Celestia's New Life

Letting out a loud whoop, Celestia popped up from under the water and flung her wings open, giving them a few happy flaps. She looked back toward the shore and grinned when she saw how far out she was. “That was a good one!”

Her partner grinned back at her, looking impressed with himself. “I can do even better than that!”

“I don't believe you,” Celestia challenged.

“Oh? Then come here.”

Celestia swam back to the shore, where Discord was waiting with a smug smile. When she pulled herself up onto the sand next to him, he brushed some of her long mane back from her face and caressed her cheek. She leaned up, ever so slightly brushing their lips together, and he drew her into a sweet kiss.

And then he spun her to face the water, lifted her by the stomach, and threw her like a javelin. Celestia tucked her wings and legs in close to her body to streamline herself, the wind rushing in her ears, and she closed her eyes just before she splashed back down into the water so hard it stung. But it was so fun she didn't care, hastily swimming back up and lifting her head above the surface, laughing. Upon turning to look at the shore again, she saw he had thrown her even further than before.

“Whoo, a hundred points!” he cheered.

Celestia spent a few moments treading the water and just gazing at him with content. Their relationship has blossomed since she retired a few years ago. Without the daily tasks involved in running a kingdom, Celestia had found herself very bored very quickly. Luna had adjusted well to the change, and Celestia had entertained herself for a while, but soon began to long for regular company and excitement. Enter Discord.

He had offered his paw in friendship and began spending time with her nearly every day, and after a few months of playing games together, exploring Equestria, having tea, and sometimes discussing deep philosophical quandaries for hours into the night... they had fallen in love. Celestia was smitten with his eccentric charm and he was likewise enchanted by her kindness and her delightful sense of humor. News of their relationship had surprised Equestria, and it was the gossip of the country for weeks, but eventually, everypony moved on and were happy for the two.

And now the two of them were engaged and Celestia couldn't be happier with her new life.

“Oh, Kay-Kay!” Discord called to her. “Would you like to have our picnic now?”

“Now? But you've barely gotten in at all,” she replied, swimming back toward him and patting the water.

“You know how I feel about getting my mane wet.” He ran his hand smoothly down the back of his head and neck.

Celestia rolled her eyes and splashed him. She soaked a good bit of his body in doing so and he jerked back, giving her a scandalized gasp.

“How dare you attack me!” he crowed dramatically.

She smirked and lifted a hoof to beckon to him. “What are you going to do about it?”

He answered by tackling her. Both of them went under, and they playfully wrestled for several moments, spinning around as each tried to hold the other down. Discord's height put him at an advantage and he finally managed to wrap Celestia in his arms and hold her tight against his chest, threatening to dunk her.

“You wouldn't,” she panted, tilting her head back to stare up at him.

“I would. Take this!” He gave her a final firm plunge into the water before laughing and climbing back up onto land. Celestia was right behind him, snorting water out of her nose and brushing her mane around before just using her magic to move it back out of her face.

They only crawled partway up the shore before she draped over him, nuzzling him gently. He nuzzled back, moving a hand to her side, slowly stroking it. Even covered in water, her coat radiated warmth. He pulled her close and savored it, tail drifting around hers as he just tried to feel as much of her as he could.

“Alright, my love,” she said after a minute, moving away and getting up. “Let's eat now.”

“Yes, let's!” He hopped up and rested a hand on her back as they walked over to their picnic blanket. Discord snapped his fingers and the water disappeared from their coats, leaving them warm and dry. “Now, before we get started...” He opened the basket and levitated out a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Wine, my dear?”

“Please,” she replied.

He poured her a glass and passed it over, then filled the second for himself.

She took a curious sip and immediately smiled. Strawberry. Her favorite.

“So, what did you pack for lunch?” she asked.

“Oh, I thought we could have something simple,” he replied, taking out a couple of plates and setting them down. Then he lifted out a dish with their main course. “Grilled cheese! And not just that, but I cut them into fun little star shapes!”

“That's adorable,” she said as he peeled the protective plastic off. “But are they just grilled cheese, or is there a surprise to them?”

“I'm sure you can guess the answer to that, you've known me long enough.” Discord piled a few of the small sandwiches onto his plate and kept rummaging through the basket. “Eat at your own risk. Now, would you like sour cream and onion potato chips, or the very experimental relish and mustard flavored ones I got from Pinkie?”

“Relish and mustard?” Celestia asked, disgusted.

“Really? So brave!” He took the bag out and poured some onto her plate.

“Wait, I didn't mean...” She sighed and picked one of the chips up. It had an off-putting yellow-green color to it and smelled strongly of pickles. “So, Pinkie Pie made these herself?”

“She did, she likes using me as a food test subject because I'll eat anything. But as for those chips, well... let's just say she should stick to baking desserts.”

Celestia tossed the chip into her mouth and instantly gagged at the overwhelming flavor of sour pickle and spicy mustard, along with more salt than she ever expected a single chip to contain. She struggled to even swallow it, and immediately chased it with most of her wine.

Discord roared with laughter, taking her glass and refilling it. “I am so telling Pinkie about this later!”

“Yes, please tell her to focus her talent on baking rather than... this.” Celestia gestured at the rest of the chips.

He snickered. “Can do.”

They enjoyed their lunch. It was a sunny day and the temperature was pleasant, the slightest breeze blowing through their fur. It turned out that the grilled cheese was made with a high-quality sharp cheddar with a slightly smoky flavor, making the simple meal even more delicious. Along with the sandwiches and chips, Discord had packed a veggie platter, and they fed each other cucumbers and carrots, occasionally trying to smear ranch dressing on each other's faces.

Once they had mostly eaten their fill and had moved on to snacking between sips of wine, they discussed recent events. Equestria was as prosperous as ever, the kingdom was thriving under Twilight Sparkle's rule, and Celestia couldn't be more proud of her. Young Flurry Heart was growing into quite the compassionate and intelligent princess as well, often visiting her aunt to learn magic, and Celestia saw a bright future for her in the Crystal Empire.

“I adore Flurry, she's so sweet but she's got a bit of a wild streak when nopony's looking,” Discord said.

“What do you mean?” Celestia asked.

“She's a little prankster! Oh yes, she's sweet and loving like her momma, but she likes playing harmless jokes on people. During my last session of O&O with the guys, I was over at the Canterlot palace, since Spike was hosting. The throne room is perfect for games, by the way. Anyway, Twilight had Flurry for the day, and the clever little filly ran right in and jumped in there with us. See, I use a sort of area effect to bring the game to life and anypony can cross in if they want. She came in, became an apprentice sorceress, and began insisting we pay her gold to protect us from the bad guy. Adorable, right?”

Celestia giggled. “Very adorable.”

“So we humored her. Said she'd get a cut of whatever treasure we find and she can help us hunt down the bad guy. I had planned a low level boss, so I decided to just throw him into our path so she could try fighting. And what does the sweetheart do?”

“What did she do-”

“She used a spell that was so bright we were all temporarily blinded! There were sounds of a scuffle, and pained grunting! Then a thud and silence, save for the sound of little hooves clipclopping away. My vision returned first.” Discord gestured dramatically. “The boss was unconscious and all of us were missing our loot! She defeated the boss but then robbed us!”

Celestia put a hoof to her mouth in shock. “Oh no.”

“Haha, Spike and Big Mac were so betrayed. Not me though, I hadn't trusted her from the start. Luckily that was the end to our quest, we got a handsome reward from the local village for dealing with the bad guy and could easily replace our lost stuff. But it made for a very interesting story!” Discord was drinking the last of the wine directly from the bottle now, but he offered to let Celestia take a sip before he finished it. She declined.

“Did Flurry ever return for the rest of the game?” Celestia asked.

“Nope.” Discord finished the bottle and began spinning it around on a claw. “We finished not long after we replaced our stuff and distributed the remaining gold evenly to each other. I ended the simulation and we went to find where Flurry had gotten off to. She was in the garden laughing to herself over the whole thing. She apologized to us though. Said she hoped it didn't ruin the game. I thanked her for spicing it up. Nothing like a good betrayal to make things exciting. Still, she's so nice! Ah, children.”

“Yes, children are wonderful. I do wonder if Twilight will ever have one of her own. She would be such a good mother.”

“She's not the only alicorn I can think of who'd make a good mother,” Discord cooed.

Celestia blushed and looked away. “Foals would be nice to have one day. But I'm not sure I'm ready quite yet.”

“Take all the time you need. We don't need to rush.” He grasped her hoof, patting it gently. She looked back at him, moving her other forehoof to the back of his hand, rubbing softly in return. She couldn't ask for a more supportive fiance.

He seemed thoughtful as he gazed into her eyes, and she tried to figure out what he was thinking, but despite how long she's known him, that was still an impossible task at times. So she asked instead. “You seem contemplative. What are you thinking about?”

“Oh... just musing.” Discord briefly stroked his beard, seeming to stare past her for a bit, before focusing back on her. “Since things have gotten so serious between us and we're betrothed and all... could I tell you a secret?”

“Of course,” she said immediately. “You can tell me anything.”

“First, I have another question for you. What do you know about the draconequus?”

“Hm.” She tilted her head quizzically. “Not much, unfortunately. Your species was seen as legend back when I was a foal. There were tales of a huge society of draconequus that regularly interacted with the other races of Equus, spreading knowledge and mischief, but it's said that slowly but surely they stopped. Draconequus weren't seen again. Every so often there would be stories of somepony running into one, but they could never really prove it. When you showed up and started causing trouble, you were the first after centuries. I assumed you were the only one of your kind left. You've never really told us otherwise.”

Discord nodded. “I felt no need to talk about where I came from. But you should know, then... I'm not the only one. There's more of us. Many of us. We are a proud people and our magic is powerful and dangerous. So we chose to hide our society away from all but fellow draconequus.”

“Your people just hid? Why? We could learn so much from each other.”

“There are many creatures in this world that seek strong magic to take for themselves. We decided it would be best to vanish and not even be a target. Could we fight off most threats that oppose us? Sure. Did we want to have to spend time fighting? No. Also, I'll admit, we're just naturally isolationist. We like our culture and just didn't want anyone else coming around. That probably sounds terrible to you overly friendly pony folk but that's just how we are.”

“I see. Sounds like you come from a very unique place, then.” Celestia considered all that she had learned, then said, “If you don't mind me asking, why did you leave?”

Discord hesitated. Pain briefly flickered in his eyes before he blinked and smiled, explaining, “I was always odd even by draconequus standards. I got bored. Wanted to get away from my parents, see the outside world, really flex my power around beings that had no way of matching it, and well. We know what happened.”

Celestia wasn't sure he was being entirely honest, but she wasn't going to push him. Perhaps there were painful memories from his old society and it was up to him if he wanted to revisit them by telling her. “Did you ever think about going back?”

Discord perked up. “That's why I brought all this up, my dear! I was considering finally returning to my old hometown and bringing you to meet my family! We are engaged after all, soon you'll be part of it! Oh my father told the funniest jokes and my mother cooked amazing food, and they're both such skilled magic users, I learned so much from them, I just know you'll love them!”

Celestia wasn't expecting that. She stared at him. It was almost shocking to think of Discord as part of a family, he was such a loner for the longest time, but she supposed she should have expected it. Of course he had a family. He had parents, grandparents, perhaps siblings and aunts and uncles. She didn't know what kind of family dynamics draconequus had, but with their long lives, there was no doubt Discord had plenty of relatives. “You want me to meet your family? Are you sure? You did say draconequus are isolationist...”

“Well, true, but it's been a long time and maybe they're more open-minded now. Besides, it's not like we're opening our gates to the entirety of the world. It's just me bringing you to visit. No one should have a problem with that. I'll make sure you learn about the customs and things will be just peachy!”

Seeing the long lost draconequus society. Learning about their history and culture. How could Celestia pass up such an opportunity? Besides, Discord looked really excited to take her there and she wanted to make him happy. “Sure, we can see your family,” she agreed.

He stood and swept her up into a hug, spinning around with her and kissing all over her face. “Wonderful! Then we'll set out as soon as possible! When would you like to go? We could go right now! Or tomorrow morning!”

“Tomorrow morning would be best,” Celestia said, doing her best to meet his ecstatic kisses. “Wanna get a good night's sleep before dealing with any creature related to you.”

He placed her back on her hooves and laughed, tickling her behind her ear. “Oh just you wait. This is going to be so much fun, I can't wait to introduce you to everyone.”