The ceiling was on the floor.
The floor was the window.
When the window was closed the rain fell in, but when it opened the rain stayed outside.
The pools of wax hardened as the fire crawled up burnt wicks.
Discord was over and the room was a mess.
“Oh, can you make this dolly dance?” Luna caught one of the dolls floating in the air and gave it to Discord. He placed it in his open palm lifting to eye level. His hand glowed and it took a bit of concentration, but he eventually got the handmade doll to start moving.
First it sat up, then the libs wiggled about, finally music with no discernible source began to play and the doll stood up in his open hand to do its jig. Discord saw Luna’s bemused expression and extended his hand to hers. The doll jumped onto her hand once she opened it; she couldn’t help but laugh in delight as the floppy doll moved about in her hand.
“Celly, look at what Dizzy did! Look! Look!”
Celestia smiled at her younger sister’s enthusiasm. “He’s so nice to use his powers to make you smile like that.”
“I like making both of you smile, Celly.” He knew she preferred for only Luna to ignore her titles, so her scrunched pout was expected. “It seems to me the only time you smile is when I make Lulu happy, so I try to make her as happy as I can.”
He floated over to where Celestia sat as properly as she could in a chair that bobbed slightly above the ground. Now standing in front of her, Discord rolled his eyes.
“Seriously Celly, stop being such a stickler and jump on the bed with us.”
“I’m fine where I am Discord.” To prove her point, she gestured to herself on her floating chair in the corner of the room. Her face fell into a bewildered expression. Her chair had taken to flipping itself upside down, thus taking Celestia with it.
She gripped the chair as it moved her, and thinking quickly, cast a spell that kept her attached to her seat. It was too bad her dress didn’t stay with her. The bottom of her dress flipped over exposing her undergarments. Discord doubled over in laughter, almost immediately getting stitches.
“Discord! You flip this chair over and so help me if you’re looking!”
“How can I flip the chair without look?” He wheezed between his laughter.
“Discord, just move the chair!”
Discord gathered himself together long enough to wave his hand in the direction of the chair, commanding it to flip back over, and then he burst right back into laughing. He looked up only for a moment as he could feel the hilarity dying off, but one look at Celestia and he was sent right back into a fit.
She swiped her pink hair out of her face, clapping her hands to summon a comb to bring her hair back to its original regal grooming. Her face was flushed from embarrassment and from hanging upside down. But the funniest thing to Discord was that Celestia still tried to look like a graceful little princess.
Her appearance completely betrayed her intentions, and even her face, trained to look charming and sweet, was masked with nothing but rage. Celestia slowly realized this as she looked past Discord’s giggling spastic body to Luna, who was failing terribly to hide her own amusement at her sister’s distress.
“Well I hope you two enjoyed yourself. I think it’s time for Dizzy to leave.”
“Aw Celly, not now. He was going to do the chocolate milk cup thingy.”
“Ye- ha- yeah Silly, and besides you said you were happy where you were. Aren’t you still happy?”
She was ready to drag Luna right out of that room, like a responsible older sister, and allow Discord to escort himself back to his room, but when she looked over at her little sister she was slapped in the face with one of her infamous pouts.
She really couldn’t resist the power of Luna’s big blue watery eyes or her minute lower lip quiver. When Discord joined in by placing his face near Luna’s and mimicking her expression Celestia couldn’t keep her face straight. Defeated by their joint effort of cuteness and silliness, she finally had a laugh of her own.
“Fine, I guess Discord can stay for a bit longer.”
“Yay!” Luna jumped onto the bed patting a spot next to her for her sister. Celestia climbed on but eyed it suspiciously for a moment before settling down. Discord choked back another laugh as he noticed this; he was in no rush to have Celestia yelling at him again.
“You know, that “Dizzy” name is really growing on me. I think you two should call me that from now on, but only you two.” He leaned on the bed balancing himself on his hands as he looked at the princesses.
“Ooh, and I really like “Silly” for Celly. What do you say Celly?” Celestia rolled her eyes with a smile on her face. She agreed because it would be easier than trying to fight Luna’s pout.
“But only you two.”
“And we can’t forget about Lulu. What about… Loony?” Discord reached out his arm to tap the point of Luna’s nose. She giggled and agreed.
“Perfect.”
“Ok ok, now will you do the thing with chocolate milk and the cup?”
“Put your finger in it.”
“What? No way! …won’t it hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t you do it, then?”
“Because, I already told you to.”
“It’s my castle.”
“I’m older than you.”
“…But, what if it wakes her up?”
“You can teleport,” Discord whispered blasé. “Just hope she doesn’t ring your neck before you can get away.”
“…fine.” Celestia whispered back, grabbed Discord’s hand in a vise like grip. She was going to make sure he didn’t try to leave without her.
Tentatively, a dainty little finger extended to a slumbering princess changeling, who had fallen asleep while reading her scroll on the history of whittling. Slowly and nervously the sun princess extended her arm, she was almost there, then an ungainly snore halted the careful movement of Celestia as she almost reached her goal. As it was, the goal was to poke one of the many holes that bore her body.
“Come on, before she wakes up.” Discord nudged her with his elbow, as he floated in a reclining position next to her. Celestia replied with a glare, not at all happy that she was the one tasked with invading the snoozing princess’ personal space.
“Al…most…. there…” Celestia tried her best to still her finger as it neared an oversized pore once more.
Poke
Her finger retracted quickly as she and Discord both moved back hastily. The princess only shrugged her shoulder sleepily.
“Do it again.”
“What, why?” While one hand choked Discord’s, which was still there for security reasons and not because she realized how much she like the feeling of his skin, the other balled into a fist at the nonsensical idea.
“Because nothing happened, which is rather boring, if you ask me.”
“Well I didn’t-
“Oh that’s right, I did forget you are a priss.” Her rolled his eyes and made a sound of realized disappointment.
“That’s not going to work this time-“
“A boring, rule abiding, little priss…”
“Discord, seriously, it’s not going to work.” She frowned despite herself, betraying her real feelings for his words.
“Soo very uptight and dull that you can’t even poke Chrysalis again.” He turned his head away from her to hide the growing smirk. He could feel the tightening of her fingers around his and he could imagine well enough the subtle twitch of her left eye accompanied by the tension in her jaw. She was always cute when she was annoyed.
Not cute. He didn’t mean cute. He just liked to annoy her and not because she was cute- er- which she wasn’t. She was a priss.
“I bet you’re scared of her.” He added quickly to distract himself.
She exhaled a deep loud calming, and not at all frustrated, breath before regaining her cooled composure. She opened her mouth to speak but then something crossed her mind. She had to rephrase her reply. “I’m no more scared of her than you are.”
Discord made a face as he turned his attention back to her, he couldn’t disagree with that.
“But you’re still a priss.”
“You know what-“ She cut herself off as she made to put her finger back on the hole on the other girl’s folded arm, only pausing for a second to steel herself. She poked and nothing happened, except for Chrysalis shrugging in her sleep again and making an indiscernible noise. She poked another one, closer to the wrist, and the same thing happened.
Now that she thought of it it was rather boring, even disappointing, that she hardly stirred. Not that she’d admit that to Discord, his head was big enough already.
Celestia’s eyes pointed as she thought of something. “Hey, what if we poke more than one at a time?”
He shrugged; it couldn’t get any more boring. Discord finally joined Celestia’s in prodding. With two fingers going through openings just larger than bits, the changeling roused a bit more, turning her head on its position in her arms.
What an interesting discovery. The little trouble seeking royals tried to convince themselves that they didn’t miss the felling of the other’s hand in theirs when Celestia finally let go in order to free more explorative fingers.
Their fingers dipped into the spaces in her wrist and upper forearm, the places where there were holes. Chrysalis made noises. Laughter was it?
That was very exciting, so they dotted at the pores and Discord stopped hovering off the ground to crouch by her legs, crossed at the ankle and tucked to the side as a princess should. He poked the openings there, watching her feet slightly wiggle, while Celestia continued up top. They couldn’t stop themselves from giggling as it seemed their prodding was actually tickling.
A snort was heard. Chrysalis sat up quickly with the open scroll sticking to her face for a second. She was laughing hysterically because someone was poking her pores!
Not one someone but two, Celstia and Discord. She wanted to get away but her actions were delayed from only just waking and giggling so hard. Shouldn’t those two be hiding from her right about now? Well, she was less intimidating when she was red in the face from laughter.
And anger, she was furious.
“What- haha do you two- pfft ha- think you’r- you’re doing?!”
Despite the bubbling chuckles it was unmistakable how upset the princess was.
“I was- we were- he/she was-“ Their words tumbled awkwardly over each other as they spoke in unison. Discord fell on his bum while Celestia took a careful step back, both holding back their own set of giggles.
“I told you… not to touch those!” She panted from the forced laughter, her dark skin aglow from the flush that had spread. She stood from her chair trying to tower them in some sort display of intimidation she felt she lost.
The partners in crime simply looked at each other. As Discord stood, they smiled.
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I thought you weren’t ticklish.” Their smiles turned to her eerily as Celestia spoke.
“S- so?” She felt the need the run, so she took a step back, just one step passed the chair.
“So you’ve actually been ticklish the whole time.” Discord continued as they both took matched her with a step forward.
“Don’t you dare.” Her eyes were still narrowed as she took another step back. They ignored her and complemented her pace once more.
“Don’t you dare what Chyrs?” Celestia asked too innocently.
In a flash Discord was next to her and the sparking light of successful arrival disoriented them both. But that was the distraction; Celestia took the opportunity to spring for her arm.
“This?” The changeling noble was ambushed with tickling pokes once again. She crumpled to the floor laughing in a loud unprincess like manner until she giggled so hard she could no longer make sound.
“I’m haha- gonna- ha! –snort- Kill You Guys!” She finally wretched away from the two, blazing fury lit in her emerald eyes. She grabbed for one of them but another flash went off before her eyes. They were gone for now and they knew her weakness, but she wouldn’t let them get the last laugh. A wicked smile crept on her face as she thought of the perfect revenge.
She’d need to find some twine, something sticky, and Luna. Then she’d show them a thing or two about tickling and invading her personal space.
But first she’d have to get back to reading about whittling, her art tutor expected a paper on it by Friday.
___-___
“I told you we could just teleport.”
Celestia rolled her eyes, still whispering although they were two hallways east of Chrysalis’ study. “Shush, she’s probably going to kill us in our sleep tonight.”
“It was worth it.” Discord’s grin was contagious, they both smiled wildly and looked at each other. Then they stopped and looked away, realizing they had been holding hands again.
“Let’s go find find Nanny Ann before she starts looking for us.” Celestia lead the way out of the room, while Discord followed after her.
“Priss.” Of course she would make sure to check in with their caretaker.
“What?” She turned back to glare at him.
“Nothing…, I think we have to take a left.” He brought their attention back to the task as hand. Teleporting in that huge castle was often confusing.
“I thought so.” She stuck her hand out behind her, open and waiting. It was a silent demand, no, a silent suggestion for him to take her hand again. What, did she think he would get lost, or try to leave her? Or maybe... He clasped his fingers around hers as a aloofly as possible, denying in his head that either of them were really enjoying the contact.
They walked down the halls together, holding hands the whole time.
“Ready or not hear we come!”
The warning of the young pink haired princess stretched down the long hall in the royal castle. The next sound to follow was the pitter patter of tiny shoe encased feet and giggling that was trying to be forced back down.
Celestia knew her sister was no good at playing harbor and explore but she wouldn’t discourage her to stop playing. It wasn’t in her young heart to discourage anyone. Instead, she lingered near the places she knew her sister wouldn’t be before finally coming to the obvious hiding place, creating the illusion that her sister had actually done a good job.
“Hmm hmm hmm? We wonder where Lulu has gone.” Exaggerating each moment, Celestia tip toed toward the curtain where she could clearly see Luna’s toes sticking out. Right before she pulled back the material she stopped and shrugged turning away from the covered window.
“She must not be here,” she said much too loudly to be talking to herself.
“Oh 'Tia!”
“We wonder who that could be?” She still stayed in character.
“`Tia we-“ Luna sputtered out some periwinkle hair that flew into her face as she tried to whip the curtain way from her. When it took more than a few arm flings to get the curtain out of her way Celestia started to giggle resulting in a less than amused pout from Luna.
“`Tia why does thou pretend as though we were not behind the curtain?” The moon princess huffed when she finally freed herself.
“We just wanted to grant thee a chance to play. We didn’t want the game to end so quickly.” Celestia smiled sweetly at her sister, hoping she wouldn't be too upset.
“Does thou likest to play with us `Tia?” Luna's blue eye hardened in expression for a moment, but refused to meet her sister's soft purple.
“Of course we do Lulu. Why would thou even ask that?”
Luna looked over her shoulder as though something was there beside her; it was a habit of hers as of late. “No reason…, but thou does not have to baby us. We are a big girl too and we can learn to play better.”
She was right, Celestia released, she didn't need to patronize her little sister all the time. “Ok, then let’s give it a try. Thou harbor thineself somewhere better this time and we’ll come for thee again.”
Once Celestia had closed her eyes and started counting, Luna took off in search of a better hiding place.