Chapter 1: The Story Title Ruined The Punchline
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Chapter 1: The Story Title Ruined The Punchline
Twilight Sparkle couldn’t help but release a groan through her gritted teeth. Her head was in her hooves, her eyes masked in shadows. But no amount of hiding could rid her of him.
Him being Discord, of course, who was seated next to her, enjoying a hot cup of tea.
“Twilight, dear, it’s very uncouth of you to have your elbows on the table, you know,” Discord reminded her, taking a sip from his cup and draining the porcelain right out of it, leaving the tea to mysteriously stay in shape on the tray.
“It’s uncouth of me to agree to do this in the first place!” she hissed, looking up from the table. Several passing mares spotted the two and giggled amongst themselves. This caused Twilight to break out in a blush, eyes filled with rage directed in a glare at Discord. “Wait, why in the world did I agree to do this in the first place?”
Discord shrugged, reaching for the tea kettle in the center of the table to pour himself another glass. Instead, butterflies and newts poured out of the kettle’s spout, several of the chaos-created reptilians clambering onto Twilight’s chest.
“I don’t see why anyone would refuse an afternoon tea with a good friend.” Discord snapped his fingers, a bowl filled with sugar cubes appearing between them. “One lump or two, my dear?”
Twilight knocked a hoof against the side of her head, a hard-pressed scowl on her face. “Wait a second… I don’t remember ever agreeing to going out for tea with you!”
“So that’s one, then?”
“Discord!”
Sighing, Discord waved his claw passively at the cup of sugar cubes, the cubes collectively sprouting legs and hopping off in a large mob off the table.
Looking down at Twilight with a bitter expression, Discord said, “You know, just up and forgetting about important tea parties with friends isn’t the best way to keep them, Twilight. And here I thought we had a closer connection than that.”
“We barely know anything about one another!”
“And that’s exactly why I thought this tea party would be the perfect opportunity for the two of us to get to know each other!” Discord snapped his fingers, a microphone hanging from a wire from the skies falling before Twilight. Holding it close to her snout, Discord asked, “So, what does the prissy princess have to tell us about herself today?”
Twilight scowled and pushed the microphone out of her face. “Well, she can tell you right now she doesn’t want to be here at all. Along with the fact she’s a bit peeved off at certain dastardly draconequus for holding her up here with no memory of how she agreed under a sane mind to even go on a tea party with him.” Picking up her tea cup, Twilight poured out a few stray newts that had climbed inside it. “Also, she thinks this tea sucks.”
Discord nodded solemnly, writing a few notes into a notepad. “Interesting. At least now I know Twilight Sparkle speaks in the third person.” Breaking the end of his pencil, Discord stuck it in his nose, whirring noises heard inside as pencil shavings exited out of his ears. Blowing the new pointy end, Discord asked, “You ever thought about getting that checked on by a trained psychologist?”
Huffing and crossing her hooves over her chest, Twilight muttered, “The only one who needs psychological help is you.”
“Mind speaking up, dear?” Discord asked, digging out a handful of pencil shavings from his ear. “My hearing ain’t what it used to be in my younger days.”
“Will you please stop calling me dear?”
“But I thought we were dating? Isn’t that what couples are supposed to do? I can call you babe instead, or twinklebutt, whichever you prefer.”
Twilight grimaced, sticking her tongue out as she held in a gag. Finally, shaking her head to dispel such utter nonsense like her and Discord being in a relationship, she said, “Listen, Discord, while having short term memory loss is fun and all, I think I have to go.”
Discord pouted, his mismatched eyes filling with tears as he blocked Twilight’s way with his own head. “But Twilight, you didn’t even get to know anything about me!” he said, standing directly behind her with his neck craned over her. “You shared, so it’s only proper I share as well. Isn’t that one of those friendship lessons you’re always so adamant about? Sharing is caring and all that usual drivel?”
“Well, yes, but, I, uh…” Twilight sighed, pushing Discord’s upside down head out of the way. “Fine, fine, just get it—”
Discord cheered, hopping on Twilight’s lap with a gleeful smile spread was wide as a mile on his mischievous features, while Twilight in turn winced at his abundant weight.
“Well, first off I might as well as start off at the beginning,” Discord began, twiddling his thumbs as he hummed under his breath. “It was a drizzling Tuesday night on the day I was conceived, after a series of long, painful birthing processes for my mother that lasted well up until—”
“I don’t want to know about that!” Twilight groaned, trying her best to budge Discord off any way she could.
Discord stuck his tongue out, which transformed into a hand wagging its finger at her. “Fine, Miss I’m-not-curious-about-the-beauty-of-birth-pants, I’ll get on with it.” Tugging at his greasy beard, Discord said, “After that, the rest you probably already know. Took over Equestria as its tyrant for life, allowed myself to get sealed in stone by the princesses, broke out in about a thousand years, got switched back into stone now an hour later, counting commercial breaks, then not too later I was sprung up again, and the rest is the previous season’s history.”
Twilight ended her struggles, eyes opening wide. “Wait, what did you just say?”
“Previous season’s history. Which I do have to admit, wasn’t as good as the other two seasons. Even the ending was a half-baked musical routine that was rushed and more disorganized than a headless chicken running a marathon.” Stepping out of Twilight’s lap and giving her a breath of air, Discord shook his head solemnly. “And don’t even get me started on what else the season finale included.”
“Discord, what are these seasons you keep on mentioning?” Twilight asked. “Are they like summer or winter? Stop being so cryptid!”
“That’s like asking the sun to not set at night… which it can in fact do.” Discord shrugged. “Magic doesn’t have to explain anything, really.”
Twilight groaned. “You’re not explaining anything!”
Discord tapped her on the tip of her horn. “See, that’s the beauty of it all. I don’t have to explain anything. Half of what I say isn’t supposed to make sense specifically because it fits my character to do so.” He flicked her horn, causing it to wiggle and flex. “Licensing can be a real pain in the rear end, ain’t it?”
Holding her horn to stop it from wobbling to and fro, Twilight glared at Discord with a white hot rage. “Okay, that’s it, I give up. You’re making even less sense than Pinkie!”
“Oh, why thank you!” Discord said, beaming a grin to Twilight. “It’s much more important to be subtle than that pink menace’s brutish and overall not even tasteful style of not making sense.” Discord grimaced and shuddered, his body parts shaking like tree limbs in a storm. “I mean, come on, she barely puts any effort or class into it! She might as well as be beating the audience with a hammer!”
Twilight remained silent, staring up at Discord with an unamused frown. Finally, she sighed and ran a hoof over her face. “You just can’t be normal for one day, can you?”
“Don’t hate. I like stuff outside my demographic,” Discord replied, a new shirt depicting a plastic looking female face of some alien origin. Also, it was apparently twenty percent off.
Balking at the strange image, Twilight scooted back and said, “I didn’t say you were not normal for enjoying… whatever that is! You’re not normal because you don’t make sense half the time, and the other half that when you do make sense, it’s something completely pointless or stupid!”
“And isn’t that the beauty of it?” Discord asked, reaching to hug Twilight in a one armed grip while tugging at his shirt. “Not making sense at all. Well, at least for someone who isn’t as clueless as you are, Twilight. When you actually look at it with a deeper meaning, it all becomes clear. Or not really. I could just be a figment of your broken psyche desperately clinging to some form of interaction with someone before your mind completely shatters from the utter madness of it all.”
“...How many times were you dropped on your head as a child?”
“What’s infinity divided by zero?” Discord cupped his hand against Twilight’s ear and whispered, “Here’s a hint. If I solve it, the universe blows up.”
“Seriously?” Twilight asked, arching a brow at him with a deadpan stare.
“You want to find out?”
Twilight opened her jaw, then closed it and grumbled. “Okay, that’s it, I’ve had enough of this conversation to last for the rest of the sanity I have left.”
Removing herself from the clingy Discord, Twilight waved goodbye to him as she made her exit. “Farewell, Discord, don’t write back, because I’ll be sure to not write to you!”
Smiling, Discord relaxed in his seat and brushed with an errant claw the new t-shirt he was wearing. “Gotta admit, for a bargain bin knockoff from Goodwill, this shirt is pretty snazzy? Don’t you agree, Twilight?”
Discord held up the Princess Twilight Sparkle alicorn toy, making her trot along the table’s surface. “Discord, that shirt is so tacky. Why can’t you wear normal clothes?”
“Oh come one, you ponies don’t even wear clothes!” Discord objected.
“It’s better than that girly one you’re wearing.”
“But you’re a girl!”
“It’s still girly, just like you!”
“At least I didn’t get turned into a princess just to sell toys!”
“At least I have a toy!”
Meanwhile, Twilight Sparkle stood several yards away, watching Discord bicker with himself and that toy with a disturbed interest. Turning her head to Spike who was seated across the table, she asked, “Spike, is it normal that I just watched Discord repeatedly argue with a toy version of myself for over half an hour now without turning away?”
Holding up a finger, Spike began to speak, stopped, then rubbed his chin and hummed to himself. Shrugging, he said, “In comparison to everything else that goes on in our lives on a daily basis, that’s pretty normal sounding.”
“Hmm… good point.” Glancing over her shoulder, Twilight sighed. “Great, now the toy’s trying to strangle him.”
“Just remember.”
“Yeah, yeah, normal.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Or about as normal as you can get with someone like Discord involved.”