“Runaway! They are attacking our flank! Retreat into the corridor!” a guard shouted an octave or two higher than he usually talked, withdrawing in the said corridor, screaming like a little filly the entire time.

These were the first words Celestia heard when she arrived around the Royal kitchens that morning. Surely, there had to be better ways to start a day than discovering that the pastries prepared for her breakfast had come to life and declared war on Equestria for the genocide of their people. She was actually pretty sure Luna was still messing with her dreams again, when one of her guards came and woke her early to ask for her help. Why they weren’t asking Luna for this was above her.

But she was actually surprised when she discovered the halls: pastry chiefs were curled against a wall, begging for forgiveness and mercy; guards were panicking and running in circles screaming while civilians probably dragged by the commotion were still trying to understand what to make of this display of self-control from the Royal Guard.

Sighing, the Sun Princess progressed towards one of the last non-screaming officers, who ran to her as soon as he saw her.

“Your Majesty! Thank you for coming, we really need help here!”
“I see that, Gleaming Helmet. What is the situation at hoof? Why wasn’t my sister informed of this ruckus?”

He seemed to squirm in place, unable to look at her.

“Well, after Princess Luna stopped laughing when we informed her of the situation, she came here and was captured by the muffins…”

Celestia blinked.

“Beg your pardon?”
“Princess Luna is held captive by the enemy, your Majesty.” His voice was clearly trembling.

Without a word, Celestia turned to face the doors kept closed by a few unicorns, trying to prevent the pastry invasion to extend any further in the palace. Would she have any less control on her body, her left eye would have twitched.

“My sister, the Princess of the Moon, the Dream-Warden, an Immortal Alicorn and formerly Nightmare Moon… was captured by an army of pastries, you say?”

The guard nodded, shaking. And Celestia exploded in laughter, confusing the poor soldier even more than he already was. A minute later, she could at last control her hilarity and wiped a tear with her hoof.

“That’s… That’s just grand.”
“Hum… What are we to do, your Highness? We have to free Princess Luna! She may be in danger!”
“I assure you, officer, my sister is perfectly safe. Only one thing in the entire world would come off with a plan like this, and he wouldn’t hurt her. Just send Discord to the throne room as soon as you can find him. Knowing him, I will probably find him there when I arrive.”
“But… Shouldn’t we at least try to get her Highness out of here?”
Celestia walked away, waving a hoof. “Oh… Sure… You can try. Save her from ‘the evil Muffin Army’. Good luck with that.”

At her words, a certain wall-eyed blonde pegasus in the audience froze, before muttering something along the lines of ‘I knew this day would come…’ and walking towards the Royal Kitchen’s doors. When she turned around the corner, the last thing Celestia heard of the incident was a clear “What is she doing? Stop her, she will get hurt!” quickly followed by a strangely high-pitched “The Destructor has come! Brace yourselves, brethren!” She shook her head, still giggling.

Upon arriving at the throne room, she had her regal face back to work. She couldn’t show the Spirit of Chaos his last incident had amused her so much, not in public at least. And she was surprised to find the room empty of any Draconequus. Shrugging, she sat on her throne and prepared to wait for him. Ultimately, she didn’t wait for so long: her throne began to laugh as soon as she rested on it.

Nearly jumping away in surprise, she quickly got up and turned around fast enough to see the said throne slowly turning itself into a laughing mismatch of animals. Who began to crawl on the floor when he saw the blank look the Sun Princess was trying to give him.

“Oh, you should have seen the look on your face! Priceless!”
“I hope you had your fun, Discord. How come none of the hidden guards in this room prevented you from doing this?”
“Well, they got the word that their beloved Sunbutt had been captured by the pastries and I was generous enough to send them directly into the Kitchens. Ain’t I a helpful Draconequus?”
“And, of course, you have nothing to do with the said attack of the muffins?”
He looked hurt and theatrically answered: “Oh, Celestia! How can you even consider the mere thought of me giving the gift of life to these inconsiderate creatures? Surely, you have to be more trustful of me!”

Celestia gave him another serious stare.

“Discord, as much as I have to admit I may have found this little… chaos of yours amusing…”
“‘Amusing?’ You were laughing like a mad mare! I’m not sure any of your subjects ever saw you laugh that much! You insult me, Celestia.”

She smiled a little at his remark and continued:

“… It has to stop. Now. Ponies may get hurt.”
He gave her a bemused look. “You know I’d never let my creatures hurt any of your subjects, Celestia.”
She nodded. “I’m aware you won’t physically hurt them. But a few chiefs are probably already traumatized by your so called ‘joke’. I don’t want any of them to live in fear of another rebellion of their confections. And I am not talking about the shame of the guards that are being beaten by a chaos-fueled army of muffins. Some are surelyconsidering leaving the guard because of this.”
He sighed and snapped his talon. “Fine. They stopped.”
Celestia smiled. “Thank you Discord. I know you don’t like this but…”
“Of course I don’t like that!” He suddenly exploded, surprising Celestia. “I need to wreck Chaos just as much as you need to raise the Sun! I hate being forced to stop it…”
“Discord…”
He sighed. “You know, for a moment, I thought this may work out. I had real friends for the first time in my very, VERY long life. But there is so little chaos around here that it’s nearly unhealthy!”
“You know we can’t let you roam totally free again, Discord. None of us would stay sane if you just spread chaos anywhere, anytime!”
“I know, and I’m getting tired of eating my wings to make me tame, Celestia Luxaria Faust.”

Somehow, Discord saying her complete name made her shiver. He had a really sad look on his face, something that wasn’t good. At all. A sad look on Discord meant only one thing: he was about to do something big. Really, really big. World changing big.

“Well, what can I do? I can’t just let you roam free and make everypony mad again, Discord! And I don’t really want to turn you back into stone, not after we went this far.”
“And I don’t have the intention of letting you do it anyway, Celestia. I have two options in front of me right now: either I find something to cause an acceptable amount of chaos permanently or I change the rules. Again. And believe me, you don’t want me to change the rules.”

He had said that in a sinister tone that made her shiver even more than the time Luna and her confronted the ‘Mad King’ the first time. For some reason, he was really terrifying her with his words.

“Are you… Are you threatening me, Discord?” she asked, doing her best to hide her fear, while unconsciously moving into a fighting stance.
“No… Not really. After all, I like this Era too much to change it so soon. It has only been a few tens of thousands of years, after all.”
The Sun Princess was confused.
“What do you mean, you like this ‘Era’ too much? And how old are you, exactly? I always thought you were older than Luna and I by only a few decades…”

He looked at her wide-eyed and exploded in laughter. Once again, Celestia shivered: it wasn’t a happy laughter, nor was it some kind of evil or mad one. It was a sad laughter, one you had when you realize how much life was so ironic you could only either cry or laugh.

“Your elder by… A few decades? Oh, Celestia, always up for a good laugh.” He wiped a tear with his claw. “Tell me, how old are you, again? And don’t even dare to go ‘A lady never tells her age’ on me, missy.”
“… I’ll turn a thousand, one hundred and twelve this summer.” She answered, kinda ashamed of this number. She really was old, wasn’t she?

Discord counted on his paw and whistled.

“Wow, not even a millionth of my age! And I’m not taking the time I spent in a timeless space into account! Thinking about it, I’m freakishly old, ain’t I?”
It was Celestia’s turn to be wide-eyed. “Just exactly how old are you?” she whispered, a little scared of the answer. He grinned at her.
“I’m not exactly sure of my age anymore, but I’d say roughly fourteen billions and a hundred thousand years old. Something like that. And I must admit, I’m getting kind of tired.”
Celestia stepped back, her gaze frozen on the Draconequus. “That’s… That’s not possible! Nothing can be that old! Equiis itself is only…”
“A hundred and thirty-eight thousand two hundred twenty-six years old on New year. It was created rapidly out of an explosion of magic of unknown source. Life appeared at an insane rate during the first millennia, evolution slowing its course around a hundred thousand years ago, for unknown reason, after the apparition of most species still present on Equiis today. And boy, it was hard to think of an evolutionary path to create those blasted sea ponies!”
Celestia stepped back again. “Surely, you don’t mean that…”
“Nah. I’m no ‘creator’ or anything. I merely changed the previous rules. I didn’t like them. I still don’t know how it all began, and quite frankly, I don’t give a damn about it. All I know is that I was there right after the beginning and that I was left to choose the first rules.”
“You… You have to be lying!”

Discord grinned and teleported right behind the Alicorn, whispering to her ear: “What? You don’t like the idea of being around here because of me?” She jumped away from him. He shrugged. “I am not about to change the rules again. This Era is still young, and it is the one I loved the most so far. But, if you want me to comply with your every order, I will need to… instill a rogue element in this world.”

Celestia was still shocked and didn’t say anything. He smiled.

“Quite frankly, I’ve been thinking about it since dear Fluttershy talked me into playing for the good side of the equation. Even I have done things I regret, Celestia. And one of them I did in the necessity of the moment is now haunting the back of my mind. I will atone for it.”
“What… What will you do?”
“Get back in time. Back into the first Era. And I will save one of my most useful puppets. Truly, I made his life terrible back then.”
Celestia thought about it a little. “What did he do? Why was he one of your ‘most useful puppets’?”
“Well, in a way, he brought the end of the first Era. Let me destroy an entire universe. You know, the usual.”
“And you intent to bring him HERE?! Are you cra… Wait, that’s a stupid question. But do you really think I’ll allow somepony who can destroy a world to come here?”
“He didn’t quite exactly destroy it. He was only the key. I did it.”
“But… Wouldn’t saving him change the present?”
“Nah. I’ll do it the right way. And he may actually be benefic here, in your meaning of the word. He is part of one of the greatest species to ever having breathed, after all.”
Celestia pondered for a moment. “Is there really no other way?”
“I wasn’t actually asking for your permission. I’ve made my choice, and I will bring him here. I owe him that much. I turned his life into a nightmare to create a new Era, and ultimately, to make Equiis possible. In fact, you owe him that much. And he died so young, the poor thing.”

Celestia was walking in circles. “If you have to go, and given what you said is true, I won’t stop you.”
“Thank you. Now, I’ll be back in approximately five minutes. Luna will enter as soon as I leave, followed by the guards. I don’t know if you want to let them know about the man I’ll bring back, but I’ll let that up to you. And you are forbidden to reveal what I’ve just said to you to anypony, even to your adorable little sister. The last thing I need is some kind of cult to my name. Again. I may inform her personally of everything I told you later.” He put on black shades out of nowhere and smiled at Celestia. “I’ll be back.”

And he disappeared in a flash of light. The next instant, the doors flew open, letting a very upset and flour-covered blue Alicorn enter.
“Where is that foolish Draconequus? I shall make him pay dearly for his insolence!”
Celestia sighed. This was going to be a long day.

Back inside the Royal kitchen sat the Destructor, the End-Bringer, She-who-looks-at-two-places-at-once, the Great Devourer. The grey pegasus was feasting upon the corpses of the greatest pastry army the world has ever known, laughing at her terrible victory like the mad mare she was.

Author's Note

Hello everyone! And I call for clapping for what is at the same time my first pony fiction and my first english story ever!
Had you told me only a year and a half ago "You, my son, will write about cartoon ponies in a language you still don't fully master." I would have probably called you mad. Then I would ask you what you were doing in my appartement, but that's minor.
As I've just said, I still don't very well write english (yes, that grammar error is for fun, guys), so I'm currently looking for a little help in this department.
And of course, PM me for every error you spy with your little eye.