Guest Author Yottall Ton Ciddors
“Abaghadahecknoifilliadearghhhhhhhhhhhh!” Discord shrieked, as he grabbed one of his legs and fell to the ground, visibly writhing in pain.
“What was that?” Princess Celestia asked with a cocked brow and an almost stoic expression.
Discord cleared his throat. “I said, ‘Abaghadahecknoifilliadearghhhhhhhhhhhh!’ you nitwit! But I think what’s more important is: what in Equestria did you do!?”
Celestia raised her armored hoof to glance at absently. “I kicked you in the shin, obviously. I warned you about staring at Luna’s plot and you didn’t listen.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I gave you a light tap at best, Discord. Get over it.”
“Get over it?” Discord snarled up to her. “Of course I was staring at Luna’s plot! She’s been mooning me ever since we began this walk of ours!”
Up ahead on the road, Princess Luna turned around and came back to them. She held the same expression as Celestia had once Discord collapsed. “I can sense someone is talking about my plot. What about it? And why is Discord on the ground? And why is he being all noisy about suddenly being on the ground?”
Discord glared at Luna. “You’ve been mooning me!”
Luna nodded. “Of course I have. And so has every pony in Equestria for as long as they have lived. We are all technically naked right now, Discord. Even you.”
Discord scoffed at that. “Fine. I’ll forgo your complete disregard of my new pants that just so happen to look exactly like my legs, Luna, but what I will not forgo is being thought of as a weirdo!”
Celestia and Luna shared a quick glance at each other.
“I wasn’t looking at Luna’s plot,” Discord continued snidely. “I was looking at her cutie mark. Hence, I was being ‘mooned’ and it was bothering me.”
“I still don’t care,” Celestia said. “Actually, I don’t care about this entire conversation. Get up, Discord. We have meetings to attend at the castle soon.”
Wincing in pain, Discord held his leg close to his chest. “Don’t you understand what you’ve just done, Celestia? You’ve just killed me! Stricken down in the prime of my life!”
“Sister, is this true?” Luna gasped at Celestia. “Say this isn’t so! A sentence of death for the mere crime of Pony Plot Perusal? You know how common a crime P.P.P. is in Equestria, don’t you?”
Celestia shut her eyes for a moment. “This is insane. I did no such thing to him. Discord is fine and now he’s just turning things on me because he was caught being a creep. Admit to what you were doing, Discord, and I’ll spare you a second kick to the shin.”
Discord clutched his leg tighter to his chest. “No, please, no! I beg you, Celestia! Have mercy! Let my last few moments on this Earth be ones of bliss and joy!”
Celestia raised both of her front hooves before her. “I could name my hooves Bliss and Joy if that would make things better for you.”
Discord whimpered and inched away from her on the road. This caused Celestia to drop her hooves and furrow her brows in Luna’s direction. Luna, in turn, went to stand next to the cowering Discord.
“Do you speak truthfully, Discord?” Luna asked him tentatively. “Do you honestly believe you are dying right now?”
Discord hitched in a breath and nodded solemnly.
Celestia, meanwhile, couldn’t take her eyes off the leg Discord was holding onto. “But I barely even hit you! You’re Discord! Nothing hurts you! Up until now… I only thought being placed in stone or having one’s magic taken away from you could do any actual damage to a draconequus.”
“I’m sure that’s what many would believe,” Discord told her earnestly, “and I would not blame them, either. From the outside, we draconequuses may seem invincible, and that’s almost true. What most don’t know is that when we reach a certain age, every draconequus must pick a certain spot on their body to leave frail and weak. So weak, that one hit would have the power to kill them for good. And you, Celestia, just so happened to have hit that special spot. The shin on my right leg.”
“Your shin?” Celestia echoed bitterly. “Why couldn’t you have picked a far safer spot on your body to choose as your weak spot? Why not something internal?”
Discord waved a paw. “Oh, I was young and naïve when I picked this shin of mine; ignorant of the overwhelming dangers of end tables and footrests. Upon reflection, I should’ve probably worn hockey pads down there.” He giggled lightly. “And here I thought it would always be that awkwardly placed coffee table in my living room that would prove to be my undoing. Alas, you have finally slain me, Celestia—all with that gold-plated hoof of yours. So congrats. Nice one. Good job. You want a muffin to celebrate or something?”
Celestia shook her head adamantly. “Not buying this. Sorry, but—”
“Gah!” Discord began to violently spasm on the ground, his eyes opening and closing wildly while bits of spit shot out of his mouth. Instantly, his face lost most of its color as well as the rest of his skin, almost as if someone was literally sucking the color out of him.
Rushing over, Celestia knelt down to him and held his head in her hoof. “Discord! Tell me you’re joking right this instant! Stop this tomfoolery at once!”
Discord’s intense spasms abated a few seconds later. His weary eyes looked directly at Celestia’s. “Celestia?” he croaked. “Are you there? I can’t see…”
“I’m here, Discord,” she answered. “Tell me the truth now. You’re not really dying, are—”
“Everything’s so white all of a sudden,” Discord spoke softly. “Like giant snowflakes have clouded my vision… or is that only because you’re right overtop of me? You were always pretty pale…”
Celestia glanced down and found that more of Discord’s skin color had begun to fade. Already, the tips of his feet had turned a dull gray.
She stared down at him and was surprised to find a lump in her throat. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
Discord tried for a smile. “We had a good run, though, didn’t we? Remember that time I turned invisible and started tickling you during that eulogy you delivered?”
Celestia grit her teeth. “Honestly not the greatest memory, Discord.”
“It was for me, though,” he replied, before he coughed into his claws. “Can you do something for me before I go? A teeny, tiny request, perhaps?”
“Anything, Discord. Whatever requests you need, I’ll see that they get done.”
He paused. “Promise?”
Celestia gave a nod. “I promise.”
At that, Discord smiled thinly. “Give us a kiss?”
“Oh.” Celestia blushed and surprised herself with a chuckle. “All right, then. A small one.”
She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
In return, Discord cocked a wispy brow and glared at her. “What am I? Your most hated cousin? That’s the amount of love I get after knowing you for thousands of years? Not to mention the entire reason I’m dying is somewhat because of you…”
Celestia sighed and noted the lack of color crawling up Discord’s legs. He must’ve only had minutes left by the looks of it. Steeling herself, she leaned down to him again and aimed for his lips this time—only for Discord to loudly belch in her face when she was less than an inch away from him.
Discord waved a hand. “Sorry about that. Garlic for lunch. Literally just garlic. And onions. And orange juice and toothpaste. Try again?”
“I think I’ll pass,” Celestia replied.
“Maybe kiss Luna instead?” Discord suggested. “I never did get that kiss, Princess. You two are rather close, aren’t you?”
“I am all right with it,” Luna spoke from behind them. “It has been a rather lonely thousand years on the moon, if I am to speak openly.”
Angrily, Celestia shook her head. “That will not be happening, Discord! You had your chance to go out on a high note and you wasted it. Now we’re just going to sit here and wait for you to pass.”
Having said that, Celestia collapsed to her rump on the ground and crossed her forelegs over her chest. Next, Discord turned onto his side to face her, beads of sweat visible on his temples.
He explained happily, “Do you actually have any idea how long it takes a draconequus to die? It might take minutes… hours… days even…”
“Then we’ll wait,” Celestia replied thickly.
Discord giggled again. “You also promised me some requests. You promised, Celestia.”
“I did. And then you requested for me to kiss my sister.”
“I brought along lip chap, if that changes anything,” Luna added gingerly.
Celestia growled in her throat. “You want another kick to the shin, Discord? That can be arranged quite easily.”
“Not really.” Discord’s smile widened to a terrifying degree. “But it might be in your best interests to comply with my requests. You did promise me them, after all. Just a few innocent little requests from a dying friend? Hmm? You wouldn’t want to run into any nasty draconequus-related stipulations, would you?”
Celestia felt a block of ice settle in her gut. Rubbing at both temples with her hooves, she bluntly asked him, “I need to go see Twilight about this, don’t I?”
***
“Tell me you’re kidding,” Celestia said, holding Twilight Sparkle’s cheeks between her hard hooves. “Tell me you’re joking and you’re in on this with Discord. Tell me you had a good laugh about it and went ‘Haha!’ and ‘Hehe’ and ‘Hoho’! Can you do that for me, Twilight? Pretty please, oh favorite student of mine?”
Awkwardly, Twilight detached herself from Celestia and left a wide berth between them. Celestia found she couldn’t even blame Twilight for her reaction. Celestia had been up for most of the last three days and she doubted the bags under her eyes or her unkempt mane made her seem all that coherent or stable at the moment.
On her desk, Twilight flipped through her thick and dusty text another time, shaking her head glumly. “It’s the same as I told you last time, Princess. This is my only book on draconequuses and thus far everything Discord mentioned holds true: the lone weak spot on the body; the de-colorization of the skin; the unknown amount of time before they die; even the odd ‘last request’ part.”
Celestia stared at her unblinking. “And what if I stopped doing them? Stopped Discord’s requests altogether? Would that be so bad? Would it really?”
Twilight grimaced and looked downcast. “Sort of. It loosely states that if a dying draconequus is denied a ‘promised’ request, its corpse will leave a curse onto the earth unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before—including turning the moon to Swiss cheese before blowing it up.”
“But would that really be that big a deal?” Celestia practically begged her. “No moon? Bah! Doesn’t everyone like my sun well enough?”
In the corner of the room, Luna loudly cleared her throat, but didn’t add anything further to the discussion.
“Where is Discord now?” Twilight asked timidly.
“Exactly where he fell,” Celestia replied flatly. “Right where I first kicked him in the shin. Since then we’ve been bringing him every one of his ‘requests’ directly. Gooses. Feasts. Cream buns and doughnuts and fruitcake with no nuts; pink macaroons and a million balloons; presents and prizes; surprises of all shapes and sizes—”
Twilight hurried over to Celestia to give her a hard shake on the shoulder. “Princess! You’re rhyming again!”
Celestia jolted awake from the shake. “I can’t help it, Twilight. He only wants ponies to rhyme when they’re near him—another of his ‘requests’. Oh, why did I ever kick that infernal shin of his!? I should’ve kicked him in the face like my gut was telling me to in the first place!”
From the doorway into Twilight’s study came the rest of her friends. Rarity gave a sigh and flicked a bit of dark chocolate off her coat. “The pudding water park is almost ready to open in case you were wondering. How Discord plans on using it since he’s dying and all… I really have no idea.”
Applejack caught sight of Celestia in the center of the room. “Say, how’d you get away from Discord for so long?”
Celestia froze and gulped dryly. “He sent me to go find a snozzberry to bring back to him. He said they only exist in one’s imagination… so what does that even mean? Where should I even look?” She rested her head on a hoof. “At least it’s better than being forced to kiss Luna again.”
Luna retrieved a small bottle of mouth wash to swig around her mouth for a moment. “Personally, I don’t know what you’re so strung up about. I had a great time. I always knew I was a fantastic kisser. I had a lot of time to practice on my foreleg while on the moon.”
Angrily, Applejack flung her hat to the floor. “I just can’t take this no more! Why can’t that dastardly Discord just die already?”
“Oh, Applejack,” Fluttershy softly muttered behind her. “There’s still a chance he could get better, right? At least… that’s what we should be hoping happens, isn’t it?”
“Actually,” Applejack answered sternly, “if he does somehow get better, I might just kick him in his magical shin again just to be done with him once and for all. You know what he’s ‘requesting’ I do now? By tomorrow, he wants an eight page essay on why oranges are better than apples! Single spaced and with my sources cited!” A single tear coursed down her cheek. “I can’t do it, I tell yeah! What if Apple Bloom ends up reading that filth I’m made to write? I can’t let slander like that getting out! Oranges better than apples? Discord must be more off his rocker than usual, trying to get me to do something like that!”
“Who’s Yottall Ton Ciddors?” Rainbow Dash asked as she hovered over the open book on Twilight’s desk. “What kind of weird name is that even?”
“Must be foreign,” Rarity ventured. “Or the offspring of very cruel parents.”
Twilight lurched and her head shot up. Her pupils shrunk. “Wait. Rainbow, who did you say the author of that draconequus study book was?”
“Yottall Ton Ciddors. Weird, right?”
With a hard thud, Twilight mashed her hoof against her forehead hard enough to leave a mark. “I’ve been so stupid! It’s an anagram. I’ve been so busy studying the text that I didn’t even bother to research the author that wrote it or anything about them. I knew that book seemed a little too easy to find in the archives!”
“So what does the name equal out to, Twilight?” Rarity asked.
“Totally Not Discord.” Twilight groaned. “Rainbow Dash, at least tell me there’s not an author’s photo on the back.”
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “There’s not.”
Twilight sighed in relief.
“But there is one on the book jacket. It’s of Discord. With a fake mustache. Even a fake author’s bio. It says he holds the highest ever recorded score on Pac Pony. What a liar.”
All eyes in the room focused on Celestia as she began thrumming where she stood. Her wings shot out to her sides and a golden aura incased her entire body; her jaws clamped together tight enough that one of her teeth chipped.
Twilight took a tentative step towards her. “Princess? Are you okay? This is good news, isn’t it? Discord’s been faking, so we can—”
“No!” Celestia roared, her voice effortlessly slicing through the room and knocking several Starswirl the Bearded posters off the walls. “He was faking! Now Discord will die—for real this time! Magical shin kicks or not!”
Crouched low to the floor, Fluttershy inched her way over to Celestia, barely able to look her in her brightly burning eyes. “Princess Celestia… if it’s all right with you… could I please ask that you don’t kill Discord? I know he did a bad thing this time… but, maybe you could—”
“No!” Celestia yelled again, before lowering her voice and facing Fluttershy. “I am sorry, child, but Discord has gone too far this time. I had to give him a sponge bath—four times! And wash his feet! As well as wash other areas on the disgusting creature that shall remain nameless and significantly below average.”
Fluttershy hitched in a small breath. “Really? You can’t just spare him one more time? Pretty please?”
Celestia shook her head gravely. “Any last words you’d like for me to tell him?”
***
Celestia landed in a huff near Discord, who was still sprawled out along the ground. Only now he was surrounded by various gifts, items, and bits of food he must’ve ‘requested’ from any pony that happened to wander by. At the moment, a young mare was performing a juggling act for him as he happily clapped along. Only half of his torso remained a dull gray color.
“Fluttershy sends her regards,” Celestia began, fluffing the pillow she held in front of her in her magical aura. “She also says you’re really funny and a misunderstood soul. And asks if she can have your record collection once you pass away.”
Discord chuckled. “Oh, Fluttershy. What a sweetie. Did you bring back that snozzberry like I requested?”
Celestia smirked. “Sure did. And it’s right here.” She fluffed her pillow again.
Discord pursed his lips. “That’s a pillow. I’m, like, eighty percent sure of it.”
“Oh?” Celestia took another step towards him. “Maybe take a closer look and make it a hundred percent.”
That was when she lunged towards him and firmly planted the pillow over his face. Discord thrashed when she pounced on him, forcing Celestia to put all of her weight on him and hold him to the ground.
“Celestia!” he shouted, his screams heavily muffled by the fabric. “What in Equestria are you doing?”
Celestia hummed while she sat atop of him. “Sorry. Can’t hear you. There must be a pillow over your face.”
“Of course there is! I can’t breathe, Celestia!”
“That’s kind of the point,” she told him earnestly. “I couldn’t stand to watch you suffer anymore, Discord, so I’m putting you out of your misery. Ever read ‘One Flew Over The Phoenixes Nest’? It’s sort of like that.”
“You know I only read restaurant menus!”
Celestia shushed him. “It’s for the greater good, Discord. And feel proud. I’m using my good pillow covers on you. Enjoy the carefully hoof-stitched embroidered daisy pattern while you can.”
In retaliation, Discord swung his hands and feet against the ground. “Okay! I admit it! I was lying! It was a joke! Just a joke! Stop this right now, Celestia!”
Celestia shushed him again. “Close your eyes and think of that nice bubble bath I gave you yesterday. I for one know I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.”
“That bath sucked!” Discord complained below the pillow. “Hardly any bubbles and only one rubber ducky?”
Celestia told him calmly, “I’m sure the next life will have all the rubber ducks you could ever want.”
“Cease what you are doing immediately!” someone shouted behind her.
Celestia turned and found Luna quickly descending to the ground before hurrying over to them. Celestia stopped adding pressure to the pillow for just a moment.
“You know this isn’t right, sister,” Luna told her.
Celestia frowned. “It’s not? Even after everything he made us do?”
Luna shook her head. “No. Not until I’ve had my turn holding the pillow over his face.”
***
Celestia stood tall behind the podium, her mane beautiful and flowing around her shoulders. She glanced at her note cards below her before continuing on with the eulogy.
“I know Discord didn’t get along with most, but he did touch the lives of most everyone he came in contact with. And those that knew him well enough knew he had a softer side to him—deep, deep down. A softer side almost as soft as a feather pillow pressed over someone’s face. Still, I don’t think I’ll never forget that moment when he told me he was sorry about everything, the very moment before he passed away.”
On the stand next to her was a long casket. From inside, Discord shoved open the lid and glared at her. “You know I never said that, right?”
Celestia closed her eyes with a sigh. “Just let me pretend for five more minutes. Please?”
“Fine,” Discord grumbled, before closing the casket lid on himself again. “Five more minutes and then I’m eating some of that chocolate wake cake.”
And so, for the next five minutes, Celestia pretended that Discord was indeed dead and gone, and it went down as perhaps the greatest five minutes of her life.
Discord receives shin kicks on a daily basis now.
Celestia’s orders.
Author's Note
I was thinking of all the death scenes in "Saving Private Ryan" recently and started to wonder what a Discord death scene would look like. Especially considering he can't really die. Only get more and more grating.
Did I go too far with this one? Or can I still go further? You might've noticed I have a hard time telling when I've gone too dark. 
