Twilight was doing her usual Tuesday light dusting, in preparation for Thursday's more vigorous dusting. She nearly fell off the ladder when she glimpsed a bit of draconequus tail out the corner of her eye. She had tried levitating the feather duster before instead of using a ladder, but blindly waving around a clump of feathers did not cause the dust to run away in fear. Even though it should have.
Twilight stepped down from the ladder and turned around. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw Discord standing on his head. Or rather hovering on his head? His head wasn’t actually touching the ground so she wasn’t sure how to classify it, but maybe that was the point. “Discord” she muttered.
“Correct, though I understand, with my resemblance to that handsome statue in the Canterlot Statue Garden, how you could be confused.” Discord flipped over and posed in the same manner as he had been when he was made of stone.
He is reformed. Despite this, they still weren’t exactly friend. She had learned to tolerate other ponies being disorderly and inefficient, but Discord had ruined weeks worth of organization because he thought sorting the books by flavor would be more interesting. Fluttershy had insisted that he simply forgot to undo his harmless prank, but Fluttershy didn’t have to deny literary patrons entry for fifteen days.
“What do you want?” asked Twilight curtly.
“I just wanted to let you know that you were right about me all along. I haven’t changed.” The draconequus gave a wide toothy grin.
“I knew it! And soon so will Princess Celestia and my friends, the Elements of Harmony.” Twilight beamed. It’s not that she wanted more villains in the world or for Fluttershy to have been wrong, but this made sense. The very spirit of disharmony being reformed was something Twilight had never been able to wrap her mind around, and now she knew why.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters now is this box.” Discord was completely unphased by Twilight’s threat. With a snap of his talons a tattered open cardboard box appeared and landed on one of Twilight’s chairs.
“It’s just an ordinary empty box.” Twilight was scanning it for enchantments with her magic, but had found nothing unusual about it
“Oh you’re right. Silly me for not noticing. I guess I won’t be taking over Equestria after all.” Discord cackled. As his form rippled and dispersed into the air, his eerie laughter continued to reverberate through the otherwise silent library.
“Spike!” called Twilight. She knew that Celestia needed to know about this right away.
A few seconds later a purple dragon made his way down from Twilight’s bedroom. “I thought you said you’d take care of the rest of the dusting,” muttered spike while rubbing his eye.
In the short time it had taken Spike to crawl out of bed, Twilight had already begun to rethink her plan. After all, wasn’t informing Celestia exactly what Discord wanted her to do? He had intentionally made the box look harmless so Twilight wouldn’t focus on it. He had even given it to her instead of hiding it so that she wouldn’t have a reason to question it. It was the perfect plan. They would all be distracted by Discord, while his box did— whatever horrible, evil thing it was made to do.
“I’m sorry, Spike, but I’ll need you to finish dusting while I guard that.” Twilight pointed a hoof toward the wicked box.
“It’s just a box.” Spike raising an eyebrow. Upon getting closer to get a better look at it, he too noticed that it was empty, beat up, and not exactly fragrant. “Did you borrow this from a homeless pony?” Spike waved a claw in front of his nose.
Twilight was inclined to agree that she didn’t want something so vile in her library, but she couldn’t unleash it on Ponyville. “Spike, the box is from Discord. Who knows what dark magic it might contain.” Twilight stomped a hoof to emphasize her point.
“He’s off his rocker sure, but didn’t you guys reform him or something?” yawned Spike.
Twilight nearly corrected Spike that, much to the others’ shame, it was just Fluttershy who reformed him, but then she remembered she was about to cast suspicion on whether or not Discord was reformed at all. She didn’t want to put all that blame on poor Fluttershy if it hadn’t actually worked. Twilight shook her head. “He just admitted to being evil. We can’t trust him.”
“So we’re going to trust him, that we can’t trust him?”
Twilight had to admit that her number one assistant was getting more clever, but he was still missing the point. “Why would somepony who is good claim otherwise? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Bad joke.” Spike shrugged. “Can’t this wait until morning?” Spike had already started the trip back up to Twilight’s room.
“But if Discord really isn’t reformed, can you imagine what would happen if we waited that long?”
“Pinkie Pie would have the time of her life for twelve hours,” muttered Spike without so much as stopping to look back at Twilight.
Twilight wasn’t sure how her assistant had gotten so optimistic as to think they would ever sleep for twelve hours. There was far too much to do, and that was before Discord completely destroyed all of their plans. But she did have to admit that baby dragons needed their rest, and he was too groggy to have done a good job anyway. She’d just have to make sure he got up early to finish the dusting.
Twilight hit the box with another scan spell, but again it revealed no enchantments. She enchanted her eyes to be able to see invisible objects and looked inside the box, but still saw nothing. Maybe the box reacted to being moved? Twilight formed a barrier around the box and then nudged it with her telekinesis. Still nothing. She gave it a few more nudges and even hesitantly touched the nasty thing with her hoof, but nothing happened. It was almost as if the box refused to activate while she was watching— which sounded exactly like something Discord would do!
That was fine, as Twilight needed to research hidden enchantments anyway. She’d just have to keep an eye out for anything unusual as she researched. Who knows, maybe Spike was right and this really was Discord’s idea of a joke.
She hadn’t been studying for more than a few minutes when she could feel the heat of someone staring at her intently baring into her left flank. She knew this was silly. Being able to tell someone is staring at you without actually seeing them do so, is about as logical as pinkie sense— which was real. If Pinkie Pie could be Pinkie Pie who was to say her intuition about being stared at wasn’t real too? Besides, she could feel the heat intensifying.
Twilight looked in the direction where the staring was coming from to confirm that nopony else was in the library, only to see it was the accursed box. She knew that thing was evil. It was watching her. Thankfully this had a simple solution; she went over to the box, turned it around and returned to her studying.
However it wasn’t long before the staring sensation returned. The box was as she had left it, but apparently it could leer at it her no matter which way it was facing. Twilight was nothing if not a problem solver, though; after all, she made an A in problem solving. So, she summoned all of her brilliance and levitated a spare sheet over the box, and pretended it didn’t look like a ghost from one of her nightmares as a filly. Granted, the ones in her nightmares didn’t have sharp corners. But the pointiness just added to its intimidation— which it didn’t have. I’m not a filly anymore. There is no such thing as ghosts.
With that in mind, Twilight was finally able to get some reading done. In fact, she was halfway through Hidden Enchantments and How to Detect Them—Reference books may not have the most creative names but at least you know what you’re getting—before she even looked at that stupid, harmless box. She had no idea what had gotten into her earlier as it looked nothing like a ghost. With a ghost, you knew exactly what you were dealing withbut anything could be under that sheet— Well, anything with corners anyway, but that still left many possibilities.
The moment the box was concealed from view it could have transformed into a box full of spiders. Or maybe it became the breeding ground for some deadly disease. Who was she kidding? It probably was that already, and she let it into her house!
Take a deep breath,Twilight. Panicking is probably exactly what he wants you to do. You never think as well when you are panicked. Research is the key to defeating this enemy. Now that she had actually taken a deep breath instead of just having thought about it, she did feel better. She flipped the page and continued reading.
She had turned page after page in the thick tome, with her candle now only feeding off the liquid remains of the wax, when she was forced to stop. A page was missing. A page was missing! Definitive guides like this were always under reference and she had never let a reference book be checked out, so it had never left her home. It had all of its pages when she bought it. Could somepony really have committed such a felony right under her very roof?!
Discord had demonstrated a remarkable lack of book etiquette in the past by eating the pages. But when he did that, he had removed it cleanly enough that Twilight had scarcely been able to tell that the page was missing at all. No, he didn’t do this. Not directly, anyway.It was the box; it had to be that vile thing. What else could it have unleashed? Looking back at it, it was impossible to tell, as the crafty beast had tricked her into placing an obstruction in the way. Twilight hadn’t been so afraid of what could happen under a sheet since her parents gave her “the talk.”
Twilight mustered all of her courage, walked over to it, and revealed the monster. Playing innocent, like always, it hadn’t budged an inch despite the sheet’s violent removal. It was even exactly as odorous as she remembered. She must have surprised it right as it was about to do something truly malevolent. She’d just have to keep an eye on it.
With that, she started the trek back to her desk, but had only just turned around when its stare began to sear the back of her neck. So it wanted to play hardball, did it? Well two could play at that game.
She opened the clothespin drawer that she had repurposed as such after the incident with that skunk during her first Winter Wrap Up in Ponyville, and readied her nose to spend quality time with that foul box. Once the close pin was secured to her nose, she brought the box over to her study area. Then, after a mere three minutes of staring at where the missing page should have been in pure irritation, she continued reading.
Twilight had pulled many all-nighters over the years. She was used to the bloodshot eyes, and bags that drooped beneath them. There was a certain nostalgic feeling brought on by the strange surge of energy sleeplessness caused. She felt nothing even close to fondness for the state she found herself in this morning. Apparently, falling asleep with a clothespin on one’s nose can cause one to wake with a start minutes later. Of even more interest was the discovery that, if that same pony were to fall back asleep without actually removing the obstruction, the whole process could repeat itself several times in quick succession. Falling asleep near the box without it and, thus, waking up feeling nauseous wasn’t much better. Worse than any of that, she had fallen asleep while reading! She had never done that before! The box was turning her into a monster!
Despite her transformation, she didn’t even get the relief that sleep was supposed to provide. She had woken up many times throughout the night, and had somehow retroactively taken back her last three nights of rest in the process. The box was turning her into some sort of tired zombie pony barely capable of understanding what was going on around her. Maybe it wasn’t just her. Maybe all of Ponyville, or even all of Equestria, was in trouble. This was a really evil box after all.
But more concerning than any of that, was the dragon in her kitchen cooking eggs. Spike was a great assistant and all, but the index of her dragon’s guide didn’t even contain the phrase “cooking eggs.” Get it together Twilight. Spike is a wonderful cook. This isn’t unusual. Just put the book down. She looked at the table before her and saw that the book wasn’t there. She finally got up the strength to relinquish it from her hooves, but then it started levitating! It must have been conspiring against her with that nefarious cardboard cube!
Or Twilight could have accidentally picked it up with her magic. She blushed a little, and set it down. As she walked into the kitchen to greet Spike, and she was away from that appetite suppressing scent for the first time in a while, she felt a sudden craving for some orange juice.
“Morning Spike. How many eggs are you making?” she asked politely as she poured them both a glass.
“Three,” he chirped.
That was strange, there had only been five left in the fridge, and she was sure there had been nine left yesterday. The ‘evil box’ had probably just made her bad at math. She chuckled silently at her unspoken joke. What was the fun of getting carried away if you couldn’t at least have a sense of humor about it?
Twilight couldn’t help but wonder what was different about today that had made her be off by one egg. Today hadn’t exactly been her best day, but she could have gotten such a simple problem right even when she was so sick she could barely move. Furthermore, she had gotten the eggs from the same store she always had. Discord could have taken one, but how could he know Spike would make eggs for breakfast? The box really had been the only difference.
What would a box want with an egg anyway? It’s not like cockatrices and a variety of other creatures came from eggs that had been magically altered. Besides, even with a cockatrice in your home, the odds of being turned to stone were only two out of three. There was a good thirty three percent chance she would be perfectly fine. Then, when the box set her house on fire and started chasing her around while flying and shooting lasers out of its eyes, she would still have enough chance of surviving that emergency services wouldn’t give up on her— she hoped.
No, she wouldn’t wait for it to make the first move. She would chase it around with laser eyes first! Twilight darted out of the kitchen and user her magic to send a huge beams of energy toward the table where the box sat. The smoke was intense and she could hear Spike running up panicked, but she felt a wave of relief wash over her.
“Glad that’s over with,” declared Twilight.
But then the stupid thing mocked her. It knew right when she said that to clear the smoke just enough for her to see it. There were scorch marks next to it but the box was unharmed.
“Are you okay Twilight?” asked Spike frantically.
“It dodged my attack! Did you see that? I have proof that it’s evil!” screamed Twilight.
“It looks like it’s where it was when I got up this morning,” said Spike.
“It was three more centimeters to the left. What did I tell you about paying attention to details, Spike?” bellowed Twilight.
“I don’t think three centimeters would...” began Spike before noticing the crazy look in Twilight’s eyes. The rest of the sentence died in his mouth. “I need to go check on the eggs.”
Spike was right; three centimeters wouldn’t have made a difference. She was letting this box get to her. She needed to get the stupid thing away from her so she wouldn’t worry about it, but it couldn’t go unguarded. One of her friends would have to look after it.
Fluttershy lived entirely too close to Everfree Forest. If the box wasn’t bloodthirsty already, it might be so by the time Twilight got it back, especially since Discord was known to drop by her place from time to time. Applejack was almost assuredly busy since it was applebuck season. It would require far too much explanation to get Rainbow Dash to take this seriously, and even then it was iffy.
As for Rarity, Twilight could picture her saying something like, “But sharp edges are so last week. Cubes are out, spheres are in.”
Twilight pulled out her to-do list and added, “Send Self on Guilt Trip” to the bottom of the list. It had been a terrible thought but she didn’t have time to feel guilty right now.
This left only one viable option: Pinkie Pie. Back when Twilight first met Pinkie Pie, Twilight would have kept searching for another option, but Pinkie had proven to be surprisingly responsible. She was more than capable of baby sitting two chaotic twins. Pinkie Pie was still silly, fun, and maybe a little foalish at times, but she had really matured. Since Twilight had let herself think something awful about a friend, it only made sense that she made time to think positive things about them as well. “Contemplate Pinkie’s Character Growth” appended Twilight to the ever-growing list.
She then sprayed the box with Febreze—What was I thinking last night to go for clothespins?—placed it on her back, and walked over to Sugarcube Corner where the very pink pony she was looking for stood at the counter. With any luck, Pinkie wouldn’t even ask why she was being asked to watch the box and Twilight wouldn’t have to go into detail about the depths of her paranoia.
“Would you watch this box for me?” asked Twilight.
“Sure, I’ll watch your evil box for you,” said Pinkie.
“What did you say?”
“I said I’ll watch your box for you.”
“There was an adjective in that sentence!” Twilight’s hoof slammed into the counter.
“I thought ‘be randomly upset at adjectives’ day wasn’t until tomorrow.”
Twilight sighed. “Never mind.” She must have just been hearing things. Twilight left the box on the counter, and walked back to the library.
The library would be open soon, and the light dusting still hadn’t been finished. It’s a good thing she had two feather dusters; she wouldn’t be able to do it on her own.
“Breakfast is ready,” said Spike emerging from the kitchen.
“Sorry, Spike, but that will have to wait. We only have ten minutes before this place opens, and these books are still dusty!” Twilight started levitating a feather duster and climbed a ladder.
“Nothing. I’ll be up there in a sec.” Spike walked out of the room in search of their backup duster.
As she dusted, Twilight realized something was off. There had to be a more descriptive word for what was wrong but, for once, she was at a loss for what that might be. No, the real problem here wasn’t her inability to think of a word, but her inability to understand what exactly was wrong. She was normally really good at at least knowing why she felt the way she did, though she often couldn’t control it; she wasn’t a robot after all.
Then, the realization hit her all at once. It was the pointy corners of the books. They reminded her of that infernal box, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that every pointed edge was out to get her, not unlike how all eight of the box’s points were out for her blood. She felt silly for even thinking it, but who knew what sinister tricks Discord alone might know?
Wouldn’t that be the perfect way to kill me?To have every book in her library turn on her? Her books were her most valuable possession, she would only destroy them if need be. But she would if need be – she had read Fahrenheit 451.
She could feel thousands of stares, all directed at her. She was completely surrounded, not by knowledge as she had often thought, but by contempt.
The doorbell rang. The library is closed. Can’t they wait for their death tomes of pure betrayal?No, that didn’t make any sense. As much as she hated to admit it, ponies were never in a rush to get to the library. It had to be something else.
Twilight let go of the feather duster, let herself down, and answered the door only to see a box! This one was white, but its disguise didn’t fool her. Normal boxes couldn’t reach the doorbell.
“Could I get you to sign for this ma’am?” asked the mail pony behind the box. In fact, he appeared to be holding it; that would explain how it was hovering. Here she thought it had skipped a few steps and gone straight for the eye lasers. She didn’t receive packages often. What were the odds it would arrive now?
The vicious box at Pinkie Pie’s was taunting her. It was probably letting her know that it had finished off Pinkie already. Her head was probably in the box. Twilight couldn’t believe she had been so negligent as to leave Pinkie Pie alone with it. Realising this unlocked the key to an even more powerful realization.
Twilight couldn’t believe she hadn’t realised it hours ago. Being able to pick off the elements one by one was probably exactly what it wanted. It had only spared Twilight for now so that it could drive her to the brink of madness and take advantage of this to somehow convince her to bring the box to her other friends. She had to get to Sugarcube Corner pronto on the off chance Pinkie was still alive.
“Miss, I know quills and sofas isn’t far away, but I brought one for you to sign with.” The call of the confused mail pony went completely unheard.
Sure enough, when she entered Sugarcube Corner, there was not a single pony to be found and the box was not where she had left it. Twilight ran upstairs, and checked every room, but there was still no sign of anypony. Of course there wasn’t. The box was going to kill them somewhere it could find a weapon, like the kitchen! She darted downstairs, jumped the counter and slid into the kitchen.
There sat the box on a table smirking at her. Strictly speaking it lacked the muscles and orifices to smirk, but the intent was there. There was a knife at its side, and on the floor next to the table lay a motionless Pinkie Pie. No blood was visible, but after seeing Pinkie sneeze confetti—it’s more disturbing in person—she was pretty sure Pinkie bled frosting, and that was all over the place. It had been a bloody battle. Twilight was glad her friend had landed on her back where the wound undoubtedly was, so that she didn’t have to see it.
“You're going down, box!” shouted Twilight. A fireball erupted from her horn and launched toward it, but with its usual style of moving so quickly it doesn’t even look like its moving, the box dodged the attack.
This time, Twilight was the one who was smirking. “I wasn’t aiming for you.” she retorted quoting a random action movie Rainbow Dash had convinced her to see, Epic Pony Fight 2.
The table it occupied was on fire. You are crafty but I discovered your weakness. The one thing It couldn’t do was let its motion be seen, lest its ruse be discovered. There was something soothing about watching the flames envelope the whole table along with the box. She could practically hear its screams as the flames grew so intense her quarry was no longer visible.
Twilight had been praying for the sprinklers not to go off as she watched the box’s deserved destruction, but soon there was nothing left to see. It was at this point that she started to wonder if they’d ever go off. When the table was entirely consumed and the fire spread to the walls, Twilight finally realized apparently Sugarcube Corner was not up to fire safety code. The whole time she spent dragging Pinkie out of there, not one of the fire detectors so much as vibrated menacingly at the fire.
After reaching safety Twilight realized it was better this way. Sure the box was probably dead, but how could she be sure? A more thorough purging of its existence was a beautiful thing. She grinned widely, somehow repressing the urge to jump around the building shouting yes at the extent of her victory, as anything near enough for even the most powerful of enchantments to latch onto burned to a crisp.
When Pinkie Pie finally awoke from her sugar-induced coma she asked, “Twilight, what happened?”
The crazed look hadn’t yet disappeared from her eyes when she replied, “Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”
“It was just a box.” Twilight heard the words, but hadn’t remembered asking herself to say them, so she decided to say it again with slightly more emphasis. “It was just a box!”
“Are you okay Twilight?” asked Pinkie Pie. Twilight’s behavior made her forget her burnt down home.
Twilight felt like shouting “NO!” or exploding where she sat; she hadn’t decided yet. But she did neither of those things as a thought occurred to her. “I’m fine. I just need to visit a friend.” No sooner had she said it then her horn began to glow and mere seconds she was gone.
Pinkie having nothing else to do without a functional oven, decided to play with the a similarly confused mail pony.
~~~
Fluttershy’s door burst open so suddenly, that many of her animals scattered. Twilight proceeded to barge into the cottage with a box on her back.
“Um hello, Twilight. Is something—”
“Where is he?!” interrupted Twilight.
“Looking for me?” inquired the draconequus.
“I’m secretly evil.” Twilight sat the box down next to Discord, and then trotted out laughing the whole way.
Just then Discord felt the impulse to do something that would have made him want to kill himself not long ago. He had the urge to write to Celestia of all things. Strangely enough he might have just learned something, and about friendship no less.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned not to give a box to a purple pony. It might cause bad things to happen for some reason.
Sincerely,
Discord
P. S. You may want to get that Twilight checked out. I heard she burnt down Sugarcube Corner.
Author's Note
Sorry it's been a while since I've written anything on here. I considered not posting this here since, while it has been through several edits, it seems making it the best story it could be would require a complete rewrite, and I suspect doing so would have it's own problems. Thus it was either never post this or go ahead and do so now.
