The Lost One

Discord was in Tartarus.

Literally, as it happened to be. The mirror portal that ol' Sunbutt McNoFun had forbidden him access to had a dark twin down here, and she had not expressly stated he couldn't use it. It was run by blood magic, and of course cursed on top of that, as evil artifacts always were, and would dispense lots of blood, alien body parts, ceramics, and gold from time to time.

Discord had no real purpose here, but he had some free time and the irrepressible urge to cause mischief could not be denied. Idle thoughts of building a meat dragon or using the gold as a prize to get more ponies to run through his impossible hedge maze danced through his head. Sure, the princess of cake forbade him from stealing the natural talents of ponies, but she'd said nothing about the maze itself, which of course meant he was free to do however he liked.

Sadly, it seemed as though the dark mirror had been defunct for some time. Disappointed, Discord was considering leaving his mark on the piece before returning to Ponyville, perhaps a few wings or polka dots that changed colors, when the portal started to glow.

Delighted, Discord waited eagerly for the disgusting gift the dark magic would dispense. He hoped for a few bones in the lot, they made such wonderful prank gifts.

Sadly, it was not to be. All the portal dispensed was a pathetically thin creature, which promptly fell on its face into the centuries-old gore. To top it off, it had the audacity of being both alive and unconscious, and thus entirely useless for his purposes. Discord frowned. How inconsiderate.

With a snap of his talons, the body levitated into the air behind him like a rag doll, and floated in his wake as Discord made his exit. Perhaps Fluttershy would want it, but first he had a few pranks in mind...

Princess Luna was having a bad day. First of all, it was day, the time when all good Night Princesses should be asleep. However, her sister had insisted her presence was needed for this boring state function, and so, armed with a venti half-caf vanilla hazelnut latte, hold the whip cream, also known as her usual, Princess Luna forced herself to endure with all good grace.

That is to say she was sulking in the corner, staring off into space and not acknowledging anypony that came near her. Princess Celestia had noticed, of course, but was too wrapped up in what would politely be referred to as, "civil discussions," and what she would refer to in private as, "foolish nobles failing to butter her up" to do anything about it. Hopefully there would be a break in the conversation so she could get away.

Unfortunately, said break in the conversation only heralded worse things to come. What walked into the room was a being that was clearly, at least according to the princesses' senses, both entirely unconscious and being puppeted by chaos magic. The poor thing's head rolled to the side, and its two forelegs hung straight out in front of it as though it were a zombie. It broke into a shambling walk, and seemed to take no notice of the few nobles that had stopped to stare at it, instead making a beeline for...

Oh no. Please. Not that. Not when she was behaving herself so well.

Princess Celestia abruptly broke off civil discussions with her current group of little ponies, turned, and pushed through clowders* of nobles as quickly as she could without shoving them out of the way, but she knew in her heart already that it was too late.

A group of cats is called a clowder, or a glaring. It seemed appropriate.

The puppet had stopped directly in front of Princess Luna, who still had not registered its presence. The upper half of its body slowly leaned forward, at an angle impossible had it actually been standing on its feet. It gently brushed its hand over the front of Luna's face, and a high pitched voice said, altogether too loudly, "Boop!"

Princess Luna stared uncomprehendingly at the figure before her.

"Didst thou... didst thou just boop Our nose?"

Giving a mocking little bow, the creature began to dance, singing quite loudly and still in that ridiculous high-pitched voice,

"Loony Luna! Loony Luna!

She's as crazy as a tuna!"

With a snarl, Princess Luna lept out of her seat, intent on strangling the little monster. The creature quickly flew backwards and raced around the room, the Princess in hot pursuit, still singing that awful little ditty. It went on, and on, questioning Luna's sanity, stature, ability to lead, fly, do magic, read, and always coming back to that annoying little refrain.

Princess Celestia sighed. No hope of normalcy left for this party.

"Please stop this, Discord." Princess Celestia sighed, tiredly resigned. "You've already done enough."

"Meesah think yousah too fat to catcha me!" It cried out mockingly.

Princess Celestia saw red. For a moment, she wanted very much to join Princess Luna in dashing about the room to strangle the creature. But centuries of practice reasserted themselves, and Princess Celestia calmed down to see the obvious solution.

She smirked, an expression that surprised many of the ponies still in the room, and calmly cut the magical strings that tied the lifeless body to the Chaos cretin.

"Discord," she said in a sweet tone through clenched teeth, "I suggest you leave now before I do something drastic."

Discord reappeared in an aura of yellow light, completely immobilized by conventional magic. That would never stop Discord, of course, but it served as a warning. Discord could sense the barely-contained fury of the Sun Princess, and knew it would be best to take his leave while he still could.

"Hmph. You're no fun." he pouted, before disappearing completely.

Princess Celestia sighed again.

"All right, everypony," she called to the nobles still in attendance, "I'm afraid we must end this early. Next week we shall try again, but for now I ask that you take your leave."

A few grumblings from the nobles at the possibility of missing more drama aside, they left without complaint.

Princess Luna was standing over the puppet's body.

"We would have killed them, Sister." She whispered, eyes pinpricks at what she'd almost done.

"It's all right, Luna," Celestia offered, draping a wing over her sister, "he is trying at the best of times."

"Now, what are we to do with-" Princess Celestia got a good look at the creature's face for the first time and froze. The tiny eyes. The neutral color scheme. The five digits instead of four. A very horrific memory that she hoped she'd buried entirely suddenly resurfaced, and her tail unconsciously wedged itself between her legs.

Princess Luna, noticing how far back her ears were, ceased her own guilty preoccupation to ask,  "Sister, what is it?"

"It's evil!" Celestia shrieked, "It's come back for the rest of me!"

And with that, Princess Celestia, leader of the nation, avatar of the sun, most powerful being in a several hundred mile radius, turned around and fled.

Princess Luna looked down at the creature and poked it with the tip of her shoe. It squished organically. Luna frowned.

"Eew."

The Elements of Harmony were en route to Canterlot.

"I've never seen her hornwriting this large and angular, Spike," the alicorn argued, "according to my book on graphology, that means she was panicked when she was writing this. What in Equestria could possibly have Princess Celestia panicked?"

"Calm down, Twi." Applejack stated, "I'm sure whatever it is, the Elements can handle it just fine."

They had been going around in this circular conversation for the better part of an hour, now, and everypony was relieved when they touched down in Canterlot. Thanking the pegasi that had pulled their chariot, Princess Twilight and her friends turned and made their way towards the palace.

Or, they would have, had a yellow aura not yanked them through a teleportation field directly into the palace itself. They found themselves in a medium sized sitting room, the kind Princess Celestia would host informal tea parties in.

Apparently the Princess had gotten started without them; she was levitating a teapot, and as there were no teacups placed, it looked as though she had been drinking straight from the spout. Her visible eye twitched, and the tail clamped between her legs was not helping her appearance at all.

After a moment of staring in fascinated horror, Twilight ventured, "Princess, what's wrong?"

"They've come back for me." Celestia whispered, visible eye locked on Twilight, "They couldn't do it last time and now they've come to try again."

"Who's come back?" "Try what again?" Always quick with the questions, was Twilight.

Princess Celestia stood, and did something Twilight never expected to see her do. She took a deep breath, bringing her foreleg in, and let it out slowly, extending her foreleg. She did this three times, but all the while, her tail never raised itself to its proper place.

Thoroughly unsettled, Twilight waited for her mentor to tell her what was going on.