“I’ll be sure to pick not-Wilt up when you’re ready to head home.” Discord picked up his antlers as though he was tipping a hat. “Ta-ta.” And like that, the Chaos entity had vanished.

Lauren looked at the oddly shaped skeleton key in her hand, the gears in her mind as turning.

“I can’t believe that you would do something like that.” She heard Celestia say. Her voice was drenched in disappointment. “Mother, of all creatures in the world, I didn’t expect that you would even accept a deal from Discord.”

Lauren didn’t say anything.

“Really Mother, I can’t believe that you would sell out a real pony for something like this! Have you no shame at all? I just… I just believe you! Have you no-”

“What if I don’t have to go along with it?” Lauren looked up at Celestia, seeing that her angry face was frozen in confusion.

“What?”

“This deal.” She held up the key. “Discord said that he doesn’t want me or Alice to change reality beyond what it already is. What if I don’t have to invent anything.”

“Mother, what are you talking about?”

Lauren looked over to a nearby guard, “Excuse me, could you go fetch me a pencil and some paper?” The guard saluted and left to fulfill her request. “If there is one thing I have learned from any form of business deals, is to always look for loopholes that could be used against you. And I think Discord just unintendedly left me one big enough for me to jump through.”

Now Celestia was more confused than ever. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

“The deal was that as long as me or my daughter didn’t create anything new or different, I would still have this key to get anywhere in Equestria. Well, he never said anything about copying his key that already exists, right?”

“No he…” Celestia blinked. “Wait, can you do that?”

“He didn’t say I couldn’t. Still…” Lauren held up the key, looking at it this way and that. “This is surprisingly complicated that unless I knew exactly what it looks like, I don’t think I’ll remember enough to recreate it. I maybe an artist, but I’m not stupid.”

Celestia paused for a long time, “So… You were going to break his deal anyway?”

“The only problem I have is the issue of Sky Cloud over there.” Lauren looked over to her daughter and her imaginary friend, who at this point resumed their playing. “If I’m being honest, I don’t know what to do with him. I know for a fact he isn’t supposed to be here at all. That, and I don’t know if I could take him home with us. Never mind that we don’t have enough room back at home, but there’s no way I can explain the cartoon pony in my world to anyone who might stumble upon him.”

“Perhaps I-”

Lauren raised a hand, “I know what you’re about to suggest, but no. The way how this is gonna be playing out, you, Luna, Cadence, or Twilight never raised an alicorn that had appeared out of nowhere. To be honest, I’m hesitant to leave him with Discord. Which makes this even harder, he can’t stay with you, and he can’t stay with us.”

Celestia looked over at Sky Cloud, dribbling a ball in front of Alice. “And what about your daughter? Wouldn’t she be upset?”

“Celestia, she’s three years old. This isn’t like having her raise a pet – it’s more than that. That pony over there seems like anyone else, but just looks…”

“Different.”

“The point being, even for her, it would be an overwhelming responsibility for someone like her. Maybe… Maybe there might be someone, someplace in this world that no one would go looking for. Someplace that I know the show will never go near.”

“Like where? With whom?”

“At the moment, I don’t know. But it’s something I’ll have to figure out.” It was at this point that the guard returned with what she requested – a pencil and a few sheets of paper. “Thank you.” Taking them in her hand, she told Celestia. “Now if you would excuse me, I have some work to do.”

If Lauren was honest, despite having spent years in art classes, countless hours drawing and redrawing for movies and shows, and even trying to come up with new designs – it is still difficult to try to draw something from a model. Discord’s key, despite looking like a flat cartoon was difficult to capture just right. It takes hours to try to get the finer details, the right covers, the pointy angles, or even the perorations just right.

She still had plenty of time to think of other things. Especially Sky Cloud… The question of what to do with him lingers in the back of her mind, nagging at her. Between the adjusting, erasing, and marking, she went around the mental map of Equestria to find something. Although the atlas of this world are still unmarked for the sake of giving plenty of room for writers to explore and for world-building, the question of where to take her daughter’s OC is somehow more difficult than the drawing. Not just where, but who would look after him.

‘For one, anywhere near the poles is out of the question.’ She thought. ‘And placing him anywhere near where the student six lived probably won’t work either. Come to think of it, there are a lot of places that the showwriters would want to show before the ending. Obviously, he can’t appear any place where the episodes are gonna be. Would be hard to explain to anyone why there’s a weirdly shaped alicorn in the background that is never explained.’

Having to redraw the dragon’s blinking eye again, another thought came to her, ‘Not to mention that I can’t leave him in any place that would be dangerous. Klugetown, Griffonstone, or Yakyakistan would probably chew the poor guy and spit him out. And who would be willing to take care of him anyway? I don’t think I could go up to say… one of the many zebra tribes and ask if they want an alicorn who's probably as tall as a house. That, and I don’t know if Alice made him immortal or not.’

This gave her pause, ‘Now there’s a thought. What would happen if someone from the next generation came across him… That is… If they might still use Equestria as a setting. Then again, who’s to say they might not? But that would depend on where and with who he might be with. Or if he might want to travel beyond where we might drop him off.

‘On the other hand… I might be overthinking it. There are still a dozen places that I don’t think the showwriters had done. Places like Saddle Arabia, or anywhere in Zebrica. Trottingham perhaps? Or maybe into the Equestria Girls universe…? No. Maybe that’s not a good idea. With him having tall legs and enormous wings, I’m not entirely sure what he would look like as a human over there – or even if he would like being there.’

After several minutes of redrawing, she felt her hand was being cramped up. So giving it a rest, another thought came to her. ‘What about Alice? Would she be willing to let him go? I mean, this isn’t just a stray dog that she found. This is a character, a real person. She made him to be her friend. Would it be fair for me to send him away or have someone adopt him? I know she’s three, but in a way, it would be like telling her that she can’t see her friend again.

‘Oh yeah… and the fact that she could manipulate reality too… The next time she might have a temper tantrum, she might end up doing way more damage than Discord ever could. In hindsight, if I even knew about that, I would take Alice and head home immediately. As is, this is something more delicate.’

Pausing for a moment to look at her sketch, making sure that it matched as close to the key as possible. Then, a thought came to her, ‘Still, if I were Alice, I probably wouldn’t give up my friend that easily. I wouldn’t just toss him in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers. No matter where in the world we take him…’

“Unless…” Lauren said aloud. Slowly, an idea began to form. She had been working on shows for years now. Her job was to create worlds, a cast of characters that her audience would be sucked into. And she had spent a good deal of her career helping others visualize what those worlds would look like. Yes, with Sky Cloud he sticks out like a sore thumb in Equestria… But if Alice might have the same reality-changing abilities that she has here, what if she uses those skills to help Alice create a home for her friend?

And besides… Discord never mentioned her daughter creating a pocket dimension for her friend either.

Author's Note

I know what you're asking. What has taken you so long?

The short answer is that I've been in a creative rut for the past couple of months.

Not counting that I finished writing up a short, helping out on other projects, and the real-life stuff such as a family reunion - I haven't had the urge to write for the past couple of months. Really, I do want to finish this story, yet either I have been exhausted or had no oomph to write anything. Besides, as you readers so graciously pointed out - I've written myself into a corner with this one and I had no idea how to get around it. That is... Until now.

The biggest challenge with this story is trying to figure out what exactly is going to happen next, and more importantly, how is this going to end. With this, however, I think I might have a sense of direction in where to go.