The grand gates of Tartarus opened with a mighty, echoing, and but slow creak as it gradually swung open to reveal their weekly visitor. Muffins, the cross eyed mail pegasus extraordinaire. Or as some ponies liked to call her, Derpy. For some reason, this bubbly, well meaning mare had a way of opening this ominous entrance like no pony can. While many air delivery pegasi have given up on delivering any sort of letter and package to this dark and spooky place, Derpy, with great sense of duty to her job as well as with great naivety, had journeyed forth. Sure, this place was kinda scary to the sweet mare at first. But after months of delivering letters between Tirek and the now newly prisoned Cozy Glow, Derpy formed some friendships with some of prisoners here in Tartarus and found a great sense of familiarity and comfort in this depressing corner of Equestria. She had even formed a friendship with the towering guard dog of Tartarus: Cerebus.
With a friendly wave and a hello to the giant dog, along with feeding him a homemade muffin, Derpy made her way up the stone staircase. And on the top of the stone staircase were two large iron cages. In the cage on the left, there lied the once mighty centaur himself Lord Tirek. While in the cage on the right, there lied the new villian on the scene: Cozy Glow. Tirek had his back facing Derpy and the entrance to Tartarus while Cozy Glow was doodling in the dirt with her hoof, trying to draw up some kind of a plan to escape Tartarus and seek her revenge against the School of Friendship. Cozy Glow’s ears perked up when she heard Derpy’s wings flutter towards her way. She took her gaze away from her evil schemes on the ground, summoned her sweetest and cutest puppy eyed stare, and cooed, “Oh goodie! A package for wittle ole me? Awww, you shouldn’t have!”
Cozy Glow held out her hooves towards Derpy and waited for the grey and blonde mare to place the package in her hooves.
“Oh, sorry little filly. But this package isn’t for you, it’s for Mister Lord Tirek,” Derpy replied before delivering the brown box to Tirek. Tirek, with some curiosity in his expression, turned around and paid attention to the delivery pony in the room. After Derpy placed the package in his skinny clawed hand, she held out a paper document clipped to a clipboard and said “Sign here please.”
Tirek looked straight into the mare’s eyes with a stern yet slightly amused look in his gaze before quietly signing the form.
“Thanks Mister Lord Tirek sir, have a good rest of your day!” Derpy exclaimed with a happy smile on her face as she tucked the clipboard away and started fluttering away towards her next destination.
However, before she could go down the stone stair steps, Cozy Glow stopped her with a sudden, “W-Wait!”
Derpy immediately halted and turned around to face Cozy Glow. This made the devilish filly to regain her composure and plaster an innocent quiver on her lips once more, “Are you sure that there isn’t something in your bag for wittle ole me?”
“Hmm, let’s see.”
Derpy pulled out her big list of deliveries she needed to accomplish for the day and went through the names, “Let’s see, evil children in Tartarus, evil children in Tartarus, evil children in Tartarus. Uhhh, nope! Sorry, there’s nothing in here about an evil child in Tartarus getting any mail today. Better luck next time.”
“W-Wait!” But, before Cozy Glow could even fully finish her thought, Derpy fluttered away and exited out her magical prison faster than any lighting bolt. As Derpy slammed the gates of Tartarus behind her, Cozy Glow let out a frustrated and exhausted sigh and turned to Tirek.
“Ugh, please tell me that there some keys in that package of yours. Maybe some help with some potential friends on the outside kind of deal?” Cozy Glow sighed, hoping for some kind of sign of escape in this situation.
“Sorry to disappoint you my little prodigy,” Tirek replied while looking skeptically at the package in his claws, “but you were my only friend on the outside that could have helped me escape from this imprisoning hole in the wall.”
“Then, who’s the package from?”
“It doesn’t say, but I have a feeling who it might be.”
“Who?”
“Discord, the Spirit of Chaos and the Lord of Disharmony. Or rather, I should say the Former Lord of Disharmony and the Former Spirit of Chaos itself.”
“Oh yeah, I remembered that guy. He caused nothing but trouble for Starlight Glimmer when she ran the school for the day for Twilight and her friends. I thought he would be a threat to my plans and take control over the school, but he proved to be nothing but an immature and pathetic prankster.”
“That has what friendship has done to once powerful creature like Discord; it has reduced him to be nothing more than a clown for the ponies’ amusement.”
Cozy Glow shrugged nonchalantly and suggested, “He should have tried to be the Empress of Friendship like I did.”
“Yessss.” Tirek replied, with one of his eyebrow raised high and arched at the young pony next to him. Then, he brought his gaze back to the package and pondered aloud, “Regardless, this package is from him. And if I know Discord, this package will mean nothing but misery at my expense.”
“Do you want me to open it for you?”
“No! If you open it, then that means the misery will befall upon you!”
“Then, what are we supposed to do with it?! Just toss it aside and forget about it?!”
Then, both Tirek and Cozy Glow looked down at the package and start to think frantically on just what to do with the darn thing. They blinked a couple of times in silent before turning back to each other.
“Okay, look,” said Cozy Glow, trying to break the silence with some useful and constructive, “let’s just open it together. If this ‘gift’ is just meant for one pony, then what are the odds of this ‘gift’ hitting both of us at the same time?”
Tirek groaned and answered, “Knowing Discord, I say those odds are stacked against us.”
However, despite this Tirek’s better judgement, despite Cozy Glow’s overall hesitation on the matter, they each placed their hoof and claw on both sides of the package’s top. They gave each other a nod before commencing the slow removal of the “gift’s” top. As they both slowly went through this tense process, a small sweat drop gradually streamed down the side of Tirek’s face while Cozy Glow’s hooves started to heat up and subsently sweating as a result.
As soon as the top was no longer on top of the package, the two prisoners dropped the package and back away slightly from the brown box. They waited for something to pop out. They waited for something crazy to happen. They waited for anything to happen. They were expecting a monster to pounce at them from the box or the box to grow legs and crawl like a spider. But, nothing. Nothing happened.
Surprised by this, Tirek and Cozy Glow compelled themselves back to the package on the floor. They looked over and stared deep into the strangely deep, dark, seemingly hollow inside of the box. Tirek especially brought his skeptical stare into what could be lurking in the empty box. However, after bringing his face closer to it, after waiting a moment or so for the box to do something,...
SPERGOING! BLAM! SPLAT!
A giant metal swirled sproing device bounced out of the ominous depths of the package, and attached to the top of this sproing was a fluffy, giant, banana cream pie. This banana cream pie smashed straight into Tirek’s face, and the force behind this pie was so powerful that it made Tirek fall over to his back inside his cage.
While Tirek was groaning in pain, embarrassment, and frustration on the floor, a paper pony jack-in-the-box sprung out the package towards Cozy Glow. The little filly let out a surprised shout when the giant paper toy sprung towards her way. The pony jack-in-the-box gave her a large and creepy smile before magically transforming into a small paper note.
In a tentative manner, Cozy Glow opened the small paper note and read it aloud, “To my dearest former Lord of the Land Tirek, congrats on your latest tempt in escaping Tartarus. Again. Your taste in little prodigies is just simply superb.”
Then, Cozy Glow quickly added, “Hey!”
“Let me guess,” Tirek groaned while still on the ground covered in destroyed banana cream pie, “it then says ‘sincerely yours, Discord.’”
“Yup, you got it,” said a very insulted Cozy Glow before crumbling the note in her hooves and throwing it over her shoulders.
Just then, a fluttering paper butterfly flew out of the package and gracefully went towards Cozy Glow. The butterfly landed softly on Cozy Glow’s shoulders before transforming into a small paper note. Once again, Cozy Glow read aloud, “Dear Mr. Tirek, please don’t be mad at Discord. This prank was all in good fun and he truly wanted to give you encouragement in your time of great despair. I know how hard it can be on one’s confidence when one’s plans don’t follow through. I hope you and Cozy Glow are doing well in Tartarus. Tell Cerebus that I said hi. Sincerely, Fluttershy. P.S. from Discord, Isn’t Fluttershy just the most adorable thing ever?”
Cozy Glow looked up from the note un-amusingly and said, “He even added a winking smiley face at the end of it.”
All that Tirek could do in response was groaning loudly and deeply and continue to stay where he was at until he could forget this whole prank ever happened.
Author's Note
Author's Note: MissKoi doesn't own MLP, for MLP belong to it's respective owners and creators. I know this is mostly a Tirek and Cozy Glow story, but I hope it has enough Fluttershy and Discord in it to be considered part of this category/theme of Pranks for this day of Fluttercord Week. Also, wohoo! I finally posted a Fluttercord Week story during the day!:D