Can’t you pause it or something?”

Luna rolled her eyes. “I guess,” she sighed, her horn glowing a bit as the show on the TV froze. “So, what brings you to my room so late in my night?”

“I had a dream,” she said. “And I’m having trouble remembering it.”

“So?! What do you want me to do about it?” grumbled Luna, the tone in her voice clearly indicated her annoyance with being interrupted during her movie.

“Well, I was wondering if you could go into my dreams and maybe help me remember it?”

“Art thou insane?” muttered the night princess. “I don’t want to know what goes on in your head.”

“Luna, please…”

“Remember last time you had me look into your dreams? I couldn’t sleep for days!”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” smiled Celestia, “And it’s not like you’ve never had a sexy dream before.”

“You’re my sister!” barked Luna. “And that was the most perverted thing I have ever seen!”

“Yes, but that was then and this is now,” the sun princess said. “And right now I really need you to help me remember.”

Celestia gave her younger sister her best innocent smile, hitting her with the puppy dog eyes and a splash of ducky lips. No pony was that strong enough to resist that.

“You never have played fair, Tia,” sighed Luna, caving into her sister’s whims. “Come over here, I’ll take a look. But if this is another one of your perverted fantasies I am never talking to you again.”

“Deal,” giggled Celestia as she approached Luna. “Do your thing.”

“Whatever,” she said, getting up from her bean bag chair and stretching out her muscles. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Princess Luna’s eyes started to glow as she stared into those of her sister’s. Celestia’s own eyes widened, the strange sensational magic of her sister was coursing into her mind and the deepest depths of her subconscious. Luna’s horn began to glow as flashes of light were emitted into both of their minds. Visions and clips of their past flew by in a split-second collaboration. Ideas were exposed to sight and quickly lost as well.

“Where is it?” Luna asked herself. “Tia, do you remember anything about the dream?”

“If I could remember anything, do you think we would be doing this?”

“Ugh… everypony remembers flashes of their dreams,” said Luna.

“I… I don’t know if I can re- Oh…” gasped Celestia. “Luna, you can stop.”

Luna’s eyes started to stop glowing and the flickering of memories stopped in both of their eyes. “Did you find it?”

Her older sister nodded. “Yes, I did. Thank you for helping me, you can go back to your movie.”

“Great,” said Luna, throwing herself back into her bean bag chair. “Could you get the door on your way out?”

“Of course,” the sun princess said, walking out the front door. She was just about to close the door when she stopped. “Luna, did you happen to see what I was dreaming?”

“Hmm?” wondered the younger sister. “Oh, I saw something, but it was kind of blurry. It was like a statue or something in a forest.”

“Oh… anything else?”

“No, why?” Luna asked.

“Nothing important,” smiled Celestia. “Goodnight, Luna.”

“Try and get some sleep sister,” said Luna. “You actually need it.”

Celestia closed the door behind her. She heard the metal music resume behind the doors, signifying that Luna had resumed her movie. She knew that she needed to get some sleep, but now that she remembered her dream, her mind was more cluttered than ever. There had to be a way to get all of this out of her system. She needed some air, so she headed back to her room through the labyrinth of hallways.

When she finally found her room again, she stepped out onto the balcony, letting the crisp night air wash over her. Her balcony had a great view of Equestria, overlooking the painted landscape of green and blue. There were the rivers running down the mountains and into the fields that dotted the countryside where the little town of Ponyville laid nestled near the heart of her kingdom and beyond that, the Everfree Forest.

This wasn’t helping her. Overlooking the fair kingdom she governed didn’t suffocate the dream. She regretted having Luna bring it back but it had just been bugging her for so long that night. The princess slouched down and collapsed onto the hoof railing, looking down upon the royal gardens and the endless amount of flora and ornaments. The exotic wildlife were all sleeping soundly in the moonlight, nestled in the shade of the leaves or the cozy nooks of their burrows.

Then, her eyes drifted to the stone statue.

Standing there as it had for a thousand years, The Statue of Discord stood still and stony within the gardens. Never moving, yet tonight it seemed to call to the fair princess.

Celestia picked herself up from the rails and spread her wings, jumping off the balcony and slowly gliding down the castle, eventually landing silently in the gardens and in front of the Discord statue.

She cautiously walked up to the sculpture; the draconequus’ unmoving gaze was still frozen in stone, keeping the same horrified expression when he was turned into stone. Celestia just stood there in the silence, waiting perhaps for Discord to respond; which he couldn’t. And it was she who finally broke the silence.

“Hello.”

There was no response, of course.

“It’s… it’s been awhile since we’ve last talked, hasn’t it?” Celestia took another step closer. “What has it been, eight, nine hundred years? Maybe it’s been millennia’s and I haven’t noticed? I don’t know…”

She took a deep breath, taking a seat on the ground.

“What am I doing?” she asked herself. “I’m talking to a rock… am I really that stressed?” The princess slid back, resting her side against the base of Discord. “I have a wonderful sister, loving subjects that respect and care for me, and Twilight is even learning the magic of friendship. At this rate she’ll transform faster than Cadence did. So… why am I so unhappy right now?”

The stone was cold against her fur as she rested her head near his feet.

“This never happened when you were still here,” she sighed. There was a tear forming in the corner of her eye, threatening to drop at any moment. “Sometimes I wish things could have been different and… well it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

She didn’t even bother looking up as she took another heavy sigh, letting the air drool out of her mouth as if to savour the expression.

“I… I had a dream tonight,” she finally said. “It was about us; back before all of…” she shook her head a little before she gazed up slightly, looking out into the horizon of the night. “Do you remember when we first met?” she asked Discord. “Do you? It’s something I haven’t really thought about in a long time and would like to forget. But just when I think I’ve forgotten you, just when I think you’re out of my life, I see you in the gardens. I mean, I never wanted you dead, but I wanted you… I just wish things could have been different.”

Celestia gave a long yawn, as her eyes started to finally flutter shut, sleep finally overtaking her.

“I just wish things could have been different…”
> Chapter 1: When I was Just a Princess
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I remember how it all started,” smiled Celestia, looking up at Discord. “That day… it was the day when we were young and summer was in full bloom… and it was the day my brother came home…



The sun had just risen above the mountains as the rays pierced through the thin blinds of the young mare’s room. A young Princess Celestia rolled in her slumber, her eyes clenched against the morning’s rays. But there is little she can do to combat it, for the more she fought off waking, the brighter and more irritating the light seemed to get. She finally gave up, her eyes shooting open as she slumped out of her bed.

“Damn the sun…” she muttered, yawning loud and obnoxiously as she brushed her long pink hair out of her face. Celestia took a seat at her makeup desk, examining her reflection in the mirror. Her fair white coat was clumped and matted. There were knots and frayed hairs in her mane and she had a pair of dark bags under her eyes. “I look like a disaster,” she mumbled to herself as the assortment of brushes began glowing with her own colour of aura. The brushes started to levitate as some began brushing her mane, while others started to apply makeup in a choreograph dance of beauty. The princess looked jadedly into the mirror as she started to become more presentable. In all honesty, she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and pray the sun sizzled out.

But she had plans and responsibilities that day, plans that required her to be aware of her surroundings. After the brushes finished their duties and the princess was primed and picture perfect, she got up from her desk and head out of her door and into the stone hallway of the castle.

She wandered through the straightforward and easily navigated corridors of the castle, running into the odd guard patrolling the hallway. They would greet her with a ‘Princess’ or something and she would sigh or roll her eyes in response. It always felt so forced when they greeted her, like they would be sent to the moon if they didn’t greet her or show her respect or something. It honestly got quite annoying after a while so she had stopped responding with words. Except for the odd time when she would tell a guard to go buck himself, but she only did that if she was in a particularly bad mood. Today she was bordering on that thought.

When she finally made it to the kitchen, breakfast had already been served.

“Nice of you to join us.”

Celestia sighed. “Morning to you too, mother…”

Sitting at the head of the breakfast table was a tall, white, and proud looking alicorn mare, her dark amber hair bobbed just above her eyes, pulled back slightly by the golden tiara that laid upon her head.

“I see we woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” her mother said, her brow just slightly slanted with disappointment.

“Well, I was having a wonderful dream until you woke me up,” Celestia grumbled. “Did you have to raise the sun so early?”

“I raise the sun every day at the same time,” her mother replied. “It’s not my fault you choose to dwindle into the late hours of the night.”

“Whatever,” droned the white princess. “I need to talk to Luna about getting blackout curtains. Where is Luna anyways?”

“Probably still asleep.”

“Oh sure, she gets to sleep in,” Celestia muttered. “Because that’s totally fair.”

Her mother sighed, placing a forkful of fruit down onto her plate from her mouth. “Celestia, how many times must I explain this to you? Your sister is destined to take over the lunar duties and you the celestial ones,” she said. “It’s what I’ve decided and I would like for you to stop complaining about the matter. If it’s so difficult for you to get up then go to bed earlier.”

“Why bother? I’m up now.”

Her mother was just about to say something, but the door of the dining room swung open as a young blue mare walked into the room. Princess Luna’s eyes were barely open under her messy blue mane and she seemed to stumble a bit when she walked. She was still in her pajamas and was clinging to a small starry blanket, dragging it around with her.

“What time is it?” she yawned. “I dozed off at around two in the morning… oh, hey Mom, Tia.”

“Hey brace-face,” smiled Celestia wickedly. “What’cha doing up?”

“Don’t call me that, cake-flank,” deadpanned Luna, gritting her teeth to show off the silver wiring between them. “I’m exhausted but I couldn’t fall back to sleep.”

“Luna,” sighed her mother. “I know it’s difficult to change your sleep pattern in such a drastic way but I had hoped you would have slept for a little longer.”

“Sorry mom…” Gloomed the dark blue mare, bowing her head in shame. “I was just too tired… and now I’m sort of wired.”

Her mother sighed. “What am I going to do with you two?”

“You could have us switch,” said Celestia. “It’s obvious that Luna doesn’t want to stay up all night and I hate waking up in the morning.”

“The answer is no,” their mother said. “It’s what has been decided since the days of your births and reassured the day your destiny became clear.”

Celestia took a look at her flank, seeing her ‘destiny’ plastered to the side of her thigh. “Stupid butt tattoo.”

“Cutie mark,” her mother corrected. “It’s something to be proud of, Celestia. You and your sister have a very special destiny and I’m doing everything in my power to help you.”

“Whatever,” muttered Celestia.

“I’m getting tired of that tone, young lady. A princess does not say ‘Whatever’ like that.”

“Whatever.”

“Queen Faust!” a voice echoed from beyond the doors of the dining room. An armour-clad stallion rushed into the hall, breathing heavily as if he just ran across Equestria. “Queen Faust, we have a message… for you… it’s quite urgent.”

“Let me see,” Celestia’s mother said, getting up from the table to receive the message. She unfolded the letter and quickly skimmed through it, her expression never changing. “Hmm… thank you for bringing me this,” she said, giving the letter back to the guard and turning to her daughters. “Finish up breakfast and be ready to leave in ten minutes. We’re going to the train station.”

“Why?” asked Luna, trying her best not to collapse into her oatmeal. “What’s at the train station?”

Faust smiled, which was something that wasn’t seen very often by her daughters. “Your brother is visiting from the Crystal Empire, and I would think you’d want to greet him.”

“Curator’s coming back?!” gasped Celestia. “Like, right now?”

Her mother nodded and Celestia beamed. Out of her entire family, her older brother Curator was the only pony she liked. He was always there when she needed him and was always able to make her smile, even in the worst of times. It had been one of the worst days of her life when he had gotten married and moved to become king of the Crystal Empire.

But that didn’t matter anymore. Curator was coming home. Right now.

“C’mon everypony!” Celestia squealed, shooting up from the table and almost spilling her breakfast. “Let’s go!”

“Coming, Tia…” yawned Luna, “Let me just… just…” her voice started to trail off as her eyes grew heavy. “What was I doing again?”

“Brace-face, let’s go!” growled Celestia. She grabbed her little sister’s collar and started dragging her down the hallway, navigating her way to Luna’s bedroom and threw her in. “Get out of your PJ’s and get ready to go, dork.”

“Stop calling me that,” mumbled Luna, slamming the door in her sister’s face.

Celestia just brushed it off as she walked back to her room to get ready. She and Curator hadn’t been able to talk for almost four years. The last time they had a conversation was after his wedding day. It hadn’t been the most endearing or interesting conversation they’ve ever had, but it was still special to her.

She rushed into her room, rummaging through her wardrobe for something nice to wear. Pink dresses, red dresses, green dresses, white dresses... nothing good to wear. It was a useless endeavor, so in the end she decided to just go au naturale.


*****


Canterlot was a lot different back then. Instead of being perched on the side of a mountain, it was nestled in the light treelines of what would one day become the Everfree forest. Celestia, her sister, and their mother were being escorted through the shanty city of Canterlot. Her mother had always insisted on being guarded at all times, which was odd considering that Faust was the single most powerful creature in Equestria, and the idea that they needed bodyguards seemed a little redundant.

And Celestia hated them with a passion. “Mother, do we really need all these ponies to protect us? It’s ridiculous…”

“We have many enemies, my daughter,” Faust said. “And I will not gamble with any of my family’s safety.”

“But who’s dense enough to do that?” asked Celestia. “If anypony was dumb enough to attack you, you could just turn them into snowflakes or blow their heads off.”

“That’s not how it works, Celestia,” said her mother. “As a Goddess, I cannot intervene unless it is of the most crucial nature. If I were to solve everypony’s problems with magic, they would become too reliant on me and it could have disastrous results on the world as we know it.”

“So you’d let me die? Nice to see you care mom,” muttered Celestia sarcastically.

“I didn’t say that,” replied Faust. “I only stated that I have rules to keep the balance in check.”

“Whatever,” said the young princess, looking past the guard and to the ponies going about their day. Ponies of all shapes and sizes working at their jobs, most practicing a trade that was printed clearly on their flank. They seemed so… happy, doing their mundane work all day. How could a pony be so content with what they were branded to do? Did they ever wish to do something else with their limited time on earth? What if that shoe cutter wanted to be a dancer, or the florist dreamt of being a metal smith? She did not understand why they were happy, but it was something she envied terribly.

“Are we there yet?” yawned Luna, her starry blanket wrapped around her back like a cape as she stumbled through the streets. She was still exhausted and probably on the verge of collapsing. “I can’t sleep with all this… light.”

“Patience Luna,” said her mother. “The train station is just up ahead. We’ll be there in moments.”

“Why couldn’t we just teleport?” asked Celestia. “It’d be a lot easier.”

“We have legs for a reason,” said Faust.

Tia mouthed something out of the view of her mother’s eyes, she never did approve of mocking and using her name in vain. But after that she kept her mouth shut till they all reached the train station.

“Do you see your brother’s train?” Faust asked, her imposing figure was more than enough to see overhead of everypony. “I can’t see it? Do you think that there was some sort of delay?”

“Wow, mom, I’ve never seen you like this,” said Celestia. “It’s as if you actually cared about somepony.”

Faust frowned. “I love and care for all my children and subjects.”

“Then how come you don’t recognize your own son?”

“Curator!” cried Celestia, turning around to see her older brother standing within the crowd of ponies. Curator in many ways resembled his mother, a taller white alicorn with a maroon coloured mane, but he had more masculine features and bright golden eyes. His sister lunged at him, wrapping her arms around the brother she had missed so dearly. “I’m so happy to see you again!”

“Hey, Tia,” chuckled her brother, “Nice to see you too.”

“How come you haven’t come to visit?!” barked Tia, her tone changing from happy to irritated. “You said you’d come and visit me!”

“Heh, sorry about that,” laughed Curator nervously. “Would you forgive me if I said I was really busy?”

“Hardly.”

“Celestia!” barked her mother. “Mind your manners. And Curator, it’s so wonderful to see you again.”

“Glad to be back mother,” he said, parting with Celestia to embrace his mother, much to Celestia’s dismay. “Sorry I haven’t visited like I promised.”

“Understandable, you have a lot of duties to attend to now…” sniffed Faust. “My little colt is all grown up.”

“What the hell is this?” wondered Celestia. “Mom… are you crying?”

“Hardly,” she said, resuming her normal blank expression. “I’m just happy to see my son again.”

“Thanks mom,”said Curator. He looked down to Luna, who was still drifting in and out of consciousness. “Hey there Lulu, when did you get the wires?”

“A month ago…” she pouted. “They say I have an overbite and have to wear this for two years…”

“Ah… well, it looks good,” said Curator.

“I look like a dork.”

“Maybe, but a cute dork,” smiled her brother, tussling her mane up a bit.

“Curator! Can you please help me with the bags?” a voice called out. Walking towards the group of alicorns was a sparkling pink mare, her deep purple mane shone like glittering amethyst and her eyes like diamond. She was definitely a crystal pony and she had something strung on her back. “There you are, sweetie. I thought I lost you in the crowd.”

“Sorry, honey,” apologized Curator. “Symphony, you remember my sisters, Tia and Luna, right?”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s so good to see you again, and you as well your majesty.” Symphony bowed in the presence of the amber-haired goddess. “It’s always a pleasure Queen Faust.”

“At ease, Sweet Symphony,” said Faust. “A queen has no need to bow in another’s presence, not even mine.”

“You’re too kind,” smiled the crystal pony, getting back up. “Oh, I almost forgot! We have something very special to show you. Curator, could you be a dear and—“

“I got her honey,” said Curator, his horn glowing a bright yellow as the strange bundle was lifted off of Symphony’s back. “Mother, sisters…” he gently placed the bundle in his arms, it was something wrapped up in a blue blanket. “I’d like you to meet my daughter, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.”

He uncovered the little baby foal nestled in the blanket. She looked barely a month old, her candy-coloured mane still short and messy, her eyes clear as gems, and her fur as smooth as a polished table.

“She’s adorable,” sighed Faust. “My little Cadence…”

“Wait, does this make me an aunt?” asked Celestia. “I feel old…”

“You two had sex?!” gasped Luna, looking at her brother and his wife. “That’s… eww…”

“Luna,” droned Curator. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“But you’re my brother…” she yawned. “I don’t think I’ll ever fall a… fall a… fall a…”

The little princess eventually collapsed under her own exhaustion, curling up into a little ball on the ground, her blanket cuddling her up even tighter as she slipped off into dreamland. After waiting several moments to see if Luna was asleep, Faust picked her up and laid her on her back.

“Sleep, little princess,” she whispered. “Till the night dawns once again. Let us return to the castle now. Curator, Symphony, you will accompany us of course.”

“Yes, mother,” said Curator, putting Cadence back into her carrier on Symphony. “Lead the way, it’s been awhile.”

“Very well,” nodded Faust. “Guards! Back to the castle.”

The rows of guards who had been waiting patiently shot up to attention. “Yes, your majesty!”

As the guards began to take their formation, Curator nudged Celestia. “Follow me,” he whispered, ducking into the crowd of ponies, making sure he kept his head low. “Well? Aren’t you going coming, little sister?”

He didn’t have to ask, any excuse to ditch her mother and spend time with Curator was good in her books. Celestia kept her head down as well, making sure that her mother or any of the guards didn’t see them slip away.

“Do you think mother saw us slip away?” asked Celestia when they were in the clear.

“Of course she saw us,” smiled Curator. “But she won’t do anything about it. It’s the best and worst thing about mom; she has too much other stuff to deal with.”

“Yeah, like dictating my life,” mumbled the young princess.

“Hey, it can’t be that bad,” replied Curator.

“Trust me, Curator,” she bluntly pouted. “It’s bad. Ever since this stupid sun showed up on my ass she’s been ‘Celestia do this, Celestia do that. Celestia, that’s not a way a princess’s supposed to behave’. It never stops!”

“Well…” hummed Curator, trying to find the proper way to put the idea that was forming in his mind. “It’s just… mom’s way of saying she loves you. You got to remember that she is the supreme goddess and creator. My theory is that she doesn’t want to make any pony feel isolated or like they’re getting special treatment, so she adopts the personality of tree bark.”

Celestia started to blush a little, before breaking out into laughter. “Why do you always know how to make me smile?”

“Because it’s what I do best,” he grinned.

“And that’s the thing, Curator,” she said. “You’re incredibly funny. The funniest pony I know. You could have gone on to be a comedian or an actor, but instead you became king of the Crystal Empire.”

“Yeah, I’m not really seeing what you’re getting at.”

“What I’m getting at is that you never had a choice in the matter,” Celestia said. “You had to be a king because that’s what your cutie mark told you to do, not because you wanted to.”

“But I like being king…”

“Well, I don’t like what I’m supposed to do,” she said. “I don’t want to have to raise the sun every day for the rest of my life and I don’t see how it’s fair that we can’t change our minds after our cutie marks show up.”

“Tia, our cutie marks are a symbol of who we are and what we’re good at,” said her brother. “It’s not set in stone… just your fat butt!”

“Screw you, nerd,” giggled Tia, playfully punching her brother. “I don’t want to be happy right now.”

“I think you’ve put way too much thought into this,” said Curator. “Hey, you know what will cheer you up? Let’s go to that old cake shop where I used to sneak you and Luna to.”

“You mean Cakes R’ Us?” gasped Celestia. “I haven’t been there since… well, since the last time you took us there. To be honest I haven’t gotten out of the castle much.”

“Mother?” he asked.

“Mother,” nodded Celestia as the two started to walk into town. “I’m telling you she dictates my life.”

“She’s just trying to help you,” Curator said. “And yeah, it does come off as tyranny but she really is just trying to help you with your royal duties because, despite what you may think, she ain’t going to be around forever.”

“If we were only so lucky…” she muttered. “I just feel so trapped all the time. Like this whole place is a giant cage and I’m stuck in it.”

“Let’s just get that cake,” said Curator, trying to change the subject. “You still like angel vanilla?”

“I mean look at these ponies, Curator,” Celestia said. “They’re all ignorant to the fact that they have no free will. The brand on their flanks will always drive them in life and they can never escape from it.”

“Or did you like black forest cake?”

“I don’t want that! I don’t want to be a princess!” yelled Celestia. “I don’t want to raise the sun or the moon. I don’t want to have to be a queen and rule over nations or ponies. I don’t even want to live in a castle; I just want to be in control of my own destiny! I just want to be free!”

“MARE’S AND GENTLECOLTS!” a highly energetic voice laughed above the crowds of ponies. Celestia and Curator both looked around in confusion.

“What was that?” asked the young princess.

“I think that it came from over there…”

Her brother pointed to a strange stage set up in the middle of the streets. There was a group of ponies gathered around, looking with curiosity and awe at what could happen on stage. Was it a show? A sales pony? A thousand questions ran through the crowds head when a single barrel rolled onto the stage. It stopped when it reached the center and just sat there for a few moments.

“What in Equestria is going—“

“PONIES OF CANTERLOT!” the same voice narrated. “YOU’VE SEEN THE MAGIC OF UNICORNS, THE TRICKS OF A PEGASI, AND THE FEATS OF THE EARTH PONIES… BUT BE PREPARE TO BE SHOCKED, AWED AND POSSIBLY HAVE YOUR MINDS EXPLODED WHEN YOU WITNESS THE AWE-INSPIRING POWER OF THE GOD OF CHAOS!”

The barrel on stage exploded in a puff of green and yellow smoke and confetti. Ponies gasped in shock from the sudden burst of colour. From the mist of the smoke the most peculiar thing emerged. It was not a pony, in fact that she wasn’t even sure what it was. It looked like a long brown snake with a bunch of mismatched limbs and other body parts. It had arms of a lion and eagle, legs of an alligator and a bull, and horns of a goat and deer. His tail was red and finned like a serpent and he had a pair of wings; a mismatched blend of a bird and a bat. But it was his face that really caught her attention. It looked like a stallion’s, but with the strangest, most alluringly bizarre eyes she had ever seen.

“What is that?” she whispered to herself, captivated by the odd creature.

“Yes, yes, yes!” The strange thing smiled, his one large fang pushing past his lips as he talked. “It is I, The Great and Powerful Discord!”



And that was the first time I saw you, and I remember how your very sight fascinated me. I would not have called it love at the time, though. I was just a young girl who found an interest in the most peculiar creature... How was I to know that it would blossom into so much more? I wonder... what if Curator and I didn’t sneak away from my mother? Or if we had not gone down that road? Or a million other possibilities. Would we have ever met? Would any of this happen?

Would I have ever fallen in love? 
	
> Chapter 2: Peculiar Little Draconequus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

That moment when I first saw you, it was if you had casted your spell over my mind, digging your mismatched talons and claws into the deepest depths of my brain...


“Yes, yes, yes, hold your applause for the main event, my little ponies!” the draconequus smiled, scanning over the crowd of ponies. “The Wonderfully Fantastic Discord will begin in a moment!”

“What… what the heck is that thing?” baffled Celestia. “It’s like somepony put him together in the dark and decided ‘Oh yeah sure let just roll with it.’”

“I think it’s a draconequus,” said Curator. “They’re dragon, pony, eagle, alligator, goat, deer, bull, lion, serpent hybrids that have an unbalanced and unpredictable source of magic… or something like that. What one is doing here I have no idea…”

“Why, it’s a free country,” grumbled Celestia. “Apparently.”

“You’re not still on that, are you?” groaned her brother. “By our mother’s name let it go already and let’s get some cake.”

“Hang on a second,” said the young princess. “Why don’t we just stay here for a while?”

“Why?”

“I want to see what this… what did you call him? Dragon-bits?”

“Draconequus,” corrected Curator. “And I really think we should get going, we don’t want to keep mother waiting too long.” He smiled. “Lest we face her wrath.”

“Just a few minutes and then we’ll go,” she said. “Please, Curator.”

Her older brother sighed as his sister gave him her infamous puppy dog eyes and ducky lips. “That’s not fair, Tia.”

“Come on,” she smiled. “Maybe it’ll be entertaining.”

The two began to walk towards the crowd, making sure to linger at the back as to not bring any unwanted attention to themselves. There they waited for the draconequus to begin doing… whatever it is he was going to do.

“Ponies!” he began, throwing his hands in the air. “Imagine, if you will… a rock. Let’s name it George—no, wait—Tom!” He snapped his fingers, and a large boulder manifested in the air, floating next to his head. “Now… it looks like an ordinary boulder, does it not?”

There was a dead silence.

“Of course it’s a boulder—not a rock—but what if it could be something so much more? I hear you say.”

Again, the crowd remained mute.

“Exactly!” Discord smiled. “Such a smart crowd… but now imagine if the boulder was… wait for it… not a rock?!”

“So?” a pony called from the crowd. “What’s the big deal? You can levitate a rock. My daughter’s barely a filly and she can do that.”

The crowd grew a little restless and were unconvinced with the draconequus’s performance. Discord, however, seemed for the most part unfazed by the growing disapproval.

“Perhaps to the untrained eye,” smiled Discord, rubbing his mismatched hands together. “But with the magic of chaos, I can turn Tom into anything that your little heart desires!” he snapped his fingers and the boulder began flashing white as it disappeared and reformed as a giant pizza. “Here, have a slice,” he said, ripping off a slice and shoving it into a pony’s mouth.

That pony immediately spat it out. “Ugh! It tastes like rocks!” he complained, his rock-caked tongue hanging out of his mouth.

“What’s the big idea?!”

“No pony wants a rock-tasting pizza!”

“Ponies, please!” hushed Discord, calming down the masses. “I still have a few tricks up my sleeves. Now, perhaps a rock turning into a pizza was not the best idea that I’ve ever had, though let’s be honest, we all love pizza. No… but I think that there are other things that tickle at the hearts of us all. You’re looking for something that every pony craves, something that every pony desires and lusts after. Something pretty and shiny that gleams, glamors, and sparkles!”

The floating pizza began to slowly crumple into a ball of sticky cheese and rock flakes. It started to glow a pale white and change form, no longer becoming a mushy sphere of pizza, instead a beautiful sparkling diamond took its place.

“Behold, the creation of the largest diamond you’ve ever seen!”

The ponies were stunned, gasping in awe as they stared at the diamond floating next to the draconequus’s head. A wicked grin crept onto his face. He had them right where he wanted them.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “What you see before you is the unlimited power of chaos! No matter the matter, I can shape anything to be anything that your little pony heart desires. But here’s the kicker; I, The Great and Powerful Discord, can provide this service to any and all! For a small commission fee of course.”

The ponies were in an uproar, swarming into a line as they reached into their pockets and pulled out bits to pay the draconequus for his services.

“Wow…” said Celestia. “Did that thing really turn a rock into a diamond? I’ve never seen a transformation of that scale before.”

“That’s because it was an illusion,” said Curator.

“What?”

“You didn’t see the flicker?” her brother asked. “I’m surprised.”

“What flicker?”

“The flicker of the giant diamond,” Curator pointed at the floating diamond next to Discord, who was busy zapping an apple into a kitty. “If you look at it closely you can catch a glimpse of it still being just a giant rock.” Sure enough, it appeared once again as a rock for half an instant, resuming its diamond form right after. “Did you see that? Nothing but some smoke and mirrors.”

“So he’s ripping all those ponies off?”

“Something like that,” nodded Curator. “Now can we go get some cake?”

“You’re not going to do anything about this?!” gasped Celestia. “But they’re getting scammed by that thing!”

“You know mother’s rule, never get involved unless it’s absolutely necessary,” said Curator. “I know it’s stupid but you can’t go around trying to solve everypony’s problems.”

“Watch me,” huffed Celestia as she marched over to the crowd. “Hey, you!”

“Hmm?” wondered the draconequus, looking over at the approaching Celestia. “I’ll be with you in a moment, madam. Please wait in line like all the other ponies, it’s not like I’ll run out of magic.”

“Did you think that you could get away with this?” she scowled. “Cheating these innocent ponies out of their bits with your schemes you… you… con-artist!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” baffled Discord, jumping and flipping into the air until he landed right in front of the princess. “I’m appalled by such a statement! Who do you think you are to make such an accusation?”

“The Princess! That’s who!” barked Celestia as she spun around to show off her wings and solar cutie mark and causing all other ponies to gasp in revelation.

“Well excuse me, princess,” droned Discord, indifferent to the fact that he was in the presence of royalty. “I didn’t realize that a draconequus couldn’t try to bring joy and harmony to the downtrodden.”

“You’re stealing money from these ponies!”

“I am not!” he yelled. He looked over his shoulder at the crowd of ponies before leaning into the princess’s ear. “Play along and I’ll make it worth your while,” he whispered.

“What?”

“So… you think you’re so clever, eh?” the draconequus called dramatically, giving Celestia a little wink. “You think just because you’re the big banana you can foil my schemes?”

“What the hay are you talking about?!” shouted Celestia. “And did you just try to bribe me?”

“You win this round, Princess!” roared Discord, snapping his finger to summon a large teal cannon in a puff of smoke. “But mark my word princess, you will rue this day! Rue it I tell you!” Discord flipped backwards and landed into his cannon. With a whip of his talons he conjured up a ball of flames and threw it on the fuse of the cannon. “Oh, and no refunds!”

He aimed the cannon up to the skies and was shot out with a thunderous boom. The draconequus soared high into the clouds, cackling frequently as he pierced the heaven.

“Wow…” hummed Celestia. “I can’t believe he did that.”

“I can’t believe that he aimed the cannon straight up in the air,” said Curator. “He does realize that he’ll just fall back down, right?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!” screamed Discord as he came flailing back down to earth, crashing into the ground with seismic force and kicking up a dust cloud. When the smoke finally cleared, the draconequus was laying face first in a small crater, groaning and whining in pain. “… I regret nothing…” he muttered, lifting up his heavily bruised face before collapsing once again into the dirt.

The ponies began to circle him. “Is… is he dead?” one of them asked. “I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not.”

“I think he’s breathing,” another pony said. “What the heck was that all about? How moronic do you have to be to do something so stupid?”

“Serves him right!” shouted a third pony. “He deserved it after he tried to scam us all. Look, my daughter’s kitten is turning back into an apple!”

Just as he had said, everypony looked down at a little mare with a sleeping kitten on her back. However, it soon began to flicker a little, flashing back and forth between a cat and an apple until eventually it burst into a puff of grey smoke and resumed its original form as an apple. As the apple had shifted its form, all of the other transfigured objects began to change to back to their original shapes. Soon, the ground was littered with useless rocks, sticks, and other worthless objects. The ponies all grumbled and cursed under their breath as they vacated the premises, leaving the streets mostly deserted with the exception of the princess, her brother, and the strange creature.

Said strange creature’s head snapped around like an owl’s. “Are they all gone?” he asked, scanning the perimeter with his bizarre looking eyes. “Well, don’t just sit there. Answer me woman!”

“My name is not woman,” scowled Celestia. “My name is Princess Celestia!”

“Ooo, look at me!” laughed Discord, shooting up from the ground. “I’m Princess Celestia and I have a big, fat, banana butt!”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“Oh, lighten up sweet cheeks, you did good for a dame,” snickered Discord. “But I fear we haven’t been properly introduced,” he took an incredibly exaggerated bow. “I am the one and only, The Great and Powerful Discord.”

“Charmed,” she muttered. “Why were you trying to scam those ponies?”

“Eh, the same reason why I do anything in life, to stave off the ever nearing talons of boredom,” he yawned, stretching his arms out. “But I suppose I’ve wasted enough time on this little scheme. Perhaps I’ll be a woodcutter tomorrow or maybe a spy…”

“Wait, what do you mean you’ll be a woodcutter tomorrow? Aren’t you a sales magician?”

“I’d love to stay and chat with you all day,” said Discord. “But I have a schedule not to keep so T.T.F.N. Ta-ta for now!” The draconequus jumped up onto the tip of his tail, which quickly coiled into a giant spring. He easily cleared the town with just one mighty jump, disappearing in a fit of laughter.

“Well that was a nice distraction,” said Curator, finally speaking up. “I love how he blatantly ignored me. So can we get cake now, sis?”

“What did me mean he’ll be a woodcutter tomorrow?” wondered Celestia, ignoring her brother. “What does that mean?”

“Who cares, that guy was annoying as all sin,” muttered Curator. “Now, can we finally get some cake? I’m starving.”

“Yeah sure…” she said as the two began to walk.

It was a quiet stroll down to Cakes R Us. Everypony they passed would stop and bow in their presence, causing a light chuckle from Curator. He, unlike his sister, always found it funny when a pony insisted on stopping whatever they were doing to show him respect. It wasn’t like he was going to throw them in the dungeons if they didn’t but he would never tell them that, it was too much fun. He looked over to his side to say something to Celestia but she seemed lost in her thoughts, much like a daydream, for which she was known to have many but this one seemed more focused, determined, and the shine in her showed a great deal of concentration.

When they finally got the cake shop, Celestia was muttering things to herself, having a personal debate with her mind. Curator walked up to the cake stall’s window, looking at the hundreds of tasty delicacies that they could order, each one more salivating than the last.

“Hey, what kind of cake do you want?” asked Curator. “Tia… Tia are you even listening to me?”

“Hmm?” hummed his sister, still in her light daze. “Just… get me something with strawberries and cheese.”

“Two slices of Strawberry Cheesecake, please,” said Curator. The chef nodded at them and quickly zapped up two delicious looking pieces of cake. Curator threw a few bits on the counter and levitated the two plates. “C’mon, let’s go find a place to sit.”

After briefly looking for a free table, they finally found a leaving family and snatched their table.

“This cake looks better than I remember,” smiled Curator. “They’ve really upped the value of everything. It’s very nice, don’t you agree?”

His sister didn’t respond, she just kept staring at her cake.

“Tia?” wondered her brother. “Tia. Tia… Hello! Equestria to Tia! Anypony home?” he nudged his sister on the head. “Wake up, nerd!”

“Huh?” drowsed Celestia. “S-s-sorry… I’ve just been thinking a lot.”

“Oh, that isn’t good,” snickered Curator. “Well, don’t overexert yourself.”

“I’m being serious,” frowned the young princess. “I was thinking about that dragon thing from earlier, you know the one that was running that scam?”

“I remember him being really annoying,” said Curator. “And possibly brain damaged.”

“Well, remember the last thing he said to us before leaving?” she asked. “About how tomorrow he would try being a carpenter? I’ve been trying to figure out what he meant by that. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about all afternoon. I don’t get it!”

“Get what?”

“How he can just do that?!” she said. “I thought he was a salesperson, but then he goes and changes his mind! He… he was able to choose what he wanted to be. How can anypony just do that?”

“He a draconequus, not a pony, sis,” Curator said. “He’s not like us. No cutie marks, no destiny, and no purpose.”

“He didn’t have a cutie mark, did he?” wondered Celestia. “He could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and there was no brand to shackle him down to one thing… he could go anywhere, be anyone, see anything, love anyone... he’s free.”

“We’re all free, Tia.”

“No, Curator, we’re not,” said Celestia. “We think that we’re free but our lives are predestined by the marks on our flanks. Once they appear we can’t escape them, we’re doing the same thing over and over again until the day we drop dead. But that Discord, he’s not branded by fate. Mother never touched him with her tyranny. She says that we’re free but we’re all slaves to our cutie marks but not him, Discord has true freedom.”

“Look, Celestia,” said Curator. “Can you please stop with all this nonsense? You’ve been thinking way too much about this. Mother gave us all free will; we can choose to do whatever we want.”

“It’s not the same,” she mumbled. “Look, can we just go home, now? I’m sure mother will be sending the search parties soon. And don’t you have a wife who’s waiting for you?”

“Right, fine,” her brother said, getting up from the table. “Do you want to take your cake with us?”


*****


“Mother, we’re back!” called Curator, walking through the throne room doors. “Hope you didn’t mind but me and Celestia went into town for a bit.”

Faust was sitting posed on her throne, sifting through a bunch of levitated pieces of paper. She barely looked up from them to acknowledge her children. “You’re an adult; you’re capable of making your own decisions.”

“I know, I just thought you’d want to know.”

“And now I do,” she said, flipping her page. “Could you leave me and Celestia alone for a moment? I’d like to talk to my daughter in private.”

“Sure thing, I’d better find my Symphony anyways,” he said, walking back out the door. “I’ll see you two later.”

“Bye…” waved Celestia, closing the door behind him and leaving her alone with her mother in the eerie silence. The young princess’ eyes drifted around the castle throne room, confirming that they were completely alone. The shuffling of papers ripped through the quietness of the room as Faust finally lifted her eyes away from her papers. The queen just stared at her daughter as if she was tearing her apart with her eyes, but they showed no sense of emotion, just a regular stare.

“Shall we begin with today’s lesson?” Faust finally said.

“What?”

“Your late start this morning and the arrival of your brother has cut into your lectures,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to fit it all in the little time we have left before dinner. I trust that won’t be an issue with you?”

“No mother…” her daughter droned. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Are you okay?” Faust asked. “You seem a little down.”

“Like you’d notice,” Celestia mumbled. “I’m fine, and I don’t want to talk about it, so let’s just start the lesson.”

“If you say so,” Faust said, flipping through her notes. “Now, yesterday, we covered the solar patterns and proper distance from the earth…”

She began her daily ramble, talking about the science and facts of the sun and proper celestial control of the cosmos. Things that were important for the young princess’s future for when she would eventually take up the duties of the sun and replace her mother, things that she should be listening to but instead was stuck again in another one of her daydreams, her head stuck in the clouds and heavens she was supposed to be learning about.

Thoughts of the draconequus kept creeping into her mind and she wasn’t sure why. She kept picturing him on that stage with his mix-matched limbs, long thin body and quirky facial features. There was something about those eyes that were incredibly tantalizing and different, unfocused like a blurry mirror but yet at the same time mysterious, like there was more to find behind those red and yellow irises.

“… and of course you yourself must make sure not to ever fly too close to the sun, lest you be incinerated. Celestia, can you tell me why you must stay exactly fifty meters from the sun when pulling it?”

Her daughter’s mind was a thousand miles away from the lesson, everything her mother said had gone through one ear and out the other.

“Celestia!” barked her mother, keeping her stern demeanor. “Have you been paying attention?”

“Umm… yes?”

“Thankfully, lying was never your strong point,” Faust said. “You need to focus more on your duties, my daughter. There is going to be a time when I’m not here anymore to guide you and these lectures are going to help you rule this kingdom.”

“A world without you?” wondered Celestia. “Imagine that.”

“I’m serious,” glared her mother. “I would like for you to take these things more serious and stop with this new attitude. Understand?”

“Sure, whatever…”

“You have a beautiful destiny Celestia,” Queen Faust said, as she headed towards the door. “And I won’t let you let it go to waste. I think this will be all we will cover today. Please prepare for dinner with your brother and his family.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, staring absentmindedly out the window. “I’ll be there.”


*****


Celestia kicked open the door of her room, she was dead exhausted from dinner with her family. It had been a painful experience for her and all involved. While her mother and Curator talked about affairs in the Crystal Empire, she was stuck in between her braced-face nerd of a sister and a foal princess that found an immense pleasure in throwing up her baby food in Celestia’s pink mane.

The young princess dragged herself to her shower and stepped in. She started to run the warm water threw her mane, washing away all the baby vomit from her hair and quickly drying off with a one of the towels. With her hair and body dried, she slipped on a polka-dot nightdress and threw herself onto her bed. She splayed out on the bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. She was completely drained of energy, her eyes growing heavier as sleep’s mellow grasp overtook her.

And then there was a sound.

Celestia rolled onto her side as she managed to slightly pry her eyes open, the darkness of the room no more visible than a shrouded haze. She couldn’t see what had made the noise but assumed it was nothing important, a creak of the bed or Luna walking down the hallways.

Feeling a little cold though, she rolled into the bed covers and snuggled up against one of her body pillows.

“Getting a little friendly are we?”

Her eyes shot open. Staring at her from the darkness was a pair of oddly coloured red and yellow eyes, the softness that she thought was one of her pillow actually a warm body of scales and fur. Discord’s smug, haughty grin was spread wide across his face as he gazed at the princess.

“How’s it going?” asked Discord.


It’s funny… all day I was thinking about you, you plagued my thoughts more than anything I’ve ever thought about. Then in the dead of night you were there, like a wish come true. And although my reaction was well justified and there was no good reason for you to have snuck into my room in the middle of night… I want to say that I’m sorry.

It’s funny, the first time I looked into those eyes of yours, I was taken away. I saw something more than a simple con-artist or performer, like there was another being behind the face of Discord, a creative and caring soul hidden by smoke and jokery.

But you know what I really think is funny? When you looked into my eyes… I like to think you saw the same in me...
	
> Chapter 3: Pranks and Misunderstandings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time I found you in my bed was… well I did hardly know you at the time, and finding somepony gawking at me in while in my nightwear would give any sane girl a scare, although you didn’t exactly make things better… A thousand different thoughts rushed through my head at the time, but only one screamed louder than any other.


“AHHHH!” Celestia shrieked, kicking and flailing out from under her bed sheets. “Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

Discord’s eyes widened as he felt the blankets around him tighten, swallowing him up in the princess’s disarray of tangled sheets and fluff. Celestia kept panicking and only made things worse, with pillows and even her mattress beginning to teeter against her floundering of her bedspread. She eventually fell from the bed and landed on the cold hard floor, taking everything with her.

And that included Discord, for when she finally managed to wiggle out of her spider web of sheets; she was met with the long, smirk of a grin of the draconequus. Discord had managed to roll on top of the princess, and he didn’t seem to hate it.

“Well…” he smiled, looking seductively into the princess’s eyes. “Is this the part where we kiss?”

WHACK!

“OW!” cried Discord, clenching his nose after the princess delivered a rather brutal head butt to his face. He immediately rolled off of Celestia and continued to wallow in his pain.

“Get the buck out of my room you creep!” Celestia screamed. “Guards! Guards! Any pony!”

“That hurt!” moaned Discord, slowly getting up from the ground, still clenching onto his throbbing nose. “Am I bleeding? I think I’m bleeding! Celestia I asked you a question, am I bleeding?”

WHACK!

Celestia had used her magic to fling one of her chairs into the face of Discord. It smashed into his face, causing him to stagger a bit backwards as Celestia readied another piece of furniture.

“What are you doing in my room?!” she demanded, throwing her hoof rest at the draconequus, who narrowly dodged the stool. “Answer me! I command you!”

“First tell me if I’m bleeding!” Discord demanded back. “It feels like its bleeding and it’s definitely pulsing.”

“If you don’t answer my question I’ll give you something to bleed over!” The princess growled. “How did you even get in here anyways?!”

“Umm… the window…” replied Discord, pointing to the nearby open window. “Yeah, it was super easy. Security around here sucks,” he chuckled. “You know, it’s a good thing it was just me and not some crazy psychopath, otherwise you’d have a serious problem.”

“Imagine that,” grumbled Celestia, still holding the draconequus at chair point. “What are you doing here, pervert?”

“Hey, you came on to me!”

“I did no such thing!” snapped the young princess. “You snuck into my room and crawled in my bed!”

“And you were the one who tenderly embraced me,” grinned Discord. “Not my fault you can’t control your hormones.”

“That’s it, I’m throwing the chair.”

“Wait!” gasped Discord. “There is a reason I’m here though. Back in the market today I totally forgot to repay you for helping me out of that little bind.”

Celestia lowered her chair a little. “Really? That’s all?”

“Yeppers!”

“And you couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Discord laughed. “If I had come tomorrow morning, we wouldn’t have been able to share in this beautiful little moment. And destroy half your room!”

“Eh?” wondered the princess, looking around her room. There were broken pieces of furniture and blankets everywhere, like a tornado had rolled through her bed. “Oh, well that’s just great,” she mumbled.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Discord jested. “But I’m sure you’ll get one of your maids to clean it up for you. Tell me, do you make them wear those sexy little outfits?”

“Didn’t you want to give me something? Because if so, give it to me and leave.”

“So rash…” sighed the draconequus. “But then, what is it about a bad, bad girl that’s seems so tantalizing? Tell me, do you feel like a naughty, little, filly tonight?”

“I feel like breaking apart an annoying, depraved, pervert,” Celestia snarled, readying her chair again.

“Ugh, will you put that dang chair down?” Discord asked, rolling his eyes. “I thought we already established that I have no desire to hurt you. Even though you were a bad girl and hurt my nose, which I still haven’t gotten an apology for!”

“Sorry,” the princess said half-heartedly. “So stop derailing the conversation and give me the gift or whatever so I can go back to sleep.”

“Eager are we?” Smiled the draconequus. “So excited to start dreaming of discord and wonder.”

“Trust me, you’ll be the farthest thing from my mind.”

“I meant discord by definition, not by name,” said Discord. “I love misconceptions!”

“You’re giving me a migraine…”

“Really? Then my work here is done,” smiled Discord as he started to head towards the window. “Catch you later.”

“Are you serious?” Celestia baffled. “That’s what my gift was?”

“Yep.”

“That has to be the worst gift in the history of everything!”

“Well, I figured that a young mare in your position already has plenty of jewels and gold,” he said. “And judging by the massive size of your bubble butt, I can’t really give you chocolate or candy in good conscience.”

“I do not have a—!”

“So I asked myself? What do I give somepony who already has everything she could possibly want? And I say to myself, something she doesn’t have! So I gave you a migraine.”

Celestia just stood there in the silence, lost by the draconequus’s flawed and terrible logic.

“Yes, no need to thank me, it’s the least I can do,” Discord smiled cheekily. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get rolling.”

He slithered through the air like a snake towards the open window that he came through and dived out, quickly poking his head back up and giving Celestia a quick wink.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime. But until then, chow!”

Discord disappeared into the darkness of the night, cackling and laughing as he flew away, leaving Celestia alone in the silence of her room.

“… What the heck just happened?” She asked herself, staring dumbfounded at the window. It wasn’t worth the brain power to dwell on it. Celestia finally placed the chair back down on the ground, and looked over at her bed. Sighing heavily, she began to fix her bedspread again and once everything was back in place, she slipped back under her covers and tried to get back to sleep.

But sleep eluded her. He was right, thoughts of discord and wonders ravaged her dreams. Twisting and turning in her bed, the thought of him was like a bad rash that wouldn’t go away as it itched her mind. The thoughts of his idiocy and ignorance annoyed her to no end and enraged her to know that the chances were that she would have to deal with him again in the future, though she dreaded the very thought.

“Stupid Discord… why do you disrupt my mind?” she muttered, rolling over in her bed to gaze out the window and into the night sky. It was always her favourite time of the day. Night had a sense of peace and solidarity to it, a mystical beauty that only a few would ever be fortunate enough to experience. Not like the sun and the day it brought, where the ponies were awake, busy slaving away at their jobs predestined by the ball and chain of their cutie marks. It wasn’t like that with the starry night sky. With nothing but the dark skies dotted with stars and the cool dew of the night air, the night was Celestia’s only sense of freedom.

Celestia got up from her bed. Despite her best efforts she was wired and wide awake. So she did what she always did when she couldn’t sleep, the princess rolled out of bed, grabbed her housecoat, and headed out her door.

The castle was quiet this evening, mostly because everypony was already asleep. Even the guards that were supposed to be patrolling the castle halls were snoozing on the job. How they could sleep through her and Discord’s fiasco she had no idea. She decided to go look for something to draw on their faces, a quill and ink from the castle’s library would probably do, and would certainly teach them for sleeping on the job.

Slowly down the halls she crept, making sure not to disturb any of the castle’s occupants. As she turned the corner of the third hall, she heard some chatter coming from one of the guest bedrooms. Always one to snoop, Celestia couldn’t help but stop and investigate the conversation.

Approaching the door, she peeked through the crack of the door to see her brother and Symphony rocking little Cadence asleep.

“I always love these little three a.m. wake-up calls,” yawned Curator, sitting up against the bed, watching his wife hum silently to his only child.

“You know, you didn’t have to wake up as well,” she sighed. “It’s my turn to rock Cadence back to sleep.”

“Eh, I wasn’t sleeping well anyways.”

“Is something wrong?” His wife asked.

“N... no, it’s nothing really,” he said. “Maybe it’s just the jetlag or something.”

“Are you sure?” Symphony wondered. “You know you can tell me anything that’s bothering you.”

“I know that sweetie,” said Curator. “But trust me, nothing is wrong.”

“It’s just that I hate to see you so stressed over anything,” she said, lowering the now sleeping Cadence back into her crib by the bed. “Remember that time you accidentally lost our daughter’s favourite blanket and you spent two days tearing the kingdom apart looking for it?”

“I think that just shows that I’m an awesome dad,” chuckled Curator. “And just wants to see his daughter happy.”

“Yes, but you also went a little crazy by the end of it,” Symphony said, crawling up next to her husband and cuddling under his arm. “And it turns out that it was under Cadence’s pillow the entire time.”

“Yeah, not my proudest moment...” said her husband, blushing a little.

“What I’m saying is… you have a tendency to blow things out of proportion and overreact over the little stuff. If you talk about it with me, then maybe we can work it out together as a team.”

“I appreciate it, but I think it’s just a little sleep apnea,” said Curator.

“Are you worried about the Crystal Empire?” Symphony asked.

“No,” shook Curator. “Sombra’s in charge so everything should be fine. He’s been loyal to me for years and I trust him to alert me if anything major were to happen.”

“Well… is it about me? Or Cadence?”

“Of course not, and speaking of, we should try and be a little quieter, we don’t want to wake up our little princess.”

“Oh, right,” blushed Symphony, looking over to the crib. “We can talk more about this in the morning.”

“Thank you,” smiled Curator. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The two dug deeper into the covers as they got ready to go to sleep, shutting off the lights and snuggling up against one another. Celestia saw that nothing else interesting was going to happen so she decided to continue towards the library.

She passed by a few more sleeping guards, she really needed to talk to her mother about their importance around the castle considering that they all seemed less than useless, and finally reached the large azure copper doors of the library. Celestia went to open the door but found that it was already opened slightly, which puzzled her. Was everypony still up besides the guards?

Opening the door, she found her little sister reading quietly in the corner under a small reading lamp. The little night princess seemed to be deep within her novel and didn’t notice Celestia entering the library.

“This is too perfect,” Celestia quietly whispered to herself, smirking as her horn began to glow. A light aura of her magic quickly covered each of her hooves. Tapping them on the ground a few times to make sure the silent spell worked, the young princess slowly started to creep into the shadows of the library and towards her sister, drawing ever closer until she was right behind her sister’s lounge chair. She quickly uncasted the silent spell and loomed over her little sister, grabbed the top of the chair with her hooves and gave it a shake.

“BOO!” shouted Celestia at the top of her lungs.

“EEK!” shrieked Luna, jumping out of her chair and throwing her book up in the air. Her head bolted around in a panic to try and find the pony that had scared her, and she found her laughing hysterically on the ground.

“Y-You make it too easy, Lulu!” cried Celestia, continuing her giggling fit. “You can be such a little spaz!”

“Celestia!” yelled Luna, her nostrils flaring and gritting her braces-clad teeth. “What the hay is wrong with you?!”

“Oh, don’t be such a foal about it,” she sighed, getting up as she wiped away some tears created by her laughter. “So, what’cha doing?”

“None of your business,” grumbled Luna, picking up her book. “Just leave me alone.”

“What are you reading?” Celestia asked, dashing up next to her sister and snatching her book. “Is it another one of your nerdy fantasy novels?”

“Hey, give that back!” yelped Luna, trying to get her book back from her sister, but Celestia kept it way out of Luna’s short week. “It’s nothing you’d be interested in!”

“I’ll decide that,” smirked the older sister, taking a look at the cover. “The Alicorn’s Bride? What’s this?”

“It’s nothing! C’mon, Tia, you’re just doing this to be a jerk!”

“Oh, now I’m totally going to give it back nerd burger,” Celestia said sarcastically, flipping through the pages. “Let’s see here… a princess and a pauper… kidnapping… true love and daring rescue? What kind of filly’s tale is this?”

“Look, it’s a good book!” groaned Luna, still trying to get a hold of her book. “But I don’t see why you’re being so mean to me!”

“Oh, sweet little sister,” grinned Celestia. “Causing you any sort of misery is far too much fun to ever pass up.”

“One day, I’m going to get you back for being mean to me,” Luna growled, widening the sneer of her wired teeth. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

“Oh, I’m shivering,” droned her sister. “I’m so afraid of what the little spaz is going to do.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Whatever metal mouth,” Celestia said, rolling her eyes as she tossed the book back to Luna. “Here’s your stupid book back. I have to go find some quills and ink.”

“Why?” Luna wondered.

“There’re some guards sleeping on the job, so I’m going to draw stuff on their faces.”

“They slept through all your screaming?”

Celestia stopped in her search, looking back at her sister. “You heard that?”

“Yeah…”

“Why didn’t you do anything?”

“I was hoping you were being kidnapped or something,” Luna said, giving her sister a sly and sinister smile. “I guess you suffocated them with all your body fat.”

“And you wonder why we don’t get along,” muttered Celestia as she looked at the librarian’s desk. She opened a few of the drawers and found a couple of feathered quills and a few bottles of black ink. “Here we go.”

“Wonderful, now leave. I want to finish the rest of my book before the sun comes up. I have to get used to the idea of sleeping with the moon.”

“I don’t care,” said Celestia as she headed to the library’s exit. “Catch you at dinner.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Shut up,” muttered Celestia, closing the door behind her. Any sort of contact with her sister seemed to bring out the worst in her. But it wasn’t her fault that Luna was such a geek and so easy to pick on. But that was the past now and she had to focus on the future right now. And that included screwing with some guard’s faces.

Finding the first couple of guards that were slumped against the walls, she quickly drew on a few mustaches and insulting phrases. Celestia giggled a little as she drew around their eyes and coloured in their eyelids. These two guard ponies must have been credibly heavy sleepers not to have felt the point of the quill against their faces. Then again, they also slept through a scream storm so she supposed it wasn’t too surprising.

She continued to do this to every sleeping guard that she found, and there were a lot of them. She drew everything she could think of on their faces. Whiskers, stars, black eyes, curse words, pony genitals, nothing was off limits.

“That’ll show you,” the princess said, grinning evilly as she put the finishing touches on the final guard. “Sleep on the job will you…? Hah!”

“Celestia.”

The new voice sent a shock through the young princess. Her head twirled around to see her mother standing right behind her, the same plain and emotionless expression on her face, donning the same judging eyes.

“Mother!” Celestia said back to her, dropping the pen and quill. “What are you doing up so late?”

“I could ask you the same question, Celestia,” said Faust. “But I already know why you’re awake.”

“So you heard the screaming too, huh?” mumbled Celestia. “You know, it’d be nice if somepony actually cared about my safety enough to, oh, I don’t know, actually show up and help me!?”

“Did you require assistance?” Her mother wondered, obviously knowing the answer.

“No…”

Her mother blinked. “Then you already know why no pony showed up. You didn’t need help. Did Discord not tell you he had no intention of hurting you?”

“You know his name?”

“I know the name of every creature in existence, as well as their past, present, and future. Which is why I am here this evening talking to you, my daughter.”

“Okay…” Celestia said, looking quizzically at her mother. Faust had a way of making the simplest things make no sense whatsoever. “So, what? You’re mad that the guards are sleeping on the job? You’re mad that I drew stuff their faces? What did you want to tell me?”

Her mother took a few steps forwards, her expression becoming eerily serious and a little unsettling. It freaked Celestia out a little as she had never seen this look from her mom. It was a strange, scary scowl that pierced through her body and left her numb in the legs. Her mother’s look may have actually been killing her.

“I want you to stop thinking about him,” she finally said, stepping a few steps back and resuming her emotionless expression again. “He’s not the kind of being a princess should be affiliating with.”

“Huh?”

“I know it was him in your room,” Faust continued. “I know that you met him earlier today with your brother when you decided to sneak away and go eat cake. I know that you’ve lost sleep over him and that you find something strangely fascinating about him and I am asking you to stop, not as your goddess, or a queen, but as your mother. He’s a poison to this world and I will not have you drinking it.”

“So... you’re forbidding me to see him again?” Celestia asked.

“I’m asking you to forget about him,” she said. “I’ve already broken my most important rule with this conversation but you are my daughter. You are far too important to be corrupted by a creature like Discord. So be done with him and keep your windows locked from now on.”

“But what if it gets hot in my room?”

“Do as your mother tells you,” said Faust. “Now go to sleep, we begin tomorrow’s lecture at dawn. We need to make faster progress with your studies.”

“Okay…” sighed Celestia as she turned around to head to her room. “Goodnight mom,” she said looking behind her, only to see that her mother had disappeared as silently as she came.

With a heavy sigh, the young princess walked into her room. It was still fairly messy from her and Discord’s little dispute.

‘Do as your mother tells you’ her mother had said. ‘He’s a poison to this world and I will not have you drinking it.’

“A poison,” Celestia huffed. “What does she know… besides everything.”

She walked up to her open window and peered through it to look at the setting moon. It truly was a beautiful sight to behold and a part of her was the tiniest bit jealous that her sister would get to spend her life in this peaceful and magical hour of night every night while she was forced to slave away in the heat of the beating sun. The night was the future sun goddess’s freedom and soon her mother would take even that away from her.

‘You are too important to be corrupted by a creature like Discord’

Discord was a strange little draconequus that she knew quite well. He was definitely odd and quirky with a tingle of insanity and a bad grip on reality. But from what Celestia could gather he was no more dangerous than a puppy dog. Yet for some reason he had caused her mother to do something that Celestia had never seen before. Panic, maybe? Whatever it was, it had caused her to confront her daughter and forbid her from further contact with him.

A wicked grin grew on the face of the Princess as she closed the window and drew the curtains shut. She hopped into her bed and quickly got into the covers. It was always so nice for her to fall asleep knowing exactly what she was going to do tomorrow.

I feel awfully foolish when I think of the reasons I did things back then, to make others miserable, to get a rise out of my mother. I was already poisoned and corrupted back then…  just a selfish little brat. And it would be the oddest thing that out of everypony that I knew, out of all my family and friends, it would be you, my love, that would finally set me straight. And I realize now.

My mother was wrong about you. You weren’t a poison… you were my cure.
	
	
> Chapter 4: Foalsitting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to remember my dreams exactly, just vague blurs and clips from the fantasy. Sometimes I would see you… or Luna, my brother… even my mother from time to time. But I could never remember what we were doing. It was something that I’ve always envied about Luna… I really should have been nicer to her, all those years ago…

The light of the sun pierced through the curtains of the young sun princess’s room. Celestia cringed against the intensity of the summer rays as she rolled in her bed so that her messy mane faced the sun rather than her face.

“I swear… I need blackout curtains…” she mumbled to herself.

Last night had not left her lots of time to sleep, what with the surprise talk with her mother and that pervert Discord breaking into her room. But then again, that was what she would make that day about. She would do her best to drift through her lessons that day and then sneak into town and find the draconequus. With that in mind, though, she realized that it would be a good idea to actually get out of bed.

Moaning loudly, she threw her covers off of her and sat up in her bed while massaging her aching eyes. She probably looked like a wreck. Once again, she went to her makeup table and levitated her many combs and brushes to style her long pink mane. Today, she decided to do her mane in a ponytail, a look she hadn’t used in a while but she was feeling a bit lazy and sporty today, plus it was a rather cute look. With her hair done and a dash of makeup applied, she headed out of her room and to the kitchen.

It was odd, she felt rather upbeat this morning, considering the little sleep she got. Did it have to do with her plans for the day or her encounter with Discord? It wasn’t important at the moment though, what was important was getting through breakfast and her lessons so she could find a way to sneak into town unnoticed. And while she knew the dim-witted and incompetent guards wouldn’t be much of an issue, she still needed to find a way to slip past her family and find a way to blend in with the average mundane pony.

When Celestia got into the kitchen her brother, mother, and sister-in-law were already filling their plates.

“Everything looks so delicious, your majesty,” Symphony said as she placed some hay bacon strips on her plate. “It’s so hard to get real hay bacon back in The Empire.”

“Please, Sweet Symphony,” said Faust. “Thank the cooks, I didn’t make any of this.”

“Well, then my compliments to the chef,” beamed the crystal queen, taking a sip of orange juice from her glass.

“Good morning, everypony,” said Celestia as she took a seat next to her brother.

“Good morning to you too, Celestia,” said Symphony. “How lovely for you to join us.”

“Yeah…” mumbled Celestia. “Morning, Curator.”

“Morning, Tia!” said Curator. “Toast?”

“Sure,” she said, taking a piece from his plate. “So, what’s on the agenda today?”

“Well, me and Symphony have to talk to mother and deal with some political stuff this morning, and we actually wanted to ask you and Luna for a favour.”

“A favour?” Celestia wondered. “What kind of favour?”

“We’ll wait for Luna to get here before we tell you.”

“Oh come on, you jerk!” grumbled Celestia, playfully nudging her brother. “You’re such a tease.”

“What can I say? I like keeping ponies in suspense,” grinned Curator.

“You’re awful.”

“I know.”

“Are you two done?” Faust asked. “Honestly, we get you two in a room and you start acting like foals again.”

“Sorry, mother,” apologized her son.

“Why are you apologizing?” Celestia asked.

Curator was about to say something but the door to the hallway opened up. Luna walked in the room in her blue starry pajamas and her blanket wrapped around her. She still had on the headgear for her braces, so her lips were pushed slightly open to make room for the metal halo that orbited her head.

Celestia could hardly contain her laughter. “Hey there, metal mouth,” she laughed. “Sleep well?”

“Shut up…” grumbled the little princess. “I’m having a bad morning.”

“Aww… what’s the problem?” the sun princess asked sarcastically. “Is there a problem on planet nerd-tron? Maybe there’s not enough geek in your atmosphere.”

“Celestia,” her mother said, her tone slightly stern. “Stop it. And Luna, why do you still have your headgear on? You know you only have to wear it at night.”

“It’s stuck…” the moon princess sighed. “I’ve been trying to get it unstuck for hours but I can’t get it unjammed. It sucks.”

“I think it’s a good look for you,” her sister said with a smug smirk. “It really screams ‘I’m a giant loser.’”

“You’re the giant one, cake-flank.”

“Oh… ouch…” said Celestia. “It’s not like I’ve heard that one a million times before.”

“Both of you, quiet,” hushed her mother. “Your brother has something to ask of both of you, so please listen to him.”

“Curator wants something?” the little princess asked. “What do you need?”

“Well…” smiled Curator. “As I told Celestia a bit earlier, Symphony and I need to go over some political things with mother. Just a bunch of boring paperwork and things like that. But the thing is… we need somepony to watch over Cadence while we’re dealing with—“

“No,” droned Celestia.

“Oh come on, Tia,” pleaded her brother. “It would just be for a few hours, and it would really mean a lot to me.”

“No,” repeated Celestia. “No offense, but last night at dinner she threw up on me like three times and I’d rather not have to re-live all that.”

“I swear, she’d never done that before,” Symphony said.

“Not blaming you, but for an infant she has great projectile trajectory.”

“Well, what about you Luna?” Curator asked. “Will you help us out?”

“Oh… umm,” the little princess said nervously, shifting in her spot a little. “I would love to help… but I have a full day ahead of me and I need to get some sleep,” she gave a fake yawn. “Yeah, see? I shouldn’t even be up right now…”

Their brother gave a heavy sigh as he turned to his mother. “See, I told you they wouldn’t help.”

“Nonsense, they will help you,” their mother said. “Regardless of whether or not they want to. Celestia, Luna, you two will spend the morning foalsitting your niece and that’s final. You two are going to rule this kingdom together one day and you need to learn to get along better, and I think looking after Cadence is the perfect way for you to bond.”

Both Luna and Celestia gave their mother deadpanned stares.

“This isn’t optional,” said Faust. “You are to go to the nursery and take care of Cadence the second you’re done with breakfast and that’s final.”

“But that’s not fair!” complained Celestia. “I have plans for today!”

“What kind of plans?” her mother asked curiously.

“Nothing important, but—“

“Then I see no reason for you and your sister to not take care of your little niece,” Faust said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe that we should get started with our business.”

Queen Faust got up from her chair as she, Curator, and Symphony all started to head out. Curator smiled warmly at his sisters, trying to reassure them that everything would be all right, even if the two didn’t think it. When the door closed behind them, Celestia took a bite out of her toast.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked Luna. “Go take care of Cadence.”

“I’m not going to take care of her,” replied Luna with a yawn. “I’m going back to bed.”

“You’re not dumping this on me.”

“Really, because that sounds exactly what you’re trying to do to me,” frowned Luna.

“So what?” asked the sun princess. “You’re a baby, she’s a baby. You’ll get along fine. Besides, I have plans.”

“Plans for what? What do you have to do that’s so important?” Luna asked.

“None of your business!” Celestia growled. “Now leave me alone and go take care of the brat.”

Luna sighed. “Look, maybe we should just both look after her like mom wanted us to,” she said, walking up next to her sister. “Like she said, we need to start getting along better.”

“So stop being a dork,” suggested Celestia as she got up from her spot and headed towards the door. “I got things to do, so be a good little pony and screw off.”

“You’re not dumping Cadence on me!” yelled Luna. “Mom said we had to do this together!”

“Mom also said not to jam a plate of doughnuts between your headgear,” Celestia grinned sinisterly as she levitated a large plate of the jelly filled pastries in the air. Before Luna could react, Celestia slammed the plate into her face, the cherry jam smearing everywhere with a gooey splat. She then wedged the dish in between Luna’s face and the steel wire halo of her headgear until it was stuck. “Have fun,” the sun princess said satirically, as she opened the door. “Now what to do with Discord…”

“Celestia.”

The sun princess stopped in her tracks as she slowly turned around. Standing next to her distressed sister was her mother, who had somehow appeared in the dining room without making a sound.

“Hello, mother,” Celestia said sheepishly, putting on a fake and innocent looking smile. “I was just about to head to Curator’s room and pick up my adorable little niece.”

“I know exactly what you were doing and that was not it,” Faust droned in her usual emotionless voice. “Celestia, why do you have to be so difficult sometimes? I’ve left you and your sister alone for hardly a minute and you cover her in jam. I’m very disappointed in you, Celestia.”

“Lovely…” sighed the young mare, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I’ve been a very bad girl, I am a blight on the very existence of pony kind and should probably be sent to my room to think about what I did and how awfully sorry I am for doing it. So please, oh merciless and cruel mother of mine, throw me in the dungeon and throw away the key!”

“I’m getting awfully tired of your sarcasm, my daughter,” said Faust. “Clearly I had expected too much out of my own daughters to do something as simple as get along for a few hours.”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” Celestia smiled. “But you probably saw that coming.”

“Yes, and it was foolish of me to think that you’d surprise me,” Faust groaned. “However, everything from this point on is much more desirable.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Queen Faust turned to her jam-covered daughter. “Luna, you may be excused. Go wash your face and try to get some sleep before I set the sun tonight. I have a very important lesson in store for you tonight.”

The little moon princess struggled to unwedge the plate stuck in her brace’s headgear. “Thank you, mom… umm, a little help please?”

Her mother gave the closest thing she could to a sigh; which came out more of a shallow breath and a blink of  her eyes. The plate suddenly vanished into thin air, as if it was pulled completely out of reality.

“Thank you,” Luna repeated, wiping some of the jelly off of her face as she headed towards the door. As she passed Celestia, she stuck her tongue out at her and blew her a raspberry. “Later, loser,” she whispered under her breath, only audible enough for Celestia to hear.

“Bite me,” Celestia muttered back as Luna walked through and closed the door. She went to go follow her. “Well, if you don’t need me anymore—“

“But I do,” said Faust who walked next to her daughter. “We still need somepony to watch over my grandchild.”

“But you left Luna off the hook!” complained the young princess. “How come I have to get stuck foalsitting?”

“Because as I recall, Luna wasn’t the one acting like a child,” the queen said. “And assaulting her with pastries and jamming a plate in her braces was quite foolish of you. So I have decided that you shall watch Cadence by yourself.”

“But that’s not fair!” whined Celestia. “I don’t want to do spend all day with some smelly infant.”

“Life is full of things you don’t want to do, my daughter,” said Faust. “You’re almost an adult now, and there are going to be many times you’ll find yourself having to do something you don’t want to do, and sometimes you’ll question the results of your actions…” she paused, opening the door to the main halls. “But in the end, you’ll be able to take solace in the fact that it was the right decision, even if it was the least desirable one.”

“Yeah, that’s wonderful,” yawned the princess, barely even paying attention to her mother as they walked down the halls together. “But I’d rather not do anything.”

“You’re a princess, Celestia. You’ll always have to do something.”

“Don’t remind me…”

“I wish you wouldn’t try my patience so often,” her mother said. “It’s quite childish of you.”

“Whatever…”

“We’re here,” Faust said as she stepped up to Curator’s room. She opened it up to the sound of the faint sound of a baby’s purring. Princess Cadence lay asleep in her crib wrapped up in her blanket. She seemed so peaceful and innocent in her cradle. “Isn’t she just precious?” sighed Faust as she gently levitated the tiny foal out of the crib and slowly rocked her in the air. “Such a little angel she is.”

“Oh, lord,” droned Celestia. “Yes, that’s wonderful; you love her more than life itself I get it.”

“Hush now, little angel,” cooed her mother, ignoring her daughter in favour of her grandchild. “Off to dreamland.”

“Don’t you have some meeting to get too?”

Faust frowned, something she rarely did, and gently placed the baby Cadence back in her crib. She walked up to Celestia and looked deep within her eye as if she was peering into the darkest depths of her soul. Celestia twitched uneasily on the spot as her mother continued to slice her apart with her death stare. She tried to look away, but the gaze of Faust was too strong for her to overcome and she was met with a spiral of emotions. Fear. Anxiety. Sadness. Anger. All of these and more swarmed through her mind.

Finally, her mother blinked and released the chains of her trance. “Let me make one thing absolutely clear,” said Queen Faust. “If you let my grandchild get hurt in anyway, even if one of her perfect hairs are frayed when I come back… I swear my daughter you will not be shown any motherly mercy. Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-y-yes, mother,” trembled Celestia.

“Good,” she said. “Now be a good girl and try to have some fun with your niece. I’ll be back with your brother at exactly four.”

“O-ok…”

With a nod, Faust disappeared into thin air, leaving Celestia alone with the foal Cadence.

“Holy…” gulped the young princess, still a bit frozen from the encounter. What she had just witnessed was the infamous death stare that her mother only reserved for the most dangerous of creatures and the most hated of enemies. The fact that she had used it on her only escalated the seriousness of the situation.

However, Celestia still had plans to keep, and it occurred to her that if her mother cared so much about Cadence then she wouldn’t put the foal in danger. The princess gave a little smirk as she figured out the loophole in her mother’s powers. Cadence would be fine and Celestia could go and do whatever she wanted for that day. Her mother wouldn’t actually kill her… right?

It seemed a little dark, even for Faust.

“Hey there, you little puke cannon,” cooed Celestia as she peaked over the crib to see her niece. “Listen… I’ve got a lot of stuff to do today, like really important things, and I can’t waste all day entertaining some drooling snot bucket. So we’re going to be a good little foal and stay asleep and quiet for the day while I go and have a life, okay?”

Cadence simply turned in her sleep.

“Wonderful, thanks a lot,” she smiled, heading towards the door. “And remember, if you wake up… just go back to sleep or something or I don’t know… or really care to be honest so… be seeing you.”

“WAH!”

“What the crap?!” shrieked Celestia, jumping in fright from the sudden intrusion of noise. She spun around to see that Cadence was sitting up in her crib and crying for some unknown reason. The little foal’s wails continued like an unrelenting siren as Celestia desperately tried to cover her ears and block the sound. “I thought you were asleep!”

“WAH! AHH! WAAA!”

“Son of a… what’s wrong? Why are you making so much noise?!” she yelled, peeking back into the crib. “Shut up!”

The foal did not shut up. Instead, her crying intensified.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Celestia groaned. “What will it take to shut your trap?” She looked around the room for something; perhaps she wanted something from her baby bag. The young princess quickly opened the bright pink bag next to the crib and began to search its contents, finding all source of baby accessories. Spare diapers, formulas, bottles, soothers, and other teething toys, as well as a few other things. The princess grabbed one of the toys; a teething ring, and jammed it in the little foal’s mouth, quieting Cadence.

The foal princess eyes stopped tearing up as she happily chewed on the red rubber ring with her gummy teeth.

“Thank goodness,” sighed Celestia, slumping to the floor. “Glad we stepped over that little disaster, but now I really have to go.”

Just then there was a popping noise as Celestia felt something sticky land on her head. She reached to pick up what landed on her head but cringed away from the touch when she felt that it was slimy, like saliva. Looking up, she saw that Cadence was peaking over the rails of the crib, the teething ring no longer in her mouth and slobber all over her mouth.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!” Celestia panicked. “That’s so gross! Get it out of my hair “ she screamed, trying to shake the ring out of her hair. Cadence found the whole ordeal hilarious, and was giggling maniacally at her aunt’s expense.

Finally, Celestia managed to shake the slimy ring out of her hair and kick it across the room.

“I bet you thought that was hilarious…” mumbled Celestia, looking at the giggling baby. “And you’re an infant so I can’t destroy you like Luna… crap, this sucks. I can’t do anything with you, and I’m wasting too much time with you as well. I should have been in town an hour ago looking for Discord.”

“Gah…” gawked Cadence, looking at her aunt strangely.

“He’s some guy that I met yesterday… why do you care?” Celestia asked.

“Goo… gah gak.”

“What’s that suppose mean? Of course I’m trying to get a rise of my mother. You wouldn’t know this because your grandma is all goo-goo for you, but she’s an emotionless hard—she sucks, kid,” she said. “That’s why I need to find Discord… and I’m talking to a baby, great.”

“Baba Ga?”

The princess sighed heavily. “No… it’s not your fault really… not like you asked to be born or anything. Heck, nopony asks to be born, or to do anything… we just exist and do what our butts tell us to do. I hope you’re more accepting of your fate than I am… if you’re lucky you’ll never get a cutie mark.”

“Gee goo.”

“Yeah, whatever…” muttered Celestia. Suddenly, a light went off in her head. “Hey… I know!” She headed towards the closet and opened it up. Symphony must have already unpacked their bags because there were dresses hanging on the racks. She sifted through them until she found one that looked cute, a pink tennis shirt that would easily hide her wings. The princess continued to look in the closet, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and a bandana to help conceal her face and hair.

When she was done, the young princess was almost unrecognizable. Her wings were easily concealed under the pink shirt and her long pink hair was hidden under the wraps of the bandana buff.

“What do you think?” asked Celestia, doing a few twirls for her niece. “Think anypony will recognize me?”

“Goo ga, gah.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” she smiled, picking up Cadence from her crib. “And now for the last part of my disguise…” she said, placing Cadence on her back. “If I’m going to look like some forty year old, brother-stealing mare, I might as well go all out, right?”

Cadence responded by tugging at the back of her mane with her mouth.

“And that’s wonderful,” muttered Celestia, heading out the door. “The guards should be easy enough to sneak around, and everypony else is busy.”

“Gaga?”

“What? No, I’m not worried about trying to find Discord,” replied the princess. “You haven’t seen him but he’ll stick out like a sore hoof in a crowd of ponies, just look for the bizarre crime against nature… why am I still talking to you? You’re not even speaking real words. Good lord, I’m going crazy.”

The two silently slipped passed the door, and after making sure the coast was clear, Celestia headed towards the castle’s exit and into the town outside.


*****


It was particularly busy that day in the market, and although Celestia didn’t venture into town all that often, the stress and strain on everypony’s face was good enough indication that today was more crowded than normal. Celestia and Cadence found it troublesome to navigate through the town and the crowd, and since she didn’t want to blow her cover and reveal her princess-hood to the world, she had to lower herself to the level of an average mundane pony.

Truth be told, she didn’t hate it as much as she thought she would. The ponies around her didn’t feel the compulsive need to bow in her presence or give her any sort of special treatment, in fact, she even bumped into a mare carrying groceries and was told very rudely to watch where she was going. It was fantastic! The charade of being a normal pony could become quite fun, and she made a mental note to go out and do this again, maybe even portraying someone her own age rather than a mother. Maybe she would even meet some nice stallion and would be allowed to pursue an actual relationship. The thought alone was enough to fill her heart with hope and butterflies. However, stallion hunting would have to wait, for she was hunting a different kind of prey today…

But he was proving to be very difficult to find.

“Where the heck is he?” spat the princess in frustration. She had been searching almost all day for Discord and it was almost time for her to head back home and she hadn’t even come close to figuring out where the draconequus was. “You think that’d it would be easy to find a draconequus in a crowd of ponies.”

“Gah?” gawked her niece, giving a quiet yawn as she slumped on Celestia’s back and curled up for a nap.

“Sure, go ahead and sleep,” mumbled the young mare. “And I have got to stop talking to you.”

She continued to look around town for a bit longer, trying to find draconequus’s long slender body or discorded face. But her luck was short as she was unable to find any sign of him.

“That’s it…” she muttered. “I give up. It’s like he went and disappeared.”

“Well, it’s about time you gave up,” chuckled a voice behind her.

Celestia’s eyes widened as she looked behind her. Leaning up against the side of a building was the draconequus munching on an apple with the biggest grin on his face.

“Wh-what? How? I was looking all day for you!” growled the princess. “Where were you?”

“Silly princess,” sighed Discord, tossing the apple core. “Don’t you know no one ever found anything by looking for it?”

Your logic was flawed… your ideas, confusing... Your humor, an acquired taste. Some could and would find you incredibly frustrating and annoying. There were times when I would find myself being one of those ponies, mean and heartless to your cause and ignorant to your feelings, and I would use you… I was such a jerk to everyone back then… you never should have forgiven me.

	
	
> Chapter 5: Downfall
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“I wouldn’t really consider this our first date. It was such an awful and manipulative thing that I did, but I think you knew that anyways. I wouldn’t know how you felt until it was too late… but you would be the one to change my heart, and make me into a better mare.” 


She had been looking for him all day, and the second she stopped looking he purposely shows up? The young princess was shaking with rage over the absurdity of the draconequus. “What is your problem?!” she growled. “I’ve been looking all day for you! What kind of nerve do you think you have?”

Discord chuckled. “Well, well, well. I knew it was only a matter of time before the urges came in. No mare can resist the sexiness that is Discord!” He did some jazz hands while he wrapped his snake-like body loosely around Celestia. “Hey, when did you have the baby? She isn’t mine, is she?”

“She’s not even mine!”

“Well that’s a shame, it would have been a good excuse as to your puffiness.”

That little comment got Discord a swift hoof between his mismatched legs. He dropped to his knees in anguish, clutching his throbbing pride and unwrapping around the princess. “Worth it…” he squeaked.

“Shut up for five seconds and let me talk, Discord,” Celestia mumbled, checking on Cadence to see if she was still asleep, luckily she was out like a light. “So, when you broke into my room last night, you said that we should hang out more, right?”

“Something like that,” he said, springing up from the ground. “I think that my exact words were something like ‘we should do this again more often,’ and I don’t know about you but if you want to go jump into bed with me all I have to say is…” He leaned in closer to her face, giving her a nice, big, and tangy grin. “Buy me dinner first.”

“Would you like to come over for dinner?”

Discord was taken back, blinking a few times in confusion. It was a rare moment of being surprised that he did not get every often. He was always the surpriser, never the surprisee. “Well… wait, really?”

“Yes,” grinned Celestia. “I’ve been thinking a lot today, and I realize how incredibly… rude I may have been earlier with you,” she said with fake sincerity. “And I shouldn’t have reacted so terribly to your intrusion of my privacy.”

“Well, it’s about time,” said the draconequus. “It’s always nice to be appreciated for the things I do. Most of the time I get yelled at for my antics but you’re a different hair on the coconut, Celestia.” He started to walk around her, running his eyes down the side of her outfit. “And I must say that you make a very convincing mother. And who is this little tyke you brought with you? I don’t think that we’ve been properly introduced."

“This is Cadence, my niece.”

“You’re an auntie? How grand! Misses Aunt Celestia of little niece Cadence, your mother must be so proud of you.”

“Hardly,” muttered the princess under her breath. “So anyways, would you like to accompany me to dinner tonight?”

“Well, I don’t know.” The draconequus pulled the fur of his lion’s arm up, revealing several ticking wristwatches, no two telling the same time. “If you’re in the Eastern Time zone it’s far too late for dinner and if we’re  going by western time then we’d be better off having lunch.”

“I’m talking about this time zone, moron,” droned Celestia.

“Tsk, tsk, Celestia,” sighed Discord. “Now that’s no way to treat a possible dinner guest. In fact, I think that I may have another arrangement now that I think of it. I am a terribly busy crackpot of animal parts and unstable magic after all.”

Celestia’s eye twitched, her patience with Discord was running dangerously thin. She had to swallow the lump of anger in her throat and put on a pastel smile as she said, “But please… I insist that you accompany me for dinner at the castle.” She took a deep breath as she forced out, “It would be an honour,” as well.

“So, it would be like a date?” Discord wondered, pondering playfully at the idea. “Like a… ‘date’ date? I only ask because the last time I went on one it turned out to be a dried fruit. It was rather tasty.”

“I’m sure it was…” strained Celestia, her teeth grinding with the last of her serenity. “And I guess it would be a ‘date’ date as you put it. You would walk me to dinner, we’d sit together.” She started to grin. “You’d get to meet my mother as my coltfriend… my very draconequus coltfriend.”

“Wow, I’ve been in a relationship with you for a mere three seconds, and I’m already meeting your parents!”

“Parent,” corrected Celestia. “I’d rather not talk about my father.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Celestia suddenly snapped, her demeanor breaking and letting her pent up aggression come forth. “Look, just drop it. He’s gone and it’s better that he stays that way. Do you want to come with me to dinner or not?”

“My dear princess,” bowed Discord. “It would be an honour and a privilege to take you to dinner at your own house.”

Celestia sighed with relief as she turned around and started to walk home. “Great, now let’s go—“

“Now wait just a cotton candy minute!” barked Discord, bouncing and flipping in front of Celestia to cut her off. “You expect me to show up looking like this?! Why, I look like I’ve been rummaging through trash for the past three hours!”

“So that’s what that smell was,” Celestia muttered.

“Why don’t we take a quick stop by my place so I can get freshened up?” Discord suggested, pointing down one of  the alleyways. “I just live a little down that alleyway. It’ll be a quick in and out… that’s what she said.”

“Whatever,” said the princess with a heavy sigh. “Just be quick about it.”

“I always am!” He slithered into the alleyway, disappearing in its darkness. Celestia decided to follow suit, considering that she had nothing better to do at that moment. She was quite surprised to see that Discord had completely vanished, as there was nothing more in that alley than a few small boxes and a turned over garbage can.

“Discord, I swear if you pop out of somewhere and scare me, I’ll kick you in the throat,” threatened Celestia, taking cautious steps as to not step into one of the many garbage water puddles. “Discord, where the heck are you? Discord, answer me!”

“Will you chillax, princess?” rumbled one of the boxes, vibrating at the sound of Discord’s voice. “I’m looking for my nice tuxedo.”

“What are you doing in that box? Where’s your house?”

The floppy lids of the box flapped open and out sprung the draconequus in a rather dashing black tuxedo and top hat. “Isn’t it obvious? The box is my house. I know what you’re thinking, how can anyone afford to live in a cardboard box in this market? But it helps when you don’t have to pay rent or utilities.”

“You actually live in a box?” gasped the princess. “That… that actually sucks.”

“Well, it’s no fancy castle of the goddess princess, but it’s my home.”

“I don’t think I could live in a box my whole life…” Celestia started to feel a strange sensation in her stomach, a sort of subsided pain in her guts. It was a foreign feeling, the feeling of pity and guilt. She hated it. “Let’s just get going… I think the smell of all this waste is making me sick.”

“Then off we shall venture,” smiled Discord, offering his talon claw to the princess. “May I be so noble, and ask for your hoof?”

Celestia rolled her eyes and lifted one of her hooves into the rough touch of his cretin talon. “Here. Can we go now? The sun is starting to set and I need to get home before anyone realizes that I left.”

“Oh, are we being a naughty princess again?” chuckled the draconequus. “You’re so much fun, you know that? In fact, if you were to pull that gigantic stick out of your butt you’d actually be quite bearable. Maybe even dateable.”

“Yes, because that’s what every girl wants to hear, that she needs to pull a giant stick out of her butt. You really don’t know how to talk to mares, do you?”

“Who said I was talking to a mare? Heyoo!” Discord cheered, extending his other claw, thinking that Celestia would high five it. “Oh, come on, you walked right into that one.”

“Idiot…” she murmured. “Just keep it bottled up until dinner.”

“Scratch that, you’re no fun… buzz kill.” The two continued to walk in silence, down the dying streets of the town. It wasn’t like Discord to be quiet and he started to get fidgety. His free arm started to shake a little and his tail began to coil up on itself. Dew formed around his brow and dripped into his discoloured eyes. He needed to say something, being quiet wasn’t in his nature, it was killing him!

Finally, his saving grace came in the form of a yawning infant. The little foal princess Cadence turned in her carrier on Celestia’s back as her eyes started to peak open. She gave another squeaking yawn. “Ga goo…” the baby princess moaned.

“Well, hello there you little scamp,” beamed Discord. “Did you have a nice nap? Dream of pooping and nip-nip?”

“Please tell me you’re not talking to the baby. You sound…” She bit her lip. She was about to say crazy, but that would be both redundant and hypocritical. “Just leave her alone, maybe she’ll fall asleep and I don’t want to have to feed her again. I swear, that thing drinks more milk than a cow.”

“I think that’s sudo-cannibalism,” said Discord. “You know I heard that when cows start to drink their own milk it’s a sign of the apocalypse. That and things like the sky turning pink, stampedes of rabbits and popcorn popping everywhere.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be sure to do something about that when it never happens.”

“Good! I’d hate to see anypony get hurt!”

“Can we just get back to walking? We’re like five minutes from the castle!”

“Fine…” mumbled Discord, leaning into Cadence. “Your aunt really needs to lighten up.”

The foal giggled as she reached up and squished Discord’s nose in between her little hooves.

“Oh no!” laughed the draconequus, letting the infant tug a little on his nose. “Your niece has the strength of a goddess, I can’t break free!”

Celestia rolled her eyes once again as they approached the front gates of the castle. “You really are something else, you know that? But stop that and leave her alone. I need to sneak her back into her room.”

“Your naughtiness continues to astound me.”

“Be quiet.”

“Unlikely.”

The princess pushed past the large gates of the castle and slowly snuck into the gardens of the courtyard with Discord casually strolling behind her. He didn’t understand why she was being so sneaky, there wasn’t anypony else there but them. However, it was far too amusing to watch her crawl on her belly with a little foal bobbing around on her back, like she thought that Cadence had any idea what stealth meant.

When they successfully crossed the castle grounds, Celestia turned to Discord. “I need you to do a favour for me. Can you hold Cadence for a minute?”

“Sure thing,” said Discord, taking the little foal off of Celestia’s back. “Any excuse to spend some time with my bouncy little buddy!”

The little princess laughed as she was swung around in the draconequus claws. Cadence really seemed to like Discord and found the funny faces he made absolutely hilarious. Celestia didn’t get it but she was now free of her niece and was able to start getting ready. She shook off the bandana that she wore to hide her mane and horn, letting her hair flow freely once again in the evening air. She started to pull off her tennis shirt, but the linen got caught on her horn and she tried to untangle it.

Discord watched as she undressed, strangely captivated by the princess’s body. Despite all his jokes towards the princess, she was actually quite beautiful, showing what royal treatment could do with clean white fur, a silk-flowing tail like a rosy stream and well-cared for hooves. Her sunny cutie mark rested shapely on her flank, curvy and firm, if not just the slightest bit… juicy. He became hot under his collar as he removed his top hat to wipe away his beady sweat. He pretended that he had seen nothing when Celestia finally got her shirt off.

“I hate horns…” the young princess muttered, adjusting the carrier on her back again. “Pass me Cadence.” Discord did just that, placing the infant back onto the carrier. Cadence seemed a little sad to have to leave Discord so soon, reaching out towards him and clinging onto his arm. It broke Discord’s heart to have to shake the little princess off of him and she started to get teary eyed. “Ah, great,” moaned Celestia. “She’s going to cry again. Can you fly, Discord?”

“I can bounce, if that helps?”

“It’ll have to do,” she said, opening her wings and taking up into the air. “We’re running late, so we’re taking a shortcut.”

“Race you to the top!” Discord shouted, coiling his body up like a giant spring and suppressing downwards as low as he could. He soon jolted up and zoomed past the shocked princess and slithered into the castle’s window. “I win!” he cheered with glee. “You owe me fifty bits now!”

“I never bet anything.”

“Don’t care! You still owe me my money.”

“Shut up, you,” grumbled Celestia, fluttering through the window seal. “This is my brother’s room. Just give me a moment to put Cadence away and we’ll head down for you to meet my mother.” She used her magic to wrap her golden aura around Cadence, gently lifting her up and placing her back into the crib. Cadence didn’t seem to like being back in her crib and immediately started to whine again. “Oh, come on! You weren’t crying two seconds ago!”

“You really need to work on your social skills,” said Discord. He snapped his fingers and puffed up a yellow soother. “Like the expression says, give the baby what she wants.” He placed the soother into Cadence’s open mouth, effectively shutting her up.

Celestia was surprised. “How did you do that?”

“What? You don’t keep soothers in reserve in case of emergencies? Shame on you!”

Suddenly, the door of the room opened up, and Sweet Symphony rushed in. The pink crystal pony quickly scooped up her little foal in her hooves. “I heard Cadence cry, is everything alright?” she panicked, examining her child for any sort of harm. She didn’t even seem to notice the long, lanky draconequus standing in the room.

“Honey, I’m sure that she’s fine,” called Curator, as he and Faust walked into the room as well. “Oh, hello Tia… and friend.”

“Hello, Curator,” Celestia said. “And hello to you as well, mother.”

“Celestia,” nodded Queen Faust, her eyes shifting towards Discord. “I see you have brought along a friend. Hello.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” grinned Discord, performing an exaggerated bow to the queen and slinking over to her. He took one of Faust’s white hooves and tenderly kissed it. “It’s not everyday I get to meet royalty… although now it seems I can’t stop meeting them.”

Faust looked a little pale as the slimy tongue of Discord ravished her hoof with slobber. “Yes… charmed, I’m sure.”

Celestia brow bent as she smiled wickedly. Everything was going perfectly. Discord was being crazy and unpredictable just as she had hoped, and already she could see that her mother was starting to hate it. It would all be worth it if she started freaking out at her, so she decided to push it a little further and test the limits of her oh-so-perfect parental figure.

“So, anyways, mom, I was hoping that Discord could maybe join us for dinner tonight. I know that it’s a little short notice but I’m sure the chefs can conjure up some extra food to accommodate, so it should be fine. That is… unless you have a problem with Discord.” Celestia could sense the anger pent up inside her mother, ready for a satisfactory and victorious blow.

“That sounds wonderful.”

“How can you say something like that?!” Celestia shouted. “Just because he’s different than us— wait, what did you say?”

“I said yes, daughter,” Faust replied. “It’s far too little that we get a dinner guest that isn’t a  diplomat or royalty from another country.”

“I—well—that…” stuttered the young princess, shocked as to how her mother reacted. She wasn’t prepared for this. “That’s good to hear.”

“I would imagine. Now let’s leave your brother and his wife to spend time with their daughter,” she turned to her daughter. “Come along, Celestia. You are to retrieve your sister from her room and come to dinner. Your guest may accompany you if he so desires.”

“Oh, trust me,” laughed Discord, wrapping a lion’s claw around Celestia’s neck. “That’s all I desire.”

“Yeah…” laughed the princess nervously, going along with the draconequus. “We’re just oozing with… desires. For each other! He’s all I can ever think about and I lo—” She gagged at the unfinished word. “Like him an awful lot.”

“That’s nice, Celestia,” said her mother, seemingly uncaring of the things her daughter was saying. “Now please, hurry up and get your sister.”

“Okay, mother…”

She followed Faust and the rest of her family out of the room and out into the hallway. They all turned to the left and headed to the kitchen while Celestia and Discord took a turn to down the opposite hallway and towards Luna’s room. When they were out of earshot, Discord was the first to speak.

“Your family seems nice,” he smiled. “And your mother is just a treat.”

“Trust me, she’s an emotionless, uncaring, buzz kill.”

Discord frowned. “Really? I can’t say that I noticed that at all, and I can usually notice when ponies are no fun. I keep getting off the chart readings from you.”

“Knock it off,” the princess muttered. She distanced herself a bit away from the draconequus so she could be alone with her thoughts. Why didn’t her mother freak out like she thought she would have? Just the night before she had forbidden her to have any sort of contact with the strange creature, she even went as far as to call him a poison to their world. So, why did she seem so adamant about her bringing Discord to dinner? Whatever it was, Celestia knew that she would have to step up her game.

Luna’s room was always easy to find. Faust had given her youngest daughter special nocturnal guards to watch over her and protect the princess during all hours of the day. The unmoving Kirins that stood watchfully on either side of the door were as still as statues, hardly even breathing and never blinking. Celestia approached the strange dragon-pony hybrids with no fear, but Discord found himself the slightest bit intimidated by the night guards.

“I need to get my sister,” muttered Celestia to one of the guards. “So, get out of my way.”

Both of the Kirins nodded as they shuffled aside, one of them pushing the door open and allowing the princess and the draconequus to enter. They found Luna already in her starry pajamas and combing the last knots out of her mane. The little moon princess looked like she was about to pass out as she let out a giant yawn.

“Hey, nerd, mom wants you down for dinner,” said Celestia. “Hurry up.”

Luna didn’t acknowledge her sister, probably far too tired to hear her, she just kept combing her mane in her zombified state.

“Luna!”

“Huh…” groaned the blue alicorn, batting her eyes a few times as she woke up. “What’s going on? Tia, what are you doing in my room… and who’s the weirdo?”

“Mom wants you to come down to dinner.”

“But I’m not even dressed yet…”

“No pony cares, just hurry up,” muttered Celestia. “And this is Discord. If you must know, he’ll be joining us for dinner tonight.”

This made Luna grin. “Ooo,” she cooed, “Celestia has a coltfriend.”

“That’s the point, dingus.” Celestia and Discord started to walk out of the door. “Just show up to dinner, okay? Later, loser.”

“Bite me.”

“You wish.”

“Goodbye, Woona!” chuckled the draconequus. “See you at dinner.” They closed the door behind them. “Your sister is adorable.”

“She’s annoying,” spat Celestia. “She’s a tick sucking on my side, always annoying me with her geek-gasms over stupid things she reads in her books and obsessing over those lame toys.”

“I think that’s cute,” said Discord. “She’s like a dorky little something.”

“Can you just stop talking for a bit? Save some material for the dinner table.”

“Oh trust me,” grinned the draconequus. “I’m going to knock them dead at the dinner table.”

“Trust me… that’s exactly what I’m hoping for.” Celestia said, her cheeks stretching up into a maniacal smile. “We’ll see how mother likes you after dinner.”


*****


As it would turn out, rather well.

Discord was a delight to the rest of Celestia’s family at the dinner table. He was charming, witty, polite, and the polar opposite of what she had seen in the alleys and streets of the town below. The few times he did go a little zany he was rather contained and did it with good taste, making every pony laugh. Even her mother cracked the slightest of a smile! Her mother, the immortal, all-powerful goddess and the architect of the universe… smiled at a draconequus pulling a hat out of a rabbit.

Celestia couldn’t have been more furious. She was practically ripping from the seams in a rage that things weren’t going as she had expected them. Where was the insanity? Where was the chaos? Where was the Discord that made her want to kick a wall in? She had sat quietly through the whole dinner.

When the last of the dessert trays had been cleaned by the servants, Faust called Luna for her nightly lessons and bid every pony else a good evening and vanished. Curator and Symphony took Cadence (who had once again shown her marksmanship with her mashed sweet potatoes) and headed back to their room. Celestia and Discord were left alone in the dining room, with no pony else around.

Celestia slammed her head against the table in agony.  Nothing had gone right this evening. She thought that Discord would be the perfect way to get a rise out of her mother, but she didn’t even seem to mind him, she actually enjoyed herself for a bit. What sort of game was she playing? Regardless of what it was, Celestia was determined to win it.

The young princess got up from the table and started to head back to her room, Discord instinctively following behind her. Celestia needed to think of a new strategy to combat her mother with.

It wasn’t until they got to her room that Discord finally said something. “Well that was rather fun, your family is really quite the blast, even what’s-his-face was pleasant, you know, the father of your niece. His name always escapes me.”

“It’s Curator,” mumbled Celestia, still infuriated with the evening’s events. “What are you still doing here anyways?”

“I thought we could hang out a bit more,” he grinned. “We’re in your room… all alone… our eyes locked against the room as we try to fight our growing desires for each other, but to no avail. You think to yourself that ‘this is wrong!’ but it feels so right and you slowly give in to your primal desires as I tenderly lower you onto your bed, stroking a few stray locks from your pale complexion. Hearts race and souls glimmer as we share our very first kiss.” He stopped talking. “Or you know, something like that.”

“Don’t make me sick,” muttered the princess. “Tonight’s already been a disappointment.”

“What on Equestria are you talking about? I thought it was a time and a half.”

“Because nothing worked out the way I wanted it to!” snapped the mare. “You were supposed to be yourself and idiotic and annoy my mother, but you couldn’t even get that right! You are beyond worthless.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” panted Discord, confused by her sudden outburst. “Hold the metaphorical horses. What do you mean? Was this some sort of scheme?”

“Of course it was! Did you really think that I would actually care about something like you? I’m a princess, and you’re a… a thing! You’re nothing more than a collection of extra parts thrown into a crock pot of insanity! And the only thing that I thought you could be good for was to bother ponies, but you can’t even do that right!”

“I…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” growled Celestia. “Just get out of my room and out of my life, honestly what was my mother thinking with you…”

Discord was taken back, his cheerful demeanor crushed under the weight of Celestia’s insults. Anger and sadness were two emotions that the draconequus wasn’t able to process well, it made his bones rattle and shake. He tried to stay strong but a lone tear squeezed out from his eye, before brushing into a frown.

“Well, sorry that I had to be such a disappointment, princess,” he said with trembling words, they hardly masked how upset he was. “I thought I had actually found a friend, some pony that could look past all of this. I even tried to be on my best behaviour because I didn’t want to embarrass you.” He reached into the pocket of his tuxedo. “I even went as far as getting you this. You can still have it even though I don’t think you deserve it.” Discord pulled out a rock and placed it on Celestia’s nightstand. “You know, I actually like being different. I like me, but you’re just a spoiled little brat that can’t see past my quirks. I could look past yours, princess.” With a sluggish pace, he walked to Celestia’s window and perched himself on the railing. “I take it back… you’re no fun at all.”

He slithered out the window and disappeared into the night, probably to sulk in his box. He had acted strong in his final moments with her but in truth he was dying on the inside.

Celestia groaned. “Way to go, Tia.”

She started to feel a strange pain in her gut, something that she hadn’t felt before, a tingly sensation that made her stomach feel like it was full of puss and was eating itself. Celestia wondered what was making her feel that way. Surely it couldn’t have been Discord… could it? She knew his magic wasn’t like hers but no spell could make her feel like that. One of her mother’s precautions were to charm both her and Luna with wards to keep away curses and other spells, so what could this be? Maybe it was something she ate? Or maybe it was something else.

The young princess shuffled to her bed and flopped on top of the covers. The pain was still there and was starting to mess with her head.

“Maybe I was a little harsh with Discord… I mean I didn’t actually tell him that I wanted him to upset mother…” The pain started to go away slightly upon admitting that. She realized that what she was feeling was guilt. She had been far too mean and careless with Discord’s feelings, even if he didn’t look like a pony, he still had feelings like one. “Gah… go away, pain!” she yelled, rolling around in her self-inflicted agony. “I don’t want to feel this so bugger off!”

In her rolling fit, she accidently bumped into her nightstand and caused the rock on top of it to float down to the ground. This caught Celestia’s attention because rocks don’t float to the ground, they drop like… well, like rocks. That’s when she noticed the flicker. She rolled off the bed and picked up the rock with her hoof and examined it. The rock was far too light to be a rock, and it was the tiniest bit thorny. With a quick spell she was able to undo the enchantment on the rock and let it reveal it’s true nature.

A beautiful, ruby red rose.

The pain increased tenfold as Celestia admired the flower in teary-eyed misery. Discord had always been both a mystery and a clown, but she had never considered him to be a romantic. It was the single most beautiful thing any pony—or thing, had done for her.

And she had just told him he was nothing.

It was her turn to cry now as she collapsed onto the floor. She had made a mistake and it was killing her on the inside. The guilt was too much, she just wanted to shrivel up and die right there on the floor. She’d give anything to end her suffering but she knew that there was only one thing that could make this better, something that she had never had to do before in her life.

She got up from the floor and jumped out the window and prayed that Discord hadn’t gotten too far. If she was going to make things right, she would have to apologize at her own free will.


“Such an ignorant fool I was. So inconsiderate with your emotions, I’d take back those words in a heartbeat, jump through hoops and turn back time to never make me hurt your feelings again. I was sorry… and I always will be. Because even though we would patch things up, I could never forgive myself.

And I still don’t.”
	
> Chapter 6: To Mend a Heart
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
“I wonder sometimes about what would have happened if I had never found you. Would I have stayed the same bratty little girl I was? Maybe I would have grown to forget you, and you’d be nothing but a faded memory rather than a bad dream. But you are a nightmare I never want to forget…

No pony would have been able to tell her how hard it would be to apologize, but then again, finding said draconequus to say sorry too seemed to be a task on its own. She had no idea how fast that thing could travel, as it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since their unruly spat, and yet he had vanished into the night air.

“Discord!” Celestia called out, looking around outside the castle gates in hopes that Discord was lurking nearby. But she would have no such luck. “Blast it,” she muttered to herself. “Where in mother’s ungodly green earth are you?”

Past the gates of the castle and into the town she ventured. Maybe he was diddling about the small village, even though it was now into the late hours of the night, some ponies were still out and about, although to be fair they were mostly foul smelling drunkards and courtesans. Another mystery of her mother was to allow these vile ingrates to roam, but at least they did their sins in the shade of night. The young princess quickly shook herself from these thoughts though, as they were distracting and diverting her from the task at hand.

A thought occurred; perhaps Discord was back in his alley and in his box. “Yes, of course!” She said aloud. It was so obvious she felt moronic for not thinking of it sooner, she knew if her feelings were to ever be hurt she would go running home, as childish as it was. And if it was acceptable for her, then why not somepony like Discord? Now all she needed to do remember where said box was. It would prove to be more difficult than she would think. Even with the course lighting of fireflies and street lanterns, the streets and roads were illumed in shadows, and all the alleys looked like one another.

It was becoming clearer by the minute that she was going to have to start taking drastic measures, something she wanted to avoid all together… She was going to have to ask a pony for directions. The young princess gagged at the commoners that she had to ask. The stallion that smelled like a brewery, the young colt that smelled of blood, or the mare that smelled like shame and something else she’d rather leave a mystery.

The drunkard probably didn’t know where he was right now, and the other guy was creepy… which just left her with the street-walker. Celestia took a deep breath and mustered up her best fake smile as she approached the mare. “Excuse me ma’am, I was wondering if you could help me this evening.”

The mare gave her a strange look, rolling her eyes and spitting on the ground. “Can’t help you kid, even I don’t venture in that vice.”

“How very noble of you,” Celestia said sarcastically. “But that’s not what I meant. All I was wondering was if you’ve seen a friend of mine. Big, lanky looking guy, about nine feet long, looks like a snake with a jackelope for a head?”

“I don’t know… did I, toots?” The courtesan grinned, holding her hoof out. “Maybe you could help refresh my memory.”

“Oh, how wonderful, you’re bribing me!” Celestia beamed, her horn glowing with a yellow aura. Within a moment, the mare of sin was whipped up from the ground by her ankle, panicking and squirming as the now scorning Celestia pressed up against her head, glaring her in her upside down eyes. “Listen… ‘toots’, I’m in a crappy mood tonight and I really just want to crawl into my bed and think of how not to end up like you and if you don’t want to end up in three feet under the ground then tell me where my friend is.”

“He-hey! What’s going on?! Let me go you crazy bi—”

“Ah, ah, ah,” smiled Celestia. “I wouldn’t call me that if I were you… unless you want me to break every bone in your body. Now tell me where my friend is!”

“He crawled into that alley over there; he hasn’t come out since then! Now let me go, psycho!”

“Thank you, was that so hard? Now you get to take a nap.” Her eyes started to glow with a hazy golden light. “Sleep…” The mare’s eyes started to flutter close, and the sleeping spell overtook her. It pained Celestia emotionally that she had to use a spell she learnt from her sister, but she needed information and to keep Miss bad life choices out of her hair. Celestia placed her safely in a trash bin and closed the lid before heading down the alley she pointed at. True to the harlot’s word, there was Discord’s box, sitting in a small puddle of garbage water and covered in popcorn.

Now that she found the box, she needed to think of what to say. A quick ‘I’m sorry’ probably wouldn’t cut it… “Blast it all,” she muttered. This was going to harder than she thought. The young princess gave a heavy sigh as she approached the box. She didn’t see a doorbell or anything to alert him, so she just nudged the box a bit with her hoof. “Hey Discord? Are you there?” She asked. Maybe he wasn’t home… or maybe this was just a normal box. Now she felt like an idiot, and she couldn’t press that mare since she was asleep, and the only thing that could undo the sleeping spell was sunlight, and it was far from the proper morning time. It looked like she was back to square one.

Or at least that what she thought before she heard the rummaging in the trashcan next to her. The tin lid popped off and span in the air, landing and rolling away in a clunk as Discord slumped on the side, chewing on what looked to be day-old bread. The two stared at one another, the distant, deadpanned look the draconequus gave Celestia showed that he was still angry about what happened earlier, and even his chewing seemed to mock her with each slimy crunch of the bread.

She supposed it was up to her to break the ice. “Hello, Discord…” she said, trying her best to smile, but the corners of her cheeks seemed to have gained mountains of weight, and she was either unable or unwilling to make a sincere smile, despite really wanting to. All she could do was try to avoid too much eye contact and get through this. “Look, I know you don’t want to see me right now…”

“Understatement of the year,” Discord droned. “Did you come here to mock me, princess? How did you even find my box?”

“The hooker told me.”

“The hooker?” He asked, looking puzzled before gasping, “Court la Sun… dang, this is the fourth time a hooker has screwed me over.”

Celestia stared at him with ghastly awe, not able to even begin comprehending what he was saying. Personally she would rather not know. “Look, it doesn’t matter,” she shook. “She told me because I needed to find you because I wanted to tell you something…”

“Oh, really?!” Discord laughed, rolling his eyes and resuming back to his judgmental stare. “That’s a laugh, what are you going to say? More insults? Because Celestia, I’ve heard them all. Crackpot, weirdo, quadruple breed, monster, freak,” he took a deep breath. “Fake, accident, freak of nature, side show attraction… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg sweetheart!” He started to get a little angry and his tone grew more hostile. “But please, you’re a princess! I’m sure you could top all of that! You could even hire somepony to do it for you, couldn’t you? So please princess, I’m sitting on pins and needles on what you’re about to say. Who knows? Maybe it’ll catch on and—“

“I’m sorry!” Celestia screamed with a shrilled yell. “Okay? That’s what I wanted to say!”

There was dead silence in the alleyway; even the leaking drainpipes seemed to stop dripping at that moment. Discord once again found himself at a loss for words as he stared at the panting princess. It looked like saying those two words had really taken her out of it, and she looked like she would pass out, but still she continued.

“Look,” she said, taking another big breath. “I messed up… and normally when I do that, I just blow it off and just forget about it, because you know, who the heck cares, right? But with you… I…” She bit her lips, she didn’t want to tell him about her pain and mourning over this situation, he’d probably get the wrong idea. She instead just spat the first thing that came to her mind. “I just didn’t feel right leaving it off like that. You did something nice for me, and in return I treated you like horse droppings, so… I’m just really, really, really sorry for calling you those things.” She gave him starry doe eyes, hoping that it would be enough for him to accept her apology because she couldn’t mentally take much more of this.

Discord looked quizzically at the young mare. Tilting his head as he lost himself to a deep thought, she really looked like she was sorry and he was grateful; and quite surprised, that it seemed meaningful and sincere. “Hmm… I don’t know,” he pondered. “I mean, you seem like you’re sorry but like you said, you’re the kind of girl that just sort of blows this kind of stuff off.”

“Yeah, and here I am standing in the middle of a dark alley, in the middle of the night, having broken goddess knows how many of my mother’s rules and even incapacitated a courtesan all to just tell you that I’m sorry. And guess what Discord, I don’t do that. Ever.” Celestia really tried to stress that last part. “So will you please just accept my apology, I want to go home!”

“Oh, I already accepted your apology,” beamed Discord. “I just wanted to make you squirm a little more. You’re adorable when you’re frustrated; your cheeks turn the cutest shade of red.”

Her face turning said colour of red, she flicked her mane in front of her face to cover her blush. “Ye-yeah, well, you’re still a bit of a jerk you know… but I guess we could still… I don’t know… hang out sometime?”

“Like a date?”

“Not like a date!” She snapped. “I can’t stress that part enough! This is just you and me, maybe walking around town or the castle doing… whatever it is ponies my age are supposed to do and nothing else. So get any sort of romantic thoughts out of your head, okay buddy.”

Discord snickered. “Ha, you called me your buddy.”

“Are you four?!” Celestia twitched. “You’re so—do not go there, Tia… Do not let him get under your fur… he sort of is your friend. Your moronic friend that drives you to the brink of insanity, but maybe he’ll… grow on you.”

“Hey, Tia,” Discord whispered, intervening her conversation with herself. “I can’t remember if I told you this yet but talking to yourself makes you seem crazy. And you’re starting to make me a little uncomfortable.” He leaned deep into his face, staring crossed eyed into hers. They’re lips mere inches apart. “Maybe we should kiss to break the tension.”

“Don’t push it, Discord,” the princess droned, pushing his face off of his. “So, we’re cool?”

“Like an ice cream cone dipped in the backside of the pillow,” the draconequus laughed. “Shoved up a yeti’s backside and glazed with snow. Yeah, we’re cool.” He soon slithered off back into his box, peaking up for one moment and grinning back at her. “You know, I was really wrong with you, this is going to be fun! I’ll be seeing you soon, sunny butt!” With that, he leapt into his box, diving head first into it as if it was a swimming pool and disappeared.

Celestia let out a groan as she turned around and started heading home. Tonight had been absolutely exhausting, and she just wanted to fall asleep for the rest of her life. Thankfully, the walk home was quite uneventful, and she soon found her self ascending to her room and carefully crawling through her open window. When she leapt into bed, she fell asleep almost immediately.

It was off to dreamland for her.

*****

In her dreams, Celestia found herself walking down a strange dark path, not particularly sure what they were or how she got here. However, at the end of the passage way there was a lone, wooden door. There wasn’t anything remarkable about it, it was the same type of door that you would find as a front door for a cottage, but the need for it seemed unnecessary. After all, there were no walls, or separate room it could possibly lead to, but there it still stood, almost begging to be opened, and the princess did just that, lightly pushing it open and a bright orange light peeking through the crack. It was almost as blinding as the sun, and she couldn’t bear to look at it, so she closed her eyes and opened the rest of the door, with the light burning through her eyelids till all she could see what red, a brilliant bright shade of crimson that stained the inside of her eyes, she didn’t dare open them for fear of going blind as she stepped through the door and fell…

Right out of her bed.

Her saggy bagged eyes flickered open, barely able to lift themselves to see that she just had a strange dream. The light had probably just been from the open window and the sun shining in her eyes while she slept, and she must have rolled to get away from it. Part of her wanted to roll back into bed and go back to sleep, but she knew her mother would turn up the sun a bit if she was tardy, so she got herself ready for the daily grind, applying makeup where appropriate, getting her hair readied and presentable, and of course making sure her coat was free of any up-pushed fur before heading out of her room and into the kitchen, where her mother and Luna were already eating some toast.

“Good morning, my daughter,” Faust said, simultaneously levitating some toast, a scroll, and a quill all at once. “How are you this morning? I trust that you managed to get some sleep.”

“Hardly,” she grumbled, taking a seat next to Luna. “Morning nerd, you got some toast stuck in your braces.”

“Bite me,” yawned her little blue sister. She tried to not let Celestia get to her, but she couldn’t help looking at her teeth with the help of silver spoon. To her surprise, there was a large hunk of brown crust stuck in her wiring, and she immediately shut her mouth, flushing a little red with embarrassment. “Oh… I was going to clean them out anyways.” She got up from the table and almost galloped out of the kitchen.

Her mother barely seemed to noticed, and turned her attention to Celestia. “Eat quickly; you have a lesson in a few minutes, and I have a busy schedule today. So there’s no time for your usually heavy hoofness.”

“Like there’s ever any time,” Celestia muttered under her breath. She quickly picked up an orange and started to peel it, eating the sweet fruit before getting walking away from the table. “Let’s just get this over with. I want to take a nap anyways.”

A normal mother would have growled at her comment, but Faust simply ignored her daughter’s snarky attitude and followed her out of the room and into the courtyard where they did most of her lessons. Celestia took a seat on her cushion and slumped into herself. It would be a long battle to keep herself awake for the next couple of hours as she learned all the fascinating things about the sun, the moon and all the other things she couldn’t care about. Her minds were in the daisies.

He came back into her mind, that rather annoying draconequus Discord. Why was it that she kept thinking about him whenever she was numbed with the bores? Was it because he was like a jigsaw puzzle, and she wanted to put his mystery together? No, it couldn’t be that, because puzzles were stupid. Luna and other nerds like puzzles. Maybe it was because he was different, and then there was that sense of freedom, no chains or prewritten fate to guide him, an unspoken destiny that deep in her conscious she craved, not having to do what her cutie mark told her to do, put to do whatever it was she wanted to do.

That trail of thought that managed to kill a bit of time, but it was back to the ramblings of a goddess.

“And then, your sister will raise the moon as you lower the sun. Of course you must be careful to keep a schedule, and not allow the sun to rise earlier than it should, or heaven forbid later. Then there is the matter of daylight saving, where you’ll have to raise the sun later and set it earlier, which I’d imagine you’ll just adore. Are you getting all of this, Celestia?”

“Hmm?” Celestia wondered, shaking out of her midday daze. “Oh, yeah, it’s all being written down in my head. I’ve heard every wonderful detail about… sun raising, because I’ve only ever been given this same damn lecture once a month!”

There was a magical snap as a slab of metal seemed to form around her mouth, locking her jaw in place and effectively silencing her. Queen Faust looked quite displeased and shook her head in shame. “Watch your language, Celestia. That is not the way a princess should speak.”

Celestia tried to shout out several other nasty things, but the metal over her mouth censored each vulgar comment. It took Celestia a few minutes to finally rip the metal slab off her lips. “What was that for?! I can’t curse; I can’t choose what I want to do in life? Am I a princess or a prisoner?” Her mother remained silent, only speaking again when she returned to her lecture. “That’s what I thought,” she grumbled, staring a deadpanned stare at her mother. “This is so stupid…”

Suddenly, something rather interesting happened. From within the trees, Celestia noticed something slithering in the leaves, like a snake, but far too big to be anything local. The young princess’s gaze fell to the surrounding treeline and followed whatever it was that was moving. It weaved in between the branches until it got directly behind Faust’s back. Discord’s head popped out from the leaves of the trees and he waved childishly at her, mouthing ‘hello’ as quietly as he could as to not disturb Celestia’s mother’s lecture.

The young sun princess looked quizzically at the draconequus. What was he doing here? Certainly nothing good, she imagined. She tried her best to ignore him, but when the alternative was paying attention to the lesson her mother was giving her, it seemed quite obvious which thing was going to dominate her attention. Celestia’s eyes slightly glanced over to Discord, who had gotten himself comfortable in the trees, making a hammock out of their leaves while he wrote on something; she had no idea where he got the paper from.

With a few scribbles, Discord finished what he was writing and held it up high for her to see. It read ‘What’cha doing?’ in big red letters. The princess gave him a deadpan glare, it’s not like she could respond to him without alerting her mother. So she hoped her stare would be enough to convey her point.

Thankfully, Discord seemed better at reading faces then she thought, and was soon writing something else down on his giant notepad. ‘Boring schoolwork, huh?’ was what the next page asked. And she gave him a subtle nod in response. ‘So when are you free? I’m bored and need your help with something.’

She shrugged a little, then getting an idea. “Mom, when is this lesson going to be over?” She asked callously. “I feel my brain turning to mush from the boredom.”

“You know we still have three more subjects to cover before lunch, and then two more after,” her mother said. “Also, can you please tell Discord to stop distracting you? If you two desire to spend time together, you can do it after, and only after your lessons are finished.” The amber-mane queen turned around, staring at the stunned draconequus. “As for you… I will have to ask you to leave until we’re finished. Celestia’s mind wanders enough without your encouragement.”

“S-sorry, your majesty,” Discord gulped, slithering down the tree trunk and bowing down to the pony queen. “Didn’t realize Tia was doing her ABC’s and 123’s, I’ll bug her later.” As he left, he made sure to walk right next to Celestia, leaning into her ear and whispering, “You’re right, she’s a total butt. See you later.” Before heading out of the garden and back into town.”

Celestia found something strange building up in her stomach. It was a strange but familiar sensation, one that would rummage up her throat and infect her lips to curl up with delight, followed by an involuntary hiccup of laughter. For the first time in her life, Discord had said something that made her laugh.

Her mother took notice of this, and slightly raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, just a little joke,” Celestia said, beaming at her mother with an overly happy smile. “Butt it’s nothing you need to worry about.”

”In one day, you went from making me frown to making me smile, Discord, and it wouldn’t be the only time either. You would plague my days with wonderful smiles and more laughter, you would make me feel happy and normal, and not like a dog on a leash as I had presumed my mother had tried to mold me too become…

But as you turned my frowns into smiles, I was doomed to turn your smiles into frowns.