Sticks and Stones
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A Matter of Insults

Sticks and Stones

Author's Note

Friggin' Discord man, acting like a big douchebag! GOSH

Sticks and Stones

"Discord, that's enough."

Starlight stomped forward carefully, glaring right at the ridiculously childish draconequus. That's right: childish! She hadn't the slightest idea why, no matter how hard she thought over it, but Discord was determined to make her current job as head of the School of Friendship a living Tartarus. Ever since Twilight appointed her for the time being, her supposed friend had been causing a whole mess of chaos that had no end in sight: assigning the worst substitutes, interrupting or exaggerating the teachings of her own substitutes--conjuring monsters to chase the students into exhaustion or worse. And all because he wasn't in charge of the school?!

Where was the Discord she saved Equestria with? The goofy but well-meaning friend?

"Endangering students crosses the line!" She declared in frustration, eyes narrowing at the cheeky creature. His body was dressed in some cliche coach attire, complete with a grey moustache to go with his beard. She stopped a few hooves away from him. "I don't know why you're trying to ruin this school, but it stops NOW."

She watched as Discord scribbled something onto his clipboard, then promptly snapped it and his clothing out of reality. All that was left was a smug, unwavering smirk. "I wouldn't be so sure~,"

The unicorn flinched at that, her anger replaced by a brief look of saddened confusion. She growled internally when he winked--that mismatched jerk! If he thought he was too powerful to be stopped by her, then he was gonna get one heck of a surprise! Starlight took a heavy step forward, charging her horn to wipe that smile off his snout. "This is your last warning."

Spike was quick to place himself between the angry mare and the equally unhappy spirit of disharmony, frantically smiling. "H-Hey! Take it easy, Starlight! Discord's your friend, remember?"

Friend. Yes, some time ago they were. They weren’t close friends, but she felt they both respected each other to some extent.

"Well, he's not acting like it!" She wanted to continue; the way he was acting was hurtful, even if she didn't wish to say so out loud. He was constantly messing up her plans for the students and then drowning her with a casual 'Oh, Twilight would be so disappointed in you'. She didn't like being teased in such a way, but saying so would give him more ammo to fire at her with.

The silence that stretched gave the dragon room to speak, turning his confused gaze to the creature. "She's right, Discord. What's your problem?"

Discord reared back with a silent gasp; that fool didn't think he was to blame in this situation?! All this was caused by his own fingers, and yet he was glaring directly at her as though she were the chaos bringer.

"MY problem?!" He sneered openly, flashing unhappy teeth at her and talking with venom behind his words. "How is the fact that Twilight decided to put an incompetent, power-hungry unicorn in charge of her school MY problem?!"

The world around Starlight slowed down, and her expression melted.

Incompetent, that was perhaps a remark meant to insult her (she didnt want to admit it, but it did its job). But the term power-hungry was what made her shrink as though she’d been slapped for the briefest of seconds--what echoed in her mind for what felt like eons. At first, she couldn't believe what he was referring to. After months upon months of Twilight forgiving her for her villainous intentions, her making mistakes because of her traumatizing past and finally more apology exceptions...Starlight almost couldn't register what she heard.

Discord had made a low blow not only with an insult but her own past villainy.

Incompetent, Power-hungry.

A short lived flash of emotions ran through her as she stared at him. Staggering shock, that he even knew that much about her and that he would stoop so low even if the remark was two words long. Unbridled anger, that what she once thought was her friend would reference something like that in such a cruel sentence. Immense sadness remained the longest; his insult was quick, but the wound was made. Her heart felt as if it had been stung by the biggest bee in the word, and then that stinging sensation formed behind her eyes. They watered until Anger took control as her final emotion and evaporated the tears that had yet to be born.

She channeled that anger into the most powerful banishing spell she'd ever performed to date, and Discord was quickly disintegrated by it. Not dead, of course, but it would take him a moment to regenerate outside of school grounds.

Good Riddance, for a while at least.

Discord watched his thumbs twiddle idly through the air, conducting a thumb war all on their own. His body floated effortlessly just below the ceiling of the school, set as a battleground for the fierce fight of his digits. He grinned as his left thumb won the fight, both bowing to each other before returning to their sockets.

Discord glanced up, or in this case down from the ceiling. Right on schedule, his favorite little chubby dragon friend flying just above the carpet floor of the hallway. The Draconequus dropped down from above until he was balancing on Spike’s head by his tail tip alone. “Ah, Spike! Just the pal I wanted to see today!”

“If you wanted to see me today,” Spike groaned in annoyance. “Why didn't you just try to find me?”

Discord rolled his eyes and slapped his head to get them facing the right way again. “I'm doing just fabulous, thank you! So, I have a question to ask you,” When he received no response, Discord beamed down at him. “There's nothing wrong with my eyes, is there?”

Spike stopped flying and glanced way up at his face in deep concentration. After a few moments of study, he shrugged. “I dunno. That a trick question or what?”

The Draconequus snorted at him, crossing his arms. “No! I was just curious. Starlight has been avoiding making eye contact with me for quite some time now, and barely says anything to me.”

"Well, you did trash the entire school with your chaos powers." Spike snapped his claws when a sudden thought popped up. "Wait! No, its because of what you said to her!"

"Something I said?" He reared back with an offended look. "What words could I have uttered to make her act so ridiculously?"

"You did call her incompetent and power-hungry."

"So? That's what she is!"

Spike glared at him, baring teeth. "No, she's not! Starlight has changed a lot since then! Just like you changed a lot!"

Discord waved his paw at him, scoffing. "Fine, fine. Don't get so icky on me. So what am I supposed to do about it, if she's really sad?"

"What did you do when you messed up our game of Ogres and Oubliettes?"

Discord pondered that for a moment, then gagged when he thought of the answer. "Ugh. Luckily I won't have to apologize! Just wait and see."

Starlight's kite remained tethered to the sky, fluttering against the air higher up above her head. She glumly watched it soar like a pegasus on cloud nine and do the occasional flip when she angled her string just right. The winds had practically called her to the field today, and she couldn't resist the temptation to do her favorite activity. Nopony else had thought to go to the park today, but that was fine by her.

She let a little more string out, carefully regulating the strength of her kite against the strong winds. She carefully relaxed when the winds slowed a bit more and the back of her mind traveled to other distant thoughts. The thoughts swarmed there, and constantly brought up events that had been very stressful the day before. The unicorn grimaced at her thoughts, as they came to a head.

Incompetent, Power-hungry.

"No!" She gasped when she accidentally released the string entirely and the kite went sailing away through the air. She followed it on swift hooves, running across the fields of the park and stomping up hills in pursuit. The kite made a harrowing loop in the air and finally crashed into the green confines of a tree.

"Shoot! Shoot,shoot,shoot!" Starlight stared up into the trees with apprehension. She didn't want to teleport all the way up there, in a tree that probably had hundreds of bugs crawling around in it. But if it meant getting her kite back, then so be it.

Just as she started to charge her spell, a voice piped up behind her. "It might slip out of your grasp again, butter hooves."

Starlight tensed and turned around, sending exactly who she thought she would see. Her unhappy gaze stayed off his face, but she stood firmly. "Hello, Discord."

The draconequus might have made a face, it she wasn't looking directly to be sure. "I was hoping that you and I could talk, if its not too much trouble."

"It is," She plainly stated and charged up her spell again. "Now, If you'll excuse me, I have to get my kite down from this tree."

"If you'd been looking at me, face to face, you would see where it is."

The unicorn whirled with a gasp of surprise--there was her kite, nestled between his horns like a hat of some kind. She sighed in relief and reached towards his bowed head, only for him to stand to his full height above her. "Discord! Give me back my kite!"

"All in good time, my dear. I need you to help me deny something," He bent over backwards and stretched his body like taffy, while he looked amused about something. "You see, Spike is delusional with the notion that I insulted you somehow by saying three measly words. Just tell me that you weren't at all affected so I can go about my day. I have a very busy schedule."

Starlight shuddered involuntarily and cast her gaze down to her hooves again. She swallowed and shook her head, looking back up at him. "J-Just give me thekite, Discord. Please."

The Spirit of Disharmony blinked at her, scratching the mare's kite in confusion. "Odd, I must have wax in my ears. I didn't hear a no." He promptly pulled a candle out of his left ear and smiled again. "Alright, say that again."

Her hoof extended. "Please, just give the kite to me."

"That's not how you say no!" He protested.

She frowned deeply. "Discord--"

Discord grinned wickedly as he began to laugh at her, clutching his mismatched sides for air. When he regained his breath, the draconequus scoffed at her in amusement. "Oh puh-leeze don't tell me Spike was right! " He pinched her cheeks like a fond grandma. "Aw, did I weelly hurt your widdle feewings?"

The unicorn stared up at him in silence for quite some time, trying to find the anger she had before to blast him into oblivion or something else. That anger was completely gone--but another emotion was there, one that put an uncomfortable pain in her throat and pricked her heart.

"Yes," She sniffed. "You did hurt my feelings."

Discord's amusement broke apart into pieces, slow as a snail. A blank stare followed soon after, as though he were trying to see if she were lying. After several tense moments of silence, he sneered. "Oh, you ponies are so emotional," He said. "Why did that hit a nerve with you?"

"Why?" Again, she wanted to feel angry, but instead she felt even more hurt than before. "Because you used my past to tease me. That's not nice and its certainly not something that friends do to each other."

He shrugged impressively. "Insecurities are fair play for harmless jokes, Starlight."

"They weren't harmless, Discord. What you said was hurtful, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since then." She tried to think of some way to get him close to understanding emotions and internal pain, and came upon a subject that she didn't want to talk about. With a sigh, she began. "Would you like it if I talked about you and Tirek?"

Discord gave her a very brief look of shock, before that twisted into a threatening glare. He lowered down to her height with that glare, intense enough to make her shudder. "Be very careful about what you say next."

She almost backed off, but she forced herself to look into his eyes. He was angry about what she brought up, to be sure, but there was also something else behind the fury. She raised a hoof a pressed it against his snout calmly. "You don't need to say anything. I know that hurt you."

Discord's glare softened. "I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do know." She smiled gently. "And now that I've shown you how hurtful you've been to me...I'll be the first one to say Sorry."

The spirit of disharmony frowned for quite some time, refusing to speak. But he eventually gave a long, sympathetic sigh. "Okay. I suppose that I may have been...something of a jerk yesterday. And an even bigger jerk for calling you what you once were." He gave her sad expression. "I still have a lot to understand about reading emotions and reacting to them as such. Only pony who I can read well is Fluttershy, and even then..."

Starlight hugged his snout reassuringly. "Like you said, Ponies are so emotional. You'll get it soon enough. " She let go and offered a stern stare. "Now, are you going to say it or what?"

Discord groaned like an overdramatic child, before inhaling a giant amount of air into his lungs. "I'm sssuh." He coughed and then tried again. "I'm sooooh." He gagged and pounded his chest. "I'm suck."

"Yes, you do suck." She smirked mischievously. "But are you...sor...sorr...?"

"I'm..." He wheeze loudly. "Sssssssoooooorreeeeeee."

The unicorn giggled softly and attacked him with a hug around hid middle. She felt him stiffen at the sudden contact, and then reluctantly pat her back. "Apology accepted, Discord!" She declared.

He promptly peeled her off and gagged. "Oh, good! Enough of that touch feely nonsense. Here's your kite back!" He handed her the blue kite before starting to match off. "Time to float away now!"

"Uh, wait!" Starlight wasn't sure why she stopped him, but then she got an idea. She held up the kite in her hooves. "Want to fly kites with me?"

Discord paused in misstep and turned back to face her. After scrutinizing the kite with both eyes, he smiled and shrugged. "Eh. Why not?"