Some Love

Discord stared blankly at the mop. “M-Meredith?”

The mop said nothing.

Discord breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank heavens, Meredith, you frightened me. You’d best not get me riled up like that. Celestia only knows what I could do on edge...”

Discord paused, and lifted his paw to his chin and begin to stroke and fondle his little beard in thought. “Come to think of it, I haven’t payed a visit to my dear friend Princess Celestia in some time. Do you feel like doing that today, Meredith?”

Meredith lay balanced against Discord, as before.

“You’re right, you’re right. Best to show up tomorrow. We have things we must attend to today. Yes, I do think that would be splendid.” Discord took the mop by the handle and moved it over to balance against his thinking tree. Taking a moment of pause, the draconequus surveyed his surroundings.

He was in his home sweet home—the little grotto in which Discord had taken to be his own once his reformation was complete. It was not a large place, but it was his place. Nice and cozy, if he did say so himself; absolutely brimming with strange flora and fauna, most of which he had created himself.

His thinking tree was his most prized piece: the thick, scratchy blue bark, the long, drooping branches that ended in fluffy blue leaves speckled with tiny red and yellow blossoms, the way the branches and trunk were grown to create perfect lounging areas. The tree was essentially his bedroom.

“Ah yes, my lovely,” Discord said to Meredith. “My thinking tree is quite a beauty. I know you love how the wood scratches against your handle...” Discord took Meredith’s handle in his paw and grated it against the wood, a few blue fibers rubbing off onto the mop. Discord sighed deeply, nearing a guttural moan in sonic consistency, and rubbing his own chest. His eyes fell to a half lid, and his mouth ajar, tongue sliding out like a sloppy snake.

Blinking hard, Discord pulled himself out of the trance. “O-Oh dear, I’m quite sorry Meredith. I don’t know what came over me, honestly...”

Meredith, being a mop, said nothing.

“I love my thinking tree almost as much as life itself, but...” Discord rest his paw on the wood, shivering as the pleasantly unpleasant feel of the bark against his skin sank into him. “I could never love it more than you, my sweet.”

Discord took Meredith gently in his talon, and brought her up to him, hugging her closely to his body. He placed a single kiss on the tip of her handle, and came back up with a splinter in his lip.

“Oh, that was rather devious of me, wasn’t it, my sweet?” Discord said with a devilish chuckle following close behind. “I’m sorry that I had to partake in that way, just around you... I simply cannot contain myself.”

The mop hung rigid in the crook of Discord’s arm.

“Oh, don’t try and kid me, Meredith, I can see that blush bepainting your shaft,” Discord chided, taking his paw from the thinking tree and running it up and down the wooden handle of the mop.

Discord placed the mop in his grasp, and hopped down the little hill in which the thinking tree was situated on. “What shall we do today, Meredith? Make plans for our visit to Celestia tomorrow? Clean up the grotto a bit? Make a mess of a small town?”

Discord trailed off, and put his ear to Meredith's handle. “What? You’d like to dance?” Discord grinned down at the mop, and stroked the handle gently. “Oh, of course my dear; you know I could never say no...”

Discord placed her carefully between two rocks, ensuring that she stayed upright as he hopped down to a large slab of stone, next to which a record player with a few stacks of vinyls beside it lay on the end of a shattered piller. The top of the grotto, the rift that lead to the outside world, was stationed right above the slab, so light filtered in, chock full of dust, and tinted a very faint yellow.

Discord extended his paw to Meredith while snapping his talon, causing her to float into his grasp, while the needle lifted and a vinyl disk slid into place. “Shall we, dearest?”