Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

A couple of awkward days after the successful exorcism at the Carousel Boutique found me alone in Canterlot again. I sat on a park bench as the afternoon lengthened. On my own, I was starting to feel a strong case of approach avoidance syndrome about the Fabulous Four Footed Fête. I love the ponies (the other ponies I reminded myself with a twitch of a halfsmile) but the prospect of mingling among so many, particularly the cultured upper crust of Canterlot elite, was daunting.

Twilight was busy working on a spell which she had been keeping under wraps for days. She had jumped from angry to obsessed without any transition or explanation. So she sent me off to experience the fancy dress event without her. Oh, Celestia, I love the ponies, I thought for the second time in as many seconds. but I sure would feel more confident at Twilight’s side.

“Sitting out this little hoopla?” Discord asked cheerfully when he appeared on the scene.

“I’ll probably show up late and keep a low profile. I’m not sure a commoner like me really belongs in there. It’s all fancy and stuff.” I was wearing a Rarity tuxedo, but it was a basic off the shelf number, not bespoken. Considering her recent work, I counted that a plus.

Discord sat on a neighboring bench.

“Thank you for your help campaigning the rainbow maned swing vote. It meant a lot to me that all of the Mane Six rallied around me when I needed them.”

“Hey, I rallied too, buddy.”

“Oh did you? I thought you were sleeping off the afterglow!”

“To-may-to, po-tawt-o,” I said. “Rally, pass out, whatever.”

We shared a chuckle.

“Quibbles aside, thank you for your part. I’ve already received my updated non-citizen ID card from Draconequia and a box of broken toys from my mother’s attic — I swear none of them were broken when I put them up there. It seems I truly am safe from mumsy’s attempts to control me.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ll pass on the good news to Twilight.”

“Can you also tell her how much I appreciated being used as furniture? That’s definitely going in my tell-all autobiography. I could write a whole chapter about what you two dripped on me. But what did you do to bring Rainbow Crash to the pro Fluttercord camp?”

“She buzzed me and kicked me in head, I shot her down with an apple to the plot, and on the way to the doctor we both talked and we both listened.”

“Astounding. I would have let her kick me in the head any number of times, or violated her with whatsoever fruit she desired, if I had known it would make her stop upsetting Flutters.”

“Discord, I think it was more about the listening than the assault and fruitery.”

Discord put on a literal thinking cap. Finally the lightbulb on top flickered to life.

“That’s very insightful of you, Tangent. I do believe you’re right this time. Tell me more about ‘The Discord Show’ from your world.” He traded the thinking cap for a detective’s hat and bubble pipe.

“Well, I did speak in jest, the show’s official name was about the ponies. But you were an important character, I promise. Certainly popular with chaoists such as myself.”

“If not moi, then pray tell who was the star of the show? It wasn’t, ahem, my ex, was it?”

“No, buddy, Twilight was the star of the show.” I sighed. “Everything revolves around Twilight.”

“Just so, I’m sure, my little dreamer. But now that we have that all settled, lets go liven up the party!”

“Sure!” The prospect of having my Draconequus friend as a wingcreature made the F4 less alarming. “What you got in mind?”

“This,” he waved a claw idly while stifling a mock yawn with his paw, “little shindig, fabulous as it may perhaps be, is the four footed fête, is it not?”

“Yep, that's what it says on the sign.” The wall behind me, and indeed much of Canterlot, was covered with posters for the fancy event, replete with their rather unfortunate logo.

“I propose—” he snapped his fingers and a magic shimmer passed over us both “—that us three legged ponies sneak in and call them out for their numerical intolerance!”

“Splendid,” I grinned as I checked out my new body form. Discord, too, was now a three legged pony, rather rakishly mis-matched in limbs and colours.

“One moment first. If you will pardon me going out of character and being serious, how are you doing in this fair realm? With the Princess? Being a pony?”

“Discord, I am the happiest pony alive.” Maybe not right at this exact moment, but in a general sense it was true enough.

“For realsie?”

“Yeah! And I’m never going to be a human again!”

“No matter what species, Fluttershy and I are always your friends, do not forget. Serious mode ends now. Let’s go get them!”

—

“You know, I do have a ticket,” I told Discord after we had dodged our way though admission. The delivery of a whole cartload of watermelons was unexpected by the event coordinators, and the resulting commotion supplied us with a distraction. Now were hiding behind a floral display while a ticket-taker investigated a flash of motion they couldn't quite attribute to their imagination or to the melons rolling everywhere.

“And so, strangely enough, have I. It arrived anonymously. With a Canterlot postmark and a box of kittens. There were two tickets, yet somehow I am here all alone; how fortuitous that you were waiting outside to cheer me on. But if we’re going to crash a party, we’re going to crash it right.”

“I think we could have walked in here on our own right number of legs, shown our tickets at the door, and then changed after.”

“Not fun,” Discord sniffed. “Can you tap-dance?”

“No.”

“Perfect! So nothing that happens tonight can possibly make your dancing worse.”

“Well argued. Your thoughts are in order.”

Discord was nonplussed by my jape but had no suitable riposte.

—

Dancing wasn’t easy like this. But Discord was right: since I couldn’t tap dance on four hooves (or on two feet), three wasn’t worse. Maybe?

Discord played a boisterous tune, rattling the keys of an upright piano. I had hardly started my three footed tap routine before I was pelted with items of food. I dodged most of it without missing a step – something that tasted like the patty from a fancy hayburger struck the side of my muzzle; a moment later I had cake in my mane. As I endured the barrage, Discord commenced to sing as well:

“welcome everypony we’ve an offer for you,
come and join our three-legged crew,
we’ve got an axe, we’ve got a saw–”

At the mention of edged implements the crowd shifted from confusion to alarm. A few ponies bolted from the room – then the thunder of panicked hooves drowned out the sound of Discord’s song and I could not hear the rest of his lyric. A moment later the guards came pushing their way against the stampede.

“Must run, ta for now!” cried Discord. “And don’t forget, we’re going trick-or-treating day after tomorrow!”

“Sha’n’t miss if for the worlds if Twilight bails me out of jail in time!”

Discord vanished and I made a futile attempt to dive out a window. Hanging by my rear legs over a three story drop, I kinda had to appreciate the guards’ effective apprehension of the suspect, to wit, me.

And so it was that the Canterlot guard hauled me, alone, before her Highness Celestia for disturbing the peace and causing a stampede.

—

The anti-magic artifact the arresting guards used on me dispelled Discord’s illusion without disturbing the more subtil wings-and-horn hiding disguise spell Nautious had taught me. Still, I stood nervously before the throne. This was not how I wanted to meet the ruler of Equestria.

“One day,” Celestia said cooly after the arresting sergeant had recounted my sins, “I give you twenty four hours to be gone from Equestria. Twilight will be able to send you to the world where you belong.”

The guards who escorted me as far as the train station were polite but no-nonsense. They ensured that I boarded the train to Ponyville and watched impassively as it pulled away from the platform. Once they were out of sight my tears flowed freely until a shrinking smear of gold was all I could see of the capitol city of my heart. As I wept, I munched the dessert I retrieved from the top of my head.

—

The door to the throne room closed after the guards marched Tangent out.

“’Tis a shame, truly,” Celestia remarked to the life size Luna doll on the throne next to her. “Such a jolly caper, yon chaos twins did verily give the clamoring throng of goody-four-shoes a shake up. We wish we had witnessed the route ourselves. How-for, and why, be a nice stallion like him betangled in those awful prophesies? But ’twas very thoughtful of him to get arrested just when we needed to banish him. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, ah tangles and tangles…”

Celestia turned to the doll for a moment, her head slightly tilted.

“Oh, we quite agree, his choice in edible chapeaux was quite inspirational. We shall certainly call upon the royal pastry chef and then we shall become difficult to locate for a few days. Twilight is like to be most wroth. At least at her age he’s unlikely to have been her first, even if she’s avoided serious relationships before now. With any luck they haven’t… Ah well, too late to worry about it.”