With The Power Of Friendship And—
“I want you to try and see things from my perspective.”
The clock inside the library rung three o’clock. Tea time.
The hour of battle had come and Twilight was prepared for war. The weather was perfect, with a gentle breeze running through the leaves of the library. The balcony space was ready with a table and chairs set for two, with everything she’d need prepared in a basket set to the side. Her prompt cards were memorized and her arguments well researched and even more well rehearsed. The god of chaos may have gotten the best of her last time, but now she’d prepared the battleground in advance.
If there was one thing Twilight couldn’t stand more than anything else, it was a literary critic who didn’t know what he was talking about.
She took a seat at the table and gestured for Discord to do the same, charitably pulling out his chair for him. Discord grinned a Cheshire grin that promised mischief. “Certainly. I do so love lowering myself to your level.” Contrary to a fault, he elected to vanish then morph himself out of the chair like a fungal growth. Twilight’s eye twitched at his antics. Though plain and unassuming, the chair had been a housewarming gift from Applejack. “I must say I was surprised to get your invitation. After I thrashed you in last week’s spirited debate, I didn’t think you’d be interested in round two.”
Her hackles rose with the insult as she fixed him with a glare. “I’d hardly call insulting some of my favorite books to be a ‘spirited debate’, let alone the rest of that afternoon—” He snickered and she could almost hear the muted sound of explosions in his head as he reminisced “—but I wouldn’t be able to call myself a book lover if I left an insult like that go unanswered. Thus, here we are again.”
He leered at her with a knowing grin. “Was it also because Fluttershy insisted?”
She winced as he hit the nail on the head. “There was also that,” Twilight admitted. “But if we’re doing this, then we’re doing it properly.”
Her declaration made, she opened the basket and began to fill the table with all the necessary accouterments of a proper tea service. One by one she set out saucers, teacups, a cream pitcher, sugar bowl, tongs, stirring spoons, an infuser, a teapot, and a heating stand. Finally, with the thud of several pounds of machined steel, Twilight placed a gun on the table.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked with little more than a vaguely curious air, as though merely pondering about a passing insect.
Discord eyed it curiously. “I’m no weapons expert, but that certainly looks like some kind of boomstick to me.”
“Correct.” She lifted the instrument of death in her magic, giving it a gentle spin so the light caught on its polished facets. “Specifically this is a modified Desert Griffon Mark XX. Under normal conditions it fires selenium-jacketed rounds at over 4500 hooves per second, and in the hooves of a skilled operator it can fire a full magazine in under three seconds. Suffice to say, it is the most powerful gun in the world.”
Discord’s eyes widened until they popped like balloons. He was quick to stuff them back into their sockets “S-Selenium, you say?” Just like she’d predicted, it seemed not even he was immune to the effects of the magic-disrupting material. She doubted it would kill him, but her goal was to make a point, not a corpse. “That’s… quite a souvenir you’ve picked up. Where on Equus did you get it?”
“Funny you should say that,” Twilight smiled as she twirled it carelessly. “Nowhere on Equus, actually. I had to borrow it from Sunset.”
He nodded, perhaps a bit too eagerly. “Ah yes, your friend who got really into apes and decided to live among them. What charming inventions they create.” He blinked as something seemed to click. “Hang on, don’t tell me you’re still sore about my harmless ‘blowing you up with a bomb’ prank?”
“Sore? No.” She shook her head and placed the gun on the table—just between the sugar and the creamer—so the barrel pointed in his direction. “But after your hamhooved literary dissection, I was inspired to do a bit of research of my own. This is just to help me make my point.”
Discord deflated into his chair with an exasperated sigh (over-exaggerated, she presumed, to hide a sigh of relief). “Only you could derive homework from an explosion.”
Now that the tone was properly set, Twilight moved on. “It wasn’t so much that as it was your literary analysis. But first, let me put the kettle on while we talk.” With a quick spell, she conjured a blue flame in a small alcove in the stand beneath the teapot. “The reference books I read had conflicting directions on the proper way this should be done, so I’ll be making this in my own personal way, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sure I’ll tolerate whatever you can manage.” A six-legged bottle of ipecac scuttled out from within his chest fur, circled his torso once, then disappeared behind his ear.
She ignored the barb and straightened her posture as she geared up for her speech. “Since our last meeting I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what you said, about the predictability of tropes and in ponies in general. And from a certain angle you do have a point: there is repetition and common themes across a lot of literature.”
Discord grinned. “Agreeing with me already? Maybe I should blow you up more often. It certainly seems to solve a lot of your problems.”
Twilight continued unabated. “But the crux of your argument, what it really comes down to is a matter of perspective. Which is why I’ve prepared a little demonstration.”
She gestured to the gun on the table, which still sat there (despite being briefly forgotten) with the same looming weight of a hanging guillotine blade. “This isn’t just any gun; this is Chekov’s gun. A physical representation of the concept of foreshadowing. Or, as the turn of phrase goes: ‘If a gun is introduced in the first chapter of a narrative, by the last chapter it must be fired.’” She picked it up again and pointed it at him.
“So is that it then?” Discord asked, hiding nerves behind a cocky smile. “Going to shoot me, are you?”
“That would be the normal, logical course of events. Establishment of a premise, followed by a payoff.” She placed it back on the table. “But, as you said, predictable. I could also not shoot you.”
“Which I’d expect you to do,” he countered, “given what I know about you and your goal of convincing me that you aren’t predictable. Intentionally not shooting me would be the predictable result.”
Twilight nodded. “True, but since I know that you know that, and since you’d be expecting me not to shoot, therefore I should shoot to catch you off guard.”
Discord sighed and drummed his claws on the table. “Which I’d expect and you’d expect me to expect and I’d expect you to expect me to expect and on and on and back and forth until someone’s brain explodes from grasping true infinity. I’ve been down that road before. Very messy. At the end of the day there’s still only two options:” He snapped and manifested a striped tunic and ruffed collar. “To shoot or not to shoot. That is the question.”
“Agreed,” she admitted, though not as reluctantly as he’d expected. “But then we return to the matter of perspective.” As the teapot began to whistle, she took the water off the heat. Removing the lid, she opened a small tin of dried leaves and herbs and carefully added three precise spoonfuls to the infuser, then placed the infuser in the pot and replaced the lid, leaving it to steep. “I know exactly what I’m going to do, so whatever action I take will be logical and predictable from my prior knowledge. You know I’m going to do one of two things, but thanks to knowledge gained prior to now, you can claim either is predictable. A random pony on the street would have no context either way.
“Which is why I’m adding an unexpected element.” Reaching back into her basket, Twilight placed a long knife on the table. “This is Occam’s Razor. Well, a physical metaphor for it, at least. It embodies the idea that the simplest solution is often the correct one. In this case, the simplest solution would be to shoot you.”
“Which you won’t, of course,” Discord replied confidently, though without taking his eyes off the gun. “That would leave you right back where you started. Predictable.”
Twilight smiled, leaving Discord feeling deeply unsettled. “Correct. Which is why I’m taking the choice out of my hooves.”
Both weapons were surrounded by a sparkling pink aura. The light grew brighter and brighter until, with a blinding flash and a muffled whump, they vanished. In place of the weapons was a simple cardboard box, inverted so the opening was flush against the table.
After a moment, Discord scoffed and applauded mockingly, a chorus of ghostly appendages accompanying him. “Brava, brava. What a marvelous disappearing trick. What’s next? Going to pull a rabbit out of my hat and call it a metaphor for deus ex machina?” He took off a top hat he hadn’t been wearing before and pulled out a clockwork bunny before tossing both over the side of the balcony. A pained cry came from below, which he ignored. “You should consider a change in career. I hear that Trixie mare is looking for a new assistant.”
She waited until he grew tired of the joke and the applause died down. “That was a fusion spell. Now, only one thing exists.” She placed a hoof atop the box. “Either Occam’s Gun or Chekov’s Razor.”
“What’s the difference?”
Twilight ignored the question, deciding instead that the leaves had steeped long enough and were ready to be served. She poured an equal amount into each teacup, a rich aromatic scent carried along by the steam, and gestured toward the cream and sugar. “How do you like it?”
“Made by Fluttershy,” he smirked.
She served it to him plain, adding three sugar cubes to hers and enough cream to fill it to the brim of the cup. She stirred slowly to avoid spilling as the colors slowly took on a lighter hue. Discord grabbed his cup in his claw and slurped it obnoxiously loudly, making her wince and nearly spill. He smacked his lips, likewise louder than it should have been. “Have you any orange squash concentrate?”
“Orange squash… No?”
“A pity. Fluttershy always has some for me when we have tea.” He slurped again, eyes never leaving hers as the rest of his face contorted in exaggerated disgust.
Twilight’s spoon clinked faster as her stirring became agitated. She stopped, took a deep breath, and let it out with a sigh.
“Moving on. Occam’s Gun says that the simplest solution would be to shoot you. On the other hoof, Chekov’s Razor says that the first three portions of any narrative are useless filler that should be discarded. The box is closed, and I have no idea which fusion I created. The same outcomes exist as before—when the box is opened, either you will be shot or you won’t—but now the choice is completely random. Completely chaotic, if you prefer.”
Twilight grinned as she prepared to bring things full circle. “Which brings me back to Daring Do and narrative twists as a whole.”
“You were still on that?” Discord asked. “I thought you’d forgotten about it in your new murder fixation.”
She shook her head. “No. That's what all this has been about. What it’s always been about. You say a twist is predictable because you can see the hints and foreshadowing that set it up, but that’s not universally true. For example, take Daring Do and Guizhou Express.”
“Never read it,” Discord drawled. “I told you I only read the first in the series.”
“I know,” she said, “but bear with me for a moment. It’s a departure from her usual adventures in exchange for a murder mystery on a train.” Twilight picked up her teacup and took a moment to appreciate the aroma. “Some fans don’t consider it canon to the rest of her works because it’s technically a filler novel bridging the time between— nevermind. That’s not important here. What is important is that, by your logic, that’s enough to spoil the end of the book. ‘Daring Do will discover the identity of the murderer and they will be brought to justice’. Every detective novel ends the same way. One of the defining traits of the genre is that clues to the twist or reveal are explicitly given to the readers. But there’s also irrelevant clues that point to the wrong suspect, ones whose meanings can be misinterpreted, or even false clues planted specifically to deceive the detective, and by extension the readers.”
Discord yawned and shifted into a more comfortable seating position. “Are you going somewhere with this or did you just feel like spoiling a book for me?”
“My point,” Twilight said with a glare, “is that a well-written narrative is like a magician doing a trick. The important clues and details are carefully hidden within the set dressing and showmanship. They only seem obvious in retrospect. To the perspective of someone who’s already read the book and knows what to look for.”
Discord did not look impressed. “I’ll give you this. You’re a better teamaker than a metacritic,” He slurped again and grinned, showing off his perfect pearly whites. “And this is terrible tea.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well excuse me for being a coffee gal.”
“Hm, yes. Coffee would have been better,” he agreed, smacking his lips. “With a few sugar cubes and some cream.”
“Not orange squash concentrate?”
“Not in coffee, no. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Twilight nodded to herself for a moment before continuing. “Have you spent much time with Rarity? She told me something once that feels like a pertinent parallel between fashion and literature. It’s about stripes. It’s a commonly held belief that wearing vertical stripes makes one appear taller and thinner. But ponies who are sufficiently aware of that will eventually begin to think: ‘well, if she’s wearing vertical stripes, then she must be shorter and fatter than she looks’. This leads them to prefer horizontal stripes instead, based on the assumption that they must therefore be thinner and taller than they look. And then after a time, the switchback repeats. In fashion and in literature, persistent patterns eventually insist upon contradiction to the trend. Daring Do may seem predictable, but that’s only because your perspective is already primed to expect a twist rather than a subversion of it.”
Discord remained silent in the face of her outstanding and impeccably reasoned argument. Finally, he crossed his forelegs and turned away. “Fine. Whatever. You’ve made your point. Those kind of mental gymnastics may work for ponies like you, but I’m capable of holding as many perspectives as I want. I’d never miss a twist coming.”
She flashed him a smile. “Actually, I haven’t made my final point yet.” She tapped the cardboard box, still sitting on the table, nearly forgotten. “I still haven’t opened the box.”
Discord immediately tensed, his mane stiffening like a wire brush, before he forced himself calm. “You won’t shoot me.”
“That’s not my call. It’s a roll of the dice. A flip of the coin. Pure, chaotic chance; just like you like it.” She grabbed the lip of the box as time seemed to slow down. As she pulled back, inch by excruciating inch, Discord winced and closed his eyes.
There came the sound of cardboard falling to the floor. Then…
…nothing.
Hesitantly, he cracked open one eye.
On the table, amongst the tea service paraphernalia, was neither a gun nor a razor nor some abominable combination of the two. Instead, there was merely…
“A fish?”
“So it would seem,” Twilight agreed.
A few seconds passed in stunned silence. Finally, Discord rolled his eyes and started to clap his hooves with insulting slowness. “Twilight, you disappoint me. And here I was getting my hopes up that you’d actually have the gall to shoot me. Still, congratulations on discovering the concept of a non sequitur. That puts you in the same league as kindergarteners who discovered how to tell a joke with a nonsense answer.” He tutted and shook his head, idly scratching at his horn. “Really, I expected better.”
Unexpectedly, she smiled at his insults. “And I overestimated your vaunted powers of observation. Tell me, what kind of fish is it?”
“Hm?” Curious, he peered closer. “Well based on its fin structure and the color of its scales and the position of the sun and moon I’d say it looks like a—” He froze as realization hit like a crashing pegasus.
“A red herring,” Twilight finished. Her grin turned positively predatory. “There was something you said before, about expectations relying on conventional wisdom or knowledge that was given earlier. You’re not immune to that, nor are you as all-observing as you think.” She placed her teacup down, still full to the brim, untasted. “For example, even though I brought out a tea set, I never said we were having tea.”
Discord’s horrified gaze drifted down to the empty cup in his hooves. Then to his hooves themselves. Hooves plural. He reached up with the one that should have been a paw and swiped at his horn; his singular horn, smack in the center of his forehead. Countless other inconsistencies popped into his awareness now that he knew to look. How perfectly he fit in the chair. How he was no longer looking down at Twilight. How the fringe of bangs dangled in the edge of his vision rather than the fringe of bushy eyebrows..
“Need a mirror?” Twilight asked genially from across the table. She lifted the polished serving tray, and for a moment he thought she’d enchanted it to be transparent.
“How in the name of Chaos did you do this!?” he demanded, but the threat was much less effective coming from the stature of a bookish, purple pony.
She set down the tray and held up the tin of leaves and herbs. “A rather clever potion, courtesy of Zecora” —and then lifted the teapot— “brewed with water from the mirror pool. Right in front of your eyes, too.”
“Clever girl,” he grumbled. “But it’s still a non sequitur. None of this” — he gestured broadly to himself — “was foreshadowed at all.”
“Wasn’t it?” Twilight teased. “Or did you just not notice? Think back: what was the very first thing I said when we sat down?” At his stunned silence, she continued. “And thus, my final point: even if you can see the twist coming, you can still be surprised by the delivery.”
Discord looked away, having no response to that. “I was still right though,” he pouted, making Twilight uncomfortable with how cute it made him look as he stubbornly refused to concede a point. “Even if you did manage this, you still didn’t shoot me.”
As he stepped into her final trap, Twilight smiled one last time as the last piece of her argument clicked into piece with the whole. “You need to pay more attention to the details.”
The mouth of the fish was forced open as a gun barrel wriggled its way out.
“The beginning portion was very important.”
BAM!
Author's Note
And just for fun, a bit of a semicanon omake epilogue:
“Really? Did you have to use green paint?“
“Don’t be a baby. It’ll wash out. It’s the glitter I’d be worried about. Besides, it’ll disappear when the transformation wears off anyway.”
“And how long will that be?”
“A few hours, a day at most. The selenium’s not strong enough to suppress your chaos magic for long.”
“…so you’re saying that I can walk around with your face all day?”
“Ah… well… that’s technically…”
“Toodles, Twilight, and thanks for the makeover! I’ll be sure to show it off to everyone.”
“Wait! Don’t—! Aaaand he’s gone. Well, at least he might have changed his mind about Daring Do.”
