"You're not going to like it..."
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Celestia sighed to herself and closed her eyes as she sat on her throne in her castle at sunset.
“Of course…Discord might not even show up,” she went on to herself. “He doesn’t exactly like taking orders from me, even if the letter I sent him did only ask him to stop by this evening if he wasn’t busy.” She rubbed her temple and mumbled. “Still, maybe it’d be better if he didn’t come. This is really such a silly thing…. When I tell him, he’ll probably just laugh at me and disappear.”
Suddenly Celestia paused: she both heard and sensed the burst of magic announcing a certain chaos master’s sudden arrival in the room.
‘Here we go…’ the sun princess thought to herself as she lowered her hoof, opened her eyes, and put on her best poised smile.
There stood Discord before her, dressed in a white military jacket with tassels on his shoulders and fake medals on his chest and a cane in one hand. He cleared his throat. “And so, at the stroke of sunset, loyal as ever to the crown—yada, yada, yada—Discord, the spirit of disharmony, the purveyor of pandemonium, lord of lawlessness, earl of turmoil, bringer of bedlam, the almighty being of chaos himself, has arrived as per a certain stubborn princess’s request. Speaking of which…” He gave a mock bow to Celestia. “…Your ‘majesty’.” Then he tumbled forward on the floor and appeared before her without the jacket or cane and with a dull look on his face. “And really, Celestia, make this quick if you can, or at the very least not boring. I swear, if I’m just here so you can give me some sort of report card on my friendship progress or something…” He floated up to lounge in the air and started to file his talon.
Celestia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No, no, of course not, Discord. And thank you for coming and for being so prompt. And for keeping the chaos to a minimum.”
Discord glanced up from his filing. “Don’t tempt me, Celestia.” He snapped the file away.
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “It was a compliment, Discord.”
“Maybe to you.” He turned his head away.
Celestia resisted the urge to rub her temple. She let out a breath and tried a new approach. “So, anyway, Discord…I heard that while the girls and I were away in Yakyakistan, you and Spike and Big Mac had a very fun time together becoming friends.”
“We had a guys night.” Discord flew around her, his head held high. “And it was about time too. Really, all you pretty pony mares start to cramp my style after a while. Finally I had a chance to cut loose with the fellas.” He looped around in front of her again with one of his usual cheeky grins. “Of course, when the girls showed up the next morning we let them join in our macho fun for just a little bit. And I suppose you could come too next time if you’re feeling left out. I’m thinking you’d make a great Witch of Darkness, Level Two.” He snapped…and now Celestia’s mane and tail were black and she was in a medieval witch’s costume complete with a ragged black cloak and a large pointed hat. Naturally, her eyes popped open wide.
Discord chuckled more and changed her back to normal before the lecture could start. “…Or you could just sit and watch if you’re not feeling cool enough to play.”
Celestia just sighed and shook her head. “I appreciate the invitation, Discord, but that’s not what I had in mind. In fact, I think it’s great that you made two new friends and had a chance to enjoy yourself in a way that’s special to the three of you.”
Discord sighed, his look going dull as he raised an eyebrow again and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why am I here? Do you need a pickle jar opened or something?” He snapped and made a giant jar of pickles appear behind him.
Celestia smiled a little again. “No, thank you.” She barely powered up her horn, and instantly the jar’s lid opened right up. “I’ve got all of that covered, I’m afraid.”
Discord glanced behind him at the open jar and just rolled his eyes. “Show off.” He snapped the jar away, then turned back to Celestia. “All right, out with what you want, Princess—I’m very busy, and my time is valuable. And if this is about anyone escaping from Tartarus, spare me the lecture about not getting tricked into betraying you this time when I help save the day: the lesson was learned, we sang a song, I even gave you flowers—we’re square.”
“It’s not about anything like that, Discord.” She glanced away with a sheepish smile.
“Then what, Celestia??” He leaned very close. “I spent enough time hanging out at this castle in the garden for a thousand years as a prisoner; I’d rather not waste any of my time here as a free draconequus.”
The sun princess’s brow furrowed slightly, and she was almost ready to yell at him or at least give him a stern talking to about personal space and patience and not pressuring ponies. But instead she just looked him in the eye, and suddenly what was on her mind popped out. “K.K.?”
Discord’s eyes went wide, and he flew back just a little. “What?”
Celestia cleared her throat and blinked a few times. “K.K.... I was talking to Spike, and he mentioned…” She almost laughed. “Discord, why in the world would you call me K.K?”
The chaos master landed and raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious? Is this seriously why you brought me all the way here?”
The sun princess shrugged. “I was just curious. You can’t blame me, Discord—K.K. doesn’t make sense, even for you. And I’m not sure whether I should be insulted or somehow flattered or…”
“Oh, sometimes you are just the most self-absorbed…” Discord brought a palm to his forehead and then crossed his arms. “This is all about a nickname? And a nickname that was part of a bit? Really?”
“Well…I suppose so, yes.” Celestia nodded, her smile sheepish. “I’ve been thinking about it for two days, and I haven’t been able to figure out where you would get K.K. from, all right? I’d just like to know so I can move on.”
Discord paused…and then smirked. “So knowing really means that much to you, huh?”
Celestia’s eyes went wide for a moment, and then she sighed. “I’d like for you to tell me, yes. But I don’t want to know badly enough to do anything ridiculous in exchange.”
“Pity.” Discord shrugged. “You would have had such fun doing something ridiculous, and you would have gotten to know what K.K. means too. Oh well…guess I can’t be of help to you then.” He held up his fingers to snap. “Ta ta…”
“Wait…”
Discord paused and smirked completely.
Celestia’s look went dry. “Tell me what you want…and then I’ll decide whether or not it’s something worth doing to know the truth.”
Discord nodded and flew up close to her again. “Oh it’s nothing much, really. I’d just like you to play a private magical game of Ogres and Oubliettes with me…one where I’m the charming good guy Archer who always wins and gets all the friends…and where you’re the evil Witch by the Squizard’s side who desperately tries to fight me but always loses in the end.” He snapped to make a large version of the Squizard’s character card appear beside Celestia.
Celestia just stared at the card with her eyes wide for a moment.
Discord chuckled. “See, I knew you weren’t cool enough to play. Oh well…”
“One hour.”
Discord raised an eyebrow.
Celestia looked to him. “I’ll give you one hour of game play.”
Discord watched her with wide eyes that then narrowed as his smirk grew. “A whole day,” he countered.
“I have meetings, Discord, and a nation to run.”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Oh, and like I don’t have places to be and things to do too. But I’m making the time.”
Celestia’s look went dry again. “How about two hours one afternoon, and that’s only happening because I’ll be skipping my lunch break.”
Discord held up four fingers on his paw. “Four hours between sundown and midnight.”
“…Three.” Celestia leaned closer. “And I get the time to have some dinner first once I’m off duty for the day, and afterwards we don’t tell anyone about this.”
Discord leaned closer to her as well. “Except Fluttershy; I tell her everything. And relax, she’s good at keeping secrets.”
There was steady eye contact for a moment.
Finally, Celestia nodded. “Deal.”
Discord nodded as well. “Deal.”
Celestia and Discord reached out and shook.
Discord smiled a little more for a moment but then glanced away and flew on his back a few feet from her. “Though really, I don’t know why you want to know about the K.K. thing. Suppose it’s just nothing—just something I said?”
“I don’t think it was, Discord.” The sun princess smiled a little. “It’s too oddly specific. And in that case, why not make up a random name for Luna too?”
He sighed. “Oh, I hate when you’re clever.” The chaos master flew past her (not looking her in the eye though). “You’re not going to like it…”
“I never expected to.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to know what it means.”
“You’re not going to understand it…” He flew past her going in the other direction.
“Then you can explain it to me.” She smiled more.
“I really wish you didn’t care this much about this.” He sighed, twisting upside down in the air. “You ponies pick the most ridiculous things to get stuck on, I swear…”
Celestia glanced away. “Fine, if you really don’t want to tell me, then the bet’s off about playing Ogres and Oubliettes together, Captain Wuzz…”
“Oh…fine!” Discord appeared right in front of her, arms crossed over his chest. “K.K.—You’d actually spell it ‘C-A-Y, C-A-Y’, and it stands for ‘Cake Lover, Chaos Hater’, all right?”
Celestia blinked. “What?”
“Cake Lover and Chaos Hater.” He shrugged. “It’s just what I call you to myself. Because you’re more obsessed with cake than I am with not making sense and because you’ve never been the biggest fan of chaos. Like if I was hanging off the edge of a cliff and cake was hanging off the edge of a cliff, you’d pick cake to save…or at least you’d significantly hesitate before finally saving me.” He smirked. “You see—simple enough, slightly insulting, and very silly overall. Nothing to worry your pretty princess head about.”
“But Discord…” Celestia shook her head, her brow furrowed, “you’re wrong.”
“Look, Celestia…” Discord rubbed his temple, “just because you’re in denial about your cake addiction doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.”
“Discord.”
The chaos master paused, and his eyes opened wide: he hadn’t heard the sun princess speak to him in that tone since before his reform, and she hadn’t looked at him as sternly as she was now since then either.
Celestia’s light glare remained for a moment but then softened as did her tone. “I wasn’t talking about you being wrong about the cake.”
He hesitated. “Do you mean you’re finally admitting to your cake addiction?”
Celestia summoned all of her patience to calmly reply, “I mean that you’re wrong about me hating chaos.” She frowned. “I don’t hate chaos, Discord. And I don’t hate you, I never have.”
Discord blinked a few times then glanced around with a smile. “Heh, okay, uh, good one, you got me—where are the hidden cameras recording this for some wacky show about pranks?”
Celestia stood up from her throne and moved forward, almost smiling a little. “Discord, you know I’m being serious. I don’t hate chaos—that’s not fair to say at all.”
Discord glared at her. “Well, you’ll excuse me; it sent some mixed signals when you left me as a statue for a thousand years.”
She blinked and looked down. “I didn’t do that because I hated you, Discord. I did that because I love my subjects.”
He looked away with a frown and mumbled, “Whatever you have to tell yourself…”
Celestia let out a soft sigh then finally climbed down from her throne all the way and approached him. “Discord…I’m sorry for what happened in the past, but fighting about it isn’t going to change anything. And all we can do is try to be better people today. I know you might not believe me, Discord, but I want to be friends. I can like chaos.”
Discord raised an eyebrow at first but then looked forward with a pout, his arms crossed over his chest.
Celestia watched him for a moment longer then frowned. Her voice quieted. “Unless of course…you hate me, Discord.” She swallowed. “I can understand why you would, I think.”
He looked to her again, scowling now, and fully prepared to deliver some cryptic yet cheeky reply…when he paused. Her eyes were downcast and the violet in them looked so dull for a moment; he could have sworn even her hair was billowing less slowly. And could he really hate someone who’s rescue he had celebrated? Someone whom he had given flowers? Someone who had introduced him to Fluttershy? The chaos master finally sighed. He spoke in a quiet voice too. “I don’t hate you, Celestia. I mean, not anymore…” He floated up and around her; he could see out of the corner of his eye that she had raised her head and arched an eyebrow now. He went on. “You at least definitely make my ‘Top Four List’ of favorite Equestrian princesses, all right?”
A small smile came up on one side of Celestia’s mouth.
The same thing happened to Discord for a moment. He flew in front of her again though as it faded. “But that doesn’t make us friends. And that doesn’t change the fact that chaos clearly isn’t your favorite thing in the world.”
Celestia considered and then smiled softly and nodded. “Okay then, Discord. We’ll need some time and some hard work if we want to be friends: I can live with that. But I’m glad I know that you feel this way.”
“Why?” He put his hands on his hips.
Celestia’s gaze warmed. “Because now I’ll be sure to do my best to prove to you that I like you and your chaos whenever I get the chance.”
“Oh, and how could you do that?” Despite the sarcastic tone, Discord tilted his head and eyed her curiously.
Celestia smiled more. “By being kind to you and supportive and showing you that I can have just as much fun as any chaos being.” Then her horn glowed, and suddenly a large goblet of chocolate milk rained down on Discord’s head, causing him to sputter and his eyes to go wide.
Discord blinked a few times. “Celestia!”
“I thought my name was Cay-Cay.” Celestia laughed softly. “And I thought you liked chocolate rain.” She winked.
Discord raised an eyebrow then snapped his fingers—a cotton candy cloud appeared over Celestia’s head and sent a rain of rainbow rock candy hale into her hair.
“Oh!” Celestia started, but then she smiled and made a pie rain up from the floor right into Discord’s face.
“Hey!” Discord wiped away the pie and snapped again—this time ears of corn covered in popcorn appeared sticking out of Celestia’s mane.
“What?” Celestia glanced at the corn and then laughed and made her horn glow again. Instantly, Discord found himself standing on a slick puddle of soap and barely managing to keep his balance.
“Whoa! Okay, hold on!” As he righted himself, he snapped away the effects of their little fight and tilted his head to the side, looking to Celestia with a grin. “Did you just fight me with chaos?”
“I’d think it was more like ‘playing’ than ‘fighting.” She grinned back at him. “And I was meeting you half way, Discord. If we have a friendship, it’ll be on both of our terms, not just mine.”
Discord actually chuckled and moved closer to her. “I may have actually misjudged you, Celestia. Could it be?”
“It happens.” Celestia shrugged. “I know I misjudged you once.”
Discord smirked. “You do realize I could count all of this as an act of war.”
“Hmm…” Celestia put a hoof to her chin. “In exchange for not doing that and saving me a lot of paperwork, how about a free extra hour of Ogres and Oubliettes? And how about we start right now?”
Discord’s smile brightened. “Deal!” He snapped, and after a burst of light he was in his Archer costume and Celestia was in her Witch of Darkness costume, and suddenly the throne room around them was a woodland dimension from the game. “Now then…” Discord moved his tail forward to show a 20-sided die in its tuft, “before we start, we’ve picked your level, but you need a name of course…”
Celestia grinned. “How about Queen Cay-Cay, Mistress of Darkness?”
Discord sighed deeply, his grin going ear to ear. “You know it’s going to kill me not telling every pony I know about this. Fair enough though—Queen Cay-Cay, Mistress of Darkness it is.” He snapped. “And Cay-Cay, meet your King—the evil Squizard.” Instantly the Squizard’s character card was beside her.
Celestia giggled at the sight of the strange villain, especially as he proceeded with his nasally banter about no one escaping his wrath and Spiketopia being his one day. Then she turned to Discord. “So, are we ready to fight?”
The chaos master nodded. “Bring it on, Cay-Cay—or should I say Cake Lover and Chaos Liker. It’s about time you and I settled our differences once and for all.” He pulled back an arrow in his bow as Celestia raised a magic wand. The troops for both of their sides suddenly appeared, a great game of Ogres and Oubliettes commenced!
Out in the hallway, Princess Luna approached the throne room doors with a smile. “Ah, yes, I have awoken from a refreshing day’s sleep, and now I am ready to commence my rule of the night. I shall relieve Celestia’s place on the throne at once.” She pushed open the throne room door. “Sister, I am here to…” she paused, naturally, at the sight of Discord in some fantastic get-up shooting arrows at group of large pieces of paper with little skeleton ponies on them, and Celestia dressed in black shooting spells with a wand at a group of large pieces of paper with little Discords on them, and then both Discord and Celestia occasionally shooting a playful spell at each other and sharing a laugh.
“So, is this your way of telling me that if me and a cake were hanging off the side of a cliff, you might pick me to save?” Discord called out to the sun princess with a grin.
“You’d have a fighting chance!” Celestia grinned back at the chaos master. “As long as you’d promise to make me some fresh cake once I’d pulled you up.”
They laughed some more.
Slowly, (very, very slowly) Luna backed up and closed the throne room door. She stood in the hallway for a moment with wide eyes. “I…am clearly still dreaming. Perhaps if I return to my room in this dream, I shall wake up for real. And after this, no more chocolate chunk cookies before bedtime: we are clearly not accustomed to all of the refined sugar common to the modern diet.”
Suddenly from behind the door came a cry of, “Take that, Queen Cay-Cay!” in Discord’s voice followed by a cry of, “Evil shall rise again, Captain Wuzz!” in Celestia’s voice.
The night princess’s jaw fell for a moment. Then she brought a hoof to her temple and shook her head. “A nightmare this bizarre shall indeed require much analysis in the morning. Clearly I have some issues to work through. Either that or I’m awake, in which case my sister and Discord are the ones with issues to address…which it looks like they’re doing a rather fine job of actually. Either way, back to bed with myself.” With a nod and a small smile of relief, she turned around and proceeded to her room.
And meanwhile, Discord and Celestia—or rather Captain Wuzz and Queen Cay-Cay—continued playing together and discovering, to their surprise, just how easily the magic of friendship could take hold between them.
Author's Note
I must have rewatched that 'June, honey, reschedule Luna and K.K.' bit half a dozen times--it was just such a random nickname for Celestia. So of course my natural response was to overanalyze it and finally just write a story with one theory about why in the name of ponies he would call her that, lol. 
I hope you guys enjoyed my randomness 
I'd almost forgotten how fun it is to write Discord being difficult. Really, it's amazing watching Fluttershy put up with him and seeing her handle him so well now. I was even proud of Spike for not getting intimidated this ep. And I loved having an ep about the guys I laughed so much when that mare walked by them in the nightclub, and the three of them are all kind of checking her out with various levels of interest. 
Plus, the costumes in this one were great and so were Discord's antics. My only complaint was that I thought they laid on his clinginess to Fluttershy a little too thickly at the start--it seems like that's something he would have calmed down about after "Make New Friends but Keep Discord." But otherwise, this one didn't disappoint and it was so nice to see Discord on screen again. 
If I had any artistic skills, I would finish this by posting a picture of Celestia as 'Witch of Darkness, Level Two'. 
Thanks for reading, guys!
~Azure129
