Chaos' Old Friendsby kittychat47ChaptersChapter 1Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6MINI LESSONChapter 7Chapter 2Chapter 1Dema had been traveling for a few years, showing her son Ferahn different parts of Equestria and teaching him the history of the land. When he gained his first power, the ability to turn into a wisp of black smoke and float about as such, she returned to the Everfree Forest where she’d been living with her friend Wolfy. “Wolfy, we’re home!” Dema said, trotting into the tree hollow they lived in. “Dema, you’re back! A lot has happened since you’ve been gone.” He said, walking up to her. Ferahn wisped to Wolfy’s back and reformed there, wrapping his four tails around Wolfy in a hug. “Hey, little fox!” Wolfy said, wrapping his tail around Ferahn in a return of the hug. “So, what’s happened since we’ve been gone?” Dema asked, moving past Wolfy to the center of the hollow and sitting down. Wolfy followed and sat down next to her while Ferahn tumbled off his back to lie on his side near them. “Well, lots of stuff. The Element Bearers destroyed Sombra and saved the Crystal Empire.” He gave her a look as he talked, which she pointedly ignored. “Hmm… Twilight Sparkle became an Alicorn Princess. Oh, and there’s one other thing. It’s a big one.” Wolfy said, looking as though he had to prepare himself to say it. Quickly he blurted out, “Discord’s been reformed.” He then flicked his hears back and prepared for her response. “WHAT!? He’s REFORMED!? How did these… these SIMPLETONS reform DISCORD!?!?!?!?!” She yelled, jumping to her paws and spreading her leathery wings. Shadow fire came from her paws in bursts when they hit the ground, and her spade tail scored deep grooves in the ground. Ferahn wisped behind Wolfy until she was done throwing her tantrum, knowing full well how dangerous Dema was when she was angry. After a few minutes of throwing around shadow fire and attacking the ground with tail and claws, she sat down panting. “It seems Fluttershy reminded him what it was like to have a friend.” Wolfy said after she’d calmed down. “You know we have to contact him.” Dema looked up at him suddenly and growled. “Oh? And why would that be?” She said in a dangerously low voice. She stood up and spread her wings, advancing a step. “Because. We’re missing part of the story and you know it. We need to know what happened after we left, why he became a tyrant, and you know it.” Wolfy said, shifting from fur to scales so his fur wouldn’t be damaged. It was what he was most proud of. Dema huffed and sat down again, folding her wings against her scaly sides. “Oh, alright. I’ll sneak a letter into the mail and make sure it gets to Canterlot and into the Palace. But you’re writing it.” Dema said, poking him in the chest with a claw. Wolfy nodded and turned his scales back to fur. “Gladly.”Dema stalked off, and Wolfy released the tense breath he’d been holding. “Well. That ended better than expected.” Ferahn, who’d stayed behind Wolfy for the rest of the conversation, moved in front of Wolfy and asked, “Wolfy? Who’s Discord?” Wolfy thought for a second, then replied. “I think you should ask Dema. After all, he’s part of Equestria’s history, and she’s supposed to be teaching it to you.” Ferahn nodded and walked away as Wolfy picked up a quill with his tail and began writing a letter on one of the few pieces of paper in their home. Chapter 3That evening, Discord appeared near the Everfree forest, far away from where most ponies strayed. He snapped his fingers and a cloud table with three cloud cushions appeared, all floating at least 6 inches off the ground. On either side of one cushion were two cloud cauldrons on pedestals. He poofed up three cloud cups, only one of which had a handle. They filled themselves with a steamy brown liquid with tiny cloudberries floating in it. He dusted off his hands and sat down on the cushion in front of the cup with a handle. Soon, two shapes broke from the trees of the Everfree forest and walked towards him. “Dema, Wolfy, how nice it is to see you again!” he cried, turning to them. The closer one, a scaly black cat with leathery wings and a long spade tail, hopped onto the cushion between the pedestals and puffed a bit of shadow fire into each one. The other, a muscular black wolf with leathery wings, a short spade tail, and a rather unnecessary amount of fur, hopped into the other seat. The cat, scowling at Discord, grabbed the cup in front of her with her tail and held it close to her. She kept her ears folded tightly against her head. “I want answers Discord.” She said angrily, sipping the drink. Discord nervously fiddled with his claws. “Why, whatever do you mean, Dema? I find it hard to believe I have answers you don’t. You have always been smarter than me.” “You know what I mean. Why did you turn evil? What happened that fucked up your mind? Why…” she paused, growing softer and sadder. “Why weren’t you there when we came back?” She looked down and stared into her cup, moodily swishing the drink around. Discord sighed. “Oh, alright. But I’m only telling this story once, and I’ll only give you a short version, so put those ears of yours to use,” He reached out and tapped her ears, forcing her to flick them forward. “After you disappeared, I started getting depressed. I thought I had done something wrong and you didn’t want to see me again. I stopped helping ponies, and started doing the bare minimum of raising the sun and moon. Then one day, in a particularly foul mood, I saw a group of foals playing a game. They were having such fun together, being friends. I snapped. From then on, I spread some very horrible chaos all over the land. Then, Celestia and Luna came. They used the Elements of Harmony to lock me up, so I wouldn’t cause any more harm. I was alone, trapped in a rock, for a thousand years.” The more he talked, the sadder he sounded. Wolfy, who had picked up his cup and sipping at it quietly, spoke up. “Well, we weren’t trying to abandon you. A Holy War had started, and we had to fight in it. The reason we’re here, in fact, is because we fought on the side of the Angels and got exiled from our home because of it.” As Discord looked alarmed, Wolfy held up a paw. “Now don’t go trying to apologize. That place has gone to pot since we left, and I’m glad we don’t live there anymore. It’s much nicer here.” A back appeared on Discord’s cushion, and he leaned against it. “So, when did you two get back?” “Around five hundred years ago. I couldn’t believe when I found out you weren’t the ruler anymore, and I was furious, as you can probably guess, when I found out why,” Dema sighed. “But I guess we can’t really blame you fully, now can we? Events just spiraled out of control.” “Well, you’re just going to have to find some way to always be around me to make up for all these lost years, now aren’t you? Ooh, I know, you could become hedge sculptures and I could visit the garden often!” Discord clapped his hands, then chugged his drink. Dema rolled her eyes and took another sip of her drink. “I almost forgot how much I missed your cloudberry tea, Discord. And we’re not becoming hedge sculptures. One, we have to be able to move, and two, gardeners would be trying to clip us all the time. No thank you.” “Well then, you could become cooks or something!” Discord said, magically refilling his cup. Wolfy snorted. “Yeah right, like either of us can cook.” Dema perked up. “Discord, would you say that the Princesses might believe you would need supervision?” “Well, it is a distinct possibility. I mean, she does try to have me followed often when I leave the Palace, though it rarely works out.” Discord said thoughtfully. “Perfect! Wolfy, you need to write a letter to the Princesses and propose to them the idea of us being Keepers for old Discord here.” Dema said, grinning. She downed her drink and disappeared in a puff of smoke. A second later she appeared on Discord’s head, smaller than earlier. “So, old boy, I assume all the promises and such we had in the Before Times will get re-established?” She leaned on her paw and looped her tail over Discord’s stag horn. “Well, I don’t know… I am enjoying this whole ‘escape your supervisors and have fun’ thing, and if you two are around, I’ll never be unsupervised.” Discord said teasingly, tickling her chin with a claw. Dema wrapped her tail around Discord’s wrist and hung from it, holding onto his paw. “Now Discord, if we’re supervising you, and no one’s supervising us, it’ll really be all of us unsupervised together. Besides, the Princesses are probably pretty miffed about your escapes.” Dema stared at him from her upside down and backwards position, her red eyes glinting in amusement. Wolfy chuckled at the two having their odd conversation and drank more of his tea. “You have a point. Alright, all our former deals and such are re-established. I’ll put in a good word for you with the Princesses. Ooh, maybe you could send me back with the letter!” He casually removed Dema from his paw and put her back in her seat, refilling her cup of tea from a non-existent teapot. Wolfy looked around for a few seconds, and then said, “Well, I’d write the letter now, but there seems to be a distinct lack of paper and quills.” He gave a meaningful look at Discord. “Oh, of course!” Discord snapped his claws and a paper, quill, and inkpot appeared in front of Wolfy. Wolfy finished his tea then picks up the quill with his tail and starts writing. Dema and Discord talked about what had happened since they last saw each other. Discord talked a lot about Fluttershy, while Dema talks about her travels with Ferahn. Soon, Wolfy’s finished writing. He calmly rolls it up and breathes a spell on it that prevented it being opened by anyone but the Princesses. He tossed it to Discord, who poofed up a basketball hoop over his hand and cried, “Wolfy makes the winning basket! And the crowd goes wild!” A crowd of Discords appeared behind Discord, cheering their heads off. Dema started laughing, and actually rolled off the cushion. Wolfy sat up on his hind legs and clapped his hands together, shaking them in the air, causing Dema to laugh harder. The extra Discords disappeared, and the real one bowed. “Well, friends, I must be off. Celestia gets crabby when I come back after dark. Tata!” and with that, Discord snapped his fingers and disappeared, as did everything he’d created. Wolfy fell to the ground and let out an “ooph!” He slowly pushed himself up and started checking his fur. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were actually a pride demon instead of a tracker demon, Wolfy.” Dema chuckled. “Oh, shush you. If I were to guess what kind of demon you were, I’d say wrath before messenger. Have you seen yourself when you’re angry?” Wolfy finished his check and glared at her. “No, but I hardly doubt I’d be paying attention. Come on, let’s get home. Ferahn’s probably been driving Zecora crazy.” Dema brushed past Wolfy and headed back into the forest. Chapter 4When they arrived back at their den, Wolfy suddenly stopped, as though struck with a thought. “umm, Dema? We forgot something.” He quickly padded after her, as she hadn’t noticed him stopping. “Hmm? What do you mean? I don’t think we forgot anything.” She stopped and turned to him, confusion written large on her face. “We forgot the Council.” He said grimly. Dema’s eyes widened. “Oh. Quick, go catch Discord!” Wolfy nodded and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Dema followed suit and reappeared in a field near Cloudsdale, turning into a purple pegasus pony with a jagged black mane and tail, reddish eyes, and a messenger bag for a cutie mark. She flew up and landed outside the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center. She quickly clocked in and began gathering the shipments she was to deliver that night. A light brown pegasus with a winged package for a cutie mark trotted up and said, “Lettermane, you’re early.” He eyed the packages she was loading up. “And you’re overloading yourself. What’s going on?” Lettermane turned to the pegasus and said, “Something came up. I’m going to get all my packages delivered as fast as possible so I can have time to deal with it. I’d never try to deprive you of your best delivery mare on such short notice. I will tell you, though; I may end up quitting in a week. If everything goes the way I think it will, I’ll be moving too far away to keep this job.” She continued loading up as she spoke. “Well, I’m not going to let you deliver all this yourself. Let me help you.” He started hitching himself to the cart she was loading everything into. She quickly stopped him with a hoof, and turned all her attention to him, giving him a careful look. “Now, I respect you, Brown Package, but you’re not fit to be pulling this much weight with your wing still being injured from Dew Drop’s dropping a package on it last week. And don’t try to lie to me and say it’s fine. I can tell from the way you move it’s still bothering you.” She checked to make sure she had all her packages. “Besides, this’ll be easy for me to carry. Don’t worry, I’m a strong pony.” She grinned at him. He gave her a calculating look and finally said, “Alright, I guess you’re right. But if I find out you’ve injured yourself with this load, you’ll be in deep horseapples, missy.” He gave her a warning look and trotted away. Lettermane smiled as he walked away. “He’s a good pony. I should try and stop by and help him sometime if I end up working with Discord.” She said to herself. With that, she trotted out the doors, pulling her massive load behind her. She pulled it to the city limits and flew off the edge of the cloud city, straining her wings to stay airborne. As soon as she was out of sight of the city, she teleported herself and her load to the limits of the first city she was delivering to. She quickly unloaded the packages and flew off again, teleporting once she was out of sight of the city. She repeated the routine until she had finished delivering everything around midnight. “Record time. Of course, this is record time with cheating, so it doesn’t really count, now does it.” She said to herself. Suddenly, Discord was flying alongside her. “So, is talking to yourself something you do nowadays?” he noticed her cart and curled up inside it. She corkscrewed, dumping him out of the cart. “Of course. Been doing it for a couple a years now. You’re heavy for a creature that floats half the time. Have you been laying into the cloud cake?” she glanced at him, grinning to show she was teasing. “How could you accuse me of such!? I’ll have you know, I have more interesting things to eat than cloud cake.” He said, pretending to be offended. Dema snickered. “What, like the glasses used to hold chocolate milk?” “Yes. They’re quite delicious, you should try one sometime.” “I gotta go. I have to get this cart back to the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center and then I have an important meeting to go to.” Dema said, flying faster. “Ooh, is it with this Council Nosey mentioned? Can I meet them? And why are you working for the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center?” Dema bopped his nose. “Yes, no, because I want to. I will teleport if you don’t stop bombarding me with questions.” “Oh, all right. You better tell me when I can deliver this letter, though. It’s burning a hole in my pocket!” Suddenly, Discord was wearing pants and the letter was slowly burning its way through the pocket. “Well, then, take it out of your pocket and put it in your Hidey Hole until later.” With that, Dema teleported to the field below Cloudsdale and flew up to deliver the cart. She quickly dropped the cart off at the CPDC and quickly returned to the field. There, she returned to normal and activated a used a spell on herself. Glowing blue lines suddenly covered Dema from head to toe, and a portal appeared next to her a second later. She trotted through the portal and once more found herself walking on clouds, though these ones were formed to look like normal streets. She trotted to a large, official-looking building. Inside, she asked the Angel on duty what the Council was deliberating about. “They’re deliberating on the movements of the Enemy Demons and how to counter that with placement of you Holy Demons. Any particular reason you’re here today?” the Angel peered at her curiously. “Actually, I’m hoping to talk to the Council about a job change. A cover job, that is.” She switched to her half-sent. form so she would be more on level with the Angel. “Really? Well, now I’m curious. Let me announce to the Council that you’re here and then you can head on in.” The Angel wrote something down in a book then turned and walked through a door off to the right. A few minutes later she popped her head out and beckoned to Dema. Dema quickly sped through the door and stopped when she reached the center of a large, circular room with multiple Angels sitting around it. “Dema, I understand you’re here to talk about a change in your cover job? Has something come up?” An Angel she knew well and one that had been nicknamed by her and her friends as Angie. She was supposedly the Handler of the Holy Demons. “Yes. A very… unique opportunity has arisen.” Dema replied, carefully folding her hands behind her and launching into an explanation of the whole event. The Angels listened calmly, though she could tell they were getting mad at her for what she said. A different Angel, the head of defense who had been nicknamed Macer, stood up and glared down at her. “We will have to deliberate on this, but let it be known I do not support this idea.” Dema nodded and replied, “Your continued resistance to anything I do is noted. Shall I leave so you can deliberate in peace?” “Yes.” Macer frowned at her as she left. As soon as Dema had closed the door, he sat down with a smile. Angie, seated next to him, sighed. “Macer, why do you insist on pretending you hate Dema?” “I don’t hate Dema. I hate the sneakiness all the Demons employ. I’ve always said we should be honest with the Mortals.” He crossed his arms. “You keep forgetting that Mortals are extremely frightened of Demons. If the Mortals discover that Demons are amidst them, they’ll get very frightened, and try to fight the Demons, who’ll fight back in self-defense, and then Mortals will die.!” Angie accentuated her words by slamming her hands on the table in front of her. “Your way too melodramatic.” Macer said, shaking his head at her. Dema sat in the lobby and talked with the Angel there about children. It turned out the Angel had a young son who was always tipping things over, usually to disastrous results. After talking for about 15 minutes, Dema looked at a watch that suddenly appeared on her wrist and strode back into the chamber, right into the midst of an argument. “Allowing 3 demons to be exposed to a plane would be disastrous!!” Angie yelled, standing up and pushing her chair back. Macer, who had ended up moving to a different part of the room, yelled back, “If they follow through with their current plan, then the ruler and practical God of that plane would be there to smooth everything over!!” “Look, I don’t care about all this Exposure talk! That’s not the important part! The rules state that the Demons cannot get involved in the lives of the primary sentients of each plane!!” A different Angel kept shouting, but his words kept getting overshadowed by Angie and Macer. “ALRIGHT LITTLE ANGELS, TIME TO STOP YOUR ARGUING!!!!” Dema said, striding in confidently. The Angels fell silent, shocked by her brash manner. “First of all, we’d be keeping it almost completely on the down-low until I got the job, if I got the job. Second of all, Discord, who I’d be interfacing with most of the time, is a Draconequus, not a Pony, the primary sentient of that particular plane. Anymore arguments?” “Yes! What gives you the right to bust in here like that!?” cried the self-same Angel who was getting overshadowed by Angie and Macer. “simple. You never finish deliberating until someone else comes in and gives you the answer you’re looking for. And don’t try to call me out on it, because it always happens.” Dem crossed her arms and gave the Angel a challenging look. Angie giggled. “She has a point. Now, in light of that incredibly compelling argument, I believe we should start the voting. Who votes for allowing Dema to get this job?” She looked around at the rest of the Council and counted the raised hands. “Alright. Who votes for not allowing Dema to get this job?” She counted much more quickly this time. “It seems the overwhelming vote is for her to get this job.” She didn’t sound happy. “Thanks, Council. I should get going. I have to get an interview scheduled.” Dema spun on one foot and walked out. “You have fun angering the Council, don’t you?” said the Angel in the lobby, chuckling. “What can I say? It’s easy and fun!” Dema said, grinning. She saluted to the Angel and left. She turned back into her natural Demon form and re-opened the portal she’d used to get there. Once back in Equestria, she teleported to the statue garden and turned back into her pony form. She quickly stretched her wings and Lunar Armor appeared, disguising her. “I’m glad I kept this stuff.” She muttered. She quickly trotted through the palace to Discord’s quarters. When she finally reached the proper room, she teleported inside. “Discord, you can deliver the letter now.” She said, ignoring the crude painting of Celestia Discord was making. “Finally! I’ll have to give it to Luna instead of Celestia since you took so long.” Discord dropped the brush and pulled the letter out of thin air. Dema examined the painting, added a few things to make it a more flattering picture of Celestia, then disappeared herself. Chapter 5Luna delivered her most recent verdict, and the two arguing ponies trotted out, neither completely happy nor mad. Luna relaxed slightly, as that had been a difficult decision. Suddenly Discord appeared next to her throne, waving a letter around. “Luuuunaaa~!” He sang, waving the letter in face. She jerked back. “What dost thou want, Discord?” she said, focusing on the letter. “I have a very important letter for you! I need you to read it right away!” He said, shoving it in her face. Luna pulled her head back so far it ran into the back of the throne. She took the letter in her magic, opening it curiously. She read it, her eyes growing wide. “Discord, who are these… old friends of yours, and how are we supposed to trust them?” “Well, you have to at least consider it. It’s not like you and Celestia can constantly keep an eye on me.” He said, smirking. Luna frowned. “We shall talk to Celestia about it, but do not get your hopes up. Now, we must get back to Night Court.” Discord frowned, but vanished all the same. The next morning, Luna and Celestia had breakfast- or dinner for Luna- together. Luna passed the letter to Celestia. After she read it, she carefully put it down and cleared her throat. “This is an interesting development. It likely has some connection with the letter Discord received the day before. Likely, the ponies- or creatures, more like- who sent him that letter are the same ones who sent this one. Do you think we should consider this?” she said, glancing curiously at Luna. “I believe we should. We need to at least find out who these immortals- for they surely must be immortals- are, and discover if they are a threat or not. An interview will allow us to meet them and analyze their personalities.” “Good idea, Luna. I shall talk to Discord about getting back to his… friends after breakfast.” Celestia said, lifting a muffin up to her mouth. Chapter 6After breakfast, Luna left for bed and Celestia headed for Discord’s chambers. She paused outside the doors and collected herself before knocking. “Come iiiiiiiin~!” Discord said in a singsong voice. Celestia opened the door with her magic and walked in to see Discord sitting in the center of his room, paint splattered everwhere, trying to do… something to a picture of herself. “Ah, Celestia! What brings you to my chambers so early in the morning? Don’t you have Day Court soon?” he asked, painting a rather large and bushy mustache on Celestia’s face. “I need to talk to you about the letter you showed my sister last night.” she said, looking curiously at the portrait. It seemed Discord had been having trouble with his brush or something, because there were several faint lines that he appeared to be trying to get rid of. Discord’s face lit up. “Ah, yes the letter! So, what did you two decide?” he asked, floating over to her. “My sister and I have decided to interview your… old friends. This better not be a trick Discord.” Celestia said, turning her head to keep him in sight. “Me? Play a trick on you? Why Celestia, I’d never!” he proclaimed, a look of mock horror on his face. Celestia gave him a measured look before saying, “Since they have requested an audience when it is between night and day, I shall consent to interviewing them either this evening or tomorrow morning. Tell them not to be late.” Celestia finished and turned to leave. “Thank you Celly, you won’t be disappointed!” Discord said, vanishing. Just how many ponies know my childhood nickname? Celestia thought, shaking her head as she walked out of Discord’s room. Discord appeared just on the edge of the Everfree forest and zoomed in, looking for a certain clearing. Soon, he found the clearing with Zecora’s hut. He quickly began looking at all the trees until he found one with a large opening below the tree roots. He knocked on it 5 times. (Shave and a haircut…) Two more knocks could be heard from inside the hollow (two bits!), and a second later Wolfy’s head poked out. “Oh, hi Discord! So, what’s the news?” he said, pulling himself out of the hollow. “Celestia has consented to interview you either this evening or tomorrow morning.” Discord said gleefully. “That’s great! Hey, I wanna introduce you to someone.” Wolfy said. He poked his head back inside the hollow and called, “Ferahn!” A few seconds later, a small black fox with 6 tails scrambled out of the hollow. “Hey is this Mister Crazy?” Ferahn said, looking at Discord curiously. “Yes Ferahn, this is Discord.” Wolfy said, nodding. “Excuse me, I’d prefer to simply be called Crazy, Chaos, or Discord, none of that ‘Mister’ stuff. Makes me sound boring.” Discord said, crossing his arms. “Ok! Hey, can you make a fifteen hundred tier birthday cake?” Ferahn said, teleporting to Discord’s shoulder and hovering there as a wisp. “Why of course I can! There’s nothing I can’t do!” Discord said, snapping his paw. Sure enough, a massive birthday cake with fifteen hundred tiers appeared, right in the middle of the clearing. A smile appeared in the wisp of smoke that was Ferahn, and he glided over to it, turned solid, and began consuming the cake at an astonishing rate. Soon, all that was left was the pillars that held the tiers up and a stuffed Ferahn. Wolfy snickered and Discord guffawed. “I like this kid, Nosey! Where’d you find him?” Discord said, wiping a tear from his eye as his laughter died down. “I didn’t find him, Dema did. Technically, he’s her adopted son.” Wolfy said, teleporting to Ferahn and pushing him up with his nose. “Lazy tails! Get up! You have homework to finish!” “Aw, but I dun wanna get up! Can’t I just do it later?!” Ferahn whined. “if you do your homework, I’ll… let you stay up late.” Wolfy said, sitting up. Ferahn brightened up. “Ok, I’ll work on it right now!” with that, he wisped back into the hollow. “So, when you two get the job, you’ll bring him, right? He seems like fun!” Discord said. “We thought you’d say that. I’m quite sure you two will get along famously. Oh, and Discord, I can think of one thing you can’t do.” Wolfy said teasingly. “Oh really? And what would that be, my fine furry friend?” Discord said, picking Wolfy up by the tail. Wolfy grinned at Discord and said, “You can’t make something orderly.” Discord dropped Wolfy and crossed his arms, looking offended. Wolfy teleported to the ground to avoid a painful landing. “Of course I can make something orderly, I just don’t like doing it. You’ve seen me undo Chaos thousands of times.” “I’ve seen you undo your Chaos thousands of time. I’ve never seen you undo natural Chaos.” Wolfy replied, still grinning. “Why would I do that? It’s naturally in my favorite state!” Discord said, aghast. “Well, what if that was the only way to get around a problem? I don’t mean literally, I mean in the case of ‘a friend needs to be rid of some natural Chaos and want you’re help’.” Wolfy said, cutting off Discord when he began to talk. Discord put a claw to his chin and thought for several seconds. “Well, I guess I could solve something like that. I wouldn’t enjoy doing it, but I could probably do it.” He said, swinging his clawed hand around. “Anyways, I need to get back to the castle. I have a painting to finish. And with that, Discord disappeared. MINI LESSONYou suddenly find yourself in a classroom with all the other readers. Sitting up front is Dema, the character you’ve been reading about. “Welcome to The Background. It’s come to my attention that some of the background stuff of this story is confusing, mainly the relationships between the Demons. So, this class is to explain everything to you.” “First of all, I’m sure you’re confused about Ferahn. Ferahn is a young demon-fox, and only about 10 years old. He has four tails and the beginning of a fifth. He is classified as my son, though we’re not related by blood. A while back, I mad something called an ‘intercept nest’ that allowed me to intercept one magical transmission between my enemies. That transmission was Ferahn’s egg. To be honest, I had no clue what I would get when I activated that thing.” As she talks, she draws something on a large chalk board behind her. It seems to be some odd conglomeration of wood, stone and all kinds of random things. “I had to get the help of a friend to hatch the egg, since it required magic to incubate the egg and I’m rather terrible with magic. I’m not going to mention who she is. Because.” “Anyways, I better cover something else before finishing this explanation of Ferahn. Now, we’re not native to the MLP universe. We’re native to somewhere entirely different that I can’t remember the name of. We can, however change dimensions. Ferahn has gained his different powers and such throughout a myriad of dimensions. For example, when we visited the alternate universe where the NLR truly exists, Ferahn gained his Whisping powers. Here in the Backup, for this isn’t just a pocket dimension but a different dimension entirely, he gained his size-changing powers. He gained his first form here as well when helping out at Restaurant Insanity. Whisping isn’t counted as a form, just as powers. You may have noticed the use of the phrase ‘half-sent. form’ in Chapter 4. Sent. is short for sentient- the form is called this because lots of dimensions have a different race that’s most prominent. The most basic form for a Demon to have is the Prim. Sent. form, or Primary Sentient form. In the MLP dimension, that’s a pony. In the Equestria Girls dimension, that would be a human, and so on so forth.” This time, she draws several circles and labels them with different things. “On to the Holy Demons. I assume you understand the idea of how the group was formed from Chapter 3. I’m going to give you a few more details of the group. There are EXACTLY 26 demons in the Holy Demons, including Me, Wolfy, and Ferahn. I’m the High Demon in charge, which is why I’m the one who always has to talk to the Angels. Oh, and I’m not going to tell you anything about the Angels. They get to come in later. NO SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” a small flying squirrel demon appeared and tried to talk, but she wrapped her tail around his mouth to keep him quiet. “Now let’s see… What else is there to cover… Oh yeah, Me an’ Wolfy! This one’s pretty simple. Wolfy is my second in command. No, there is no kind of romantic relationship there. He’s called Nosey in his pony form because his special power is the ability to track anything anywhere. My ability is I’m very good at convincing people to follow me places. This will be explained more in depth later. And that’s it for this class! Ah BUH-BYE!” She waves with one paw and with that, you find yourself back in front of your computer. Did that really happen? Chapter 7That evening, 2 pegasi and an earth pony foal came to the castle. The female pegasus was purple with a black mane and tail similar to Vinyl Scratch’s and a winged messenger bag cutie mark. The male pegasus was blue with an incredibly spiky mane and tail that was blue and purple and a breeze blowing over three paw prints for a cutie mark. The earth pony foal was a darker blue with a roughly cut mane and tail that was striped black and purple. The 3 headed for the throne room. When they reached their destination, two guards told them that Day Court was over several hours ago and Night Court wasn’t due to begin for a couple more hours. The female pegasus stepped forward and said, “We realize that. We are the ponies that were hoping to help keep Discord in line.” As she finished talking, Discord appeared in front of her. “Now what makes you think that I need to be kept in line?” he asked indignantly. The pegasus raised an eyebrow. “There are millions of reasons. For the sake of time, I won’t be listing them. Will you tell the Princesses we’re here?” she said, sounding almost bored. One of the guards looked between Discord and the pegasus and said, “We were not told there were going to be any interviewees for anything this evening. Discord, if you arranged a sudden interview, you shall be in trouble.” “Now wait just a second! Princess Celestia gave me a letter! Just let me get it…” Discord said, twisting around and looking for something. After a few seconds, he pulled out a rolled up piece of paper with a red ribbon around it. “Ahah! Here it is!” He waved it in the air before handing it to the guard. The guard unrolled the scroll and read it before handing it back to Discord. “Alright. It seems you’re all approved for this..” “I told you so! Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Discord said, disappearing. “hmm. I think he forgot something.” Said the male pegasus, putting a hoof to his chin. “Oh? And what would that be, Nosey?” asked the female pegasus. “Why, Lettermane, he forgot to say anything to us. He’s likely to be gone for several minutes, you know. Now we’ll just be standing her awkwardly during that time. I think Discord needs more manners lessons.” Lettermane smiled. “You know, I think you’re right, Nosey. I believe if we get this post that will be the first thing to happen.” They did indeed end up standing there for 10 minutes. When Discord reappeared, he had a singe on his right arm. “The Princesses are waiting in the throne room. Come on, the faster you interview, the sooner we can have fun!” Discord said, waving them towards the throne room door. Lettermane cleared her throat. “Now, Discord, you do realize we can’t walk through a closed door, and you haven’t asked these gentlecolts to open the doors for us. You will have to be polite.” Discord was speechless. “Lettermane, you aren’t telling me…” Nosey and the earth pony foal snickered as Lettermane nodded sagely. “Oh yes, Discord. I’m saying you will have to use a little thing called ‘manners’, because I’m sure these fine gentlecolts won’t answer to anything less.” The guards seemed to be resisting the urge to snicker as well. “Oh, fine.” Discord grumbled. He turned to face the two guards, who immediately did their best to erase all traces of laughter from their faces, and succeeded quite well. “Will you two…”*grumble grumble*”please open the doors for us.?” Discord asked, annoyed, crossing his arms and shooting glares at Lettermane, who kept a complete straight face through the whole thing. The two guards grinned. “Why of course, Discord, it would be our pleasure after such manners.” And with that, they opened the doors. After Nosey and the foal had stopped laughing at Discord, they all walked in. Discord grumbled some more before saying to Lettermane, “I still don’t see why you made me do that.” “Because, Discord, manners will get you farther than Chaos. Or have you forgotten when I told you that so many years ago?” Lettermane replied, not even glancing at Discord. Discord made a face and said, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I still don’t like it, though. I’d like to think I’ve done very well with Chaos instead of manners.” “Against ponies. Now you’re with ponies. You’re going to have to be nice.” Lettermane said, coming to a stop. Discord turned his attention to the throne not 20 feet in front of them. “Celestia, Luna, I would like to introduce you to my friends. This is Lettermane, this is Nosey and… Well, to be honest, I only met this little one today, so I don’t know what his pony name is.” He said, pointing at all 3 of them in turn and coiling around the earth pony. “… Wait I just realized we forgot to give you a pony name.” Nosey said, turning to stare at the colt who was trying to put all of Discord’s coils on top of his head like a hat. “I knew we were forgetting something. We’ll have to think of one later.” Lettermane said, looking from the earth pony to Nosey. Celestia blinked and said, “Excuse me, are you saying your foal doesn’t have a name?” Lettermane turned back to Celestia. “He has a name, just not a pony name for his pony form. His real name is Ferahn. Now, you don’t mind if we shift into our normal forms, do you? We couldn’t use them to come here because we didn’t want to cause a scene. Frightening ponies is NOT something we want to do.” “I believe that would be preferable, yes.” Celestia said, exchanging a glance with Luna. Lettermane nodded at the two next to her and was enveloped in black fire, reappearing as a sleek, scaly black cat with a spade-tipped tail. Nosey and Ferahn were enveloped in what appeared to be normal fire, reappearing as an oddly fluffy black wolf with a hardened spade on his tail and a small black fox with 4 tails, each topped with a spade. “Allow me to reintroduce ourselves. I am Dema, and my friend here is Wolfy, and of course, my kit’s name is Ferahn.” said the black cat, nodding at the wolf and the fox in turn. Suddenly, Discord disappeared and reappeared much smaller on Dema’s head. “And this is Discord.” Dema added flawlessly, pointing at Discord with her tail. Celestia cleared her throat. “So, why do you believe that you are qualified to look after Discord?” she asked, floating up a stack of papers and a quill. Discord snorted. “I’ve worked with him before. I know how to… curb his chaotic tendencies. For example, he thinks things that stay the same constantly are boring, which is why he has a tendency to constantly change around the appearance of statues and such.” Dema said, calmly wrapping her tail and the tiny Discord and considering him before placing him on the floor next to her. Luna looked slightly shocked. “How didst thou know Discord has been changing the appearance of our statues?” “Because he’s Discord. He did that back when he ruled, too. The statue garden never looked the same day-to-day.” Dema chuckled. “Those statues often tended to be rather hilarious. I remember at one point, when one of the chefs had recently had a foal, the statues had a whole party set up in the garden.” Luna and Celestia glanced at each other surprisedly, and Celestia scribbled something on her paper. “Are you saying that Discord did something nice for the ponies under his rule during his reign?” Celestia asked. “Very often. Discord was not originally mean. His main problem was that he did not, and still likely does not, understand what is good and bad in the eyes of ponies. Wolfy, Angie, and I often helped him to understand this.” Dema said, looking at Discord as he rapidly grew to normal size. “Who is this ‘Angie’ thou speakest of?” Luna said, leaning forward slightly. “Angie is a friend of ours. We don’t get to see her often, because her job keeps her extremely busy. It wasn’t always like that.” Dema said, her voice getting softer. “A sore topic, so I suggest we stop talking of it. And don’t even get started on the past!” Discord said, pulling an apple out of his ear and eating it. Dema flew up to Discord’s shoulder and pulled another apple from behind his wing, holding it in her tail as she spiraled back down to the floor. “What exactly do you need to know for me to get this job?” Dema said before biting into the apple. Both princesses seemed taken aback by Dema’s blunt words. Celestia blinked and said, “Well, I do not even know if I can trust the words you have said so far. I will require something that proves your sincerity.” The apple vanished in a puff of blackish-grey fire. “How about this; I, Dema, High Demon of the 1st Holy Demon Fareth, swear upon these Holy Runes that bind me, to be truthful in my dealings with you, Princess Celestia of Equestria, and you, Princess Luna of Equestria.” As she spoke, several glowing blue runes appeared all over her, and they glowed brighter as she completed her statement. “Do you, Princess Celestia, and you, Princess Luna, recognize that these runes as a sign of my sincerity?” she asked, cocking her head at the duo as she spoke. Celestia and Luna were surprised, but quickly gathered themselves. “I, Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria, recognize these runes as true and binding, and believe in your sincerity.” Luna forgot her training and slipped into the royal canterlot voice. “WE, PRINCESS LUNA, CO-RULER OF EQUESTRIA, RECOGNIZE THESE RUNES AS TRUE AND BINDING, AND BELIEVE IN YOUR SINCERITY.” As Luna finished her statement, the runes glowed so bright they were almost blinding before fading away completely. “You’ve certainly got some new tricks up your sleeve.” Discord said, bending down to stare directly at Dema. He’d been staring at her in shock ever since the runes appeared. “We all have them, Discord; we just don’t show them off.” Wolfy said, barely turning his head. “I want one!!!” Discord said, pouting. “No you don’t. You’d die of boredom in the process. Now be quiet, the adults are talking.” She said, putting a paw on his head and gently but firmly pushing him away. Celestia surveyed this group with newfound curiosity. Finding a demon that was bound with holy runes was ludicrous, and now she had three sitting in her throne room, interviewing for a job handling Discord! When Dema brought the conversation back to the “adults”, she spoke up. “Since you hope to get a job keeping Discord from doing wrong while he stays here, I would like to know how you plan to do that.” “Simple. We plan to redirect his chaotic impulses towards beneficial actions. I have even planned out a punishment for him should he decide to cause trouble.” Dema said, tapping Discord’s side so that he stood at an angle and walking up his back to sit on his head. She was smaller than a pony, so she was able to sit between his horns. Luna perked up. “What, pray tell, is this punishment?” “He will have to reorganize a bookshelf when he behaves. The amount of books depends on how bad his transgression was.” Ferahn got a very confused and unhappy look on his face. “Mama, will you just speak plain Equestrian for once? I couldn’t understand half of what you just said, starting with that “beany-fishes” thing.” Wolfy sniggered a little and Dema shot him a look. “What? Beany-fishes sound kinda funny! I mean, what would that even be? I fish made of beans? A fish shaped like a bean? Maybe a fish that tastes like beans?” he said, putting a paw to his chin and rambling. Dema walked over and gently closed his mouth with a paw. “You gots to stop ramblin’, Lupay.” “But I’m a rambling colt, Dema!” he said, sounding like he was about to crack up. “Sorreh, Lupay, but you just gotsta!” Dema said, grinning. She turned back to Ferahn. “Anyways, I was saying we’d get Discord to use the chaos he wants to use on good things, and when he does something wrong, he has to reorganize a certain amount of books, depending on how badly he messed up.” “Oh, ok. Thanks, mama!” He said, moving close enough to rub his head against her chest. Dema chuckled lightly. “Anytime, my silly little kit.” She replied, bending down to hug him close. Luna leaned towards Celestia and whispered, “They certainly seem like they’d do a good job of keeping Discord occupied.” Celestia smiled slightly before turning back to Dema and her friends and cleared her throat. “Well, you certainly seem to have all of this figured out. However, I have no way of knowing if you really have the best intentions for this kingdom. To be sure of such, I believe you should be allowed this job for a probationary period, where we shall watch your interactions and make sure you are fit to keep Discord out of trouble.” Dema’s face broke out into a large grin. “Thanks, Princesses, you won’t regret it.” As she finished speaking, Ferahn yawned massively. “Oh, that brings a new question; will we be returning to our residence or will a residence be provided for us?” “For tonight, I ask you to return to your home. We shall have a room prepared for you tomorrow.” Celestia replied. “Alright. Come on, you two, let’s get you home before you collapse of exhaustion.” Dema said, nudging Wolfy and Ferahn to their feet. “Bye Dscord!”She said over her shoulder as together, the three left the throne room. “Discord, you know… quite a lot about those three, yes?” Celestia said, descending her platform to stand near Discord. Discord’s head snapped around to look at Celestia. “hmm? Oh, yes. I could tell you all about them if you like.” He replied. “I would like that, yes. I noticed that as the interview went on, Ferahn and Wolfy seemed to get more tired while Dema got perkier. Why is that?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. “Ah, that would be because Dema is what is called a night demon, or a demon that can’t see in the light and is far more accustomed to doing everything in the dark. Wolfy and Ferahn are both day demons, or demons that can’t see a thing at night and are accustomed to doing everything in the light. For Dema, a new moon is like high noon. Rather useful to have a group of demons with both night and day demons in their group. Helps keep the party going after the sun goes down. Speaking of which, shouldn’t the sun be down by now?” He said, a mischievous glint in his eye as he looked out the window. Celestia jerked around to look out the window and realized the sun had been perched on the horizon for 10 minutes now. She quickly teleported to her balcony and lowered her sun, making room for Luna’s moon. Chapter 2As you can probably guess, a lot of mail comes into the Palace every day. Because of this, there is a small team of mail sorters who make sure the mail gets to the right pony. One day, one of the mail sorters finds a letter addressed to somepony in the Palace they’d never expected to receive a letter. He quickly rushed the letter to his superior, who stared at it for a few seconds, then took it straight to Celestia. Celestia took it and grew curious. It was a very odd letter. The return address wasn’t really an address, just a name, and it was incredibly curious that someone would send a letter to Discord. She decided to read it, too curious to stop herself. The piece of paper was small, more the size of a postcard than a full letter. Dear Discord, It’s me, Nosey. LetterMane and I have decided to give you a chance to tell your side of the story. Meet us at the Forest at dusk tomorrow. Silver Light won’t be there. We expect you to make the seating arrangements and food as always. Lettermane’s angry. Be ready. Your old pal, Nosey Celestia found herself even more curious. Who were Nosey, LetterMane, and Silverlight? What did the letter mean, your side of the story? Why did it end with your old pal? She put the letter back in its envelope then trotted off to find Discord, levitating the curious letter in her magic. She soon found him in the gardens, changing the hedges into crazy shapes. “Discord, you have a letter.” She said, stopping near him. “Ooh, really?” He said, turning to her. “Is it fan mail? And I was beginning to think everypony didn’t like me!” He took the letter from her magic and poofed up an armchair, small table with a lamp, and pair of glasses which he perched on his nose. He took the letter from the envelope and began to read. He quickly reached the end of the letter and jumped up. “Oh, this is great! I can finally see my old friends again! Thanks for the letter, Celly, I need to go choose an outfit!” He said. He disappeared with a snap of his fingers, as did the armchair, table, and lamp. The hedges stayed as he had left them, though.
Chapter 1Dema had been traveling for a few years, showing her son Ferahn different parts of Equestria and teaching him the history of the land. When he gained his first power, the ability to turn into a wisp of black smoke and float about as such, she returned to the Everfree Forest where she’d been living with her friend Wolfy. “Wolfy, we’re home!” Dema said, trotting into the tree hollow they lived in. “Dema, you’re back! A lot has happened since you’ve been gone.” He said, walking up to her. Ferahn wisped to Wolfy’s back and reformed there, wrapping his four tails around Wolfy in a hug. “Hey, little fox!” Wolfy said, wrapping his tail around Ferahn in a return of the hug. “So, what’s happened since we’ve been gone?” Dema asked, moving past Wolfy to the center of the hollow and sitting down. Wolfy followed and sat down next to her while Ferahn tumbled off his back to lie on his side near them. “Well, lots of stuff. The Element Bearers destroyed Sombra and saved the Crystal Empire.” He gave her a look as he talked, which she pointedly ignored. “Hmm… Twilight Sparkle became an Alicorn Princess. Oh, and there’s one other thing. It’s a big one.” Wolfy said, looking as though he had to prepare himself to say it. Quickly he blurted out, “Discord’s been reformed.” He then flicked his hears back and prepared for her response. “WHAT!? He’s REFORMED!? How did these… these SIMPLETONS reform DISCORD!?!?!?!?!” She yelled, jumping to her paws and spreading her leathery wings. Shadow fire came from her paws in bursts when they hit the ground, and her spade tail scored deep grooves in the ground. Ferahn wisped behind Wolfy until she was done throwing her tantrum, knowing full well how dangerous Dema was when she was angry. After a few minutes of throwing around shadow fire and attacking the ground with tail and claws, she sat down panting. “It seems Fluttershy reminded him what it was like to have a friend.” Wolfy said after she’d calmed down. “You know we have to contact him.” Dema looked up at him suddenly and growled. “Oh? And why would that be?” She said in a dangerously low voice. She stood up and spread her wings, advancing a step. “Because. We’re missing part of the story and you know it. We need to know what happened after we left, why he became a tyrant, and you know it.” Wolfy said, shifting from fur to scales so his fur wouldn’t be damaged. It was what he was most proud of. Dema huffed and sat down again, folding her wings against her scaly sides. “Oh, alright. I’ll sneak a letter into the mail and make sure it gets to Canterlot and into the Palace. But you’re writing it.” Dema said, poking him in the chest with a claw. Wolfy nodded and turned his scales back to fur. “Gladly.”Dema stalked off, and Wolfy released the tense breath he’d been holding. “Well. That ended better than expected.” Ferahn, who’d stayed behind Wolfy for the rest of the conversation, moved in front of Wolfy and asked, “Wolfy? Who’s Discord?” Wolfy thought for a second, then replied. “I think you should ask Dema. After all, he’s part of Equestria’s history, and she’s supposed to be teaching it to you.” Ferahn nodded and walked away as Wolfy picked up a quill with his tail and began writing a letter on one of the few pieces of paper in their home.
Chapter 3That evening, Discord appeared near the Everfree forest, far away from where most ponies strayed. He snapped his fingers and a cloud table with three cloud cushions appeared, all floating at least 6 inches off the ground. On either side of one cushion were two cloud cauldrons on pedestals. He poofed up three cloud cups, only one of which had a handle. They filled themselves with a steamy brown liquid with tiny cloudberries floating in it. He dusted off his hands and sat down on the cushion in front of the cup with a handle. Soon, two shapes broke from the trees of the Everfree forest and walked towards him. “Dema, Wolfy, how nice it is to see you again!” he cried, turning to them. The closer one, a scaly black cat with leathery wings and a long spade tail, hopped onto the cushion between the pedestals and puffed a bit of shadow fire into each one. The other, a muscular black wolf with leathery wings, a short spade tail, and a rather unnecessary amount of fur, hopped into the other seat. The cat, scowling at Discord, grabbed the cup in front of her with her tail and held it close to her. She kept her ears folded tightly against her head. “I want answers Discord.” She said angrily, sipping the drink. Discord nervously fiddled with his claws. “Why, whatever do you mean, Dema? I find it hard to believe I have answers you don’t. You have always been smarter than me.” “You know what I mean. Why did you turn evil? What happened that fucked up your mind? Why…” she paused, growing softer and sadder. “Why weren’t you there when we came back?” She looked down and stared into her cup, moodily swishing the drink around. Discord sighed. “Oh, alright. But I’m only telling this story once, and I’ll only give you a short version, so put those ears of yours to use,” He reached out and tapped her ears, forcing her to flick them forward. “After you disappeared, I started getting depressed. I thought I had done something wrong and you didn’t want to see me again. I stopped helping ponies, and started doing the bare minimum of raising the sun and moon. Then one day, in a particularly foul mood, I saw a group of foals playing a game. They were having such fun together, being friends. I snapped. From then on, I spread some very horrible chaos all over the land. Then, Celestia and Luna came. They used the Elements of Harmony to lock me up, so I wouldn’t cause any more harm. I was alone, trapped in a rock, for a thousand years.” The more he talked, the sadder he sounded. Wolfy, who had picked up his cup and sipping at it quietly, spoke up. “Well, we weren’t trying to abandon you. A Holy War had started, and we had to fight in it. The reason we’re here, in fact, is because we fought on the side of the Angels and got exiled from our home because of it.” As Discord looked alarmed, Wolfy held up a paw. “Now don’t go trying to apologize. That place has gone to pot since we left, and I’m glad we don’t live there anymore. It’s much nicer here.” A back appeared on Discord’s cushion, and he leaned against it. “So, when did you two get back?” “Around five hundred years ago. I couldn’t believe when I found out you weren’t the ruler anymore, and I was furious, as you can probably guess, when I found out why,” Dema sighed. “But I guess we can’t really blame you fully, now can we? Events just spiraled out of control.” “Well, you’re just going to have to find some way to always be around me to make up for all these lost years, now aren’t you? Ooh, I know, you could become hedge sculptures and I could visit the garden often!” Discord clapped his hands, then chugged his drink. Dema rolled her eyes and took another sip of her drink. “I almost forgot how much I missed your cloudberry tea, Discord. And we’re not becoming hedge sculptures. One, we have to be able to move, and two, gardeners would be trying to clip us all the time. No thank you.” “Well then, you could become cooks or something!” Discord said, magically refilling his cup. Wolfy snorted. “Yeah right, like either of us can cook.” Dema perked up. “Discord, would you say that the Princesses might believe you would need supervision?” “Well, it is a distinct possibility. I mean, she does try to have me followed often when I leave the Palace, though it rarely works out.” Discord said thoughtfully. “Perfect! Wolfy, you need to write a letter to the Princesses and propose to them the idea of us being Keepers for old Discord here.” Dema said, grinning. She downed her drink and disappeared in a puff of smoke. A second later she appeared on Discord’s head, smaller than earlier. “So, old boy, I assume all the promises and such we had in the Before Times will get re-established?” She leaned on her paw and looped her tail over Discord’s stag horn. “Well, I don’t know… I am enjoying this whole ‘escape your supervisors and have fun’ thing, and if you two are around, I’ll never be unsupervised.” Discord said teasingly, tickling her chin with a claw. Dema wrapped her tail around Discord’s wrist and hung from it, holding onto his paw. “Now Discord, if we’re supervising you, and no one’s supervising us, it’ll really be all of us unsupervised together. Besides, the Princesses are probably pretty miffed about your escapes.” Dema stared at him from her upside down and backwards position, her red eyes glinting in amusement. Wolfy chuckled at the two having their odd conversation and drank more of his tea. “You have a point. Alright, all our former deals and such are re-established. I’ll put in a good word for you with the Princesses. Ooh, maybe you could send me back with the letter!” He casually removed Dema from his paw and put her back in her seat, refilling her cup of tea from a non-existent teapot. Wolfy looked around for a few seconds, and then said, “Well, I’d write the letter now, but there seems to be a distinct lack of paper and quills.” He gave a meaningful look at Discord. “Oh, of course!” Discord snapped his claws and a paper, quill, and inkpot appeared in front of Wolfy. Wolfy finished his tea then picks up the quill with his tail and starts writing. Dema and Discord talked about what had happened since they last saw each other. Discord talked a lot about Fluttershy, while Dema talks about her travels with Ferahn. Soon, Wolfy’s finished writing. He calmly rolls it up and breathes a spell on it that prevented it being opened by anyone but the Princesses. He tossed it to Discord, who poofed up a basketball hoop over his hand and cried, “Wolfy makes the winning basket! And the crowd goes wild!” A crowd of Discords appeared behind Discord, cheering their heads off. Dema started laughing, and actually rolled off the cushion. Wolfy sat up on his hind legs and clapped his hands together, shaking them in the air, causing Dema to laugh harder. The extra Discords disappeared, and the real one bowed. “Well, friends, I must be off. Celestia gets crabby when I come back after dark. Tata!” and with that, Discord snapped his fingers and disappeared, as did everything he’d created. Wolfy fell to the ground and let out an “ooph!” He slowly pushed himself up and started checking his fur. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were actually a pride demon instead of a tracker demon, Wolfy.” Dema chuckled. “Oh, shush you. If I were to guess what kind of demon you were, I’d say wrath before messenger. Have you seen yourself when you’re angry?” Wolfy finished his check and glared at her. “No, but I hardly doubt I’d be paying attention. Come on, let’s get home. Ferahn’s probably been driving Zecora crazy.” Dema brushed past Wolfy and headed back into the forest.
Chapter 4When they arrived back at their den, Wolfy suddenly stopped, as though struck with a thought. “umm, Dema? We forgot something.” He quickly padded after her, as she hadn’t noticed him stopping. “Hmm? What do you mean? I don’t think we forgot anything.” She stopped and turned to him, confusion written large on her face. “We forgot the Council.” He said grimly. Dema’s eyes widened. “Oh. Quick, go catch Discord!” Wolfy nodded and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Dema followed suit and reappeared in a field near Cloudsdale, turning into a purple pegasus pony with a jagged black mane and tail, reddish eyes, and a messenger bag for a cutie mark. She flew up and landed outside the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center. She quickly clocked in and began gathering the shipments she was to deliver that night. A light brown pegasus with a winged package for a cutie mark trotted up and said, “Lettermane, you’re early.” He eyed the packages she was loading up. “And you’re overloading yourself. What’s going on?” Lettermane turned to the pegasus and said, “Something came up. I’m going to get all my packages delivered as fast as possible so I can have time to deal with it. I’d never try to deprive you of your best delivery mare on such short notice. I will tell you, though; I may end up quitting in a week. If everything goes the way I think it will, I’ll be moving too far away to keep this job.” She continued loading up as she spoke. “Well, I’m not going to let you deliver all this yourself. Let me help you.” He started hitching himself to the cart she was loading everything into. She quickly stopped him with a hoof, and turned all her attention to him, giving him a careful look. “Now, I respect you, Brown Package, but you’re not fit to be pulling this much weight with your wing still being injured from Dew Drop’s dropping a package on it last week. And don’t try to lie to me and say it’s fine. I can tell from the way you move it’s still bothering you.” She checked to make sure she had all her packages. “Besides, this’ll be easy for me to carry. Don’t worry, I’m a strong pony.” She grinned at him. He gave her a calculating look and finally said, “Alright, I guess you’re right. But if I find out you’ve injured yourself with this load, you’ll be in deep horseapples, missy.” He gave her a warning look and trotted away. Lettermane smiled as he walked away. “He’s a good pony. I should try and stop by and help him sometime if I end up working with Discord.” She said to herself. With that, she trotted out the doors, pulling her massive load behind her. She pulled it to the city limits and flew off the edge of the cloud city, straining her wings to stay airborne. As soon as she was out of sight of the city, she teleported herself and her load to the limits of the first city she was delivering to. She quickly unloaded the packages and flew off again, teleporting once she was out of sight of the city. She repeated the routine until she had finished delivering everything around midnight. “Record time. Of course, this is record time with cheating, so it doesn’t really count, now does it.” She said to herself. Suddenly, Discord was flying alongside her. “So, is talking to yourself something you do nowadays?” he noticed her cart and curled up inside it. She corkscrewed, dumping him out of the cart. “Of course. Been doing it for a couple a years now. You’re heavy for a creature that floats half the time. Have you been laying into the cloud cake?” she glanced at him, grinning to show she was teasing. “How could you accuse me of such!? I’ll have you know, I have more interesting things to eat than cloud cake.” He said, pretending to be offended. Dema snickered. “What, like the glasses used to hold chocolate milk?” “Yes. They’re quite delicious, you should try one sometime.” “I gotta go. I have to get this cart back to the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center and then I have an important meeting to go to.” Dema said, flying faster. “Ooh, is it with this Council Nosey mentioned? Can I meet them? And why are you working for the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center?” Dema bopped his nose. “Yes, no, because I want to. I will teleport if you don’t stop bombarding me with questions.” “Oh, all right. You better tell me when I can deliver this letter, though. It’s burning a hole in my pocket!” Suddenly, Discord was wearing pants and the letter was slowly burning its way through the pocket. “Well, then, take it out of your pocket and put it in your Hidey Hole until later.” With that, Dema teleported to the field below Cloudsdale and flew up to deliver the cart. She quickly dropped the cart off at the CPDC and quickly returned to the field. There, she returned to normal and activated a used a spell on herself. Glowing blue lines suddenly covered Dema from head to toe, and a portal appeared next to her a second later. She trotted through the portal and once more found herself walking on clouds, though these ones were formed to look like normal streets. She trotted to a large, official-looking building. Inside, she asked the Angel on duty what the Council was deliberating about. “They’re deliberating on the movements of the Enemy Demons and how to counter that with placement of you Holy Demons. Any particular reason you’re here today?” the Angel peered at her curiously. “Actually, I’m hoping to talk to the Council about a job change. A cover job, that is.” She switched to her half-sent. form so she would be more on level with the Angel. “Really? Well, now I’m curious. Let me announce to the Council that you’re here and then you can head on in.” The Angel wrote something down in a book then turned and walked through a door off to the right. A few minutes later she popped her head out and beckoned to Dema. Dema quickly sped through the door and stopped when she reached the center of a large, circular room with multiple Angels sitting around it. “Dema, I understand you’re here to talk about a change in your cover job? Has something come up?” An Angel she knew well and one that had been nicknamed by her and her friends as Angie. She was supposedly the Handler of the Holy Demons. “Yes. A very… unique opportunity has arisen.” Dema replied, carefully folding her hands behind her and launching into an explanation of the whole event. The Angels listened calmly, though she could tell they were getting mad at her for what she said. A different Angel, the head of defense who had been nicknamed Macer, stood up and glared down at her. “We will have to deliberate on this, but let it be known I do not support this idea.” Dema nodded and replied, “Your continued resistance to anything I do is noted. Shall I leave so you can deliberate in peace?” “Yes.” Macer frowned at her as she left. As soon as Dema had closed the door, he sat down with a smile. Angie, seated next to him, sighed. “Macer, why do you insist on pretending you hate Dema?” “I don’t hate Dema. I hate the sneakiness all the Demons employ. I’ve always said we should be honest with the Mortals.” He crossed his arms. “You keep forgetting that Mortals are extremely frightened of Demons. If the Mortals discover that Demons are amidst them, they’ll get very frightened, and try to fight the Demons, who’ll fight back in self-defense, and then Mortals will die.!” Angie accentuated her words by slamming her hands on the table in front of her. “Your way too melodramatic.” Macer said, shaking his head at her. Dema sat in the lobby and talked with the Angel there about children. It turned out the Angel had a young son who was always tipping things over, usually to disastrous results. After talking for about 15 minutes, Dema looked at a watch that suddenly appeared on her wrist and strode back into the chamber, right into the midst of an argument. “Allowing 3 demons to be exposed to a plane would be disastrous!!” Angie yelled, standing up and pushing her chair back. Macer, who had ended up moving to a different part of the room, yelled back, “If they follow through with their current plan, then the ruler and practical God of that plane would be there to smooth everything over!!” “Look, I don’t care about all this Exposure talk! That’s not the important part! The rules state that the Demons cannot get involved in the lives of the primary sentients of each plane!!” A different Angel kept shouting, but his words kept getting overshadowed by Angie and Macer. “ALRIGHT LITTLE ANGELS, TIME TO STOP YOUR ARGUING!!!!” Dema said, striding in confidently. The Angels fell silent, shocked by her brash manner. “First of all, we’d be keeping it almost completely on the down-low until I got the job, if I got the job. Second of all, Discord, who I’d be interfacing with most of the time, is a Draconequus, not a Pony, the primary sentient of that particular plane. Anymore arguments?” “Yes! What gives you the right to bust in here like that!?” cried the self-same Angel who was getting overshadowed by Angie and Macer. “simple. You never finish deliberating until someone else comes in and gives you the answer you’re looking for. And don’t try to call me out on it, because it always happens.” Dem crossed her arms and gave the Angel a challenging look. Angie giggled. “She has a point. Now, in light of that incredibly compelling argument, I believe we should start the voting. Who votes for allowing Dema to get this job?” She looked around at the rest of the Council and counted the raised hands. “Alright. Who votes for not allowing Dema to get this job?” She counted much more quickly this time. “It seems the overwhelming vote is for her to get this job.” She didn’t sound happy. “Thanks, Council. I should get going. I have to get an interview scheduled.” Dema spun on one foot and walked out. “You have fun angering the Council, don’t you?” said the Angel in the lobby, chuckling. “What can I say? It’s easy and fun!” Dema said, grinning. She saluted to the Angel and left. She turned back into her natural Demon form and re-opened the portal she’d used to get there. Once back in Equestria, she teleported to the statue garden and turned back into her pony form. She quickly stretched her wings and Lunar Armor appeared, disguising her. “I’m glad I kept this stuff.” She muttered. She quickly trotted through the palace to Discord’s quarters. When she finally reached the proper room, she teleported inside. “Discord, you can deliver the letter now.” She said, ignoring the crude painting of Celestia Discord was making. “Finally! I’ll have to give it to Luna instead of Celestia since you took so long.” Discord dropped the brush and pulled the letter out of thin air. Dema examined the painting, added a few things to make it a more flattering picture of Celestia, then disappeared herself.
Chapter 5Luna delivered her most recent verdict, and the two arguing ponies trotted out, neither completely happy nor mad. Luna relaxed slightly, as that had been a difficult decision. Suddenly Discord appeared next to her throne, waving a letter around. “Luuuunaaa~!” He sang, waving the letter in face. She jerked back. “What dost thou want, Discord?” she said, focusing on the letter. “I have a very important letter for you! I need you to read it right away!” He said, shoving it in her face. Luna pulled her head back so far it ran into the back of the throne. She took the letter in her magic, opening it curiously. She read it, her eyes growing wide. “Discord, who are these… old friends of yours, and how are we supposed to trust them?” “Well, you have to at least consider it. It’s not like you and Celestia can constantly keep an eye on me.” He said, smirking. Luna frowned. “We shall talk to Celestia about it, but do not get your hopes up. Now, we must get back to Night Court.” Discord frowned, but vanished all the same. The next morning, Luna and Celestia had breakfast- or dinner for Luna- together. Luna passed the letter to Celestia. After she read it, she carefully put it down and cleared her throat. “This is an interesting development. It likely has some connection with the letter Discord received the day before. Likely, the ponies- or creatures, more like- who sent him that letter are the same ones who sent this one. Do you think we should consider this?” she said, glancing curiously at Luna. “I believe we should. We need to at least find out who these immortals- for they surely must be immortals- are, and discover if they are a threat or not. An interview will allow us to meet them and analyze their personalities.” “Good idea, Luna. I shall talk to Discord about getting back to his… friends after breakfast.” Celestia said, lifting a muffin up to her mouth.
Chapter 6After breakfast, Luna left for bed and Celestia headed for Discord’s chambers. She paused outside the doors and collected herself before knocking. “Come iiiiiiiin~!” Discord said in a singsong voice. Celestia opened the door with her magic and walked in to see Discord sitting in the center of his room, paint splattered everwhere, trying to do… something to a picture of herself. “Ah, Celestia! What brings you to my chambers so early in the morning? Don’t you have Day Court soon?” he asked, painting a rather large and bushy mustache on Celestia’s face. “I need to talk to you about the letter you showed my sister last night.” she said, looking curiously at the portrait. It seemed Discord had been having trouble with his brush or something, because there were several faint lines that he appeared to be trying to get rid of. Discord’s face lit up. “Ah, yes the letter! So, what did you two decide?” he asked, floating over to her. “My sister and I have decided to interview your… old friends. This better not be a trick Discord.” Celestia said, turning her head to keep him in sight. “Me? Play a trick on you? Why Celestia, I’d never!” he proclaimed, a look of mock horror on his face. Celestia gave him a measured look before saying, “Since they have requested an audience when it is between night and day, I shall consent to interviewing them either this evening or tomorrow morning. Tell them not to be late.” Celestia finished and turned to leave. “Thank you Celly, you won’t be disappointed!” Discord said, vanishing. Just how many ponies know my childhood nickname? Celestia thought, shaking her head as she walked out of Discord’s room. Discord appeared just on the edge of the Everfree forest and zoomed in, looking for a certain clearing. Soon, he found the clearing with Zecora’s hut. He quickly began looking at all the trees until he found one with a large opening below the tree roots. He knocked on it 5 times. (Shave and a haircut…) Two more knocks could be heard from inside the hollow (two bits!), and a second later Wolfy’s head poked out. “Oh, hi Discord! So, what’s the news?” he said, pulling himself out of the hollow. “Celestia has consented to interview you either this evening or tomorrow morning.” Discord said gleefully. “That’s great! Hey, I wanna introduce you to someone.” Wolfy said. He poked his head back inside the hollow and called, “Ferahn!” A few seconds later, a small black fox with 6 tails scrambled out of the hollow. “Hey is this Mister Crazy?” Ferahn said, looking at Discord curiously. “Yes Ferahn, this is Discord.” Wolfy said, nodding. “Excuse me, I’d prefer to simply be called Crazy, Chaos, or Discord, none of that ‘Mister’ stuff. Makes me sound boring.” Discord said, crossing his arms. “Ok! Hey, can you make a fifteen hundred tier birthday cake?” Ferahn said, teleporting to Discord’s shoulder and hovering there as a wisp. “Why of course I can! There’s nothing I can’t do!” Discord said, snapping his paw. Sure enough, a massive birthday cake with fifteen hundred tiers appeared, right in the middle of the clearing. A smile appeared in the wisp of smoke that was Ferahn, and he glided over to it, turned solid, and began consuming the cake at an astonishing rate. Soon, all that was left was the pillars that held the tiers up and a stuffed Ferahn. Wolfy snickered and Discord guffawed. “I like this kid, Nosey! Where’d you find him?” Discord said, wiping a tear from his eye as his laughter died down. “I didn’t find him, Dema did. Technically, he’s her adopted son.” Wolfy said, teleporting to Ferahn and pushing him up with his nose. “Lazy tails! Get up! You have homework to finish!” “Aw, but I dun wanna get up! Can’t I just do it later?!” Ferahn whined. “if you do your homework, I’ll… let you stay up late.” Wolfy said, sitting up. Ferahn brightened up. “Ok, I’ll work on it right now!” with that, he wisped back into the hollow. “So, when you two get the job, you’ll bring him, right? He seems like fun!” Discord said. “We thought you’d say that. I’m quite sure you two will get along famously. Oh, and Discord, I can think of one thing you can’t do.” Wolfy said teasingly. “Oh really? And what would that be, my fine furry friend?” Discord said, picking Wolfy up by the tail. Wolfy grinned at Discord and said, “You can’t make something orderly.” Discord dropped Wolfy and crossed his arms, looking offended. Wolfy teleported to the ground to avoid a painful landing. “Of course I can make something orderly, I just don’t like doing it. You’ve seen me undo Chaos thousands of times.” “I’ve seen you undo your Chaos thousands of time. I’ve never seen you undo natural Chaos.” Wolfy replied, still grinning. “Why would I do that? It’s naturally in my favorite state!” Discord said, aghast. “Well, what if that was the only way to get around a problem? I don’t mean literally, I mean in the case of ‘a friend needs to be rid of some natural Chaos and want you’re help’.” Wolfy said, cutting off Discord when he began to talk. Discord put a claw to his chin and thought for several seconds. “Well, I guess I could solve something like that. I wouldn’t enjoy doing it, but I could probably do it.” He said, swinging his clawed hand around. “Anyways, I need to get back to the castle. I have a painting to finish. And with that, Discord disappeared.
MINI LESSONYou suddenly find yourself in a classroom with all the other readers. Sitting up front is Dema, the character you’ve been reading about. “Welcome to The Background. It’s come to my attention that some of the background stuff of this story is confusing, mainly the relationships between the Demons. So, this class is to explain everything to you.” “First of all, I’m sure you’re confused about Ferahn. Ferahn is a young demon-fox, and only about 10 years old. He has four tails and the beginning of a fifth. He is classified as my son, though we’re not related by blood. A while back, I mad something called an ‘intercept nest’ that allowed me to intercept one magical transmission between my enemies. That transmission was Ferahn’s egg. To be honest, I had no clue what I would get when I activated that thing.” As she talks, she draws something on a large chalk board behind her. It seems to be some odd conglomeration of wood, stone and all kinds of random things. “I had to get the help of a friend to hatch the egg, since it required magic to incubate the egg and I’m rather terrible with magic. I’m not going to mention who she is. Because.” “Anyways, I better cover something else before finishing this explanation of Ferahn. Now, we’re not native to the MLP universe. We’re native to somewhere entirely different that I can’t remember the name of. We can, however change dimensions. Ferahn has gained his different powers and such throughout a myriad of dimensions. For example, when we visited the alternate universe where the NLR truly exists, Ferahn gained his Whisping powers. Here in the Backup, for this isn’t just a pocket dimension but a different dimension entirely, he gained his size-changing powers. He gained his first form here as well when helping out at Restaurant Insanity. Whisping isn’t counted as a form, just as powers. You may have noticed the use of the phrase ‘half-sent. form’ in Chapter 4. Sent. is short for sentient- the form is called this because lots of dimensions have a different race that’s most prominent. The most basic form for a Demon to have is the Prim. Sent. form, or Primary Sentient form. In the MLP dimension, that’s a pony. In the Equestria Girls dimension, that would be a human, and so on so forth.” This time, she draws several circles and labels them with different things. “On to the Holy Demons. I assume you understand the idea of how the group was formed from Chapter 3. I’m going to give you a few more details of the group. There are EXACTLY 26 demons in the Holy Demons, including Me, Wolfy, and Ferahn. I’m the High Demon in charge, which is why I’m the one who always has to talk to the Angels. Oh, and I’m not going to tell you anything about the Angels. They get to come in later. NO SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” a small flying squirrel demon appeared and tried to talk, but she wrapped her tail around his mouth to keep him quiet. “Now let’s see… What else is there to cover… Oh yeah, Me an’ Wolfy! This one’s pretty simple. Wolfy is my second in command. No, there is no kind of romantic relationship there. He’s called Nosey in his pony form because his special power is the ability to track anything anywhere. My ability is I’m very good at convincing people to follow me places. This will be explained more in depth later. And that’s it for this class! Ah BUH-BYE!” She waves with one paw and with that, you find yourself back in front of your computer. Did that really happen?
Chapter 7That evening, 2 pegasi and an earth pony foal came to the castle. The female pegasus was purple with a black mane and tail similar to Vinyl Scratch’s and a winged messenger bag cutie mark. The male pegasus was blue with an incredibly spiky mane and tail that was blue and purple and a breeze blowing over three paw prints for a cutie mark. The earth pony foal was a darker blue with a roughly cut mane and tail that was striped black and purple. The 3 headed for the throne room. When they reached their destination, two guards told them that Day Court was over several hours ago and Night Court wasn’t due to begin for a couple more hours. The female pegasus stepped forward and said, “We realize that. We are the ponies that were hoping to help keep Discord in line.” As she finished talking, Discord appeared in front of her. “Now what makes you think that I need to be kept in line?” he asked indignantly. The pegasus raised an eyebrow. “There are millions of reasons. For the sake of time, I won’t be listing them. Will you tell the Princesses we’re here?” she said, sounding almost bored. One of the guards looked between Discord and the pegasus and said, “We were not told there were going to be any interviewees for anything this evening. Discord, if you arranged a sudden interview, you shall be in trouble.” “Now wait just a second! Princess Celestia gave me a letter! Just let me get it…” Discord said, twisting around and looking for something. After a few seconds, he pulled out a rolled up piece of paper with a red ribbon around it. “Ahah! Here it is!” He waved it in the air before handing it to the guard. The guard unrolled the scroll and read it before handing it back to Discord. “Alright. It seems you’re all approved for this..” “I told you so! Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Discord said, disappearing. “hmm. I think he forgot something.” Said the male pegasus, putting a hoof to his chin. “Oh? And what would that be, Nosey?” asked the female pegasus. “Why, Lettermane, he forgot to say anything to us. He’s likely to be gone for several minutes, you know. Now we’ll just be standing her awkwardly during that time. I think Discord needs more manners lessons.” Lettermane smiled. “You know, I think you’re right, Nosey. I believe if we get this post that will be the first thing to happen.” They did indeed end up standing there for 10 minutes. When Discord reappeared, he had a singe on his right arm. “The Princesses are waiting in the throne room. Come on, the faster you interview, the sooner we can have fun!” Discord said, waving them towards the throne room door. Lettermane cleared her throat. “Now, Discord, you do realize we can’t walk through a closed door, and you haven’t asked these gentlecolts to open the doors for us. You will have to be polite.” Discord was speechless. “Lettermane, you aren’t telling me…” Nosey and the earth pony foal snickered as Lettermane nodded sagely. “Oh yes, Discord. I’m saying you will have to use a little thing called ‘manners’, because I’m sure these fine gentlecolts won’t answer to anything less.” The guards seemed to be resisting the urge to snicker as well. “Oh, fine.” Discord grumbled. He turned to face the two guards, who immediately did their best to erase all traces of laughter from their faces, and succeeded quite well. “Will you two…”*grumble grumble*”please open the doors for us.?” Discord asked, annoyed, crossing his arms and shooting glares at Lettermane, who kept a complete straight face through the whole thing. The two guards grinned. “Why of course, Discord, it would be our pleasure after such manners.” And with that, they opened the doors. After Nosey and the foal had stopped laughing at Discord, they all walked in. Discord grumbled some more before saying to Lettermane, “I still don’t see why you made me do that.” “Because, Discord, manners will get you farther than Chaos. Or have you forgotten when I told you that so many years ago?” Lettermane replied, not even glancing at Discord. Discord made a face and said, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I still don’t like it, though. I’d like to think I’ve done very well with Chaos instead of manners.” “Against ponies. Now you’re with ponies. You’re going to have to be nice.” Lettermane said, coming to a stop. Discord turned his attention to the throne not 20 feet in front of them. “Celestia, Luna, I would like to introduce you to my friends. This is Lettermane, this is Nosey and… Well, to be honest, I only met this little one today, so I don’t know what his pony name is.” He said, pointing at all 3 of them in turn and coiling around the earth pony. “… Wait I just realized we forgot to give you a pony name.” Nosey said, turning to stare at the colt who was trying to put all of Discord’s coils on top of his head like a hat. “I knew we were forgetting something. We’ll have to think of one later.” Lettermane said, looking from the earth pony to Nosey. Celestia blinked and said, “Excuse me, are you saying your foal doesn’t have a name?” Lettermane turned back to Celestia. “He has a name, just not a pony name for his pony form. His real name is Ferahn. Now, you don’t mind if we shift into our normal forms, do you? We couldn’t use them to come here because we didn’t want to cause a scene. Frightening ponies is NOT something we want to do.” “I believe that would be preferable, yes.” Celestia said, exchanging a glance with Luna. Lettermane nodded at the two next to her and was enveloped in black fire, reappearing as a sleek, scaly black cat with a spade-tipped tail. Nosey and Ferahn were enveloped in what appeared to be normal fire, reappearing as an oddly fluffy black wolf with a hardened spade on his tail and a small black fox with 4 tails, each topped with a spade. “Allow me to reintroduce ourselves. I am Dema, and my friend here is Wolfy, and of course, my kit’s name is Ferahn.” said the black cat, nodding at the wolf and the fox in turn. Suddenly, Discord disappeared and reappeared much smaller on Dema’s head. “And this is Discord.” Dema added flawlessly, pointing at Discord with her tail. Celestia cleared her throat. “So, why do you believe that you are qualified to look after Discord?” she asked, floating up a stack of papers and a quill. Discord snorted. “I’ve worked with him before. I know how to… curb his chaotic tendencies. For example, he thinks things that stay the same constantly are boring, which is why he has a tendency to constantly change around the appearance of statues and such.” Dema said, calmly wrapping her tail and the tiny Discord and considering him before placing him on the floor next to her. Luna looked slightly shocked. “How didst thou know Discord has been changing the appearance of our statues?” “Because he’s Discord. He did that back when he ruled, too. The statue garden never looked the same day-to-day.” Dema chuckled. “Those statues often tended to be rather hilarious. I remember at one point, when one of the chefs had recently had a foal, the statues had a whole party set up in the garden.” Luna and Celestia glanced at each other surprisedly, and Celestia scribbled something on her paper. “Are you saying that Discord did something nice for the ponies under his rule during his reign?” Celestia asked. “Very often. Discord was not originally mean. His main problem was that he did not, and still likely does not, understand what is good and bad in the eyes of ponies. Wolfy, Angie, and I often helped him to understand this.” Dema said, looking at Discord as he rapidly grew to normal size. “Who is this ‘Angie’ thou speakest of?” Luna said, leaning forward slightly. “Angie is a friend of ours. We don’t get to see her often, because her job keeps her extremely busy. It wasn’t always like that.” Dema said, her voice getting softer. “A sore topic, so I suggest we stop talking of it. And don’t even get started on the past!” Discord said, pulling an apple out of his ear and eating it. Dema flew up to Discord’s shoulder and pulled another apple from behind his wing, holding it in her tail as she spiraled back down to the floor. “What exactly do you need to know for me to get this job?” Dema said before biting into the apple. Both princesses seemed taken aback by Dema’s blunt words. Celestia blinked and said, “Well, I do not even know if I can trust the words you have said so far. I will require something that proves your sincerity.” The apple vanished in a puff of blackish-grey fire. “How about this; I, Dema, High Demon of the 1st Holy Demon Fareth, swear upon these Holy Runes that bind me, to be truthful in my dealings with you, Princess Celestia of Equestria, and you, Princess Luna of Equestria.” As she spoke, several glowing blue runes appeared all over her, and they glowed brighter as she completed her statement. “Do you, Princess Celestia, and you, Princess Luna, recognize that these runes as a sign of my sincerity?” she asked, cocking her head at the duo as she spoke. Celestia and Luna were surprised, but quickly gathered themselves. “I, Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria, recognize these runes as true and binding, and believe in your sincerity.” Luna forgot her training and slipped into the royal canterlot voice. “WE, PRINCESS LUNA, CO-RULER OF EQUESTRIA, RECOGNIZE THESE RUNES AS TRUE AND BINDING, AND BELIEVE IN YOUR SINCERITY.” As Luna finished her statement, the runes glowed so bright they were almost blinding before fading away completely. “You’ve certainly got some new tricks up your sleeve.” Discord said, bending down to stare directly at Dema. He’d been staring at her in shock ever since the runes appeared. “We all have them, Discord; we just don’t show them off.” Wolfy said, barely turning his head. “I want one!!!” Discord said, pouting. “No you don’t. You’d die of boredom in the process. Now be quiet, the adults are talking.” She said, putting a paw on his head and gently but firmly pushing him away. Celestia surveyed this group with newfound curiosity. Finding a demon that was bound with holy runes was ludicrous, and now she had three sitting in her throne room, interviewing for a job handling Discord! When Dema brought the conversation back to the “adults”, she spoke up. “Since you hope to get a job keeping Discord from doing wrong while he stays here, I would like to know how you plan to do that.” “Simple. We plan to redirect his chaotic impulses towards beneficial actions. I have even planned out a punishment for him should he decide to cause trouble.” Dema said, tapping Discord’s side so that he stood at an angle and walking up his back to sit on his head. She was smaller than a pony, so she was able to sit between his horns. Luna perked up. “What, pray tell, is this punishment?” “He will have to reorganize a bookshelf when he behaves. The amount of books depends on how bad his transgression was.” Ferahn got a very confused and unhappy look on his face. “Mama, will you just speak plain Equestrian for once? I couldn’t understand half of what you just said, starting with that “beany-fishes” thing.” Wolfy sniggered a little and Dema shot him a look. “What? Beany-fishes sound kinda funny! I mean, what would that even be? I fish made of beans? A fish shaped like a bean? Maybe a fish that tastes like beans?” he said, putting a paw to his chin and rambling. Dema walked over and gently closed his mouth with a paw. “You gots to stop ramblin’, Lupay.” “But I’m a rambling colt, Dema!” he said, sounding like he was about to crack up. “Sorreh, Lupay, but you just gotsta!” Dema said, grinning. She turned back to Ferahn. “Anyways, I was saying we’d get Discord to use the chaos he wants to use on good things, and when he does something wrong, he has to reorganize a certain amount of books, depending on how badly he messed up.” “Oh, ok. Thanks, mama!” He said, moving close enough to rub his head against her chest. Dema chuckled lightly. “Anytime, my silly little kit.” She replied, bending down to hug him close. Luna leaned towards Celestia and whispered, “They certainly seem like they’d do a good job of keeping Discord occupied.” Celestia smiled slightly before turning back to Dema and her friends and cleared her throat. “Well, you certainly seem to have all of this figured out. However, I have no way of knowing if you really have the best intentions for this kingdom. To be sure of such, I believe you should be allowed this job for a probationary period, where we shall watch your interactions and make sure you are fit to keep Discord out of trouble.” Dema’s face broke out into a large grin. “Thanks, Princesses, you won’t regret it.” As she finished speaking, Ferahn yawned massively. “Oh, that brings a new question; will we be returning to our residence or will a residence be provided for us?” “For tonight, I ask you to return to your home. We shall have a room prepared for you tomorrow.” Celestia replied. “Alright. Come on, you two, let’s get you home before you collapse of exhaustion.” Dema said, nudging Wolfy and Ferahn to their feet. “Bye Dscord!”She said over her shoulder as together, the three left the throne room. “Discord, you know… quite a lot about those three, yes?” Celestia said, descending her platform to stand near Discord. Discord’s head snapped around to look at Celestia. “hmm? Oh, yes. I could tell you all about them if you like.” He replied. “I would like that, yes. I noticed that as the interview went on, Ferahn and Wolfy seemed to get more tired while Dema got perkier. Why is that?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. “Ah, that would be because Dema is what is called a night demon, or a demon that can’t see in the light and is far more accustomed to doing everything in the dark. Wolfy and Ferahn are both day demons, or demons that can’t see a thing at night and are accustomed to doing everything in the light. For Dema, a new moon is like high noon. Rather useful to have a group of demons with both night and day demons in their group. Helps keep the party going after the sun goes down. Speaking of which, shouldn’t the sun be down by now?” He said, a mischievous glint in his eye as he looked out the window. Celestia jerked around to look out the window and realized the sun had been perched on the horizon for 10 minutes now. She quickly teleported to her balcony and lowered her sun, making room for Luna’s moon.
Chapter 2As you can probably guess, a lot of mail comes into the Palace every day. Because of this, there is a small team of mail sorters who make sure the mail gets to the right pony. One day, one of the mail sorters finds a letter addressed to somepony in the Palace they’d never expected to receive a letter. He quickly rushed the letter to his superior, who stared at it for a few seconds, then took it straight to Celestia. Celestia took it and grew curious. It was a very odd letter. The return address wasn’t really an address, just a name, and it was incredibly curious that someone would send a letter to Discord. She decided to read it, too curious to stop herself. The piece of paper was small, more the size of a postcard than a full letter. Dear Discord, It’s me, Nosey. LetterMane and I have decided to give you a chance to tell your side of the story. Meet us at the Forest at dusk tomorrow. Silver Light won’t be there. We expect you to make the seating arrangements and food as always. Lettermane’s angry. Be ready. Your old pal, Nosey Celestia found herself even more curious. Who were Nosey, LetterMane, and Silverlight? What did the letter mean, your side of the story? Why did it end with your old pal? She put the letter back in its envelope then trotted off to find Discord, levitating the curious letter in her magic. She soon found him in the gardens, changing the hedges into crazy shapes. “Discord, you have a letter.” She said, stopping near him. “Ooh, really?” He said, turning to her. “Is it fan mail? And I was beginning to think everypony didn’t like me!” He took the letter from her magic and poofed up an armchair, small table with a lamp, and pair of glasses which he perched on his nose. He took the letter from the envelope and began to read. He quickly reached the end of the letter and jumped up. “Oh, this is great! I can finally see my old friends again! Thanks for the letter, Celly, I need to go choose an outfit!” He said. He disappeared with a snap of his fingers, as did the armchair, table, and lamp. The hedges stayed as he had left them, though.
