As I climb the stairs, the music gets louder and the sound of quite hushed conversation starts to filter down to me. The noises keep growing as I go up two flights to a landing. The hall I entered is half hidden by some large curtains looking into the hall I see a banner “Welcome to the Grand Galloping Gala”. ‘Ponies must love alliteration. The Devilishly Debonair Delirium does dare dream of Politely Pilfering Pony Princesses. Dam it now they have me doing it. ’

I watch the crowds through my little gap in the drapes. In front of me, it seems the party is building up with groups of ponies coming. Checking the vortex manipulator, ‘dam this turned out nice looks just like it did on the show.’

I saw that I had shoot forward by about two days give or take seven hours. This gives me some options: do I wait for the crowds to leave at the end of the party? Do I make a scene start the games now?

‘Pros vs. Cons time.
Waiting
1. No chance of interference
a. Celestia will start the games when I return her.
b. No chance of a tagalong jumping in to the mix
c. ’

“Screw it.” I say with a sigh.

Stepping forward I throw the curtains open and stride straight down the hall. The whole gala seems to freeze as ponies notice me. With the sudden silence in this room, the music in the background seems to grow louder. The song sounds hauntingly familiar but I can’t place it.

Looking around I notice an earth pony waiter with their back turned with a tray of drinks. I stride up behind them and ask, “Got vodka on that tray?”

They turn around and I see it’s a mare “Why yes siiiiiirrrr….” Her voice trails off as she it scared by my appearance.

The look on her face priceless “So that vodka?”

She stutters “The low ball glass sir.”

I take one. I reach into a pocket, and drop several coins on to her tray. Looking down she got a penny, a nickel, and a quarter. “Have a good night.”

As soon as step past her, I hear her run away. ‘Skittish lot aren’t they.’ I take a pull on the drink. ‘Basil and lime gimlet. Not bad. Whoever is behind the bar knows what they’re doing and the vodka is definitely top shelf. Forget Celestia if it’s a chick tending bar I’ll take her.’

I hear a commotion behind me and several flashes of gold reflect off my glass. ‘Guards and I still don’t see… ah there she is.’ At the far end of the hall on a landing of the great staircase is Celestia. She looks in my direction a look of shock crossing her face. Not even two seconds later, I see the guard in my peripheral vision. ‘Trying to surround me now that’s not nice.’

I tap foot and appear right next to Celestia. “Now that was just rude they act like I stole the drink.”

She flinches at my sudden appearance of light and the sound next to her. She slowly turns to face me this time the flinch is more subdued ‘I guess years of politics has some advantages.’ She looks me up and down moving only her eyes taking in everything that to her was a rather odd being.

“Discord I thought I told you not to come the gala.” She says in a tone that if anyone overheard would sound perfectly polite. It’s her eyes that give it away to me annoyance, wavering patience, and frayed nerves.

I give her a warm smile not a smirk; but the kind of look you would give child who just said something profoundly stupid.

“What?” she asks me confused by my reaction to her statement.

“I must say that is a lovely ensemble your wearing tonight.”

The compliment seems to catch her flat footed. “Thank you. That…” She trails off for a second returning with “is a lovely coat I don’t think I have ever seen one like it.”

Too perfect, I have to. “Then why don’t the three of us have dinner sometime?”

She tilts her head “The three of us?”

I lean in and as sensually as I can I say. “Yeah. You, me, and the coat.” ‘Perfect… well if I was really trying to use this scene I should have groped her ass and walked away but… still fun.’

She blushed a little bit but quickly came under control again. All most hotly, she snapped at me. “Discord flirt all you want that does not change the fact that you were told not to come out of your chambers tonight. We went over this several times Luna and I….”

I held up a hand. “Now I hate to stop you when you seem to be gaining momentum but I am not my predecessor.”

This information really hit her over the head. Her mouth opens and closes a few times but no sound comes out.

The guard is finally closing back in around us. Time to speed this up.

“Now that I have your undivided attention. It’s time for us to leave.” I throw an arm around her neck and hit the button on my wrist sending us back.

--------------Royal Guard Captain---------------

“What do you mean he just disappeared with the Princess!”

“Sir, we have at least seventy five witnesses aside from the guard. All of them agree there was no magical disturbance. Just some static discharge in the air and a noise. Then just some smoke where they were standing and a glass.”

“A noise. What kind of noise?”

“Sir, the guard nearest to them described it as a…”

“Spit it out soldier!”

“Described it as a crackling woof. Sir.”

-----Delirium-----

We flash back into my game room. Rainbow Dash squeaking out a yelp, falls out of her chair, and ends up with her dress around her stomach. ‘Oops forgot to give her any panties.’

Turning away after getting an eye full. I look down and see from the read out that it has been less than five minutes sense my initial departure. “One princess as promised Ms. Dash. I will give you a minute to explain to her what’s going on.” I start to walk over to the bar I lost my drink in transit. Suddenly I turn back to them and say.

“Oh, one thing do not try and leave my home Celestia. We do not need you causing a temporal paradox and I would rather not find out what theory is right about the outcome. Sorry, where are my manners did either of you want a drink? ”

As I walked over to the bar, I hear some swift whispers come from the two of them. Looking at the wall behind the bar, I try to decide on a new cocktail. ‘I never was one to mix alcohols so more vodka it is.’

As I pull down the bottles, I needed. I realized that while I could just conjure my drinks, I had always enjoyed mixing drinks. I take down a low-ball glass and fill it half full of ice. Pouring some kettle one over the ice. I then squeeze a lime wedge into the glass and drop it in. finally I top the glass off with some tonic water. Before I leave the bar, I reach under the counter and grab the remote for the music. Looking up I see their conversation is still going on and walk to the jukebox and browse the lists.

With three people in the room, the playlist is giving me more choices but using the remote I enter in what I want. As I walk back to the table, ‘The Boy in The Bubble’ starts playing. ‘Got to love Graceland great album’.

As I approach the table, their conversation ends. Sitting down I take a drink then ask. “Celestia I believe Rainbow Dash here has brought you up to speed. Any questions before we get started?”

“What did you mean cause a temporal paradox?” Celestia asks a small frown on her face.

I smile. “Good an honest question very refreshing. From your perspective, I have pulled you not only into my home but roughly two to three days into the past. Do you understand the implications of non-magical time travel?”

A frown grows on her face. “By bringing me here without a magical tether at the starting point technically two of me exist within the world.” With that statement, her frown grows.

At this point Rainbow has to get her two cents in. “What’s the big deal Twilight has gone back in time and spoken to herself before?”

I face palm and then look at Celestia. “Would you care to field this one? It’s obvious to me you understand the ramifications your actions could entail.”

She nods at me. “Rainbow Dash when Twilight used that spell she briefly sent herself back for a few seconds. That spell creates a magical tether anchoring her to the time and place she left using the spell. There is a very good reason why any temporal magic is kept locked up and is extremely hard to cast. One of the basic rules of time manipulation is not to cross your own time stream to do so causes paradoxes. Twilight’s actions caused a small paradox of the least dangerous variety; Twilight invoked a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once invoked she had to reach the point at which it all both started and ended. You see Rainbow time travel must always come full circle or very bad things are expected to happen.”

She looked at Celestia and asked. “Still what is the big deal?”

I sighed and spoke up “Without the magical tether to protect her if the princess here managed to escape my humble home and ran into herself the universe could end.”

Well this fact just hit her over the head. She looks at Celestia who just sadly nods confirming the truth of my statement. I tapped the nail to start it and she with a nod just drove it home. Rainbow Dash seemed to realize that I had turned whatever plan she had on its head.

“So ladies we’re all here. The terms have been agreed upon; are we going to play cards or what?” The opening riff from Skillet’s Monster rings out as I finish asking my question.

Celestia give Rainbow Dash an even look. ‘Oops looks like they never got to this point in the conversation.’

“Cards?” Celestia asks.

“Yes, Miss Dash decided to play me for information. Euchre is the game; it is an easy enough game to teach unless, do you know this game Princess?”

She shakes her head in the negative.

“Ms. Dash here agreed to the game and I agreed to the terms of her wager. I was even kind enough to let her pick her partner.” I turn to look Rainbow in the eyes. “Where did my partner wander off to?”

Celestia’s head turned slightly to the side looking over my shoulder. I could hear footsteps now. Turning around I could only smile at my double.

“What? You got a costume change I thought this was fair.” He was dressed as the Doctor.

“So you opted for Ten over Nine or Eleven?”

“Whatever Captain. Let’s get this started. So rules an open hand and then we start for real?”

“Just like how we learned.” I tell him with a nod.

He takes off his coat and hangs it over the back of his chair before sitting down opposite me. We both gesture to the others to join us sitting across from each other. Once they’re seated I sit down, grab the deck, and begin separating the cards. Each of them gives me odd look as throw all the cards under an eight into a pile setting aside the fives.

As I keep sorting, I start outlining the rules. “This is a trick taking game with each side attempting to take a minimum of three tricks. Each round a different suit can be made trump. The suit called as trump becomes the top suit beating anything else. Now here is where things get tricky.”

My double clears the table putting the other cards into a pile and setting it off to the side. I begin dealing out an entire suit. I order the cards ace to nine as my double takes over talking.

He began. “Any suit that is not trump the order of value in the cards goes down from the ace.” He nods at me and I cut another jack into the mix. “the value of the cards gets reordered when it is called trump with the jack of that suit becoming the top valued card followed by the jack of the same color. In this setup spades is trump and the jack of clubs becomes the second most valued card. Are each of you getting this.”

They nod. We both give them a smile.

“To make this fair we will play a game best of 5 rounds. Normally a game is played one round either two deals a person or first to ten points. Scoring goes as follows, three tricks after calling the suit get one point take all five and get two. Call the hand alone; play without your partner and take all five that gets you four points. If you fail to get at least three tricks after calling trump you get euchred and the other team gets two points. The other team also gets two points if you play off suit when you could follow. Easy right?”

Again, they nod.

I start speaking again. “The first hand we will play open we can see all the cards on the table. Watch how I deal.” I proceed to deal out the cards face up in groups of threes and twos. When we each had five cards I took the last four cards and turned the top one over a ten of clubs no good for my mostly red hand. Good for Celestia, crap for my partner, and dash was set for spades.

“Left of the dealer gets opening bid. Celestia do you want me to add this card to my hand and make clubs the high suit?”

She looks at her cards. She had the right, ace, king, and nine of clubs with an off ace diamonds. She nods.

“Then tell me to pick it up.” I say.

“Pick it up.” She says. I take the card and discard my nine of diamonds.

“Make the first move.” I tell her.

Celestia uses a wing to push her ace into the middle. She understands already interesting my clone follows suit and Dash throws down the left. Not a bad move when playing with open hands but a terrible move any other time. Neither my clone or I say anything and Celestia just frowns. I play off suit.

“Dash takes the trick her lead.” This seems to surprise her but she tries to hide it. ‘She forgot about the jacks.’

She plays a card and the game starts back up.

Celestia and Dash win the first round with four tricks to one.

“Let’s get things rolling.” My clone gives me a look and we start playing.

The first game goes quickly. Neither of the girls no any of the subtle ways to table talk without actually talking. While neither of us got to take a four-point loner we averaged, at least four tricks for every time we called. We won the first game quickly and immediately went into the next.

The second game goes a little slower as Celestia seems to be picking up on some of the subtle tricks the game has mostly reading what has been played by who. As this game went on the pony side gained a small lead and won by one point.

Game three was a complete cluster fuck. Rainbow Dash got cocky and decided to play over aggressively. Well we just let her do it. I have never seen some one get euchred four times in one game. We won that game eleven to two.

Game four Dash seemed to calm back down but too little too late. While it was a close game, we still managed to beat them out. This seemed to put the any plans Dash had straight into the garbage.

‘Now what do I ask sense we were playing for information.’ I snap my fingers and my clone disappears causing both of the girls to look up at me.

I take a breath and let it out slowly as a smile creeps over my face. I open my mouth to ask my question when dash cuts me off.
“Double or nothing.” She all but shouts in a panic.

I give her a deadpan look and reply. “I only needed one question answered. The other questions in my mind seem like, they would be more fun to find out.” I trail off for a second before giving her a very predatory smile and finishing with. “In a more intimate manner.”

Both of them flinched at either my remark, or my smile. ‘I don’t think they have ever seen someone look at them in such an unabashed or carnivorous fashion.’ I would have thought it was fear if not for a very obvious blush turning Celestia’s fur pink along with both of their wings twitching slightly.

“Now for my question for Ms. Dash. When are you friends expecting you back from that weather convention?”

Author's Note

I need some OC's for guards mostly night core. Send me a message any I like I will put in.

I am making better progress then I thought next up date will be quicker.