Twilight paced a circle in the center of the library. Her mane was in shambles, her eyes were bloodshot, and her hooves were wearing a path into the wooden floor. It wasn’t a particularly unusual sight for anyone in Ponyville, but it did eventually prove aggravating enough – particularly to library patrons who found the alicorn’s incessant pacing nerve-wracking (or even, considering her regular orbit of the front room, somewhat dizzying to those prone to vertigo), but also to her long-suffering yet inexplicably loyal servant/interspecies-adopted-little-brother, Spike.
The little dragon finally put his feather duster down and crossed his arms, giving Twilight a glare from under the lace headband that had slid down to his forehead again.
(While Spike was not generally one for cross-dressing of his own volition, he had recently returned from aiding Rarity in some small endeavor. She at one point gleefully commented that it was like having her own personal maid, and Spike, ever eager to please, took the remark to heart.)
“Okay, Twilight, what is it this time?”
Twilight stopped, and then spun to face him, putting her forehooves up on the lip of the ditch she’d made in the floor and fluttering her wings in agitation. “Nothing!”
“Nothing, huh? Look, Twilight, I’ve known you my whole life, and I can tell when something’s bothering you.” Spike paused and scratched his chin. “Okay, to be honest, everypony can tell when something’s bothering you. You tend to share the misery. But trying to hide it doesn’t help. And is kind of futile in your case. Just saying.”
Twilight groaned and pulled herself out of the trench. “No, Spike. I mean, nothing is wrong. As in – literally – nothing bad is happening right now. Not one thing.”
“Is this like that friendship lesson thing again?” Spike cringed at the memory. “Remember, Celestia forbid you from using the Want It Need It spell ever again.”
“First, if I thought casting the Want It Need It spell could possibly help the situation, you’d have sent one of the standard permission request slips to her about it already. And second, no, it’s nothing like that. Look at this!” Twilight pushed aside a curtain that, surprisingly, nopony had noticed up to that point, revealing a pin-board covered in newspaper clippings, string, hastily-scribbled notes, and several attempts at proving something with an interconnected timeline. “It doesn’t make any sense!”
“I’ll say. You know, this really isn’t helping your case, here, Twilight. Maybe you should just relax a bit? I’ll get Rarity and Fluttershy, you three... I dunno, have tea and go to the spa?” Spike shrugged. “Is that what mares do?”
“Those two? Yes, yes it is. But that’s not important right now. My point has been that this sort of lull in activity is unprecedented! Particularly after so many threats were seen on the horizon.” She turned and pointed out different articles on the wall as she explained, marking each with a jab from her hoof.
“Changelings sighted in the Everfree Forest. Then, a freak blizzard freezes them out. Somepony calling himself the Heir Of Sombra turns up in Hoofington wearing a magical amulet, only for the chain to come undone just as he attacks the Royal Guard. A strange black mist is sighted flowing out of the Ancient Castle in the forest, but it never arises again. Buffalo are coming into conflict with Appleloosa again during a drought, only for a sudden landslide in the mountains to divert a river nearer to them. Astrologers and other seers declare that the stars are approaching an alignment, then we have four days of unscheduled cloudy skies in a row and by the time they clear up, everything they were seeing was gone!”
Spike blinked at the barrage of information.
“Spike.” Twilight leaned down, her face inches from his. “We do not get this lucky. It doesn’t happen. Not to me, not to Ponyville, not to Equestria. Something huge and bad is coming to balance the scales. Trust me.”
“All I do for you ponies and this is the thanks I get.” The voice came from nowhere at first, but soon Discord stepped into view, slipping out from behind one of the papers on Twilight’s wall. “Makes me wonder why I even bother.”
“Discord!” Twilight pointed an accusing hoof at the draconequus. “Hah! Called it!”
Discord rolled his eyes (though not literally, for once) and crossed his arms, giving Twilight a disapproving level gaze. “Come now, Twilight. I’m no larger than normal and I’ve been the very opposite of bad! I’ve been doing just as Celestia asked, using my powers for the good of all ponies. Scare off some changelings here, divert a river there, all in a day’s work for your Friendly Neighborhood Discord.”
Discord snapped his fingers and was inexplicably wearing a red sweater.
Twilight narrowed her gaze at the spirit of chaos. “And just what’s in it for you, huh? Even if you’re supposedly on the side of good now, you don’t do anything that isn’t to your own benefit somehow.”
“Twilight, I am hurt. Truly wounded!” Discord clutched his chest as a sword suddenly – and alarmingly – appeared piercing it. He collapsed backwards onto a fainting couch, rather like an oversized version of Rarity’s, and let his arms fall limp, dropping the prop blade as he did. “Here I am trying to be friendly, neighborly even, and you can do nothing but throw baseless accusations! Why, this may be the last time I try to let you and your friends have a decent vacation.”
“Wait.” Twilight tilted her head and relaxed her wings. “A vacation?”
“Well of course!” The couch vanished and Discord was up on his feet again, arms crossed and looking away from her. “You girls do deserve something of a break every now and then. I thought it might make up for some of my previous behavior if I gave you one.”
“Oh, well that’s... I mean...” Twilight looked aside and shuffled her hooves a bit. “I’m sorry, Discord.”
“Oh?” The draconequus turned back to Twilight with a smile.
“Yes. I shouldn’t have let our history get in the way of your attempts to make amends. We all decided to give you a second chance, and I shouldn’t be treating you as if you’d already squandered it.”
“Oh, Twilight, I knew you’d understand!” He suddenly swept the new princess up into a hug that earned him a startled yelp and agitated wing flaps on her part. He soon put her back on her hooves with a pat on the head. “Now, just look at you. So much stress and it’s all my fault. Here, let me take care of that for you.”
A snap of his claws and Twilight’s mane and tail were brushed and styled just as she liked them.
“And I imagine that with all this stress and pacing, you’ve missed out on breakfast at the very least. Here. Peach?”
He pulled the fruit from somewhere behind his back and held it out to her.
“Oh, well, yes I had, actually.” Twilight took the peach in her magic, a slightly dazed look on her face from the unexpected kindness. “Thank you.”
“Now, you enjoy your break, my dear. I have a few more things to take care of.” With another snap of his fingers, Discord was gone.
Twilight stood in stunned silence for a moment, then shrugged and sat down with a book to have her recently acquired breakfast. A few minutes passed in calm silence as Twilight ate and Spike resumed his cleaning.
However, just as Twilight was about to toss the pit of the peach aside, she happened to glance at its surface and noticed the knots and wrinkles that covered it spelled out a clearly visible message:
Just kidding, stole the moon. Catch me if you can! – D
Twilight sputtered, sending a fair bit of the last bite of her peach onto the book she’d been reading, and leapt to her hooves, her wings spread and her horn shining with magic.
“DISCORD!”
With a flash of teleportation magic, Twilight was gone.
A few moments passed before the sound of snickering could be heard through the library. As it began growing into chuckling and started on its way to proper laughter, a book slipped from its place on the shelf and dropped to the floor, falling open and sending Discord tumbling out from between its pages.
“Oh, this was so much fun. I wonder how long it will take before it occurs to her to just ask Luna if I even did it.”
Spike looked warily down at the draconequus from the ladder he was using to clean the top shelves. “Did you?”
“Of course not. How could anypony overlook that? I’ve just been getting her worked up so I could set off a proper panic.” Discord stood and dusted himself off, then started towards the library door. “Do tell me how this one turns out. I put a lot of effort into it.”
“Where are you going?”
“I think tea and a stop by the spa would be nice. I’ve been so busy lately, after all.”
