The welcome bell to Sugarcube Corner rang as Discord pushed through the door – actually making it open and close due to his physical presence and not literally going through the door that time. That was a hard habit to break. Almost as hard as resisting the urge to teleport places and potentially give ponies a heart attack. Twisting the laws of reality into a pretzel was a convenience that seemed to unnerve mortals for some reason.
“O-oh, Mister Discord!” the mare co-owner greeted – Mrs. Cake, if he remembered right – from behind the front counter with a nervous, lopsided smile. “What brings you here?”
Then again, his very existence unnerved mortals. But Fluttershy kept insisting he try to be as non-threatening as possible, and that he go out in public and socialize through business, and what that mare wanted, that mare got.
Discord walked up to the counter; the “slithering through air” thing also made ponies nervous, apparently. “It’s Sunday; I come here for my order every Sunday. You do have it ready, don’t you?”
“Oh, r-right,” Mrs. Cake groaned with a facehoof, practically quaking in her horseshoes. “Sorry, Mister Discord. I’m just s-so used to having Pinkie on duty today. It’s the lemon meringue cake with coconut frosting, right?”
“That’s the one,” Discord said with his best attempt at an amiable smile. It had little effect. He leaned his lion elbow on the counter. “Where is the pink troublemaker, anyway? This place seems so quiet without her blathering, so… boring.”
“She took the weekend off to visit her parents,” the mare said, body less shaking but eyes still fearful. “J-just a second.” She turned her head and called, “Honey, could you bring out the lemon meringue cake please?”
“Kind of busy with the twins right now, dear!” her husband called back. “Pumpkin, make yourself visible right now!”
Discord’s eyes snapped in the voice’s direction. Through the walls, he could sense the struggling father and his hiding unicorn daughter. He snapped his fingers, and gone was the foal’s errant magic. “She’s in the closet,” he called casually, examining his claws idly.
A few moments later, Mr. Cake sighed, “Finally, there you are! You are going in time out, little missy.”
Mrs. Cake looked him over, eyes wider still. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve reached out and turned entire continents topsy-turvy before,” he said, rubbing his talons together. “I don’t need to physically be in a place to see or interact with it.” He turned an eye towards her with a bored frown. “Now, my cake please? I’m sure you want me out of your shop as fast as possible.”
“R-right – I mean, right, I’ll get your cake right away!” she stammered, shakily excusing herself to the back of the shop.
Discord couldn’t help but chuckle, though it was more bitter than anything. He leaned on the counter on his elbows, his tail idly swishing behind him. His eyes flitted around the room, his brain idly thinking up new knots to make in logic and physics in the little shop that of course he’d never get to make. Just one slip-up, just one, and back to stone he went, possibly forever…
He shook his head as if his musings were leeches clinging to his face, his serpentine muscles tensing up. Not the day nor the time to get riled up; needed something else to focus on.
His otherworldly senses settled on the two parents in the next room. The little unicorn filly was more than a bit upset that her game of hide and seek had been ruined and was throwing a fit. Mr. Cake was trying his best to calm her down, cradling her unsteadily like an amateur. Mrs. Cake took a break from packaging Discord’s order and took the little girl off her husband’s hooves, holding her with proper support like a mare that actually knew what she was doing. After about a minute their daughter had calmed down, completely forgetting that her fun got spoiled like children were wont to do. Such charmingly non-existent attention spans…
Discord wiped away the smile that had somehow snuck onto his face, his brow furrowing and his fingers drumming against the counter anxiously.
“Sorry for the wait,” Mrs. Cake said a short time later, emerging with his order. “Foals got to be a hoof full.”
“I know,” he said with a half-hearted smile, taking the cake off her hooves. He held his palm out to the side, and in teleported a bag of bits. Outright materializing new money to pay for things was another trick he was banned from doing after he nearly crashed the economy last year. He tossed the sack over to Mrs. Cake’s side of the counter.
The baker hesitantly opened the bag as if she were expecting a snake to pop out. She visibly relaxed when she only saw money and counted it out. She then counted it out again with raised brows. She put a hoof over half of it and slid it across the counter towards him, saying, “This is over double what that cake is worth; here’s the rest of your–”
She tensed when his paw pushed back, forcing the bits back to her side of the table. “Keep the change,” he said firmly.
Mrs. Cake locked eyes with him for a moment, and a moment was all she dared to. She looked away as she took the money, stuttering out a thank you and a mumbled goodbye with a bow of her head.
Discord prepared to snap his fingers and whisk himself to his normal destination, but stopped himself. “Before I go,” he started with a hum, “I have a question.”
“Question?” Mrs. Cake repeated, tensing up again. “About what?”
Discord tensed up himself with a grimace, already regretting saying anything. “A question that I think only a parent could answer,” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully.
The mortal mare gave him a confused look. “I… I guess I could answer that. I haven’t been a parent very long, though.”
“It’s more of a hypothetical,” Discord admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, “and in all honesty you’re the only mother that’s willing to talk to me, as awkward as it is.”
Mrs. Cake’s gaze softened, but she didn’t let her guard down. “Okay then, what’s the question?”
Discord closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’re a great mother and this will never happen, but let’s suppose you ever made a mistake raising your foals. A… lot of mistakes. Mistakes that your children blame you for, and you’re not sure that they’d ever forgive you. How do you think you’d try to get that forgiveness? And… how long would you try until you just gave up?”
Mrs. Cake’s anxiety vanished, a worried frown on her muzzle and a furrowed brow on her face. “Where is this coming from?”
“Forget it,” he said with a wave of his claw and a groan. “It was stupid of me to ask. Thanks for the cake.”
With a snap of his fingers, the inside of Sugarcube Corner was gone. In its place was Canterlot palace, the doors of Celestia’s court standing before him.
The guards gave him the usual stiff look, their muscles tensing. Discord smirked, memories of turning their coats plaid and overall messing with them running through his head. Now that was a bonding exercise with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie that he really got behind.
“Her Highness Celestia is not available for sudden visits,” the mare guard to his left said; a colonel, the mark on her armor said. “You’ll have to wait for the day court to conclude.” She pointed behind him, to the small crowd of mortals seated with their numbers, waiting for their turn to have an audience with Celestia.
“I know,” he sighed with a roll of his eyes. “Same old, same old.” In the blink of an eye, he was halfway across the room and in an empty chair. The mortals beside him quickly switched seats, leaving him alone. With a bitter frown and a snap of his fingers, he took advantage of the space and turned his chair into a lounging sofa. With another snap, he teleported a book from Twilight’s library into his claw and a few bits for the check-out fee into her purse. After stretching out and silently daring anyone to protest, he settled in to read.
Though his eyes were focused squarely on the book – a “romance” novel that Twilight kept hidden from sight and would never admit she read, the perfect teasing material – Discord’s senses were elsewhere. He could hear the conversations of all the ponies in the long waiting hall. Though some were just making idle-chit-chat to pass the time and make a few friends, most were the same conversations he’d always heard every Sunday: the rich Canterlot natives either trying to bribe or bully the lower class visitors into giving them their lower numbers so that they’d be seen sooner. He’d spent enough time around the palace and in Canterlot to know them all by name… and where they lived.
He drummed his fingers against the cover of his book as he spread a little mischief. The dressed-up nobles in the room suddenly found their underwear and lingerie crushingly tight, all the food in their fridges and pantries back home switched flavors, and the water controls in all their houses just happened to get stuck on ice cold and suddenly break. It wasn’t much, but it couldn’t be traced back to him and was so, so satisfying.
His little game of vigilantism over in ten seconds flat, he was stuck once again being utterly bored, with only his book to keep him amused. And the book was only amusing because it was so shoddily written and shameful that it must have been the guiltiest of Twililght’s guilty pleasures. The hours ticked by, and one by one the mortals went into Celestia’s court and left. In the blink of an undying eye, only Discord remained, the time to lower the sun for the day fast approaching and tinting the world orange.
“The Princess will see you now, Discord,” a guard announced from the chamber door.
His sofa and book vanished, and he was standing in front of the double doors with cake in claw. The guards gave a small half-nod to him and pushed open the doors, revealing Celestia’s marble audience chambers, the alicorn herself sitting on her throne. As he made his way down the red carpet, she glowered down at him from her perch like a multicolored gargoyle.
“Here for the usual, Discord?” she asked coldly as the doors closed behind him.
“Always am,” he said, pomp and pride gone. “Will you at least let me give you the cake this time, Celestia? It’s your favorite…”
“None of my answers have changed,” she answered, the corner of her mouth twitching like it always did when she was tempted to break out her Royal Canterlot Voice. “And they aren’t going to change no matter how many times you darken my doorstep. How long have you been doing this? A year?”
“It’ll be a year in three weeks,” Discord clarified, his gaze taking great interest in the marble floor.
“And yet,” Celestia sighed with a small growl, “you keep coming back. If you were anyone else, I’d find your tenacity admirable.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Discord said with a shadow of a smile.
“Don’t,” Celestia shot back with a scowl.
Discord cringed, his grip on the cake’s tray tightening. “Celestia, it’s been over a year since I reformed,” he said, almost pleadingly as he looked her in the eye. “I’ve made a lot of progress; Fluttershy has told you as much. Can’t you please at least entertain the idea of-”
“No, I can’t,” she cut in, her eyes narrowing. “I believe you can potentially become a force of great good in the world, and that you’re on your way to realizing that potential. Professionally, you’re a great asset and ally of the crown that’s slowly repaying society for your past misdeeds. But as far as our personal relationship goes, forgiveness is out of the question.”
Discord sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Celly, I really am–”
“Don’t you ever call me that!” Celestia snapped, wings flaring. “You lost the right to call me that a long time ago!”
Discord took a step back for probably the first time in his life. “I’m sorry, I just thought–”
“Thought what?” Celestia seethed, rising from her throne. “Thought that you could suddenly treat me as your child again? You may have made me, Discord, but you will never be my father ever again!”
Discord put his retreated foot forward again and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry; it was a mistake. Everything I ever said to you or taught to you was a mistake. But that’s why I’m trying to apologize!”
“Don’t lie to me,” Celestia huffed, standing tall atop the stairs to her throne. “You only want forgiveness now that you want ponies to like you. You aren’t sorry at all for what you did, what you made Luna and I do!”
“I didn’t make you two do anything you didn’t want to,” Discord snapped, glaring back. “You were having just as much fun as I was!”
“Because we didn’t know any better,” Celestia growled, trotting slowly down the stairs. “Because you taught us to be monsters, to treat mortals as toys and dolls! Do you have any idea how long it took us to unlearn that, even after we realized what you were and sealed you away?”
Discord opened his mouth for rebuttal, but Celestia didn’t give him the chance. “Centuries! It took us centuries to start treating our subjects like actual thinking beings, you warped and twisted us so badly! And even after that and ever since, we’ve had to deal with the guilt of what we did because of how you raised us, by ourselves.”
Discord’s ears flattened, his spark of rage put out. He just stood and listened as she climbed off the stairs and got closer.
“And do you know what it was like to not have Luna to help me deal with that for a thousand years?” she asked, her voice cracking and eyes watering. “I had to go a thousand years without her, a thousand years of sleepless nights full of nightmare after nightmare of the atrocities we committed together.”
She pushed her face into his, her burning violet eyes only inches from his own. “The only reason I’ve been forgiven by my subjects is that time and death made them forget; hundreds of generations seems like forever to them to hold a grudge.” She spat in his face; he didn’t fight back. “But I’ve never forgiven myself, so what makes you think that I’ll ever forgive you?”
He looked the alicorn in the eye. In the face of all the rage and guilt and hate welling up in her eyes, he could only say, “I don’t know.”
“Then get out of my sight,” she growled, turning around and trotting towards the doors behind her throne on shaking legs. “I have responsibilities to honor.”
Celestia slipped out of sight. The doors behind her didn’t shut with a slam, but with a soft, feeble click. Discord was left alone, silence and stillness his only company, long time friends from his days in stone.
The quiet was broken by a soft hiss behind him. “I see you still love that vapor form of yours,” Discord mumbled with a small chuckle. “It’s been a long time, Luna. How much did you hear?”
“Enough,” the younger alicorn said behind him. “Still going for the cake strategy?”
“There’s not much else I can do,” Discord laughed bitterly, turning to face her. She was standing tall, a strange softness behind the unimpressed look she was giving him. “I’ve already saved tons of ponies with my magic, and my pranks so far have been pretty toothless, and every grand gesture of goodwill I've thought up hasn't worked. I’ve tried my best to be civil with her, but that isn’t enough, either. The humble, simple approach is all I have.”
“If simply being polite and kind were enough to earn forgiveness, I’d certainly be much happier,” Luna sighed. “But we both know we’ve done great evil that we cannot undo. All three of us have.”
Discord sighed and with a wave of his hand summoned a pair of armchairs, one behind himself and one behind Luna. He silently motioned to it, and Luna took her seat with a silent nod of thanks.
“I know, I know,” he sighed again, flopping into his chair and setting the cake on a conjured table. “And I know it’s all my fault; I’ve been told that plenty of times.”
“Don’t warp Celestia’s words,” Luna warned. “No matter how much she blames you, she blames herself five times over. I guess she finally got fed up with being confronted with it every Sunday, even if you did have good intentions.” She sighed, shifting in her seat. “And if I’m to be honest, I think that if she were to stop sharing the blame with you, she’d crack under the weight of her own guilt. She puts on a stoic face in front of her subjects, but beneath it all she’s still terrified of what she used to do, what she used to be, and the possibility of returning to it, like… like I did.” Her ears flattened, her gaze looking away from Discord.
Discord’s fingers flexed; the idea of embracing her crossed his mind, but he shook it off. “That was even less your fault than what you did under my care,” he said.
Luna shook her head before looking him in the eye once more. “That doesn’t change the fact that it happened. I was so desperate for my subjects to love and forgive me as much as Celestia that I was willing to do anything to get it. I should’ve known better.”
Discord shifted in his seat and looked away. “And… I guess I should’ve, too,” he mumbled. He shook his head. “You should get going. Celestia’s probably wondering where you are right now, and it’s past time to lower the sun.”
“Sister can wait a few more minutes,” Luna brushed off. “In truth, I have a question for you, Discord.”
Discord looked up and raised a brow. “I’m listening.”
“Now that you know better, now that you have a conscience, you’ve been taking responsibility for how you raised Celestia and I. So, it’s occurred to me… you’ve never told us anything about who raised you. Are they to blame just as much as you?” she asked, tilting her head ever so slightly.
He looked away, his paw and claw wringing each other so hard his hands threatened to break as he squirmed in his own skin. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather keep that part of my past buried,” he muttered.
“As you wish,” she nodded, sliding off her seat. “Now, I really must be going.” She cantered past him, but he teleported in front of her.
“Do you really forgive me?” he blurted out, sounding a lot more desperate than he intended or wanted.
After the initial surprise wore off, she looked him over, sizing him up with her teal eyes. “Yes, I do. But make no mistake: I’ve only forced myself to forgive you because it’s the first step to forgiving myself,” she admitted. “Nothing changes what you did. You have my forgiveness, but absolution is something I cannot provide.”
Discord hanged his head low and rubbed his arm. “I understand… thanks for talking to me. Have a nice night.”
In another blink, the palace was gone. Discord was once again slouched on Fluttershy’s couch, cake in claw, though not even bothering to take Angel’s spot.
The rabbit let out a small squeak and jumped in his spot next to him, and after the initial look of anger his ears flopped in complete confusion. He jumped down from his perch and shot Discord a glare that dared him to take his spot, as if he could actually stop the demigod, before hopping up the stairs. Discord heard a soft chittering, and then a little happy gasp.
“Oh, Discord, you’re home!” Fluttershy greeted, trotting downstairs with a smile. “How did it… go…” Her grin deflated as she looked him over. “It… went really badly, didn’t it?”
Discord silently nodded.
Fluttershy unfolded her wings and glided over. She gave the draconequus a big, firm hug and said, “Don’t worry; there’s always next time, right? I’m sure she’ll come around.”
Discord allowed himself a little smile and hugged her back, holding her close. “Yeah… there’s always next time.”
