Finding Your Family

When Spike returned from the lavatory, the group has dispersed across the room, and Discord was now sitting at the blackjack table. While Spike was still wary of what may or may not go on, he made his way over to the table and sat down.

"Come to join us?" smiled Discord, pulling Spike's chair right up to the table.

"I had always planned to," answered Spike. He held up his claws for the dealer to show that he had washed off all of the strawberry seeds and sugar; something he didn't need to do, but he wanted to prove that he was playing fair.

He was dealt in on the next hand, and was immediately met with a pair of aces. On his turn, he split, and was dealt a nine and a jack. With such a good setup, spike waved his claw. He already had the two best hands at the table.

That was, until Discord's turn, where a split pair of eights was met on one side by a three and a king, and on the other side by four twos and a five. "Looks like I win," he smirked.

"We shall see, sir," answered the dealer. Flipping up his down card, he had a five and a six, and a queen leveled the match.

"You know we're not playing against each other, right?" Spike asked, turning to Discord. "My cards don't have to beat your cards. We're playing exclusively against the dealer." Spike's second hand had not beaten the dealer, and he, Thorax and Pharynx all had to slide some number of chips to the dealer. In fact, Thorax's nineteen and Pharynx's twenty-three lost all of their chips, where Spike had only lost half of his.

"I'm well aware of how to play the game, Spike," snorted Discord. "It's not that complicated."

"Excuse me," scolded Twilight. "I had to learn how to play this game in order for it to be even allowed on the premises. I will have you know that it is a very sophisticated, probability-based game that is every bit as complicated as it is educational."

"And I will agree with that," nodded Discord. "It is every bit as educational as counting to twenty-one and determining which of two whole numbers is larger. It is very sophisticated. But sophistication does not directly translate to complication." He popped an old-school smoking pipe into his mouth and blew a few bubbles from it. "Do you really think I can spread chaos effectively without understanding order?"

Twilight folded her hooves. "It's still a game that teaches mathematics."

"Of course it is," shrugged Discord. "We should show schoolfillies and colts how to play, and teach them probability and addition."

Twilight's brow could furrow no further. "No, we shouldn't!"

"Why not?" grinned Discord. "You just mentioned how it was educational in the field of mathematics. Why should it not be used as a teaching tool?"

"Because it's a form of gambling!"

"Princess Twilight!" called Thorax. "Please, compose yourself. As we have discussed, Blackjack is not based on luck, but skill. It is a game where knowledge and mathematics are king. Take a deep breath."

Twilight took a breath and a drink of her chardonnay. Without another word, she sat down between Spike and Thorax.

In the next deal, it was Twilight who was caught cheating right away, flipping her cards face-up right away for all to see, and everyone turned to glare at Discord. While her face-up card was the three of clubs, her face-down was the eighteen of diamonds.

"What is it?" asked Discord. "Something on my face?"

"You're cheating again," answered Thorax.

"Cheating?" scoffed Discord. "I'll have you know that I haven't even been given the chance to play this hand yet, and I'll need a lot more cards to reach twenty-one." He flipped over his card out of turn order and showed that he had the three of hearts and the negative ten of spades. "If I were cheating, wouldn't I be a step or two ahead?"

As Discord settled back into his seat, his ear fell into Fluttershy's hoof, and she pulled him out of his chair. "Don't wait up for us. I'm going to take Mr. Grumpy home and put him to bed. He's had a long day and needs a nice nap."

With a quick snap of his fingers, Discord called for a portal that would jump them into his home, right underneath the branches of his thinking tree. After they both disappeared behind it, it closed.

"I guess that's the last surprise of the night," shrugged Spike. "A shame, as that means he won. I was expecting something unexpected to happen. Since I didn't expect him to leave without a real surprise, I guess that makes this the real surprise. Very clever, Discord..."

"I don't even think he was expecting that one," chuckled Twilight. "I think he expected that Fluttershy would be more lenient."

"I think we all expected Fluttershy to be a bit more lenient," shrugged Thorax.

"More lenient than what?" asked Fluttershy, returning from the kitchen with one of the serving staff. "Where's Discord?"

"Oh, he said he was tired," answered Pharynx. "So one of my changelings took him home." Slowly, a toothy grin spread across his face.

Spike smiled and clapped his claws. "Now that was a surprise!"

Pharynx shrugged. "Not even my idea. I just happened to spot it."

"Okay," answered Fluttershy. "Well, I was just down in the kitchens, and they're ready to serve the cake, now."

"Excellent," smiled Twilight. "Let's have it brought up, then."

The serving pony bowed and dashed out of the room, presumably to the kitchens to bring up the ice cream cake. He returned two minutes later with it on a very large cart. Now that it was out of the box, it looked much better than What Spike had seen through the plastic window. Only the top tier was butterscotch, with a second, larger layer of fudge, and a third, even larger layer of vanilla. The bottom layer was massive, at seventy-five by fifty centimetres.

"We did consider hiding a stripper in the cake," whispered Pharynx to Spike, "but we thought it might be a bit too cold in there for them."

"Unless their body heat melted the ice cream," answered Spike back. "But then we wouldn't have any cake."

"Well, we didn't bring it all the way here just to stare at it," barked Thorax. "Let's cut into it!"