The work at Ponyville's main hospital wasn't too stressful most of the time— rid Rainbow Dash of whatever calamity she got herself into, splint the hoof of the foal who thought doing a "three sixty noscope" off the roof of Applejack's barn was a good idea, and help an elderly mare or two go on their daily stroll around the park — it was almost routine.
I was about to head home for the night. My things were packed, the nursing station had been tidied up, and my patients were all sorted out. As I put on my saddlebags, a loud sneeze echoed from the lobby. I could have sworn that I had done all my rounds. All of the inpatients were either discharged or assigned to their room, and I wasn’t prepared for another set of work!
Shrugging off my freshly packed bags and throwing on my ID, I trotted out of the nursing center and down to the first floor. Fortunately, our nursing station wasn’t too far away from the main entrance, and I could quickly deal with whatever slight issue the newcomer had, send them on their way, and leave for the night. In peace.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have a “slight” issue.
Sneezing and sickly blue, on top of a good six or so chairs, lay Discord, the esoteric draconequus. His paw and claw were slightly moist from large amounts of nose wiping, and he was shivering more than a foal on Nightmare Night. As I paused in the room, he glanced over at me, only to let out another sneeze. I recoiled at its vile smell and stifled a retch. Medicine is fun!
“What seems to be the issue, Discord?”
As I spoke, he looked over and coughed. “Can’t you see what the issue is?”
“Yes.” I could smell it, too. “Although, I was hoping for a bit more... detail than that.”
“Detail, you say?” Another cough, followed by some sniffling. “You have no idea what kind of dastardly illness I’ve been ill-disposed to catching,” he continued, pausing to rub his eyes, “and I can’t begin to recount the amount of ponies, griffons, and other creatures I’ve come into contact with who might have given me this miserable flu.”
“I… see. Well, just follow me up to a room where we can get you all set up and figure out what exactly the problem is.”
“Dear Redheart, do you really believe that I am up to making that journey?” He coughed for emphasis. “I’m not sure if I have the strength to make it allthewayup to the room!”
With a small grimace, I went to fetch a wheelchair to help Discord through a journey apparently worth gathering hobbits for. I turned out of the small waiting area into a smaller hallway with two doors, the right one containing the wheelchair I was searching for. I pulled it out with my magic, then nosed it out of the room and into the hallway.
Once I made it back to front area with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Jr., Discord appeared to be in more or less the same condition as before.
“Alright Discord, get in.”
He looked at the wheelchair with a disdainful expression. “How must I ever fit in that wheelchair? I am part dragon, Miss Redhea—“
“Nurse Redheart.”
“Oh, right. Nurse Redheart. My apologies. Titles aside, I am simply too large to fit inside of such a contraption, and I require only the most spacious and luxurious…”
As he continued on about his size, I strolled over to our secretary’s desk, looking for something to accommodate the needs of Ponyville’s Top Complainer. What could satisfy him… I needed something comfortable enough for Discord, yet small enough to fit in the wheelchair. Unless the hospital had a back stock of donated luxury upholstery, then we were out of luck.
Thankfully, the same thing that saved Rainbow Dash when she was younger was about to save our hospital from a full-on draconic meltdown — a cardboard box. I took it in my teeth and brought it over to Discord, placing it in the wheelchair for him.
“… and to think that my wings would have hung so limply aside my poor, sick body without proper suppo—” Discord stopped, perking up at the sound of the cardboard as it hit the thin seat of the wheelchair. He paused for a moment, inspecting the box as if it contained something that would jump out at him, or make a loud noise. Once he was satisfied that I wasn’t pranking him, he did something that caught me by surprise.
Discord transformed into a cat.
I had to step around to the right side of the wheelchair to see him, as his new form only reached half the height of the wheelchair. He padded up towards the towering contraption, testing the foot pedals with a paw before bounding up from the ground, off of the armrest, and into the cardboard box with a soft thump. Once the sound of fur brushing on cardboard ceased, I leaned my head over to peek in.
Discord was still sick, mind you, so he wasn’t the most perfect embodiment of cuteness… but he came pretty darn close. He lay curled up in the box, tail wrapped around the front of his body, coming to rest against his folded front paws. His eyes were slits, closed in a sleepy surrender to the warm confines of the cardboard, and I could hear faint rumblings of a purr emanating from his feline form.
Satisfied at his comfort, I snuck back to the rear of the wheelchair and nosed it out of the waiting room into a nearby elevator.
After a minute, a quiet “ding” rang out and its doors opened. Once we were both inside the spacious lift, I walked around the wheelchair and pressed the “3” button with my nose. A moment later, we arrived at our floor, and I pushed Discord down one of the hallways and into a vacant room.
Now for the fun to begin.
“Hey Dicsooord….”
He raised his head and looked around. After spotting the large, white hospital bed, he leaped onto the mattress and transformed back into his reptilian body. While he got accustomed to his new environment, I pushed the wheelchair out of the way to make room for my own supplies.
I cleared my throat. “Discord? Are you awake?”
“Oh, but of cour—” his response was interrupted with a yawn. Shaking his head, he sat up. “Well, I’m awake now.” He paused for a moment to look around the room. “Alright doctor, do your magic.”
As Discord spoke, a magician’s cap and suit appeared on me for a few short seconds, only to flicker out and disappear with a sneeze from the sickly draconequus.
I giggled, “Well, I’m not as much a magician as I am a nurse, and apparently you aren’t either in that condition. So, let’s get started. How long have you been feeling like this?”
“Oh, not that long, my dear. I came to Ponyville as quick as I could in hopes that Fluttershy would be able to help, but she’s been away on a trip to see the Breezies.” Discord pinched two of his claws together, and I could have sworn a violin was playing somewhere.
He propped his chin up against his folded arm and continued, “To start, I was simply going about my business on the thinking tree, you know… thinking, and I began to pick at some of the bark on the tree. After a while, I got tired and decided to take a nap. When I woke up, I felt horrible and had turned this awful shade of blue,” he emphasized with a pout.
“Hmm… For starters, the blue color isn’t what I’m concerned with—dragons, or creatures that have draconic genes,” I continued in a lecturing tone, “are often prone to color changes that manifest based on sudden changes in immune system integrity.” While he listened, I hooked him up to a heart rate monitor. “Your heart rate certainly looks normal. On top of that, you seem to be able to converse with me just fine, so I’m not too worried about any immediate trauma or shock. Can you describe how you’ve felt?”
Discord paused and rubbed his chin in thought. “Well. My wings have felt much weaker, and my claw has been slightly sore. My hoof and paw feel fine, but my antler has been really sensitive.”
“Any stomach pains, headaches, lower body pains…?” I asked.
“Yes, and also the sneezing,” he replied, borrowing a tissue from my cart to wipe his nose. He didn’t give it back, instead opting to put it next to him on the bed.
“I see."
I took a moment to write down his symptoms on a notepad. They seemed fairly common, and, at least on the surface, could just be the result of a normal cold. However, he is a draconequus, and anything not-pony was outside my realm of training. I decided to send him to a reptilian expert a floor up. Reptiles are close enough to him, right? Right.
After stepping out for a couple of minutes to schedule a room, I returned to find Discord playing basketball with the used tissues he had accumulated over the time I was absent. Instead of a waste basket on the other side of the room, he had... well....
"Ah! Nurse Redheart, any good news?" he said as I entered the room, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
I stared for a moment."Yes, actually. You're being assigned to another nurse on the third floor to get you out of here faster than those tissues appear to be... well, I'm honestly not sure what they're doing," I said, pausing for a moment as he tossed another tissue. "Care to explain?"
As I started to fill out some paperwork about Discord's medical history (how we acquired it, I still don't know), he started to describe his little game.
"It's rather simple, Nurse Redheart — firstly, each individual tissue has its own unique, randomized pull of gravity, which complicates the shot. If the tissue happens to land in the basket, it has a fifty percent chance of successfully landing in, forty percent chance of magically bouncing out, and a ten percent chance of being covered in lotion," he concluded with a satisfied and — was that suggestive? — smile.
"Sounds rather… chaotic," I replied.
"Well I amthe Spirit of Chao—"
His declaration was broken off by a coughing fit. I couldn't help but giggle at the irony. Speaking of iron, he might also need a blood test. Do draconequuses have blood? They are part dragon after all….
With a disapproving stare and a small smile, Discord looked up and continue his decree. "As I was saying, I am the Spirit of Chaos, and most, if not all of what I do is more or less at the whim of enthalpy."
"Don't you mean entropy?" I teased.
An irritated cough was the only response.
Once I finished up the rest of the paperwork, I was ready to send him on his way. "Well Discord, the only rival to your own chaos is this illness, and now that I've finished all of the… ahem, fun paperwork, you're all set to transfer up for a more in-depth examination.”
"Is that all?" he asked.
I hesitated, and turned to face him. “Well, yes, but…”
“But what?” Discord craned his neck around to peer at my face, searching for any inkling of emotion that would convey my message before my voice could carry it. Was he curious? Desperate?
I kept my cool. He couldn’t possibly notice how I was in interested him, right? It’s not as if my fawning over him was unusual, just a normal part of medical procedure. At least, that’s what I told myself as I did everything I could to not get lost in his gaze.
“Maybe you’d consider setting up another checkup... with me?” My voice cracked near the end, trying not to cringe at how corny that was.
He pulled back. “Wasn’t I about to go upstairs for just that?”
Now, it was my turn to lean in. “Yes, but I was thinking something a bit more… casual.” After a pause, I hastily added, “w-with me.”
I quickly looked down from him and tore off a new page from my notebook. The clean piece of paper, normally reserved for medical notes, filled up with nervous scribbling. I needed a distraction, anything to keep myself from looking up at his face — his incredulous expression, which flashed to realization and back to a more... mischevious grin? Wait, was he really going to sa—
“Hold on, let me check my calendar.”
His calendar?
A full suit and tie appeared on him, accompanied by a calendar pad, some pens, spectacles, and a briefcase. “Let’s see,” he continued, flipping through the months while drumming his claw against his chin. “My soonest available time is next Thursday at three in the afternoon… does that work for you too?” Discord peered over his glasses with an amused expression.
“Y-Yes!” I replied ecstatically, straightening up at the prospect. “Alright then, see you by the market, but after you’ve been cured of... whatever this is.”
My thoughts were muddled by the adrenaline. Breathe in, breathe out.
“Which reminds me, they’re expecting you upstairs. Need me to wheel you up again?” I teased, glancing at the cardboard box.
“I-I think I’ll be fine without it, thank you very much,” Discord said with a small blush. “See you then!”
As he walked out of the door and towards the elevator, I couldn’t help but smile and say:
“I’ll make sure to bring catnip!”
Unfortunately, that did a bit more than startle him.
Discord turned back to me, growling as a cat would in mock-anger over my joke, but forgot that, as a draconequus, he had a long antler and horn stick out above his head. These slammed into the cabinet just above me, to the left of the door, which rattled some of the contents inside.
As he rubbed his sore head, and I laughed, I leaned against the cabinet, shaking a certain wobbly potion bottle closer and closer towards the edge of the cabinet until it teetered off. As it fell, its contents splashed over Discord’s head, causing a faint blue glow to emit from him. The empty bottle bounced off and rolled out into the hallway. Some of my laughter made it out into the hallway too.
Discord, meanwhile, looked daggers at me. Much like a wet cat would.
“Oh, now you think this is funny,” he grumbled.
“Y-yes!” I giggled.
His magic started to glow around a nearby set of paper towels. “Well, we’ll see how funny it is wh—”
He paused.
I paused.
We both looked at his magic.
Which was, also, paused.
“Well that’s not right,” Discord mused.
I walked around him into the hallway, retrieving the small bottle that had doused the draconequus. I read its label.
Bottle of Anti-Spatial Manipulation
Removes the ability of the consumer of this liquid to manipulate the location of objects, especially in regards to teleportation.
“Well, great.” I muttered.
“Are you being sarcastic, dear Redheart, or was the pause in my magical ability just due to a hiccup in the space-time continuum?”
I glanced down at my hooves. “Considering that I’m still standing here, and the bottle says that it limits your magical ability to move things, I’d sa—”
“What!?”
He rushed over to the bottle, groaning in realization.
“Alright, well how do we fix this? I have quite a number of manipulation-related activities to get to.”
I read further down the label. “It says here that the effects wear off in a week.”
“A week?”
Discord sighed. “Oh well, what can one do.” He glanced out the door. “It’s about time I head upstairs. I’ll see you next week, Redheart!”
I waved as he walked out the door. “Bye Discord!”
A moment later, however, he poked his head back in.
“And don’t forget the catnip.”
“I won’t!”
And with that, he was gone. I giddily cleaned up the room before I left — I put the bottle safely inside the cabinet, rolled out a fresh sheet of wax over the examination table, and packed my notebook inside my saddlebags. However, I couldn’t pack my excitement for our date.
With Discord!
⚕
I waited for Discord at the entrance to the market. The sky was partly cloudy with a small breeze blowing through; not too cold for a jacket, but cool enough to put on a cute scarf. There weren’t many other ponies around, which left us enough space to enjoy our afternoon together. A perfect time for a perfect date.
“Oh, Redheart!”
A quick scan across the surroundings brought me to the sight of a draconequus walking from Fluttershy’s cottage, dressed in a fashionable set of white shorts and a red Neighwhiian shirt, accompanied by a pair of flip flops and a colorful lei wreath hanging around his neck.
“You made it!” I cheered. “And only a couple of minutes late.”
“Well, my dear, it’s only customary to be fashionablylate,” he exclaimed with a twirl. “Do you like my attire? I thought it would be appropriate for the occasion.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Where do you suggest we go?” he asked.
“Well, considering we have a couple of hours to kill until our reservation, we might be able to snag a visit to Sugarcube Corner.” I replied. “I always find it interesting to see what concoctions Pinkie is brewing.”
“Sounds good to me!” Discord said, temporarily appearing in a chef’s hat and apron, juggling cupcakes and rubbing his stomach with a third hand.
As we began to walk to the pastry shop, Discord got rid of his baker’s attire and transformed back into his Neighwhiian outfit. It wasn’t a particularly long walk, and we arrived in a matter of minutes to a darkened shop with an odd sign taped to the door. So it goes.
Discord tore off the adhered paper and started to leaf through it, only to stop once he realized how much writing there actually was. “Why on Earthare there ninety-fivepages of writing stuck on Pinkie’s door?”
“Well for one, it’s not Pinkie’sdoor, although she bakes more than anypony else in the Corner,” I suggested. “Secondly, it’s not on the earth, it’s on the door. Aside from that, there doesn’t seem to be anypony inside though,” I said, peering into the shop with my front hooves on the glass. “Is the door locked?”
“Let us test it!” Discord shouted with a London accent. Surprised, I looked back to find him adorned in a deerstalker, magnifying glass, and spectacles. Extraordinary.
“Do you happen to have any other surprising outfits I should know about?”
“Oh! My apologies. I didn’t mean to leave you out of the festivities.” As he spoke, a similar set of accessories, along with a slightly more formal attire, appeared on me. “Now all we need is background music and a licensing deal with the BBC!” he exclaimed.
Shaking my head, I moved past him and looked through the other shop window, trying to make out what was inside.
“This is really quite interesting,” Discord remarked as he read through the papers. “This appears to be some sort of a list of riddles and clues. It might explain where in the world the hyperactive pony went.”
“Pinkie?”
“Ah yes, that one,” he dismissed. “As a master of said riddles and clues, these shouldn’t be too hard to decipher, especially considering the pony who wrote them. That is, of course, assuming that this Pinkieis the one who set all this up. Given her personality, that is quite a probable assumption to make. Here,” Discord gestured towards the door, still staring at the papers. “I’ll look around the outside while you search for any more clues indoors. I’ve organized these in sets of nineteen, in base twenty five, obviously, to make them more manageable. If we clear out two a minute….”
As he rambled on about the clues, I tried to think of any logical reason that could explain why Sugarcube Corner would be empty. It was a bit of an odd scenario, especially considering that all of the pastries were still in their displays on the front counter. The various tables that lined the walls were all sparkling clean, and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary — aside from the lack of pony activity.
I opened the door and went inside. Discord didn’t notice, however.
“...assuming we’re not using any Euclidian nonsense, and we’re in the proper 5th-dimensional space, we can finally throw out any sense creativity and use Green’s theorem to — wait, where’d you go?”
I tapped on the glass window in front of him from the inside.
“Oh! I must have gotten lost in my musings. I couldn’t see where I was go— ah! That’s it! I forgot the constant of integ— ”
Before he could continue again, I ran back out and dragged him inside.
⚕
The most unsettling thing about the empty Sugarcube Corner was its silence. With Pinkie around every corner, guests in each table and Mrs. Cake behind the counter, loud, ambient noise became characteristic of the bakery. Without it, the whole place just felt... wrong.
“I’ve never seen the place in such a mess!” Discord exclaimed. He searched behind the counter while I perused the booths for any signs of life.
“That’s probably because you don’t come here that often.”
He cocked a brow.“Oh, really? How would you know?”
I would have liked to say that I happen to go here every day and have never seen him, but I was hit by a wave of memories, flooding from the days where I imagined Discord sitting across from me, pouring a cup made out of tea and filling it with biscuits and making all sorts of puns and off-hoof references while I laughed the stress of work away and he… well, just laughed. Instead, I managed to stammer out, “I-I uh, j-just overheard Pinkie mention that you always went to Fluttershy’s cottage to eat instead of here!” Boom. Saved it. Sort of.
“I see.”
We eventually finished our search across all planes of Sugarcube Corner, and were still lost as to why it was emptier than Rainbow Dash’s mug during cider season. Discord was unfazed; being immortal and all, time probably felt different for him than it did for somepony like me, who was getting bored of all this searching — the potion probably didn't’ help either. However, unbeknownst to him, I had a trick up my scarf that was sure to liven the evening.
“Hey, Diiis-cooord,” I called from the front of the shop. He poked his head out from the back of the fridge, where he was finishing off a leftover piece of pie, and turned to look towards me.
“Haf yu fhound anytshing yhet?” Discord asked, mouth full of pie.
I peered out the window. “Not yet. We’ve searched every nook and cranny of this place all afternoon, and unless you pull some intergalactic beast out of an alternate dimension, there won’t be much else here for us to find. Maybe we should look around Ponyville?”
As I finished speaking, a sharp screeching sound drew my attention back towards Discord. He had one paw inside a blue portal, dragging out a creature that looked like a crab with its head put on backwards. I glared at him with a deadpan expression, part dissapointed, part amused, and part proud of my fortune telling ability.
With a sheepish grin, he thrust the intergalactic beast back into the alternate dimension it came from and trekked over towards me.
“Alright, who do you want to ask first?” he asked, phasing through the door.
I sighed, having to take an extra moment to step back, open the door, walk through it, turn around, close the door, and finally stand face-to-face with Discord. “I think Rose might know. She talks with Pinkie all the time about how Sugarcube Corner is doing, and her flower store isn’t too far from here.”
“Looks good to me!”
“Looks good? What do you mean looks?”
Discord pointed to my right at a building labeled Flowers for Days.
“Ah.”
A few paces over, and we stood in front of Rose’s shop. I led Discord inside, and the first thing we noticed was how nice the place smelled. The aroma of the hundreds, if not thousands of flowers that lined the walls and tables was alluring.
“Hey Redheart, Discord!”
Rose’s voice called out from the front counter as she waved at us. Daisy was behind her, organizing some vases and other accessories behind the checkout counter. The third flower pony, Lily, was presumably out for the day. There wasn’t anyone else in the shop except for us — it was almost four in the afternoon, after all.
“Rose!” I exclaimed, trotting towards her. “We have a really important question for you.”
At the sound of ‘important’, her ears perked up in interest. “Is it about the recent shortage of daffodils from Manehattan, or the sudden change in shipment route of violets from the Whitetail Woods to the Ghastly Gorge?”
I hesitated for a moment. “Ehrm, no. In fact, it’s about Pinkie. We haven’t seen her all day, and Sugarcube Corner is deserted.”
A faint cry of “the horror, the horror!” could be heard from Daisy in the storeroom.
“Isn’t Sugarcube Corner always desserted?” Discord asked.
I gave him another one my trademarked glares. “Ignore him,” I deadpanned, turning back to Rose. “Since your shop is right next to Sugarcube Corner, have you seen anything unusual happen recently?”
Rose stared back, her eyes wide and hoof over her mouth. “Oh gosh, that sounds awful! I really wish I knew where she was, but I haven’t seen her at all! I’ll ask any new customers if they’ve seen her — most are regulars, and might have a better clue.” She shrugged. “Sorry!”
“It’s alright, thanks for your help! Come on Discord, let’s go ask somepony else.”
Discord left first, opting to teleport through the flower-laden walls and out into the street. Again. However, before I left, I bought two small roses and tucked them away in my scarf.
“Redheart, hurry up! This is a matter of life or boredom we’re dealing with here,” Discord called from outside. “We have to save Sugarcube Corner and P-pi… Porr… Purpl— the pink one!”
⚕
We went further south. The road was fenced by tall trees, with branches that arched overhead. Discord flew over them while I stayed under, isolating me from the sounds of the town behind us and opening my ears to the nuances of critters that lined the plants below — lizards, bees, the occasional moth — including those above, not limited to Discord, of course.
I followed the sound and looked up, my eyes focusing on the soft beating of his bat-like wings, which blended into the darkening, navy sky with an almost uncanny likeness. Discord looked straight ahead, with his other limbs laying relaxed against him. His tail flickered occasionally, but stayed just as calm as the rest of him, seeking no urge to balance himself against the light breeze that blew from behind.
“How much longer, how much longer,” Discord mumbled in a noncommittal tone, rolling in the air out of boredom.
His answer would come soon, as not even a minute passed before we arrived in front of a humble post office.
“Finally, we’re here!” Discord exclaimed. “I can’t believe how long that took. You ponies really need to invent a better system of transportation.” He glanced over at me as his voice lowered, “It’s not like I can teleport.”
As we entered the shop, I took a moment to take in the sight of hundreds of bins stacked around the lobby. Each contained the mail for various ponies, labelled by distance. There was a long counter situated against the back wall, but no mailpony in sight.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang from the left of the counter. A box had fallen, landing somewhere behind it, and a surprised “oof!” could be heard from Derpy as she clambered back over to the right side to greet us.
“Hi Redheart, Disc-ord! How can I help you today?” she asked.
“Hello Derpy!” I greeted, “We’re so glad to see you — we’ve spent all afternoon searching Pinkie Pie! Do you know where she is?”
“Pinkie? Did she go missing or something?” Derpy asked as she blinked, tilting her head in confusion.
“Apparently. Sugarcube Corner is empty and we’ve been asking everyone we can fi—”
Discord interjected, “So, Derpy…”
“How true can you steer us to pass through our goal,
“Of finding a pony whose ears and eyes glow,“Not in a real sense, as that would be creepy,“But through the same spirit that makes us all sleepy….
“We’ve searched high and low, through these valleys and trenches,”
Was he really doing this?
“And even through all of these sights and these senses,”
“Discord!” I called in an attempt to stop him; alas, the poet trudged on.
“Our minds have stayed clear,”
“Stop.”
“So please help us dear,”
“It’s time to stop.”
“Before we lose both of our feet.”
Derpy looked on with an expression of wonder, as Discord finished his… thing. I don’t even know what to call it at this point.
“Well? Do you know where she is?” Discord inquired.
“Know where who is?” Derpy responded.
“Pinkie Pie!” he exclaimed, faceclawing in frustration.
“Ohh!”
Derpy turned and ran towards the back of the room, yelling back, “I think I know wheresheisIjustneedtofindapapertha…”
Her voice faded for a few moments. Frantic shuffling of boxes, bins, tables and tins could be heard. Soon after the rummaging was complete, she emerged triumphantly, mane slightly askew, with a slip of paper in her hoof. Derpy trotted over to a stool behind the counter and sat down, while Discord and I listened from the other side.
“I did my routes as normal this morning, first starting in Cloudsdale. It was really pretty up there because of the rain from the night before. It made the air really damp which was hard to fly in, but it smelled really nice. By the time I got to the midtown area of Ponyville, it was almost late in the morning, and Sugarcube Corner was really busy. It was hard to get past everypony and they all wanted to ask about how my day was and stuff. They’re nice but I had a lot of mail to deliver so I felt a bit bad rushing by them. Later I put Pinkie’s mail away and moved on to look for Rose because she had an order of daffodils that got dela—”
Discord stomped his hoof-leg. “So was Pinkie there, or not?”
Derpy thought for a moment. “I don’t… think so? I saw Mrs. Cake… Mr. Cake… Pumpkin… Pound… Oh! And Rainbow Dash!”
“Rainbow.. Dash?” I echoed in confusion. “And that matters because….”
“Rainbow only goes to Sugarcube Corner to hang out with Pinkie. If she buys anything from there she must be really sneaky about it because I’ve never seen her do that.”
I thought for a moment. “Hmm… The last time those two hung out together, I had a boatload of patients to deal with after their little pranking spree.” I glanced at Discord, “maybe they’re doing a prank on us?”
He groaned. “I hope not… those two can be a real pain once they get a hold of a few hundred cans of whipped cream,” he muttered in exasperation. “A few hundred cans? What could they need that much for?” Derpy asked.
Discord shook his head in defeat. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
I looked up in thought. “What if we try asking Rainbow Dash? She might have returned home by now.”
“And how could you be sure of that? We just spent minutes travelling here, and that that means that we’ll have to spend another span of time travelling somewhere else that we’ll probably have to travel from again and you know how bored I can ge— ”
In the midst of bickering, Derpy popped up from behind the counter with a basket of baked goods.
“Muffin?”
Discord sighed. “Now’s not the time Derpy! We’ve got a major crisis on our hoo— well, on your hooves.” As he spoke, his paws transformed into hooves. “There we go.”
He glanced towards the piece of paper Derpy left sitting next to the basket of fresh muffins, and pulled it in front of him.
“What’s this note for, Derpy?” Discord’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he tried to decipher Derpy’s hoofwriting.
“Oh! It’s just a list of muffins that I had to bake because Redheart asked fo—”
I silenced Derpy with a muffin and interrupted, “Because Redheart asked for some muffins to be sent to the hospital! It’s my half-birthday next week and I needed some muffins to, uh… celebrate!” I finished wish a sheepish grin, glaring at Derpy. Hopefully Discord hadn’t suspected anything of her slip-up. It wasn’t as if I was planning a big surprise for him or anything.
“Hmm… I see,” Discord dismissed the note with a flick of his paw. “I guess we’ll find out some other time. However, we have some business to get to.” Discord slid off his stool and stood next to me. “It was nice meeting you Derpy. Now, we shall be teleported away to the abode of Rainbow Dash!” he proclaimed.
Discord sighed dramatically, “oh wait, I guess I can’t.”
I focused down at my hooves in embarrassment, and mumbled a goodbye to Derpy. We both left the post office and were on our way to the next destination, followed by the faint scent of muffins….
And a little bit of regret.
⚕
Discord fared pretty well on the way over, despite the grumbling and bumbling about how he “couldn’t just teleport”. I ignored him, using the time to enjoy the impending twilight.
Now, however, we were quite a distance below Rainbow’s home. It looked pretty great, even from the bottom, but we needed to get inside. Or, at least, to the pony inside.
From the left of me, a sniveling voice spoke. “Ssso what now, Misss Sssilent?”
I sighed in response, still staring at the sky. I could feel Discord sliding around me in a snake-like circle while he stressed the strife of our situation.
“SsoRedheart… I do believe that we need an… ulterior mode of... transsssportation.”
I stayed silent.
“One that would allow usss to get up to the cloudss,” he mused. “One that would… possssibly involve some… teleportationsskillsss?”
After a few moments, once he realized I wasn’t cooperating, Discord shed off his snake stature and stood in front of me, craning his head down to block my view of Rainbow’s home.
“Redheart, how can we get up there?
“Couldn’t you teleport?” I teased.
“But-b— I— ju— how else are we going to get up there?” he sputtered in exasperation.
“Wings.”
He laughed, “Silly Redheart, you don’t have wings! After all, I am the only one who ha—”
Discord stopped for a moment. He looked down at his wings, then up at me, then back at his wings, and up at me.
“You can’t be serious.”
I jumped on his back and angled him towards the sky. “Mush!”
Discord recoiled in surprise. Or at least, I think he did... it’s hard to see when you’re straddling a draconequus.
After a rough takeoff and a few seconds of bumpy flying, we landed on a cloud jutting from the front of Rainbow's home. I hopped off Discord’s back, who groaned in response, muttering some nonsense about old age, and we trotted to the front door. Unfortunately, after knocking and waiting for a few minutes, nopony seemed to be home.
“We could just leave — I’ve heard downtown Ponyville is very nice this time of day,” Discord mused.
“Maybe Rainbow is finishing up her weather patrol. I’m sure she’ll be back in a few minutes.”
And arrive in a few minutes she did.
“Yo Red, Discord!” Rainbow landed near us, taking a moment to fish a key from her saddlebag and unlock the door. “What brings you two here?”
As she opened the front door, I explained the situation for the third time today while Discord began to float around her home.
Rainbow led us to her living room to talk. It was just ahead of the stairs that spiraled up to the top floor, and consisted of nothing more than a bookshelf, two sofas, television, three posters, and a coffee table. Discord insisted it was a tea table, because he detested coffee for some reason.
We settled down on the couches, with Discord and I on one and Rainbow on the other. Discord broke the few moments of silence. “Do you know where she is, or not? We don’t have all day you know.”
“Hmm… to start off, I don’t know where she is. Last I saw her, Pinkie was over with Applejack grabbing an order of apples. That was hours ago though, and she could be anywhere by now. I would say to stop by the farm, but Applejack just left on a trip to Manehattan to visit Rarity’s new boutique.”
“A baker? Getting apples? Preposterous!” Discord exclaimed in shock.
I better start charging for all these stares. Fluttershy’s got a good business going; maybe we should partner up.
“Was that all you were doing today?” I asked her.
“Uhm, let’s see… took Tank out for a morning fly, got some more carrots from the market, read up on a new training regimen the Wonderbolts are planning to try out soon…”
Discord mumbled something under his breath. Sounded kinda like “smegbed.”
“... and yea, went to visit Applejack at the train station. Nothing too out of th—” Suddenly, Rainbow cut herself off as she glanced towards Discord, remembering something. “Oh, that’s right! One sec!”
She was out and back with a flash, holding a mysterious small box. I took it and placed it in my saddlebag. To my relief, Discord seemed more discontent with the fact that there were an odd number of pillows for an even number of seats on the couch, and was therefore too distracted to care about the box.
I stood up from the even-seated couch. “Well, thanks for having us over Rainbow! It’s been fun.”
She smiled and led us out, Discord in tow. “Glad to have ya! Maybe next time Tank won’t be napping, and you can see a new harness I’m working on with Twilight!”
Discord replied before I had the chance, “That sounds great, but unfortunately Redheart here and I have to get back to an abandoned, run down pastry shop. Toodles!” And with that, he was out the door.
Just before he was out of earshot, however, Rainbow called back, “Maybe it won’t be so empty once you get back!” With that, I was out and the door was shut, leaving Rainbow to prepare dinner for herself (and Tank), and Discord and I to head back to where this whole adventure started.
“Now, the problem resurfaces — how do we get down?” I asked.
“Alright, get on…” he mumbled, bending down so I could climb on his back. His wings outstretched, and we began to glide down towards Ponyville once more.
We passed the market, which was almost completely closed for the night, save for a few stragglers. Much of the nightlife stayed more downtown, and up here people liked to tuck in and rise early, which made for peaceful, quiet evenings like this one. Compared to the journey to visit Derpy, not as many things were stirring below or above us. In fact, things seemed a bit too peaceful. Given what we’ve been through today, however, I think both of us deserved a bit of a break.
Us….
Both of us — that was an odd thing to think about. It was only the first day and look at me — trotting around, dragging Discord around Ponyville.
I planned for the day to be an exciting, adventurous scavenger hunt for the two of us, to collect and prepare something special for a romantic dinner. Discord seemed to be out of it though. Without even glancing over at him, I could feel his disappointment crawl through the past few hours and into his demeanor, dulling his witty sense of humor, dampening the beat of his wings, and dismantling the bond that had just began to blossom. A spectacle of a night… wasted, on the assumptions of a mare? Who was I, mere Redheart, to think that Discord, Lord of Chaos, would find a scavenger hunt exciting? Worthwhile of an entire night?
And who was he to follow me? After what, a fling in the hospital room? Sure, I’d helped him in his time of need, but that was just me doing my job. Nothing more, nothing less. It was just like him to accept my date proposal with a costume change, as amusing at it was, but not as much to follow through… especially to this level. None of this was meant to be serious… maybe I’mtaking it all too seriously.
Stop. I can’t let this hold me back, and I won’t let myself hold him back either. We’ve been through this together. On the first date, mind you, but still together. There wasn’t much time before the final act. The stage was set, and my props were spiked.
I can only hope he won’t pull out before the curtains fall.
Discord entered Sugarcube Corner first and sat down on a barstool up against one of the counters. As he spun himself around in the unlit room, I joined the stool next to him, hoping he wouldn’t notice subtle changes since we were last here — the balloons in the corner, various foods nestled in the fridge, and the two ponies waiting silently beneath the very counter we sat on, waiting for just the right moment.
“Hey Discord, can you check the basement one more time?” I suggested.
“I don’t think that’ll do much, I’m afraid,” he sighed, temporarily poofing his deerstalker back on. “We’ve searched high and low, and unless there’s another dimension in the middle I’m not aware of, we’re all out of luck.”
With that, he slid off his barstool and slung a violin haphazardly over his shoulder. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve had an adventure like that, Redheart. It was a nice change of scenery from the hustle and bustle Fluttershy and her friends manage to get themselves into… and you know how good that is for the scales,” he paused to glance at my coat, “or… fur, in your case.” With a look down, he shuffled his feet a bit, somewhat uncharacteristically. “I’ll save the transformation for another time.”
Another pause. “I don’t normally do these kind of things with ponies… and no, Fluttershy’s an exception,” he concluded with a slight chuckle.
“Are you sure you won’t take one more look?” I pouted up at him with wide eyes.
He glanced towards the stairwell that led further downstairs. “Thanks, but I... think I’ll pass this time around. I have some… chaos related business to get to,” he mumbled a bit quieter, his voice falling to silence.
Discord grabbed the doorknob, twisted, and pulled. The cool breeze from outside made him shiver slightly, and he pulled his deerstalker down over his face while materializing a scarf to protect some of his scales. A faint sigh escaped from him, just as my breath caught in worry. Was this it?
“...For me?”
He stopped.
Waited.
I could glimpse a few stars from where I sat, peeking through the crack to the night sky. No clouds, no planets, no sun. The wind fell to a quiet whisper, along with the market vendors in the road just a block away. Applejack’s train stopped in Manehattan. Derpy’s copy machine whirled powered down after printing orders of thank-you notes. Everything and everypony seemed to pause in that moment. Nothing was left to distract from the hopeful glimmers of light that laid in the distance, falling to rest on the two of us. Waiting….
Waiting.
Discord turned back to me with the slightest of smiles on his face. One last trick, he might’ve said; but alas, he said nothing. He softly closed the door, adjusted his deerstalker, and walked towards the basement.
Another pause, next to me this time. He didn’t look, but I could tell he wanted to say something. Discord, however, moved to finish his last mission of our adventure. As the basement door opened and shut….
I had a mission of my own to complete.
Rushing towards the lights, I flicked them on and off three times, signaling the “all clear” to the two ponies below the counter. We ran to the fridge and pulled out various cakes, pies, pastries, and a few entrees and sides for fun. I began to set a booth near the center of the bakery with all of the goods as they started to pile up on the counter, and soon on the table. We connected another table to it, then a third, in order to support the amassing pile of foodstuffs sure to please Discord’s appetite, if not the entire town’s.
As one of the ponies pulled up chairs for me and Discord, I unpacked my saddlebags and removed the three objects I picked up throughout the day, placing them in front of his chair. Then, I pulled a cloth over them with my teeth to further the suspense.
I shooed my two helpers back underneath the counter, one bouncing under and the other following suit, although with a more composed walk. I sat at the table and waited. Eventually, I heard a muffled voice.
“Ugh, that basement has such a dreadful smell… what does she even store down there?”
The door to the basement burst open, and Discord clambered out, small chest in tow. His outfit had been shed in favor for mobility, and a small miner’s hat and flashlight was strapped to the top of his head. All of it disappeared, however, after he reached the top of the stairs and looked up.
Three tables stood, stacked high with all the food and pastries one could imagine, with nopony but me sat at the other side of it all. His chair had been turned slightly, inviting him to take a seat. Candles were scattered about, illuminating most of the table and food while setting a suggestive tone.
“Wh-what is all this?” He stammered.
I smiled. “Well, we did say that this was going to be a date, yes?”
Discord stepped forward, still awestruck.
“And you did wish for a wonderful time, did you not?”
Nothing came from the draconequus. Once the surprise had worn off, he came over and sat down, almost as he did all those days ago in the hospital wheelchair. Instead of being sickly, uncomfortable, and a cat, he was… happy. Amazed. Bewildered, even.
“...intrigued, mystified, puzzled, dumbfounded… I’ve gone through the entire thesaurus, dear R-Redheart, and I… I-I still can’t figure out what to say.”
Discord looked at me, his eyes still reflecting the same astonishment the lacked to vocalize. Not just astonishment, however. Happiness. He seemed… fulfilled, in a way. My heart melted at the piercing depth of such a gaze. I knew that I wouldn’t give up the world for it.
⚕
“So what you’re telling me,” Discord mumbled around a slice of cake, gesturing towards the items strewn in front of him, “is that all of this is why we’ve been wandering all around Ponyville?”
“Yep.” I picked up a strawberry.
“And Pinkie was here the whole time!”
“... possibly.”
“Possibly?”
I placed the half-eaten strawberry down. “I may have orchestrated this whole thing, but even the most diligent of conductors can’t hold some players together.”
Discord continued eating.
“Besides, do you really expect me to keep an eye on her?”
He glanced up with a grin. “You’ve kept an eye on me this whole time.”
I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or being sweet. Damn strawberries. “Says the patient.”
“I’ve been disease-free for a hundred and sixty-eight hours, which I may inform you is quiteover the mere forty-eight as recommended b—”
“As recommended by the Equestrian Provincial Healthcare Organization, I know all too well.”
“Hmph.” He pushed his full plate of cake aside and exchanged it with an empty one. “You still rode me without a second thought.”My eyes went wide as my head snapped up, hoping it was just strawberry on my face. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all, dear Redheart.”
“Hmph.” Tricksters never sleep.
“Now look who's ‘hmph’-ing.”
We both laughed. Mine was more of a giggle, while his strayed into the Land of Chortle, but it was still a tender moment.
I grabbed the flowers below my desk, along with the box Rainbow gave me. Discord looked at in interest, pushing his mysteriously now-full plate of what looked like pie to the side to make room for the new items.
“Now, about the places we went to.”
Discord continued eyeing the two items I held with outstretched hooves. “What about them?”
“I picked up little things here and there,” I beamed, levitating the first bundle over to him, “they’re for you!”
He gasped softly. “Dear Redheart, I-I don’t know what to say… thank you!”
I nodded as Discord placed the flowers on his left, leaving room for the final gift. He pulled it towards him and opened the lid, waiting expectantly for something, anything except…
An empty box.
Discord glanced up at me with an inquisitive look. “Do you dare meddle with a gift, for a ruler as powerful as I?”
I tried to act confused, stifling a giggle. “M-maybe it fell under the table?”
He huffed in mock-contemptment. “I’ll look.”
As Discord raised himself slightly to crane his neck underneath the table, I leaned around the table and placed the final gift right under his draconic derriere, nestled comfortably on the soft plush of the chair.
“It’s not under here! Maybe you happened to leave it inside your saddlebag,” he declared, bringing himself back up to foodlevel. “Or maybe the box ha— ”
Pfffphpffpfffft.
Yes! I had pranked him! Me! The feeble nurse!
My giggles erupted into a fit of laughter. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to echo off of his stoic face.
“Oh come on, Discord!”
He stayed unamused.
“Don’t you find it at least a littlebit funny?” I leaned forward, placing my front hooves on the table to peer at him. “Don’t you feel a teensy, weensy bit amused?
“Ecstatic.”
“Always grumbling about something.” I shook my head, still tittering away. “F-fine then! It wasn’t that funny, but c’mon! I tried!”
It’s funny how something so simple can bring you down into a nonsensical giggling fit. Eventually, I recovered and settled with another strawberry.
The conversation carried on, with him learning about what my life was normally like, both in and out of the job. Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure if Discord was legitimately interested, or if he just needed an excuse for me to talk so he could stuff more pie in his face. He’d give Soarin a run for his money, that’s for sure.
Soon the conversation turned to him, and I was a bit stuck. Should I ask him about his life? He seemed a bit too regal for me to ask that sort of thing. Maybe what his favorite flavor of pie is? Insecurity strikes again.
Back and forth this went for the next hour or two — I really can’t remember how long it actually was. It was just so exciting to be with him, hear his stories, and just enjoy our time. The conversation eventually settled down, and most of the food was gone, aside from one last item — a cake. Not just any cake, mind you, but a coconut cake with berries and cream. However, the cream was a bit different….
“Hey ah, Redheart?”
“Yea?”
Discord took a bite of the cake. “Why is there alfredo sauce on the cake?”
“Because,” I replied, leaning in and lidding my eyes in a suggestive manner. The lights dimmed and a soft red underglow bathed the corners of the bakery. A flash of my horn brought both of us into a new building, one that was listed on a certain draconequus’ paperwork. A building that had a certain piece of furniture. One that lead to a very happy mare.
“Now’s when things get saucy.”
