“What’s that you’re writing, Twist?” Apple Bloom asked, leaning across her school desk to get a better look. “A story for class or something?”
Twist kept her head down, focused on the black notebook she was scribbling in.
“A new twist,” she answered.
“A twist?” Apple Bloom furrowed her brows. “You’re writing about yourself?”
Twist shook her head. “In a few minutes, Miss Cheerilee will dismiss class early because a member of her family came to visit. A very unexpected family member.”
Scootaloo quickly joined in on their conversation. “Doesn’t sound like all that much of a twist.”
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle replied, also joining in the hushed discussion. “Don’t twists usually come out of nowhere and shock everypony?”
Twist could hardly hide the faint smile on her lips. She finished her last sentence and closed her notebook. “There. Finished.” She kept her eyes firmly planted on Miss Cheerilee, seated at her desk at the front of the room with a pile of test papers below her. “You didn’t think I was named ‘Twist’ just because I liked making candy, did you?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Sort of. I mean… it makes more sense than being able to write random twists in a book and have them magically come true.”
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle again chirped. “If things around here worked like that, then I’d be a Princess in no time! I’d just write it in your book and—zoom!—deluxe set of wings, here we come!”
That got Apple Bloom and Scootaloo chuckling.
Not chuckling? Twist.
That was when the door to the schoolhouse was roughly kicked inward and an older stallion came charging through. He wore a tan leather jacket with patches.
“Cheerilee?” he asked. “Where’s Cheerilee? I heard she’d be here.”
Miss Cheerilee stumbled out of her chair, papers tumbling to the floor. “D-Dad?”
“My sweet cherry,” the stallion exhaled, rushing over to her. “It’s been so long.”
Miss Cheerilee began to cry as the stallion wrapped his forelegs around her. “But… they told me… they told me they couldn’t find you! Everypony thought you were gone for good!”
“Shush now, Cheerilee,” the stallion said, holding a hoof to her lips. “We have a lot to talk about now. Which, by the way… can I crash on your couch for a while?”
Anxiously, Miss Cheerilee wiped at her shimmering eyes, before yelling to the class. “Alright, everypony! Class dismissed! Please… umm… continue to work on whatever it is we were just working on!”
And so, without another word, Cheerilee and her newly-found-father exited from the schoolhouse.
Twist leaned back in her seat, popping a mint candy into her mouth.
“What a twist.”
***
As the rest of the class cheered and hollered as they vacated from the school, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle remained awestruck as they closely followed behind Twist.
“Think it was a prank?” Scootaloo asked the others.
“Aren’t pranks supposed to be funny, though?” Sweetie Belle replied. “Because that one sure wasn’t.”
“You know I can hear you, right?” Twist told them.
Apple Bloom quickened her pace to trot beside her. “So, when’d you even learn to do stuff like that?”
“Create twists?” Twist asked, tapping her chin with a hoof. “Well… the first twist I ever thought about was when I was younger and staying in an orphanage.”
Apple Bloom coughed. “You were in an orphanage, Twist? I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were ever even in one.”
Twist shrugged. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago, and not really something you want to talk about lots. Where was I again?” Another chin tap. “Oh, right. My very first twist! You see, when I first arrived at the orphanage, they give everyone a notebook to write down whatever they wanted to, and for the longest time, all I wrote down were wishes I desperately wanted to come true. Mostly, to get adopted by someone nice so I could leave that place.”
Twist sighed, eyeing the dirt underneath her hooves.
“And for the longest time, none of my wishes came true, even though all sorts of other orphans were getting adopted! Then, one night, I got frustrated and thought to myself, ‘To Tartarus with wishes! I’ll try twists, instead!’ And that was when I wrote down my very first twist.”
“Which was?” Scootaloo said.
Twist spun around. “To be adopted by a super, super, super cool pony! A pony that no one would see coming!”
Scootaloo raised a brow. “Rainbow Dash? She seems pretty cool.”
Twist shook her head. “But not triple-super cool.”
Narrowing her eyes, Scootaloo growled out, “What did you just say to me?”
“Here, I’ll show you.”
The four of them stood before a house; a house as normal as could be—two stories tall, white picket fence, a lone bicycle parked by its side. Lawn freshly mowed, too.
“This your place?” Apple Bloom asked. “You live really close to school.”
“Yep,” Twist said, pushing open the door for them. “Come meet my Dad!”
***
“Twist? Is that you? Home so early? And with company, I see.”
As Twist’s adoptive father scooped her up off the floor to shower her with kisses, all of Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle’s jaws flopped open as they all yelled in unison.
“Discord!?”
Discord, nearly as tall as the ceiling inside, set Twist back to the floor as he returned to the kitchen, flowery apron tied tight around his rail-thin waist.
Twist giggled as she addressed her friends. “What a twist, right?”
“I’ll say,” Scootaloo admitted, blowing a strand of mane off her forehead.
Discord stuck his head out from the kitchen. “Any new twists to report today, Twist?”
“A couple,” Twist answered, grabbing her notebook and handing it to him. “Hard to say if all of them will come true, though.”
As Discord snapped himself a pair of reading glasses and flipped open her book, he told her, “The last dozen have, haven’t they?” Then he hurriedly scanned Twist’s latest page of twists. “My, oh, my. What a twisty year heading in our direction: the reveal of Princess Celestia’s ‘Twilight Goes Evil for Some Reason’ backup plan; the discovery of all those crab ponies—how cute. And what’s this now? The return of the Hayburger’s special dipping sauce!?”
He lowered the notebook to scowl.
“They said it was for limited time only! Do those words mean nothing to them?”
His scowl softened to a grimace as he returned to the book.
“Oh, Twist,” he spoke. “I don’t know about this last one.”
Twist stuck her head up. “What? The one about Big Mac and Applejack actually being Apple Bloom’s parents?”
Apple Bloom’s eyes shot open. “Don’t you dare start twisting my family around, Twist!”
“You can’t stop what’s coming,” was Twist’s bizarre reply.
Awkwardly, Discord chuckled to himself and propelled Twist inside the kitchen. “Why don’t you take the banana bread out of the oven while I entertain our guests, hmm? I made it just the way you like it, Twist. Extra bread and with less banana.”
“Awesome!”
First donning oven mitts, Twist got to work slicing up the piping hot loaves. Discord, meanwhile, ushered the remaining foals to the corner of the room and spoke in hardly a whisper.
“Now before you girls say anything—”
Instantly, Sweetie Belle cut him off, sliding a hard hoof under his chin. “Now you listen here, buster! Just what sort of game are you trying to play?”
“And why is Twist involved?” Scootaloo asked.
“And that stuff about my brother and sister isn’t true, is it?” Apple Bloom said, two shaky hooves held to both sides of her head. “Please say it’s not!”
“Not if I do this,” Discord said, reopening Twist’s notebook and drawing a line across the page.
Apple Bloom stared daggers at him. “That’s it? That’s all it takes?”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Actually, not really. These ‘twists’ here? In this book? Mere glimpses on what the future holds. Some real. Some made up by Twist all on her own—like that very last one involving the Apple family. Because the real ones that do end up happening? Happen about six months into the future or thereabouts.”
“What does that—” Sweetie Belle began.
“Even mean?” Discord finished. “It’s quite simple, Liberty Belle. Just because I am Discord, does not mean that I am the only current Discord. At the moment, there’s myself; there’s the Discord that hangs around Fluttershy and the rest of her friends; there’s the Discord from an alternate universe that loves nothing more than the smell of car exhaust; and then there’s the Discord currently living six months ahead of us in time that lets me know just how everything will play out.”
Scootaloo asked, “And you give these future ‘twists’ to Twist?”
Discord waved his claws. “Not exactly. That would just break her little heart to know the truth. Instead, I wait for her to fall asleep and then simply enter her dreams, where I let the upcoming twists hatch and grow and begin to take form all on their own.”
Apple Bloom ventured, “So, your future version told your past version that you’d adopt Twist at some point, too?”
Discord shook his head. “No. I did that all on my own. Twisty, isn’t it?”
“What’s twisty about adopting some foal that wants a good home?” Scootaloo asked.
That made Discord smirk. “When that ‘good home’ happens to be run by Discord, the Lord of Chaos himself. Because let’s be honest here.” His eyes flickered back to the kitchen, where Twist was busy cutting up banana bread and serving them onto paper plates. “Twist isn’t the coolest of fillies, that much is clear. Nerdy. Big glasses. Funny voice. Someone like that hanging around someone like me?”
His smile grew as he watched his daughter work.
“And yet the fact that the two of us living happily together doesn’t make much sense… somehow makes sense? Twist is quite the twist, isn’t she?”
When Discord returned to the kitchen to help with the glasses of milk, Apple Bloom took the opportunity to speak with her friends. “I’m not buying it. What about you two?”
“Yeah. Something’s still smells fishy about all of this,” Sweetie Belle admitted. “Like, shouldn’t there be one last twist to end them all? Because it’s Discord we’re dealing with?”
Scootaloo nodded. “Like that Twist is actually a robot in disguise!”
With that out, she hurriedly ran up to Twist to kick her in the shin.
“Ow! What was that for?” Twist shouted.
“Robot test,” Scootaloo told her. “Don’t worry. You passed.”
Sweetie Belle thought of the next one. “Discord mentioned dreams… so, maybe we’re all just trapped in one!” Turning to the closest object to her, she reached out and nibbled on the tip of a potted plant leaf. Then abruptly spat it out. “Eww! Plastic! Dreams don’t normally come with flavors, do they?”
Apple Bloom sank to the floor as she watched Discord and Twist set the table and serve. She then watched as Discord randomly launched Twist upwards into the air, only to have a small parachute attached to her back magically slow her decent, laughing as she zigzagged back and forth. Lastly, she watched as Discord gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek while he softly ruffled her mane.
Apple Bloom nodded a single time. “Maybe the big twist here was that there was no twist. Maybe there really was just a version of Discord out there that wanted a daughter to look after. I mean… isn’t Discord acting normal for a change sort of a twist all its own? And who better to act as a twist to Discord than Twist herself?”
Apple Bloom waited a moment before turning. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had both gone to the dinner table already, leaving her alone on the floor.
“You done philosophizing down there yet?” Discord asked from the table, happily snacking on a slice of banana bread. “Because if you aren’t, I’m more than ready to steal your piece.”
And so, with little more than a shrug, Apple Bloom found a seat and began eating, too.
Some Twists were better left unraveled, she thought.
Author's Note
Few things. First: I did not attempt Twist's speech impediment because I've never been able to write drunk/accent-type dialogue.
Secondly: I wanted to write a shorter story after the last few were a bit long. (For me.)
Thirdly: the idea began with the notion of Twist being named Twist due to her ability to predict/create twists. After that thought, came, "Well, here's a twist... Discord's her Dad."
Then I pictured them two together and thought it to be cute. And that, for once, maybe Discord wasn't out to screw with someone. (Or this particular version of him wasn't.)
