Jean-Joseph Mouret's Rondo plays as a camera slowly pans over a table covered in various books, a few candles, a stone bust of Star-Swirl the Bearded, and black and white photos of Princesses Celestia and Luna. Most of the lettering on the spines is intelligible, written in some long forgotten language. The ones that can be read sport familiar titles like “My Little Dashie” and “On a Cross and Arrow”. A small pile of scrolls lay next to some spare bits. Finally the camera comes to a stop on a book open to its title page. It reads, “Mustardpeace Theater Introduced by Discord”
The screen fades to black, then the image comes back up to show our draconequus host sitting in a large armchair in front of a fireplace housing silver flames. Instead of smoke, the flames seem to be putting off bubbles.
“Well now, look who finally decided to show up.” Discord says cheerfully. “Let’s begin shall we?” Discord clears his throat and folds his hands, claws, whatever, in his lap. “Welcome to Mustardpeace Theater. Tonight I would like to discuss my favorite topic, chaos. I am fully aware that there are many of you out there who believe that both I and my lovely bedlam are inherently evil. This, my friends, is not true. At its core chaos is simply change, and without change the world is dreadfully boring wouldn’t you agree? Change is the way of nature. Without change there would be no new art, no new music, no culture. Everything would become stagnant and dead.
“That being said, glorifying chaos really has nothing to do with the pieces I intend to present to you. I just felt I should clear the air before we truly get started.” He says, snapping his fingers. A book appears in front of him and he plucks it out of the air. “You see, I recently stumbled across the most peculiar library. Its shelves are lined with stories based on Equestria, and more appear every day. Some are really good, others are really bad, and more still aren’t even finished. After reading a lot of them I’ve begun to notice some patterns. Based on these patterns, I’ve selected a few different genres I’d like throw my two bits in on. The first is the gore genre.
“Now don’t panic, I’m not here to disgust you. I simply wish to spin my own tales. My first is to be a sequel of sorts to this little beauty here,” he taps the cover of the book he’s holding. “It’s called ‘Parchments’ by Ponyman and CandleEyes, an amusing, albeit a little over the top, gore story in which one Twilight Sparkle runs out of parchment for her friendship reports. So in a moment of desperation she decides to skin Fluttershy and use her hide to make some. Why? Who cares?! If it was supposed to make sense I wouldn’t be talking about it now would I? Then we wouldn’t have this time together! So sit back and relax as I weave you a tale I like to call ‘Quills’.”
Most Tuesday’s excited Twilight quite a lot,
This particular Tuesday, however, did not.
A missing quill had sucked all the wind from her sail,
She’d been searching all day but to no avail.
She had wasted the day; the store doors were shut tight
And this was not the first time a Tuesday had not gone right
“Why just a week ago,” She recalled, stifling a cry,
“I ran out of parchment and had to skin poor Fluttershy.”
When out of the corner came such a clatter
As little ole Spike fell off of his ladder
“But Twi,” he asked, rubbing his tail,
“I thought you said she went back to Cloudsdale?”
“Oh,” Twilight said with a nervous grin,
“Was I really thinking out loud again?”
“Just a sec,” Spike replied, shifting his weight
“Yo narrator, Knock it off! I can’t concentrate!”
A voice boomed from the sky invoking shock and awe,
“Kid, seriously,” It said. “You can’t go breaking the forth wall.”
Spike replied “Just stop the rhyming and I’ll play along.”
“Or else I’ll sing Pinky’s "You Gotta Share' song.”
“Fine you win.” Discord relented, “But I’m still calling the shots here. Now can we get on with this?”
“Right, anyways, yes you were thinking out loud again Twilight.” Spike said.
“I think it's bedtime for a certain dragon. I also think there are a lot of jewels in said dragon’s future if he can keep his mouth shut.” Twilight replied. Spike simply shrugged and went upstairs allowing Twilight to return to her thoughts. Where was she going to find a quill at this hour? “What to do, what to do?” She asked the air.
“Who?”
“Not who, what,” Twilight said to the new voice, annoyed that she was being interrupted again.
“Who?” the newcomer repeated. Frustrated, Twilight turned to face this irritation only to find herself muzzle to beak with her owl assistant, Owloysius.
“Oh,” Twilight said with a laugh, “It’s just you.”
“Who?” Owloysius said and started preening his feathers. Wait… Feathers?
“Feathers! That’s it!” Twilight exclaimed. She whipped up a quick spell and fired it at the owl, knocking him unconscious.
By the time he awoke, Owloysius was strapped to a table. Bindings held him down by his legs, wings, and throat. He tested them all in turn but none would budge
“Oh goody! You’re up,” Twilight said, her voice shaking a bit. Her mane was disheveled, her left eye was twitching, and her grin would have made a certain feline of the Cheshire verity green with envy.
“Who?” Owloysius said, but what Twilight heard was her victim ask, “What’s going on?”
“You see my nocturnal friend,” Twilight said, “Today is Tuesday, and we both know what Tuesday means don’t we?”
“Who?”
“That’s right. Tuesday is the day that I’m supposed to send a friendship report to Princess Celestia, but it seems I’ve misplaced my quill so I can’t write one.”
“Who?”
“What does it have to do with you? Well that’s easy you silly. Quills are made from feathers and you seem to have a lot of those.”
“Who?”
“That’s right I’m going to pluck your feathers, then I’ll never have to worry about not having a quill again.”
“Who?”
“What do you mean, why are you strapped down? How am I gonna kill you if you’re not strapped down? It’s like, an unwritten law that the victim has to be knocked out then wake up strapped down.”
“Who?”
“Why am I going to kill you?” Twilight’s grin nearly split her face in two. “No reason.”
Owloysius soiled himself.
“Ew… We’ll there’s the second unwritten law out of the way. Back to work.” And with that she started plucking the owls feathers one by one with her magic, examining each one. She kept the ones that would make good quills and discarded the others in a pile to be thrown away later. Twilight was surprised with how little Owloysius was struggling, granted this part wasn’t particularly painful, but she figured the little owl would at least be crying or something. Can owls even cry? I’m sure I have a book on it some- Focus, Twilight, focus.
By now she had removed all of Owloysius’ feathers and it was time for the real work to begin. She conjured up a knife with her magic and prepared for her first incision.
“Sweet mother of Celestia!” Twilight jerked away from her victim to see Spike standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“I thought I sent you to bed,” Twilight said.
“I wanted a snack. What are you doing to Owloysius?” Spike asked
“Who?” The owl said.
“I am NOT crazy you featherless prick!” Twilight screamed. Using the distraction, Spike hit Twilight over the head with the wooden bust that was kept in the room knocking her out cold. He then set the captive bird free.
“You ok Owloysius?” Spike asked extending a claw so he could carry the owl to his perch.
“Who?” He replied accepting Spikes gesture.
“I’m sending a letter asking the Princess for help. Poor Twilight has finally gone insane."
Later that evening, Shining Armor came with a couple of guards to take Twilight to an asylum in Canterlot where she wouldn't be a danger to anypony, or herself, ever again.
“Huh…” Discord muses, twisting his goatee around one of his clawed fingers. “Not necessarily where I expected that one to end up, but oh well. That’s the joy of chaos after all. I do so hope you enjoyed this first installment of Mustardpeace Theater. I already have a few ideas for our next session but we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise now would we? Until then my dear viewers, Chaos out,” he snaps his fingers and disappears in a poof of smoke.
