It's not like it was even his fault this time.
Schadenfreude Does a Thing
It’s very very rare for me to find myself… bored. It leaves a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth, like ashy bread mixed with moral decency. Bleh. It was the middle of the week, and yet, I wasn’t driving my boss up the walls. Of course, that was partially my fault, as I may or may not have been the one to suggest that he attend a diplomatic excursion to Griffinstone. I mean, naturally I didn’t tell him that griffin diplomacy includes alcohol, pit fighting, and blood debts, but he should be fine. Pinkie says she has a friend up there who’s learning to bake pretty well. I’m totally confident they’ll cross paths and the one biscuit she might give him will totally make the entire trip worth it.
Incidentally, I was bared from that and almost all diplomatic missions ever. Except to the Sand Lands. For some reason I’m really, really popular with the Sphinx nation. Something something saved the world from their evil tyrant overlord (who, if I wasn’t currently in a long-distance semi-relationship with a rather adorable mailmare, I would TOTALLY have made inappropriate advances towards. I mean, dayum). Also I’m one of the few ponies willing to put up with copious amounts of sand everywhere for more than a few hours at a time, so whatever.
Oh, by the way, my name’s Schadenfreude. Exactly what it says on the tin. If you’ve come this far not knowing any of this, honey, you and I need to talk.
The castle it self ran like a well-greased engine, and I was somehow running out of monkey wrenches to throw. I mean, I had the same old fallback pranks and irks as allways, but today I needed something… different. I needed something new.
I needed froyo.
It’s a power food, really. Lots of protein. Little sugar. Plenty of flavors. Plus there’s a really great froyo shop run by the son-in-law of a Canterlot noble who I actually get along with, surprise, so I pop in every now and then to say hi, have some frozen yogurt, and generally drive away anypony who doesn’t understand that yes, the cute mare behind the counter is taken, and no, she doesn’t want anything to do with your mangy butt.
First, though, I had to get to the froyo shop. Which involved getting up. See, here’s the thing about boredom: not only do you have nothing to do, once you settle on a thing, you don’t actually want to DO it. I’d found a rather delicious couch to spread out on, taking up as much room as I damn well please, in an out-of-the-way sitting room on an upper floor of the castle that hardly nopony comes to.
“Schaden, why are you in my tea room?” asked Celestia.
Like I said. Almost nopony.
“I’m booooooored,” I whined.
Here’s a lesson for the kids at home reading this (you know who you are put that cookie back you little shit). Never tell your boss you’re bored. Or your boss’s boss. Or, you know, everyone’s boss. I mean, I got away with it, but then again, I’m adorable. Also-
“How can you possibly be bored?” Celestia asked in surprise. She seemed to have momentarily forgotten that I was currently taking up all of the space on her chaise lounge, or at least decided that that wasn’t as important anymore. “Blueblood is currently… doing something at Griffinstone. Discord is on the bottom floor of the castle right now with Fluttershy learning how not to further endanger the animals in the Gardens. The entire castle is in open state. Schaden, if I had the kind of free time you do right now I would cry tears of joy until I had to come up for air.”
I rolled over until I was looking at her properly. Even given my dismissive nature regarding manners and custom, it’s still polite to look at someone when you talk to them (you paying attention kid? I told you to put that cookie away I will turn this story around I swear to Luna-). “Yes, but I’ve already done all of those things! Also, Discord and I have an agreement that I leave him alone when he hangs out with Fluttershy, and he leaves me alone when I’m spending time with Derpy.”
The Princess tilted her head prettily. “Well, you have plenty of time over the next few days, why not go visit her?”
I sighed heavily. “Cause Ponyville’s in a state of emergency. Something something the door has been opened yada yada the Shadow Atrocities have descended. Last I heard Twilight was trying to keep the Dancers of the Razor from eating all of Applejack’s stock. Also there aren’t any chariots or trains going to Ponyville, cause the Storm of Maws is hogging all the airspace and someone left the Demented Cube of Black Wishes on the train tracks, and nopony knows how to move it without turning into some eldritch abomination or walking away with a mouth full of peanut butter.”
Celestia, to her credit, was already a pearlescent, brilliant shade of white. The fact that she could pale further was an impressive feat of chromatography. “WHAT?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THIS SOONER?!”
I gave her my best deadpan stare, and kicked open a window. A haunting melody played on the spines of the ancients and a really out-of-tune bagpipe wept through the open window and whispered innumerable tortures and inconveniences on all who listened. “Seriously?!” I asked. “How did you not hear that?!”
She shuffled her front hooves together. “I thought maybe it was another Hippogriff shrieking contest.”
“No, that’s fair,” I conceded. “They’re both kind of horrible. Also, aren’t you going to go, you know, DO something about it?”
Her gaze shifted left and right. “I… um, might owe the King of the Neverwheres a… not insubstantial poker debt.”
“What, your firstborn child?” I joked.
“Nah,” she said dismissively. “She’s off in human land redoing high school all over again.”
“...wait, you’re… how is that your FIRST kid?!” I demanded, sitting upright.
Celestia shrugged. “I was all about my career before Luna got banished. Then I had to do, you know, two jobs. For a thousand years. Honestly it never would have happened if somepony hadn’t invented Zap Whiskey. Next thing I know I’ve got a set of twins mulling about. One turns out to be a brilliant and completely underpowered egghead and the other tries to take over the world. Multiple times. I mean, they’re doing okay now, but it’s not like my lifestyle is conductive of raising children.”
Suddenly there was a scream outside the window. “WHY DOES EVERYTHING TASTE LIKE SANDWICHES?!”
“...that might be your cue,” I pointed out, flinching a little.
“Weellllll,” she said slowly, averting her eyes from the window, where one could easily see the growing storm of ravenous mouths dominating the sky, and singing a rather catchy acapella tune. If not for the Song of Last Hopes drowning everything out but the screaming with its subconscious insistence that I could, indeed, fly, and fourth story balconies were a challenge, I might have enjoyed it. There was also something in there about how kiwis were the best fruit, but I stopped listening after the first couple verses.
“OH GODS I DON’T EVEN LIKE PUMPERNICKEL!”
“Princessss…”
“I’m sure Twilight can handle it.”
“...”
“...”
“ALL I SEE IS PROVOLONE! WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!”
“Ok, fine! But only because you’re doing that weird thing with your eyes that grosses me out. Stoppit.”
“You. Are a PRINCESS. How the hell did you survive a thousand years with nopony else to clean up the mess?!” I demanded.
“Well, to be fair, until Twilight freakin’ Sparkle showed up, I didn’t HAVE that many messes to clean up.”
“Princesss...”
“I’m going, I’m going! God, with the eye thing!”
“THE MUSTARD IS UPON US ALL!”
“WE GET IT YOU DON’T LIKE SANDWICHES!” Celestia yelled out the window, then took off into the sky to settle the end of the world. Again.
Somehow, I was still bored. Having my favorite lounging spot taken over by the Creeping Scarlet didn’t help, either. He was a terrible conversationalist. All he talked about were soap operas and how life is futile unless we all join as one to worship the one true Death of All. I mean, nopony even watches All My Foals anymore. Not since Latrese died. Hack writing, I tell you.
So I wandered about the castle, casually talking to a few ponies here and there. They were a little suspicious, as they should be, when I didn’t have anything horrible or annoying to say and/or do to them, but I just wasn’t feeling it. So a walkin’ I did go.
Eventually, I stumbled across the rather unmistakable hallway leading to Princess Luna’s bedchambers. Surprisingly, it seemed that she was awake. Usually when she’s asleep there are a couple guards posted at her door and all the lights are out. While it wasn’t a bright, shining bastion, there were a few braziers lit, including that one that sits and just the right angle to cast a light through the door frame that lands on her eyelids when she sleeps. Ask me how I know that one. The guards weren’t around, save for the standard patrols, and her bedroom door was ajar.
Also she was standing in the middle of the hallway, staring at me staring at her. That helped.
“Schaden, what are you doing?”
“I’m boooooooored,” I whined again.
The two guards within earshot turned tail and ran. Plebs.
Staring disappointingly down the hallways her Royal Guards had skedaddled into, she sighed. “Schaden, how in the Nine Realms are you bored? There’s no end of things to DO at this Castle.”
“Yes, but I’ve already DONE them all,” I argued. “I mean, sure, you still have an enviable amount of new technology to experience, but for the most part I don’t really have… a thing to do. What’s that thing? Where you really want to do it and it takes a whole lot of time and effort and you work on it a little every day and eventually sometime before you die you might get it done and it’s supposed to be the best feeling ever?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You mean a life goal?”
“Yeah, that!”
Luna sighed. “Schaden, you don’t need a life goal to keep yourself busy. Why don’t you ask somepony else if they need- no, wait, that might just scare them. You could always- no, no that’s on the list. Well, Discord’s here and- oh, wait, no you need a Princess and Celestia’s having tea and he’s also got Fluttershy around and he gets territorial. Hmm. Schaden, I think you might have a problem. Also, why do I hear the Song of Last Hopes?”
“Apparently nopony told Twilight that not every puzzle box in the world needs to be solved, and now Ponyville is on lockdown.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “That mare is going to either kill us all or usher in a golden age of evolution where we ascend to beings of consciousness alone. I can never tell. I imagine my sister is still having tea, regardless?”
“Oh, no, she’s actually doing something about it,” I said.
That got her attention. “Really? She hates paying her poker debts. Doesn’t like admitting that she can’t bluff for a damn. What changed her mind?”
“I did the eye thing.”
“Oh. Eww. Yeah, that’ll get her up and about. Well, if two princesses are working on it, I guess I can sit this one out. Would be nice to see the Empty Chair again, though. He’s rather good at chess and the framework is impeccable.”
I blinked. “Doesn’t sitting in that thing twist your nightmares into a horrible second life that shreds your consciousness across two dimensions slowly over the span of several years as you lose the ability to tell reality from the dreamscape and eventually all the terrible atrocities of your nightmares bleed into the real world and kill everyone you love?”
“Pfffft. Please. I literally punch nightmares in the dick on a regular basis. Bessides, that’s only if you don’t ask nicely before you sit down. I have always had impeccable manners.”
“Says the mare who eats banana peels.”
“I’ll have you know they are very high in potassium!”
“Yeah-huh. So what are you even doing awake, anyways?”
Luna sighed. “Apparently somepony deemed fit to break the seal on the Night Hag’s tomb, and now there’s a plague of sleep paralysis spreading across the country. No fatalities yet, but once she’s strong enough we’re gonna have broken ribcages and an outbreak of terrible insomnia.”
“...and you are not currently doing something about it right now because…”
“Because she only comes out when somepony is ASLEEP, and everyone seems to be wide the fuck awake right now. Of course, that might have something to do with a certain Princess who couldn’t keep her grubby little hooves off the Shatterbox Puzzle. Wait, how did you even know about all of this, anyway?” she asked, giving me a pointed look.
“Hey, I read!” I protested. “The ‘Employees Only’ library happens to have a rather detailed account of the last time someone opened the box. With pictures. Trust me, the Storm of Maws isn’t exactly difficult to remember.”
“Oh, believe me, I know. Unfortunately, now I have to wait for nightfall before I can chase her down again.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why not like, go to a hospital or something? All those coma patients and ponies recovering in post-op? Gotta be somepony asleep in there.”
She blinked largely. “I… did not think of that. Wonderful! I shall catch her during the day! She’s rather reasonable around noon, mind you. Fantastic company when she’s not trying to suffocate you in your sleep with your greatest fears,” she added, trotting away.
“Take your word for it,” I groaned, and kept walking.
“Is today Alicorn Day or something?!” I demanded, having rounded the corner and found Princess Cadence strolling down the hallway.
“What? Oh. You. Hello, Schaden,” Cadence groaned.
“Hey Cadence.”
“...what. What? No jokes? No pranks? Not even a ‘How ya doin, Love Butt’?”
I shrugged. “I’m bored.”
The Princess of Love took a step back. “...how is that even possible? I thought you were a perpetual motion device of inconvenience and misery.”
Another shrug “Just not feeling it today. Bluey’s gone, Ponyville’s on lockdown-”
“WHAT.”
“And Discord is hanging out with Fluttershy. I thought about getting some froyo, but the Creeping Scarlet-”
“YOU ARE KIDDING ME.”
“-has already reached the castle walls, which means it probably ate all the good dairy. Not to mention the owners have most likely been awake for the last few days avoiding the Night Hag-”
“WHAT THE SHIT.”
“-and going outside at all is kind of a bummer cause the Song of Last Hopes is still on repeat and the Storm of Maws got bored of acapella and switched to screaming the names of the soon-to-be-damned, broadcasting their horrible sins for all to hear-”
“HOW IS THIS A THING THAT’S HAPPENING.”
“-and I really would rather not get in Celestia’s way as she settles a debt with the Neverwhere King-”
“Ok that one makes sense she’s a terrible poker player.”
“-and I really just want something to do with some meaning behind it, you know?”
Cadence looked ready to hyperventilate. “I. Schaden I have no words. I’d offer to like, take you somewhere with good froyo, but a Beast from the Outer Rings has possessed my daughter and is using her powers to freeze and shatter the walls between worlds so that his Horde of Catastrophes can march across the multiverse and spread the word of the Unspoken Hells. Right now I have him preoccupied with a Chineighse hooftrap and a plate of bagels. So, no time.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “There’s always that book in the Royal Archives about extradimensional possession. Some guy named Spooky Bones wrote it. Pretty easy to follow, actually. Checked it out myself a couple months ago when Hor’kar the Unknowable landed in my toaster.”
“...is that why Bluey’s cutie mark had bread-shaped burns on it for three weeks?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“Great! Thanks!” she said, and trotted off.
“Third shelf on the back wall near the cookbooks! Follow the smell of brimstone and iced tea!”
“Thank you!”
Of course Twilight Sparkle was here. Of freaking course. I came across the front entrence to the castle, debating whether or not the oncoming tide of Creeping Scarlet was worth putting up with to see if that froyo place was still standing, when I saw our one and only Princess of Friendship fiddling with a really big, really pointy puzzle box.
“Sup Palicorn.”
“GAH!” she barked, jumping in place and throwing the box halfway across the room.
Which is where I caught it. “Long day?” I asked, mulling over the device in my hooves. I gave it a couple taps and twisted the top dial.
“What are you DOING the entire country is in mortal danger the Shadow Atrocities have descended and I need to solve the puzzle before it gets worse and everything is my fault-”
“Not everything,” I interrupted. “I doubt you had anything to do with the Night Hag popping up. Otherwise Luna would have hung you upside down by your fetlocks already.”
“Wait, the NIGHT HAG IS OUT?!” she screeched.
The box clicked in my hooves a few times as I spun it sideways and gave it a twist. Little shake here, click that… “Yeah she’s causing a plague of sleep-deaths and insomnia. Luna’s on her way to the hospital right now to find someone who’s still asleep so she can track the Hag down.”
“Whu-where’s Celestia right now?!” she demanded, trying to grab the puzzle box back.
No, says I, the Master of Keep-Away. You shall not have the thing (That includes you you little turd you get the cookie back when you learn to ask nicely). “She’s parlaying with the King of Neverwheres over an old poker debt.”
“Ok that I can believe she couldn’t bluff her own reflection. But didn’t I see CADENCE here earlier? Maybe SHE can help!”
The box did a little spin thingy on its own, letting me know I was on Level 2. Awesome. “Nah, probably not. Flurry Heart got possessed by the Beast of Catastrophes and is trying to freeze-dry her way through the walls of reality to spread the Unspeakable Words and meld all consciousness into a single lifeform of thought and will alone to aim at their enemies and unite the cosmos in horrible suffering and ecstasy. Fortunately they didn’t count on the fact that babies are stupid and we have books for that. She’s in the library reading the How-To on Extradimensional Incursion: Fifth Edition (with Fifty Percent More Pictures!). Don’t be surprised if she smells like suffering and corn bread the next time you see her.”
Twilight had blazed past hyperventilating and was having a rather impressive panic attack. Her eyes jutted around the room, looking for something to ground herself on, when she saw the puzzle box in my hooves had spun around like a top and confettie came out with a little flag that said “GOOD JOB!”
“...did… did you just solve the Shatterbox?”
I threw the now-open puzzlebox at her. “Duh. It’s not hard. Instructions are on the side.”
She turned it over to see the printed text. “But that’s ancient Enochian! Nopony has spoken that language in a thousand years!”
“Except Princess Luna. She talks in her sleep. That’s why she has the cleaning crew come around every morning, to clean the blood off the walls and replant the Chaos Orchids. FYI the garden they carved into the mountain is Off Limits for a REASON. And besides, my room is directly above hers and the ventilation is fantastic. I’ve been learning dead languages in my sleep for years. Which would explain the nightmares and irrational craving for diet cola. I hate diet cola, but I can’t stop drinking it. She’s gonna have to turn down the R’lhyen,” I mused.
Suddenly, there was a great rush of wind, and the air in the main hallway filled with a swirling tornado of death and promises of unending torture as the Shadow Atrocities were pulled back into their eternal prison with screams of vengeance and promises of torturous bliss upon their release again. It smelled like potato crisps and suddenly I really wanted a club sandwich. With diet cola. Dammit, Luna. Once the air had cleared, Twilight was left blinking rapidly on the carpet. She didn’t have time to form new words, however, as three more alicorns trotted up to us seconds later.
“Well, Schaden, as it turns out, the Night Hag was just lonely. Had I not found her at the hospital crooning over a rather handsome stallion in a coma I might have had to rend her unto oblivion. Again,” Luna explained.
“Yeah!” Cadence added. “Thanks to that book you sent me too, I was able to peel the horrible spirit from my daughter and cast it into the Slumbering Distasters! Turns out that’s where the Night Hag is from! I think they’re getting coffee.”
“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “They’d make a cute couple if not for all the blood, horns, and terrible taste in talk shows.”
“The Sight is a WONDERFUL show about female empowerment!” Cadence argued.
“If you say so. Meanwhile, I think I’ll be taking that box, thank you Twilight. Also, you’re infinigrounded. I need to take this to Discord and have him throw it into the Bottomless Pit near his house. Apparently they’re all just really bored. An eternity of falling into a pit of chaos magic should fix that. Also Discord makes wonderful scones,” Celestia added as an afterthought.
Twilight took a moment to find her words. “So… wait. Schaden made you go deal with your poker debt, which led to a final resting place for the Shadow Atrocities and the Shatterbox Puzzle,” she said finally, addressing Celestia. The Sun Princess nodded. “He directed you to the hospital, where you sat down with the Hag and decided to help her find a boyfriend,” she said to Luna.
“Verily!”
“Right. And he just happened to send you to the only book on multidimensional exorcism in the whole castle-”
“-not the only one,” I pointed out. “Just the Fifth Edition. The other ones are a little wordy and all smell like bad cheeses. Plural. Also, if you lot would keep on top of your extradimensional warding I wouldn’t have to kick psychodemons out of my appliances every other month.”
“...ok then. And it just so happened to lead you to hooking up the Catastrophe Lord with the Night Hag and sending them on a date to some unknowable hell?” Twilight finished.
Cadence shrugged. “Eh, they’re a cute couple.”
Twilight blinked. Then again. Seeing as how the world hadn’t changed around her between one moment and the next, she sighed. “Did Schadenfreude just… save the world? Three times in one day?”
Lune smiled. “Yes, I believe he did. Which beats YOUR old record of twice in a week!”
I grinned to myself. “Does this mean I get to be an alicorn, too?”
“NO!” came a chorus of four very obstinate mares.
Celestia tapped her chin. “Although I would buy you some frozen yogurt.”
“Ooh, that sounds great!” Cadence exclaimed.
“Agreed! We require the frozen dairy treats as well!”
“Luna?”
“Yes?”
“Inside voice.”
Twilight sighed. “I hate him so much.”
Author's Note
This was infinitely more fun to write than anything I have made up to this point ever. Oh my god I love this so much.
