Twilight Sparkle trotted along the path merrily; her research was on her mind, and the thought of what she might discover made her feel giddy. Tonight, there would be a very rare phenomenon happening. A rare plant would be at it's prime and blooming for exactly three minutes.
She would have had her student, Starlight Glimmer, tag along for the night, or her loyal assistant Spike...but they'd both been turned away by the fact that this plant was going to be blooming at three in the morning precisely.
No matter, Twilight didn't mind the late hour. The plant also only bloomed every one hundred and seventy four years.
She slowed her trot down to a walk, as she walked into a field and surveyed it. This field was in the edge Everfree forest, with dark trees surrounding at all sides of her.
The Everfree was generally a place that was worrisome, but Twilight felt as though she weren't deep enough in the forest at the moment for there to be problems. Still, though, she'd try to keep her vigilance extra well and be ready to blast a beast in the face if it tried to get at her.
She had to scan the whole field, using her magenta magic on her horn as a flashlight, before she found a patch of decidedly unexciting looking greenish, yellowish looking sticks poking out of the ground. She gently poked them with her hoof, trying to decide if they were plants or not. Yes, they were connected to the ground. They were plants.
She levitated a book out of the saddlebag she was holding, comparing the description of the plant she was looking for, to the sticks.
The book had told her that it could only be found in this side of the Everfree forest, and the description of it was a tall, skinny and stick-like plant that, when blooming, was a glorious glowing purple. It could be magically harvested into a container to study, where with the right kind of preserving spell, she could maintain it's prime period artificially for an extended period of time.
Who knows, the plant could be some wonderful cure for a disease that nopony had discovered yet. It hadn't even been studied enough yet to be named. There was no telling what exactly it could do.
Twilight tried not to let her excitement be dampened by the fact that the plant currently looked so underwhelming, and the slightly sad fact that she was a bit lonely and wished that she had someone to talk to.
The world was incredibly dark and still around her, and she was starting to miss her student and assistant.
She hummed a tune to herself, and used her magic to levitate a blanket out onto the ground nearby, and piled it with some books and the glass container she was going to use to keep the plant in. "You're fine, Twilight..."
Then she sat her rump down on the blanket, and opened one of the books, taking in a bit of light reading about Equestrian folklore.
It was roughly 2 AM, and she would still have about an hour to wait for the plant right now. An hour shouldn't be so bad, especially with a nice book. She did slightly wish that she'd brought a scarf or a jacket, though. The air was a bit chilly, and she found herself realizing that she was shivering a bit in the late Autumn crispness.
She opened her wings, spreading and enclosing herself in a tent-like covering with them. She smiled a bit, feeling comforted under the soft, long feathers of her wings. "Warmer already."
Twilight soon found herself engrossed in her book, so much that she did not hear nor sense the feeling of a creature creeping up behind her.
A loud, extremely ferocious sounding lion roar startled her so much that she dropped her books and popped her wings out from the enclosure she had made around herself.
"AAAAAAAHHHHH!" the alicorn screamed, jumping to her feet and lighting up her horn with magenta magic. She immediately lashed out at the large thing that had creeped up behind her, picking up a slightly large rock that had been sitting nearby with her levitation and yamming it not once, but twice into the thing's head very hard and very quickly.
Too late, she got a good look at, and recognized the creature lit in the pale glow of her magenta magic. It was Discord, and she'd beaten him silly. He had flopped unconscious onto the ground, his noodle body laid out in comical looking way, with his snake tongue sticking out of his mouth.
She felt an immediate surge of annoyance that Discord had sneaked up on her and used such a loud lion roar. Twilight slapped him on the shoulder with her hoof, giving him a frustrated look. "Discord, I can't believe you! Get up!"
A few long moments of giving him her pouty scowl turned into slight concern, as the draconequus didn't rouse. He had a bloody gash on his head that didn't look so great, too.
She tapped him a few times with her hoof. "...Discord?"
Twilight raised her voice a bit. "Discord!"
The draconequus opened one eye, giving her a grumpy look. His red eye glowed brightly in the darkness. "Well that was some way to greet a friend," he complained in a grumble. "If that's the way you would treat forest animals coming up on you, I should think Fluttershy is going to have to have a talk with you."
Twilight rolled her eyes. Same old Discord. But she still gave him a concerned frown.
"Sorry," she said. "Are you alright?"
"Of course," he replied. "I'm the master of chaos, a little beating from a diminutive purple pony is something that I can handle." he sat up, rubbing his head, and squinted at the blood that stained his talon.
"That's...really bleeding," Twilight said, raising an eyebrow as a droplet of blood trickled down the front of Discord's snout. "I think you're going to need stitches...if you can't magic that away. Can you magic away your wounds?"
The draconequus gritted his teeth, and sighed. "No, Twilight Sparkle, I cannot simply 'magic away my wounds'," he said. "Stitches seem too extreme, though, it is only a cut; I'm positive my body can heal that without extra assistance. I'll just bandage--"
"Let me do that for you," Twilight injerected, pulling a small first aid kid out of her saddlebags. "It's the least I can do. Friends shouldn't injure friends. I need to make it up to you...even if it's your fault in the first place for scaring me like that." The last part came out as a mumble, but Discord still heard it and gave her a momentary sheepish look.
"It was only a prank, princess. I thought it was extremely funny."
She produced a roll of bandages, and a small spray bottle. She hovered them close to his face, and he wrinkled his nose, leaning away from her and her floating medical items and giving her an annoyed look.
"No, I quite think that I--"
He furrowed his brow, groaning as she held him in place with her magenta magic, and flapped her wings, hovering a bit to get a better look at his wound. Even sitting down, he was still too tall for her to look at face-to-face.
"Oh hush, you." she replied distractedly, and sprayed something on his head from the spray bottle. It stung horribly, which made Discord realize it was a type of disinfectant.
He hissed in an incredibly snake-like way, and then whined. "Twiliiiiight, that stiiiiings!" he cried dramatically. "Be more careful with me, I'm but a precious, delicate flower!"
He accentuated that point by snapping his fingers, making flowers sprout up all around them. They blew up like balloons, and floated off into the night sky.
That distracted Twilight for a good minute, and she raised an eyebrow as she watched them float off into the unknown above them. When she looked back toward Discord, she saw him scurrying on all fours across the field, intent on getting away from her.
"Oh NO you don't!" Twilight cried, flapping her wings and grabbing the tip of his tail in her magic, dragging him back toward her. She stuck her face into his and made an annoyed little grunt, narrowing her eyes at him. "I wasn't done here, mister. How dare you try to sneak away in the middle of your treatment."
Discord sighed, rolling his eyes at her. "Oh yes, how dare I."
She produced a handkerchief and wiped the dried blood off of his face, then cleaned off his wound with it. He cringed, gritting his teeth and giving her unhappy looks.
"Remind me again how you've survived for centuries." she deadpanned, and started unrolling the bandages.
"Oh, very funny, teasing the poor, injured draconequus," Discord replied. "I hope you're at least going to give me a lollipop at the end of our visit, doctor."
"Sorry, Discord, but I don't think you need any sugar." Twilight said, and began wrapping the bandage around his forehead. To Discord's credit, he only squirmed very lightly as she did so, and let her finish without any more complaining.
"Good," she said happily, and flapped her wings, descending to the ground and then folding them at her sides. She smiled up at him. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
He shrugged, not admitting either way. "It's over with, at least," he said, and stretched out, laying on the ground around her like a reclining housecat. "What were you doing out here in the middle of the night, anyways? Doesn't seem safe for an alicorn princess to be sitting alone and hopelessly distracted with her literature in the Everfree forest. I thought you had more common sense than that."
Twilight gasped, suddenly remembering the reason she was out here in the first place. "The plant!" she wildly looked around. "The plant, where is it?!"
"The wha?" Discord replied sleepily, looking as though he was halfway asleep as he was sprawled out on the ground. "I thought you were into books, not botany."
Realization finally hit her. "Discord! Move! Move your rump, right now! Get up!'"
"Why? I'm rather comfortable here." he said, but he actually obeyed her and stood up on his back legs, giving her a slightly confused look.
Just as she feared, the plant had been crushed under Discord's tail. It looked like flat, pitiful, broken up sticks instead of poky, straight ones. The alicorn lifted her hoof, rubbing it against her forehead and groaning deeply. "Discooooord..."
Discord scanned the ground, trying to put together what he'd done to make her upset. His eyes landed on the sticks. "The only thing I see are some broken twigs," he said. "You weren't out here to look at those, were you?"
"Those aren't twigs. They were a rare plant that only bloomed and glowed for three minutes every one hundred and seventy four years," she said, and lifted her hoof off of her face, giving him a glare. "Thanks a lot for crushing them."
To her further frustration, the draconequus burst out laughing. "THAT'S it?! That's what you risked your safety, and lost sleep for? Some weird sticks?"
Twilight felt her face flush, and she gave the ground a death stare, rubbing her hoof against the ground. She didn't answer him, ignoring him as she moved on a moment later, using her magic to pack away the things she'd set up.
She started by folding her blanket in levitation, making sure to do it as neatly as possible.
Discord noticed that her eyes were slightly misty, and he realized that he'd really genuinely upset her over this. Apparently, those weird sticks had legitimately meant something to her.
"I'm sure they weren't worth coming out for at all," he said, giving her a cheesy sharp-tooth grin and patting her on the head with his lion paw, the softer of his two hands. "I doubt you were missing anything, Twiles."
"Ugh. I really wish you wouldn't call me Twiles," Twilight said, and looked up at him. "Well, what time is it? Maybe I still have some time to look around and find more of them."
He looked at his eagle talon, a Power Pony watch suddenly appearing on his wrist. "It is 3:13 AM, miss Sparkle."
Twilight stamped her hoof on the ground frustratedly, and began shoving her books into her saddlebags. "I missed it. Now I can't even find another one. The night is ruined now, I came out here for nothing."
He swiped the saddlebags off of her back, and lowered himself to her level, standing on all fours. Her purple eyes were extremely unamused as they met his large, wide red ones.
"It's still a beautiful night," he said. "Why...don't you do a bit of star gazing? You have stars on your rump, don't you? You must...like stars, right?"
"They're technically sparkles, not stars." she replied, and readied herself to brush off the draconequus and trot away.
But then she stopped, considering his words, and looked up into the night sky above them. It really was a beautiful night. He was actually right about that. Luna had done a very nice work tonight, with a clear, lovely sky filled with twinkling, sparkling stars. She sat her rump down, staring up into the wide black expanse.
"Yeah, it is a nice night," she admitted. "I...that doesn't seem like a bad idea, really, to do some stargazing."
The grass was cold, and she glanced at the saddlebag that he still held in his talons. "...the grass is kind of cold. Can I have my saddlebag back, so I can spread the blanket again?"
To her slight dismay, he threw the saddlebag over his shoulder. "Oh, we don't need that," he snorted. He snapped his talons and a pile of blankets and also a large, very nice looking telescope appearing in front of her. "Ta-daaaa!" he gestured to them happily, giving her a smile.
She cautiously poked one of the blankets with her hoof, half-expecting it to crawl by itself or hiss at her or something. Then she sniffed it, expecting it to secretly be made of small pieces of licorice woven together. But, it was actually an ordinary blanket. She pulled it around her shoulders, grateful for the warmth.
Twilight looked at Discord, and gave him a little smile. "I guess I have to thank you now, right?"
"You're welcome," he chuckled, and curled up in the blankets, pulling some over himself and cuddling into them like an oversized house pet.
Twilight looked through the telescope, gazing up at the stars above. "Ooh, there's Warrior Stallion over there. And look, a perfect view of the Starswirl Scepter, too."
"Uh-huh," Discord said boredly, apparently not so interested in the constellations as she was. "How lovely."
Despite his apparent disinterest in the subject, Twilight herself felt very content, and she gazed up at the sky for a long while, rattling off different constellations to him, while he listened very patiently.
The sound of loud snoring made her move her eye outside of her telescope, and she found that he'd fallen asleep and was snoring like a dragon in his cuddly blanket mass.
She chuckled at him, putting a hoof over her mouth to hide a smile. She glanced at the bandage on his head again, and was happy to see that no blood had leaked through. He was right, it seemed, he really didn't need those stitches.
The night hadn't really gone as she planned, having missed the plant and being annoyed multiple times by him, but he actually looked kind of sweet and totally not like a loud, rambunctious spirit of chaos while he was asleep.
"I guess...I'm sort of glad I had your company tonight," she said softly, as not to wake him up, and laid on her back, smiling up at the stars. "I was kind of lonely before you got here. And I guess friends are more important than plants, or at least...I'll tell myself that right now to feel better about this. Especially..." she tapped her hoof. "Well, you were probably right. It was just a bunch of weird sticks. The result probably would have underwhelmed me anyways."
She chuckled to herself.
Discord slightly opened one eye and gave the purple alicorn a small smile.
